Cuba
in 2004
To visit Cuba "legally" the U.S. government requires that U.S. residents to be licensed through the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Our 2004 group had to be sponsored by an "approved" Cuban organization. Our trip was sponsored by the Cuban American Alliance Education Fund (CAAEF), specially in support of their La Familia project. According to the license, each member of our group was required to bring 20 pounds of supplies for the Cuban Association for the Physically Disabled.
Background Information
From the OFAC:
"The Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") of the US Department of the
Treasury administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US
foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign
countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those
engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. OFAC acts under Presidential wartime and national emergency
powers, as well as authority granted by specific legislation, to impose
controls on transactions and freeze foreign assets under US jurisdiction."
[source]
U.S. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, understands what needs to be done. Here are his words: "Our policy toward Cuba has failed. More than four decades of a unilateral embargo and persistently hostile and aggressive rhetoric and actions from successive administrations have created only misery for the Cuban people and have hurt, not helped, U.S. interests at large.
Common sense dictates that we pursue a policy of normalizing relations with Cuba. A Kucinich Administration will work for repeal of the Helms-Burton Act and the immediate lifting of the trade embargo.
A Kucinich administration will take several steps to restoring a more humane and effective policy toward this important neighbor:
- Support normal bilateral trade with Cuba. Farm communities throughout the U.S. are being denied a natural market in Cuba, and Americans are being denied products from Cuba.
- Restore Americans' freedom to travel to Cuba. Our government's travel ban violates the Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of movement.
- Work to repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act, which has encouraged smuggling and put lives at risk -- and has reinforced arbitrary and unequal immigration policies.
- Support increased national security cooperation with Cuba." [source]
1) Article 13(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 guarantees the rights of individuals to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. A tandem right of freedom of movement is the right of entering and leaving one's own state, which is also recognized by the Universal Declaration. [source] Canadians, Europeans, and even Russians enjoy "unrestricted" travel rights and U.S. residents do not! Why can't "the freest people on earth," travel where they want?
2) Embargo (the Cuban one started in 1961) of countries not authorized by the United Nations.
3) Free trade philosophy and agreements.
4) The U.S. government invaded Cuba (1961, the Bay of Pigs Invasion) and has repeated attempted to assassinate President Fidel Castro and/or overthrow the Cuban government. Ironically, the U.S. government acts as if Cuba did to the U.S. what the U.S. did to Cuba!
Meanwhile, the U.S. government had/has normal relations with the Soviet Union, and now Russia, and China -- both "communists" and potentially real threats to the U.S.
U.S. foreign policy, approved by the Congress, is one of bulling small nation-states, such as Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and Libya, while ignoring countries that pose potentially real threats.
Despite the U.S. government threats against its own residents, 76,898 U.S. tourists, not including Cuban-Americans, visited Cuba in 2000; 80,000 visited in 2001; and 100,000 in 2002, according to the Cuban Government -- and all of them visited illegally.
As it applies to Cuba, the U.S. government imposes the following:
And buying Cuban cigars illegal too !
