5-05-05, 8:50 am
From Granma
IMPORTANT US business and popular organizations have initiated a campaign to demonstrate that revoking the ban on travel to Cuba would promote US interests.
Mavis Anderson and Philip Schmidt, as well as entire organizing team of the Cuba Action Day that went ahead on April 27, have called for backing for the bills presented by Senators Mike Enzi (Republican, Wyoming), Byron Dorgan (Democrat, North Dakota) and Max Baucus (Democrat, Montana) and Representatives Jeff Flake (Republican, Arizona) and William Delahunt (Democrat, Maryland) in the Senate and the Congress, respectively, to liberalize trade with Cuba (H.R. 1814), and to allow travel to the island (S. 894), which have already won support within both parties.
Legislation to revoke the bans on travel has been previously approved on several occasions in Congress and in the Senate. But Congress members of Cuban origin Lincoln and Mario Díaz Balart and Iliana Ros Lehtinen have pressured Tom De Lay, leader of the Republican majority, to disregard those bills that have received a favorable vote, by threatening the veto of President Bush, who is politically indebted to them in Florida.
On the other hand, more than 30 powerful US companies, state agencies and trade unions have announced the creation of an entity to revitalize trade with Cuba and lift the restrictions on trips to the island.
The coalition, with its headquarters in Washington, consists of representatives from 19 states and will be known as the United States-Cuba Trade Association (USCTA), headed by entrepreneur and journalist Kirby Jones. The list of signatories and organizations within the USCTA includes the agribusiness emporium ADM, Caterpillar, the National Council for Foreign Trade, AgBio Tech, the National Association of Wheat Growers, the Virginia Department of Agriculture, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the port of Manatee (Florida).
Jones, who has been doing business with Cuba since 1974, commented that the association has been created not only to maintain current commercial relations with Cuba but also to expand them and seek opportunities for travel to Cuba. He added that one of the organization’s key motives is to confront a recent decision by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), attached to the Treasury Department, obliging the Cuban state enterprise ALIMPORT to pay the US agricultural companies not only in cash but also in advance, rather than upon receipt of the merchandise in Cuban ports. Philip Peters, director of the Lexington Institute, admitted to the Virginia press that the future of US sales to the island is uncertain and, given that uncertainty, Cuba will start buying from other countries in order not to be dependent on the US companies.
Last week, businesspersons from 200 Venezuelan companies visited Havana with President Chávez and signed contracts worth over $400 million. However, in the last three years, new Cuba-United States trade relations led to purchases of $1.2 billion, Jones noted.
EL NUEVO HERALD WANTS TO PREVENT RELIGIOUS VISITS
Meanwhile, the Díaz Balarts and the mouthpiece of the Cuban mafia in Miami, El Nuevo Herald, have called the attention of the Treasury Department to the fact that many people are traveling to the island under licenses granted to believers in African-Cuban religions. After an article appeared in that newspaper in February, Lincoln Díaz Balart one again berated the office that supposedly pursues the income of terrorists (OFAC), which sent out threatening letters and limited visits of that nature to 25 per quarter. Threats were not enough for the OFAC and shortly after, it stressed that it was investigating the illegal activities of those believers.
The New Herald went as far as to brag about its role as a printed 'informer,' stating that the OFAC measure came into effect after the daily detailed cases of Santería organizations in Miami taking thousands of people – believers and non-believers – to Cuba under religious licenses as a way of evading the travel restrictions of the Bush administration.
The OFAC, which is attached to the Treasury Department, has granted licenses for travel to Cuba to some 200 churches and religious organizations. 'This is the last remaining bridge for people to go and see their families,' affirmed an affected Cuban.
In July last year, the Bush administration reduced the number of times that Cubans can visit their families on the island from once yearly to once every three years.
José Montoya, head of the Lucumí Chango Eyeife priesthood in Miami, stated that from 1996 to July last year, he took some 60 people to Cuba under his religious license. Since the restrictions came into effect last July, he has taken around 2,500, he added. Montoya stated that the OFAC letter represented little more than 'threats.'
Some 700 people attended the Cuba Action Day at the Capitol on April 27. Presenting the bill, Senator Baucus stated that his country is losing credibility by preventing its citizens from exercising their right to travel wherever they wish. At the event, according to the Sun Sentinel newspaper, Cuban-American Sergeant Carlos Lazo explained how he was stationed in Iraq, contributing to saving the lives of wounded US soldiers. But, on his return to the United States, he was prevented from visiting his two young children in Cuba because Mr. Bush has decreed that Cuban-Americans can only travel to the island once every three years.
On the Action Day participants from all over the country from the business and agricultural sectors, Cuban-Americans, scientists and other US citizens wishing to uphold their right of freedom to travel to Cuba, met with their representatives in Congress or called them at the Capitol, (202) 224-3121, to discuss the travel issue and the legislation to end the ban on travel to Cuba.
CONCENTRATE ON TERRORISM, NOT ON ADOPTING MEASURES TO POLICE TRAVEL TO CUBA
In their speeches, Anderson and Schmidt explained that ending the travel restrictions would ensure the civil liberties of the US people. The much-cherished conviction of Americans in terms of their personal liberties is only restricted when such trips would endanger national security. That is not the case of the Cuba of today. Instead of making use of Americans’ greatest value, which is constituted by the US people, so that they can talk directly to Cubans of those values and democratic ideas, the United States is putting into practice a tough process of licenses to restrict travel to the island, monetary assistance for families and even humanitarian donations. Americans are regularly being investigated and fined by the Treasury Department for traveling without a license.
The travel ban offends family values. Last year, the administration tightened restrictions on travel by Cuban-Americans to just once every three years. This regulation does not allow exceptions for humanitarian emergencies. The definition of 'family' has been narrowed down in such a way that some Cuban-Americans can no longer visit, transfer funds, or send packets to aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. The travel ban constitutes an attack on Cuban-American families and their peers on the island.
Quashing the travel ban will increase the demand for US products in Cuba, and current sales of agricultural produce that totaled almost $400 million in 2004 alone would substantially increase, to the benefit of US agriculture, exporters and dispatchers.
The organizing team members made a concrete reference to the travel restrictions imposed on academics, which inhibits knowledge and mutual cultural exchange, since over 90% of the academic exchange programs with Cuba have been cancelled.
'Concentrate on terrorism, not on taking measures to police travel to Cuba,' they argued. The Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control is a primordial part of that bureau’s efforts to break the Al Qaeda global monetary network. The war on terrorism should become the focus of their activities, not activities such as demanding licenses, investigating and fining people who travel to Cuba, or confiscating rum and cigars.
'Phone calls are better than e-mails,' they advised 'and people should ask to speak with the foreign policy advisor. Speak slowly. Begin with your name and city, stating that you are a registered voter. Leave a message if you cannot communicate directly. This is the message: ‘End the ban on travel to Cuba now.’ Become cosponsors of and actively support the bills recently introduced to end the travel ban. Join the majority and change the policy!'
