With these new travel restrictions and bans for US citizens and for Cubans living in the United States – and against the will of the majority in Congress, expressed in votes during the last four years - the United States is once again undermining basic human rights enshrined in the International Charter of Human Rights, both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights itself, and in the two International Pacts.  They are a flagrant violation of Article 12 of the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights regarding the freedom to travel which is the inherent right of anyone who is legally resident in any state, a principle which was reaffirmed by the General Assembly in its Resolution 57/227, entitled “Respect for the right to universal freedom of travel and the vital importance of family reunification”.

In that resolution, the most representative major body of the United nations urged all states to guarantee “the universally recognized right to travel of all citizens of other countries who reside in their territory “, and reaffirmed that all governments, and especially those of the receiving states, must recognize the vital importance of family reunification and promote the incorporation of this into their domestic laws in order that the family unity of documented immigrants be protected”.[1]

No people has been the object of so much discrimination and political manipulation of its immigrations relations by successive US governments as has the Cuban people.  By virtue of the criminal Cuban Adjustment Act and other governmental provisions, US authorities make bilateral immigration relations conditional on its interest in destabilizing and discrediting the Cuban Revolution.  Cubans who manage to reach US territory illegally —regardless of whether the United States Interests Section in Havana had denied them a visa to emigrate or whether they committed a crime against persons or property in the course of their unlawful crossing to the United States— will be welcomed and they will be automatically granted legal residence there.

The recent measures taken by the Bush administration, which aggravates the discriminatory way the Cuban émigré community is treated, show that the much- trumpeted preferential treatment that Cubans who emigrate illegally to the States receive, as do those who are the beneficiaries of the limited number of visas available for legal and orderly emigration, stems not from humanitarian motives but from those of political manipulation.

Apart from being in conflict with the full enjoyment of human rights, the restrictions and bans on travel which the US administration is bolstering with these measures are unlawful from the standpoint of US laws themselves.  The question of travel to Cuba is not something that falls within the scope of administrative jurisdiction and that a US president can change as he thinks fit.  This matter has been subject to law over there since the year 2000.

The Bush administration has made the way the blockade on Cuba is applied far more rigorous.  For instance, at the end of last year, senators and congressmen publicly condemned the fact that the Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) employed five times more agents to pursue and investigate violations of the Cuba blockade legislation than it did to trace Al-Qaeda’s finances.

Between 1990 and 2003, the OFAC launched only 93 investigations into international terrorism whereas there were 10,683 investigations to prevent Americans from exercising their right to go to Cuba.  Following the 93 investigations into terrorism, the OFAC fined the guilty a total of $9,425.  However, it collected a total of $8 million from US citizens who have visited Cuba without Treasury Department licenses.

In a report dated 9 February 2004, which is posted on its webpage, the OFAC congratulated itself because its Civil Penalties Division had a list of 200 cases of violations of the Cuba blockade and because most of these had resulted in fines.  Moreover, it reported that between 10 October and 30 November 2003, it had filed 348 more criminal suits for similar violations.

It is common to find reports and articles in the US press about US citizens being taken to court for having visited Cuba.  For example, in April 2004, two retired persons, Wally and Barbara Smith from the State of Vermont, had to pay a $55,000 fine.  The OFAC had charged them with having visited Cuba four times, with having spent money there and with having written a book, “Bicycling in Cuba”, published in 2002.

The rush to persecute its own citizens knows no bounds.  In early February 2004, the OFAC notified Fred Burks and his fiancée that they had to pay a $7, 590 fine for having visited Cuba in 1999.  Fred Burks, who has worked as an interpreter for Presidents William Clinton and George W. Bush, refused to pay the fine and is now awaiting word of some new penalty, probably a heavier one.

In March 2003, the OFAC had already announced that it would not be renewing licenses for educational exchanges, that is, for what were called “people to people” exchanges.  The obvious outcome of this restriction being applied was that 26% less American citizens came to Cuba between January and June this year compared to the number that came in the same period last year.  In July, following the new measures approved by Mr. Bush, the total was 52.4% down on the same month in 2003.

It is widely known that about 5 years ago tourism became the main source of earnings for Cuban economy, that the development of this sector has given a kick start the rest of the country’s economic activities and that a considerable part of the Cuban population supplement their income and receive social services financed, directly or indirectly, by this industry.  It is also public knowledge that the average growth rate of the tourist sector over the last ten years has been 10 percent per annum, in spite of the harmful effects of the blockade and of the world economic crisis.[2]  It is no coincidence that the new measures try to sabotage and create more difficulties for this vital sector of the Cuban economy.

Preliminary studies by the Cuban Ministry of Tourism on the foreseeable impact of the restrictions announced on 6 May indicate that the number of US visitors to the country will drop considerably.  According to this ministry’s estimates, this will cause earnings to drop by between $27 and $38 million.[3]

When looking at the effect of these new measures brought about by the fact that Cuban-born visitors are now not only limited in the number of times they can come to their native country, (once every three year instead of once a year) but also limited in the amount they can spend in Cuba, the Ministry of Tourism study calculates that by the end of 2004 losses to the country could reach $66 million.

To sum up, as a result of the abusive measures described above, as from 30 June 2004, the tourism sector of Cuban economy will suffer losses of between $93 and $104 million and that’s not counting losses caused by actions taken by US authorities in third countries to discourage tourism to Cuba, losses that it has not been possible to quantify at this point.

More Restrictions on Family Remittances

There is broad international consensus on the importance that family remittances sent by émigrés has for development, particularly for countries in the South.  This consensus extends to the need for all states, both those that send and those that receive remittances, to expand facilities and ensure the smooth functioning of procedures in existence for making this kind of international transfer between members of a family who live in different countries.[4]

Approximately three years ago, in a speech entitled “Remittances as a Tool for Development”, the president of the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), Enrique Iglesias said:

“… remittances are a manifestation of the ties between groups of émigrés and their native communities and are a way to develop, since they provide an important source of predictable income, both for governments and for families, because of the way they help to maintain the level of well being in the households that receive them ...”

An IDB study of April 2004 entitled “Sending Money Home:  Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean” analyzed the vital importance of the flow of remittances from the United States for quite a few economies in the region; and it gave its estimates for various countries.  The Dominican Republic, for example, last year received $2.217 billion.  El Salvador, $2.316 billion, Guatemala 2.106 billion and Jamaica $1.425 billion.

In order to use any possible way to hamper the Cuban people’s development opportunities, the US government has also arrogated the power to use these new measures to harm something as natural and sensitive as family remittances and ties.

The Committee for Assistance to A Free Cuba’s recommendations, issued on 6 May and ratified by the 16 June OFAC’s provisions for their application, restrict both who can send and who can receive remittances.  Any US citizen and any Cuban living in the United States used to be able to send money to Cuba.  Now only those US citizens and resident Cubans who have direct family here —direct family according to the arbitrary definition of family given by the Bush administration (grandparents, grandchildren, fathers, siblings, spouses, children)— can do so.

This means that US citizens are deprived of their right to send money to Cuban friends and that Cubans living in the United States will be the only emigrants who are forbidden to send economic assistance to an elderly aunt, a cousin, any other close relative or simply to a friend.

Another of the measures which affects remittances and which shows the lack of respect the Bush administration has for the political rights of the Cuban people is the one that forbids Cubans living in the United States to send remittances and parcels to their relatives if these are “government officials or members of the Communist Party”.  If one were to follow the irrational logic of this restriction, one could quite easily find a case of an elderly 70 year old woman living in Cuba who would have to give up her political right to receive remittances sent by her son who has emigrated to the United States.

The June 16 OFAC regulations reduce the amount of remittances that an authorized visitor can bring to Cuba from $3,000 to $300.  Up to this time, any visitor who traveled legally to Cuba could bring remittances for up to 10 Cuban families.  Quite a number of émigrés used this channel.

It is obvious that, even though it is hypothetically possible to continue to send the same amount of money through those established banking institutions which have licenses from the Treasury Department to do so, all these new measures, which restrict the number of those who send and those who receive remittances and which exercise absolute control over the methods of sending them, will have the direct effect of curtailing the amount of remittances that the Cuban population eventually receives.

The cruelty evinced by this limitation on family remittances contrasts starkly with the unlimited resources sent, as the report itself points out, to the mercenaries —and to their families— who act inside Cuba on behalf of US government interests.

There is another particularly odious measure which recalls the “vigilantism” promoted by Hitler’s hordes to increase the efficiency of their raids to capture and oppress Jews and communists.  The Bush administration has decided to pay “a reward” to anyone who points out “those violating” these new provisions and if that isn’t enough, it will organize “sting operations” by it federal agencies to neutralize and repress any activity which “violates” these restrictions.

An increasing number of Cubans living in the United States do not share the US government’s hostility towards Cuba and would like to have smooth, normal relations with their native land and their families, without being subject to limitations because of threats, vigilantism or reprisals.

Similarly, the new restrictions on family remittances and parcels sent home run counter to the spirit of most US legislation, which in recent years has approved proposals for their elimination. For example, on July 7 the House of Representatives voted 221 to 194 in favor of an amendment to this end - offered by Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) - to the Commerce, Justice, State, Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2005

Further Extraterritorial Harassment

As a pretext for keeping its unilateral policies of economic coercion in place, the US authorities claim that every country has the right to chose who it trades with.  Nevertheless, when it comes to the blockade on Cuba, it is obvious that the application of this policy goes far beyond simply rejecting a trading partner.

The Cuba blockade policy is extremely active and aggressive when it comes to discouraging and persecuting foreign investment or any other type of trade and financial ties Cuba develops with the rest of the world.  The current US government approved in their entirety the suggestions in the report from the so-called “Committee for Assistance to a Free Cuba”, about increasing the effectiveness and extraterritorial scope of the measures designed to choke the Cuban economy to death.

The first chapter of the report on the measures to overthrow the Cuban revolution recommends “strict application” of the sanctions listed in Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act, which forbids giving entry visas into the United States to foreigners who invest in Cuba.  It has even been decided to assign additional resources and personnel to ensure these provisions are met.

Moreover, the report urges US authorities to undertake a rigorous analysis to see if applying Title III of the Helms-Burton Act would be contrary to US interests, or if by applying it, they could hasten the fall of the Cuban Revolution.  In practice, it foresees the possibility of laying charges in the United States against businesspeople from third countries who do business with Cuba, something that up to now and thanks to international pressure, they have refrained from doing.

On this point, the new measures also mention a country by country study, probably with a view to imposing selective sanctions, thus dividing the international community in its opposition to the application of the extraterritorial provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.

An increasing number of Cubans living in the United States do not share the US government’s hostility towards Cuba and would like to have smooth, normal relations with their native land and their families, without being subject to limitations because of threats, vigilantism or reprisals.

Similarly, the new restrictions on family remittances and parcels sent home run counter to the spirit of most US legislation, which in recent years has approved proposals for their elimination. For example, on July 7 the House of Representatives voted 221 to 194 in favor of an amendment to this end - offered by Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) - to the Commerce, Justice, State, Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2005

Further Extraterritorial Harassment

As a pretext for keeping its unilateral policies of economic coercion in place, the US authorities claim that every country has the right to chose who it trades with.  Nevertheless, when it comes to the blockade on Cuba, it is obvious that the application of this policy goes far beyond simply rejecting a trading partner.

The Cuba blockade policy is extremely active and aggressive when it comes to discouraging and persecuting foreign investment or any other type of trade and financial ties Cuba develops with the rest of the world.  The current US government approved in their entirety the suggestions in the report from the so-called “Committee for Assistance to a Free Cuba”, about increasing the effectiveness and extraterritorial scope of the measures designed to choke the Cuban economy to death.

The first chapter of the report on the measures to overthrow the Cuban revolution recommends “strict application” of the sanctions listed in Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act, which forbids giving entry visas into the United States to foreigners who invest in Cuba.  It has even been decided to assign additional resources and personnel to ensure these provisions are met.

Moreover, the report urges US authorities to undertake a rigorous analysis to see if applying Title III of the Helms-Burton Act would be contrary to US interests, or if by applying it, they could hasten the fall of the Cuban Revolution.  In practice, it foresees the possibility of laying charges in the United States against businesspeople from third countries who do business with Cuba, something that up to now and thanks to international pressure, they have refrained from doing.

Although Cuban companies which operate in the international market do so with a clearly defined legal personality and legal registration, which strictly abides by the legal requirements in the countries where they are located and carry on their business —in all instances these businesses are absolutely legal activities and completely respect internationally established norms and practices— the report from the so-called “Committee for Assistance to a Free Cuba” emphasizes the need to harass them and hinder their development. 

To this end, it recommends “neutralizing” the front companies that are in fact Cuban government property” and therefore suggests creating a “Cuban Asset Targeting Group” to investigate and identify new ways in which hard currency is moved in and out of Cuba.

Even before the new anti-Cuban measures were announced, the Bush administration had taken steps to obstruct our country’s relations with several banking institutions and thus block the earnings which Cuba receives form tourism, from selling goods in hard currency shops and from other services and then deposits in foreign banks.

The US government uses this method to put pressure on foreign banks to not allow US dollars deposited by Cuba to be changed into other currencies.  Exchanging and transferring hard currency is absolutely necessary to the Cuban state —for importing food and medicines among other things— when it is considered that the blockade does not let foreigners who visit Cuba use credit cards or travelers checks issued by US banks and other financial institutions which control this market.  In most cases, remittances and any payments foreign visitors make in Cuba have to made in cash.
 

This money, whose origin is completely legitimate, is directly used, among other things, to buy fuel and other inputs essential to the functioning of our domestic economy, to progressively improve the people’s diet and to continue to guarantee and improve universal access to quality basic services in education, health and social assistance and protection for all Cubans.

Other Necessary Notes and Assessments

The report from the “Committee for Assistance to a Free Cuba” recommends allotting $59 million more to step up international campaigns against Cuba and to give money to internal subversion and to their mercenaries who are on the payroll of the United States Interests Section in Havana and who are hypocritically referred to in the document as the "political opposition”.

The report reaches the height of shamelessness when it tries to gain the complicity of the international community in mobilizing and channeling resources to finance and recruit more mercenaries to swell the ranks of the fifth column created by Washington’s anti-Cuba policy.  Thus, the report seeks to enlist the “collaboration of third countries in creating an international fund for the protection and development of civil society in Cuba”. The report also wants to use US taxpayers’ money to finance a university scholarship plan in collaboration with the Organization of American states “so that the sons and daughters of dissidents —read:  their mercenaries— can study in Latin American universities”.

Similarly, following the lines traced in the report, the US government will encourage financing so NGOs from third countries can get involved in the campaigns to discourage tourists from coming to Cuba —something that Reporters without Borders has pioneered under instructions and with funding from the CIA and the Miami terrorist mob— and in propaganda and smear campaigns against Cuba.

Likewise, the report suggests allotting $5 million to finance conferences in third countries devoted to promoting “transition” in Cuba.  In other words, they guarantee funds so that those who grow rich from the business of counterrevolution in Cuba can continue to enjoy generous travel allowances, the delights of luxury hotels and first class world travel.

Another provocative and extremely serious measure is that of assigning $18 million for transmitting the ill-named Radio and TV Martí from a US Air Force C-130 plane (Commando Solo) - an irresponsible and illegal provocation which contravenes the law and international norms for aviation and telecommunications. This intensification of radio/electronics-based aggression against the Cuban people was launched during August 2004.

Likewise, the report suggests allotting $5 million to finance conferences in third countries devoted to promoting “transition” in Cuba.  In other words, they guarantee funds so that those who grow rich from the business of counterrevolution in Cuba can continue to enjoy generous travel allowances, the delights of luxury hotels and first class world travel.One of the first steps that the so-called “transition government” would take would be to return property to the former exploiters, including houses and land which the Batistian, annexationist mob itches to get its hands on.

All branches of the economy would be privatized.  This would be overseen by a US Standing Committee for Economic Reconstruction which they propose setting up immediately.

Price controls on and subsidies to the goods and services the population receives would be abolished.

The social security and social assistance regime would be dismantled and retirement pay and pensions would not be respected.

Health services and education would be privatized once again.

With the deliberate intention of discrediting the unquestionable and internationally recognized achievements of the Cuban people in the areas of education and public health, the report tells that as part of the transition to be imposed on the country, institutions and services would be created to improve health, nutrition, education, social services by introducing free market practices.  The report even goes as far as to suggest encouraging UN agencies, funds and programs to get involved in these plans.

It is omitted to tell us that the commercialization and privatization of these basic social services —to which all human beings should have the right— have in fact impeded the medical care coverage being extended and prevented the goal   of education for all being reached in many countries in the world, including the United States itself, where 44 million people have no medical insurance or guaranteed medical care.

The health and education systems in Cuba, apart from having reached the point of being universal, free and of a high quality many years ago, are undergoing a process of profound improvement in the way they are understood and in their infrastructure, the aim being to further revolutionize them.[5]

The health and education systems in Cuba, apart from having reached the point of being universal, free and of a high quality many years ago, are undergoing a process of profound improvement in the way they are understood and in their infrastructure, the aim being to further revolutionize them.[6]

The height of their hypocrisy is shown by the fact that they pass these measures but, at the same time, prevent Cuba from buying vaccines manufactured by US companies.  Recently, the Department of the Treasury fined Chiron Corporation, a US biotechnology company, $168,500 simply because one of its European subsidiaries had sold two types of vaccines for Cuban children to Cuba between 1999 and 2002.  This has been the largest fine paid this year by a company based in the United States.

If the Bush administration really had any interest in protecting the health of Cuban children, all it would have to do would be to remove the obstacle in the way of Cuba buying pediatric vaccines or other medical drugs, such as cytostatics.  The latter are essential for treating several kinds of cancer from which children in Cuba suffer.

In an admirable manifestation of the Cuban people’s predisposition to humanist action, more than 20,000 Cuban doctors, specialists and other health workers save hundreds of lives every day in 64 countries all over the world, including the lives of many children, whereas the imperialist forces controlling the government in Washington carry bombs, death, suffering and torture to various of the world’s nations.

On 21 June, in response to the anti-Cuban measures that the US government had begun to apply, president Fidel Castro publicly offered to provide medical care here in Cuba to 3,000 poor Americans, the same number as died in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York in September 2001.

This offer, inspired by the ethic of solidarity which characterizes the Cuban people, entailed giving free medical care to save the lives of these Americans over a five year period.

Having few resources, with very limited foreign development aid, without access to soft credit and in the midst of a battle to withstand the brutal economic, financial and trade blockade which the US governments have imposed on this country for more than 40 years, Cuba has made significant progress in the area of its people’s welfare.

The anti-Cuban report endorsed by President George W. Bush on 6 May demonstrates the highest possible level of interference in the affairs of another country when US authorities appoint themselves to help create new political institutions, draft new laws, regulations and even a new constitution of the Republic, once they have destroyed the Cuban revolution.  Obviously, everything would be made to measure for US capitalism’s voraciousness.

Cubans remember very well —and very angrily— how, after the first US military intervention (1898 – 1902), the US government imposed a demeaning trusteeship on us as our first constitution was being born.  That constitution had the humiliating Platt Amendment added to it as an appendix.  This amendment, among other horrors, gave the United States full right to intervene in Cuba when it thought its interests were endangered and also created the “legal” basis for setting up the US naval base which illegally occupies a part of the Cuban province of Guantánamo.  Veritable concentration camps, where the most atrocious kinds of human rights violations are committed, have been set up there.[7]

Neither will the Cuban people forget the type of “mutual benefit” which the United States has historically promoted in its trading relations with Cuba.  In 1903, it imposed a Reciprocal Trade Treaty on Cuba under the threat of military intervention if the treaty were not accepted.  Pointing this out is redundant, but the only “reciprocal” thing about this treaty was its name.  In fact, the 1934 Trade Reciprocity Treaty which still felt the influence of the 1930s Good Neighbor policy, guaranteed the United States advantages which were far better than those Cuba obtained and gave the kiss of death to the country’s timorous attempts at industrialization made a few years earlier.

Although we should not underestimate the influence that this being a presidential election year might have had on the endorsement and launching of the Committee for Assistance to a Free Cuba’s report, it is important to stress that the new measures contained therein are motivated by far more than election considerations, they are completely consistent with the logic of escalating hostility and aggression that has characterized the Cuba policy of President George W. Bush.

The reality for the Cuban people is that the blockade has become worse, which means that day to day difficulties increase, the obstacles in the way of and sabotage on its development plans grow larger and its right to self-determination is seriously threatened.  They are playing with a people’s destiny in exchange for a few votes in Florida.

However, President George W. Bush’s brutal anti-Cuban measures may boomerang back on his hopes for re-election.  Every day the number of Cuban-born US citizens and of other US citizens who are convinced of the need to rein in the demented, aggressive anti-Cuban policies of the fascist team which backs the present Republican administration is growing daily; their unhappiness could be expressed in the polling booths.

The report published and the measures approved are a program unabashedly aimed at overthrowing our revolutionary process and at re-colonizing Cuba.  Moreover they show overt contempt for the principles enshrined in international law and the UN Charter.