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(The
Militant - April 28, 2003)
Washington
adds restrictions
on travel to Cuba
BY
PAUL PEDERSON
The
U.S. Treasury Department announced March 24 that it
will now enforce new restrictions on travel to Cuba
by U.S. citizens and residents.
According
to the new regulations, licenses will no longer be
issued to "organizations that sponsor
people-to-people educational exchanges to take
individuals under their auspices on educational
trips to Cuba unrelated to academic course
work." Next to family visits by
Cuban-Americans, the largest number of U.S.
residents who legally travel to Cuba each year do so
under this type of license.
"This
is an outrageous situation," said Bob Guild of
Marazul Tours in an April 3 interview. Marazul is a
travel agency that specializes in travel between the
United States and Cuba. "This is the first
serious rollback by the government of the licensing
guidelines in 10 or 12 years. These are trips
organized by educational institutions, museums, and
groups with a long and established record of
educational work."
Thousands
of people travel each year to Cuba under license
from the government.
Tens
of thousands more visit the island annually without
seeking a government license.
A
Treasury Department document, titled, "Cuba:
What You Need to Know About the U.S. Embargo,"
was released the same day the new restrictions were
announced. It states that restrictions on travel to
and trade with Cuba "affect all U.S. citizens
and permanent residents wherever they are located,
all people and organizations
physically in the United States, and all branches
and subsidiaries of
U.S. organizations throughout the world..."
"The
basic goal of the sanctions," the document
reads, "is to isolate the Cuban government
economically and deprive it of U.S. dollars.
Criminal penalties for violating the sanctions
include up to 10 years in prison, $1,000,000 in
corporate fines, and $250,000 in individual fines.
Civil penalties up to $55,000 per violation may also
be imposed."
An
article in the April 6 San Francisco Chronicle on
the new restrictions said that "Those licenses,
which were authorized on a case-by-case basis, ended
up becoming a loophole for groups to travel to Cuba
when the educational aspect was barely evident,
Treasury Department spokesman Tony Fratto told the
Associated Press. Salsa dancing, baseball, and
hiking tours were among those granted permits.
"The
Treasury Department said it would honor existing
one-year licenses but would not renew them. The new
regulations are temporary but are expected to go
into effect in May after a comment period."
San
Francisco-based Global Exchange, which sent more
than 2,000 U.S. residents to Cuba last year on
licensed trips, is considering filing a lawsuit to
try to block the new regulations, according to the
group’s Cuba program director, Ana Perez. Global
Exchange and other groups plan to continue offering
licensed trips to Cuba until their permits expire at
the end of this year.
Over
the past decade, the Treasury Department has
enforced travel restrictions with increasing
aggressiveness, seeking fines of between $2,000 and
$7,500 against those who are deemed to have traveled
to Cuba "illegally."The number of cases
opened by the Treasury Department against such
individuals has dramatically increased--from 165 in
1996 to 1,155 in the first six months of 2001.
Richard
Newcomb, director of the Treasury Department’s
Office of Foreign Assets Control, complained in a
February 2002 report to the U.S. Senate that the
increased crackdown on travel to Cuba has caused an
"extremely heavy drain on finite enforcement
and legal resources."
"At
this time," Newcomb stated, "OFAC devotes
5% of its budget...to the administration and
enforcement of restrictions involving travel to
Cuba."
Guild,
of Marazul Tours, said that since Newcomb’s 2002
report the enforcement of the travel restrictions
has continued at a similar rate. Last year, about
100 people who traveled to Cuba agreed to pay $1,000
each.
While
thousands who refuse to cow to government bullying
often avoid the fines, many others don’t, in the
face of threats from the Treasury Department.
Newcomb bragged in his 2002 report that many
"agree to informal settlements" faced with
government intimidation.
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