USINT Keeps Rewarding Repressors

The visa granting process by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana should be scrutinized.

Why do these repressors keep getting rewarded with U.S. visas?

In The Miami Herald:

Ex-boss of Cuban prisons living in South Florida accused of ordering attack on dissident’s daughter

Crescencio Marino Rivero, a feared former officer in charge of Cuban prisons who recently moved to South Florida with his wife, a former immigration officer, appears to have ordered, only two years ago, an attack against the daughter of a peaceful dissident in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara, sources have told El Nuevo Herald.

In Miami, however, he keeps a low profile that has allowed him to go unnoticed.

Cuban activists and former political prisoners have described Rivero, 71, as particularly aggressive. The allegations also characterize him as someone who took advantage of his high-ranking position in the Ministry of the Interior to impose cruel and inhumane treatment on dissidents.

“On two or three occasions he came to our house to threaten us,” recalled Magda Monteagudo Barrio, wife of opposition member Rafael Pérez González. “That is why we think it was Rivero who ordered the attack my daughter suffered when she was pregnant.”

The attack took place in June 2010. In September of that year, Rivero and his wife traveled to the United States, Monteagudo said.

Rivero retired approximately seven years ago as colonel of the Ministry of the Interior. After his retirement, he and his wife, Juana Ferrer, 65, made three trips from Cuba to visit a daughter who lives in Southwest Miami-Dade County. During their fourth visit, the couple decided to stay indefinitely, and filed the paperwork to obtain legal status. The former colonel is now a legal resident in the United States.