7-28-05, 10:20 am

The Bush administration doesn’t believe that people in the US should have the right to travel wherever they want. It believes that the US government has the right to restrict freedom of movement and to enforce laws selectively to punish people who do not agree with the administration’s foreign policy towards certain countries. The administration has specifically aimed the federal government’s resources at punishing those who travel to Cuba without obtaining a government license. Recalling that Bush secured his 2000 Florida “victory” with the help of well-financed anti-Castro Cuban exile groups, the White House launched a “crackdown” on travel to Cuba in late 2003 just as the 2004 presidential campaign season opened. (“Crackdown” on travel has been the administration’s official policy since its installation in 2001, but tighter, more severe punishments were handed down in 2003). Several dozen travelers who failed to acquire one of a limited number of Treasury Department travel licenses to go to Cuba were ordered to appear before a judge, provide details about their trips to later be used as evidence against them and to pay fines of up to tens of thousands of dollars.

Until this crackdown on free travel, people accused of traveling to Cuba without a government license had three choices: pay the fine levied by the Treasury Department, negotiate a settlement for a lower fine or request a hearing before an administrative law judge.

The administration’s 2003 efforts to punish people who travel to Cuba came just as Congress adopted an amendment attached to the Treasury Department’s funding bill by a wide bipartisan margin that would have withheld funds from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces laws that restrict travel to and trade with Cuba. OFAC, in fact, focuses on just two things currently: fining people who travel to Cuba and ferreting out Al Qaeda’s international financial network. Sources say that while as many as 50 treasury agents and government lawyers are working on fining tourists for going to cuba, only two agents are currently working on Al Qaeda. Many Republicans in both houses supported the measure because they feel that OFAC’s resources are being wasted on the Cuba travel issue. More importantly, a growing number of Republicans, especially from states who rely on agriculture, feel that restrictions travel to and trade with Cuba hurt their local economies. GOP Senate leader Larry Craig of Idaho, a state that has benefited from trade with Cuba but would like to see restrictions lifted, said that OFAC should not be focusing on the Cuba embargo. Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, has long pushed for repealing trade and travel restrictions on the island country.

When the Treasury funding bill went to a joint conference for final approval, however, a veto threat, Karl Rove’s late-night threatening phone calls to several Republican conference committee members demanding cooperation and pressure from Representative Tom DeLay killed the amendment. Critics of the GOP leadership maneuver against the amendment describe it as a backroom deal and an undemocratic move that mocks the freedoms and rights a democratically elected Congress is legally responsible to protect.

Mavis Anderson of the National Lawyers Guild, an association of lawyers and legal workers that focuses on human rights, characterized the GOP leadership’s move as a “travesty” and told Knight-Ridder, “Even though it was anticipated, it’s still a very disappointing and undemocratic maneuver.” Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, a supporter of ending the travel ban and restrictions on trade with Cuba, noted, “For a few individuals in backroom negotiations to override the will of a majority of Congress sets a dangerous, undemocratic precedent.”

Various laws, including the Trading with the Enemy Act and the Cuban Assets Control Regulation limit the right of citizens to travel to, engage in business with, and bring their property to countries the Bush administration happens to dislike. Specifically, these laws govern the Treasury Department’s authority over travel to Cuba and, until the 2003 crackdown on free travel, were only rarely enforced. Most of the people brought before the government’s judges have agreed to pay smaller fines and have put their confrontation with the Bush administration behind them. One couple, Michael and Ande McCarthy, refused to legitimize what they regard as an unjust law and an unfair process by paying a fine. Motivated by deep religious convictions about their responsibility to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need, they traveled to Cuba in early 2001, bringing medical supplies they had legally gathered in their work as health care professionals. Upon their return, the initial response from the border authorities was only a modest interest. But after the Bush administration announced its crackdown on free travel, they received a letter ordering them to appear before a judge and to pay a fine close to $16,000.

Feeling as though they hadn’t done anything morally wrong or even outside the will of most Americans, they decided to fight the government imposed fines. After their appeal, the Bush administration offered lower fines in order to convince the McCarthy’s to accept the legality of the policy, but so far they say they are going to fight the fines all the way.

Following the crackdown on travel, the Bush administration sought to put economic pressure on Cuba by ordering limitations on how much money Cuban Americans could send to their families, in “remittances.” Remittance is a common practice among immigrant families around the world and an important source of income for many families. Bush also ordered severe restrictions on how often Cuban American immigrants could visit their families living in Cuba and who counted as family. Under the new rules, Cuban Americans are allowed one 14-day visit every three years to members of their immediate family.

Additionally, the administration imposed much tighter restrictions on the ability of university-affiliated people to travel to and engage in educational activities in Cuba. New restrictions give OFAC bureaucrats the power to determine if an educational activity is worthy of their granting it a license.

The Bush administration also aimed its sights at the US/Cuba Labor Exchange, an organization of trade unionists who believe in the right to travel where they choose, but more specifically in fostering exchange, discussion and friendly relationships with trade unionists in Cuba. Its members are also members of such unions as the Teamsters, UNITE, AFSCME, UAW, SEIU, and others.

OFAC issued a letter (dated March 30, 2005) to the US/Cuba Labor Exchange threatening that organization with fines and its leaders with imprisonment if it failed to “cease and desist” its sponsorship of a trade-union delegation to attend the International Conference to Confront Neoliberal Globalization – FTAA in Havana, Cuba.

The conference was critical of “free trade” agreements and especially condemned the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement that is strongly endorsed by the Bush administration.

The threat was based on the refusal by the Bush administration to issue a “license” to the Detroit, Michigan-based labor group to travel to Cuba. The delegation traveled to Cuba on April 25 and returned April 30, 2005.

The international conference they participated in was widely attended by labor and social activists from countries all over the world. The focus of the conference was on the concern that free trade agreements such as the FTAA will foster a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions for workers throughout the Western Hemisphere, including the US. Opponents of FTAA point to the failure of other “free” trade agreements like NAFTA to create jobs or improve living standards.

Trade unionists from across the hemisphere see “free trade” agreements as creating an environment where corporations are able to move jobs and operations overseas easily without having to guarantee the right of workers, protect the environment or pay living wages. Since NAFTA was enacted in the mid-1990’s, hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US were lost due to outsourcing. Meanwhile, no real net gain in jobs occurred in Mexico, a participant in the North American Free Trade Agreement, as a result. Larger companies from the US that have moved operations to Mexico and other countries forced the closure of local competing companies. It has been compared to the same thing that happens to small businesses when a Wal-Mart opens up nearby.

In a public statement after the threatening letter, the US/Cuba Labor Exchange pointed out the inherent hypocrisy in the Bush administration’s policy on travel to Cuba. While threatening trade unionists with fines and imprisonment for attempting to exercise their freedom of movement, the administration has fostered an environment in which US companies freely move jobs, technology and investment overseas without a second thought.

Another sharp hypocrisy in the Cuba policy is that the administration has repeatedly attacked other countries for perceived restrictions imposed on their citizens’ right to free movement. For example, in its annual human rights report published by the US State Department, the Bush administration criticized North Korea for restricting the right of its citizens to travel to other countries by requiring them to obtain a travel license. Restrictions on the freedom of movement are repeatedly cited as human rights violations by the Bush administration when it suits their political goals.

Even further, the US/Cuba Labor Exchange has helped organize numerous conferences that have been held in Canada or Mexico because invited Cuban delegates were denied entry into the US. Neither Canada nor Mexico refuses travel visas to Cuban visitors, nor do they prevent their citizens from traveling to Cuba.

In a statement the US/Cuba Labor Exchange said: The US/Cuba Labor Exchange continues to encourage international discussion, exchange and solidarity between workers in Cuba and the United States. We will continue to see for ourselves the realities faced by workers in other countries, to publish our findings and demand that the US government grant entry to Cuban union leaders whose visa applications are routinely denied. The US/Cuba Labor Exchange joins with a growing nonpartisan effort to end the ban on travel to and trade with Cuba and calls on supporters and others who are sympathetic to the right of free movement to write to their congressional representatives urging their support for an end to the ban. Send messages of support toor write with contributions to Justice for Cuba Coalition, PO Box 39188, Redford, Michigan 48239.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.