Miami Herald Editorial
Posted on Wed, Nov. 07, 2007
More remittances, travel for a free Cuba
Slowly but surely, change is coming to Cuba. Even Cuban teens are risking arrest to wear plastic bracelets stamped cambio (change). Now is the time for the United States to do its part to follow the advice of the late Pope John Paul II for the world to ''open itself to Cuba.'' The U.S. government should lift harsh restrictions on travel and remittances to the island to encourage more people-to-people contacts and support for Cubans pushing for democracy.
Castro's fantasy
Fissures among the communist regime's ruling elite are becoming more evident. Last week at the United Nations, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said that Cuba was ready to renounce ''its sovereignty'' to ''join a grand bloc of Latin American and Caribbean nations.'' The comment may reflect Fidel Castro's fantasy, now adopted by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, of a ''revolutionary'' empire. But it contradicts years of nationalist fervor fanned by the regime.
More telling is that the minister's remarks weren't published in Cuba's official press. This could be a sign of divisions between Castro loyalists and those who favor Fidel's brother, Raúl, the provisional ruler since Fidel became ill last year. Other signs suggest many within the official ranks may be fed up with the totalitarian system that offers no better future.
This is why President Bush was correct in his recent speech on Cuba to encourage Cubans in the military, police and government to strive for reconciliation and democratic change. After nearly 50 years of dictatorship, Cubans deserve better than cosmetic economic reform without human rights.
The U.S. government should do more to break the regime's imposed isolation of the Cuban people. How will civil society grow without outside resources and contacts? How will Cubans, including government and military officials, overcome their fear of change?
More family travel and cultural and academic exchanges would open a world of information and supportive contacts for Cubans on the island. More remittances would help sustain political prisoners as well as Cuban democrats stripped of jobs. This would allow Cubans to compare democracy and free markets to the regime's alternative.
Isolation a tool
President Bush should take the advice of experts like Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, who lived the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe, and most Cuban dissidents including hard-liner Martha Beatriz Roque. All push for more openings, travel and contact with Cuba. It is no accident that Cuba and North Korea are the longest-lasting dictatorships left. Both have used isolation to keep people enslaved.
After Fidel Castro dies, Cubans will have a chance to shape their destiny. Opening up to Cuba now will encourage a transition to freedom.
Unpublished letter to the editor
To the Editor,
I hope that the President or Congress follow the Miami Herald's advice and quickly restore remittances and travel to Cuba by Cuban Americans and for the purpose of non-tourist people to people exchanges.
In order to avoid bureaucratic delays by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a general license should be established for all Cuban Americans and for IRS recognized not-for-profit 501c3 organizations. Visas should also be granted so American educational institutions can bring Cuban counterparts to the US.
This will enable the American student, religious, cultural, sports, professional, humanitarian and community groups that were active in the later Clinton and early Bush years to rapidly renew their diverse contacts in Cuba.
Many news accounts and documents emerging from Cuba suggest that a serious discussion is underway among the population and political leaders about needed economic and social reforms. Our country is far more likely to understand what is really taking place and to have a positive influence by interaction than by isolating ourselves from this process.
A positive initiative from Washington on travel is far more likely to encourage reform tendencies in Havana than provocative threats of instability and calls for military disloyalty.
Nearly 500 Americans, including representatives of exchange and humanitarian organizations, have signed a letter to Congressional leaders in support of family and purposeful travel. It can be seen at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/congresstravel/
Showing posts with label Cuba travel ban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuba travel ban. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Time Magazine on Bush speech
Time Magazine
Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007
Keeping Up the Hard Line on Cuba
By Tim Padgett/Miami
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1676501,00.html
Few would argue that democracy and human rights are as rare in Cuba as meat and modern appliances. That was duly underscored on Wednesday when President Bush invited the relatives of jailed Cuban dissidents to the State Department for his first policy speech on Cuba in four years. But any expectation of a major policy shift was dissipated after listening to the President. Bush simply gussied up some of the same old bromides — "The socialist paradise is a tropical gulag" — that have marked U.S.-Cuban relations for decades.
Bush reiterated his hard stance against lifting the 45-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba if the seriously ill Fidel Castro, as expected, is succeeded by his brother Raul, who already runs the government. Predictably, Fidel said Bush's speech reflected the U.S.'s desire to "reconquer" Cuba. And the Castro brothers aren't exactly cowed by these traditional verbal assaults. They have thrived on it in the past: heated U.S. rhetoric usually bolsters their image at home as the island's anti-Yanqui defenders. With plenty of material support from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (about 90,000 barrels of oil per day on highly favorable finance terms), the embargo, though still onerous, is not as painful as it once was.
As a result, critics of Bush's Cuba policy argue his address simply helped preserve rather than undermine Cuba's nebulous status quo. And they're urging Washington again to consider stepped up contact with Raul Castro — widely regarded as more pragmatically flexible than Fidel — as a more effective means of jump-starting a democratic transition. "President Bush is right when he says this is a unique moment in Cuba, but he's missing that moment," says Jake Colvin, director of USA Engage in Washington, which favors moves like lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba — something even most Cuban-Americans in Miami now favor, and which many Cuba watchers suggest the Castros actually fear. Bush insisted that engaging Cuba now would just give "oxygen to a criminal regime." But, argues Colvin, "American citizens have always proven the best ambassadors of freedom and democracy."
Bush may also be alienating the very people he is reaching out to by suggesting Washington will be Cuba's post-Castro arbiter. In the eyes of ordinary Cuban citizens, that is perceived as surrogacy for the Miami Cuban exile community — whose anti-Castro hardliners, with their dreams of resurrecting a pre-Castro Cuba, are as disliked by many Cubans on the island as the Castros themselves are.
What's more, by attaching his Administration to Cuba's dissidents so publicly, Bush may actually compromise the position of the Castro critics who remain on the island, whose credibility often rests on being seen as a movement independent of the Miami exiles. In past interviews with TIME and other media groups, Oswaldo Paya, an engineer who is the most prominent of Cuba's dissidents, says he is uncomfortable whenever the White House tries to coopt him and his colleagues. He says it simply makes their goals more difficult to achieve.
*********
My letter to the editor response:
The completely counterproductive character of President Bush's speech on Cuba is demonstrated by the Cubans printing half of it in Granma and putting him on TV for 15 minutes.
Congress must be pressed to restore now the right of all Americans to travel freely to establish people to people contact with Cubans.
(Readers should consider signing our letter to Congressional leaders and call or write their own Representative and Senators.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/congresstravel/ )
The Presidential candidates must also be challenged to say what they will do if elected. Dodd and Kucinich have called for ending all travel restrictions; Obama, Richardson and Edwards favor only ending restrictions on travel by Cuban Americans. Clinton has embraced the Bush policy rather than that of her husband. Paul is the only Republican who favors ending travel restrictions.
http://candidatecubawatch.blogspot.com/
Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007
Keeping Up the Hard Line on Cuba
By Tim Padgett/Miami
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1676501,00.html
Few would argue that democracy and human rights are as rare in Cuba as meat and modern appliances. That was duly underscored on Wednesday when President Bush invited the relatives of jailed Cuban dissidents to the State Department for his first policy speech on Cuba in four years. But any expectation of a major policy shift was dissipated after listening to the President. Bush simply gussied up some of the same old bromides — "The socialist paradise is a tropical gulag" — that have marked U.S.-Cuban relations for decades.
Bush reiterated his hard stance against lifting the 45-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba if the seriously ill Fidel Castro, as expected, is succeeded by his brother Raul, who already runs the government. Predictably, Fidel said Bush's speech reflected the U.S.'s desire to "reconquer" Cuba. And the Castro brothers aren't exactly cowed by these traditional verbal assaults. They have thrived on it in the past: heated U.S. rhetoric usually bolsters their image at home as the island's anti-Yanqui defenders. With plenty of material support from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (about 90,000 barrels of oil per day on highly favorable finance terms), the embargo, though still onerous, is not as painful as it once was.
As a result, critics of Bush's Cuba policy argue his address simply helped preserve rather than undermine Cuba's nebulous status quo. And they're urging Washington again to consider stepped up contact with Raul Castro — widely regarded as more pragmatically flexible than Fidel — as a more effective means of jump-starting a democratic transition. "President Bush is right when he says this is a unique moment in Cuba, but he's missing that moment," says Jake Colvin, director of USA Engage in Washington, which favors moves like lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba — something even most Cuban-Americans in Miami now favor, and which many Cuba watchers suggest the Castros actually fear. Bush insisted that engaging Cuba now would just give "oxygen to a criminal regime." But, argues Colvin, "American citizens have always proven the best ambassadors of freedom and democracy."
Bush may also be alienating the very people he is reaching out to by suggesting Washington will be Cuba's post-Castro arbiter. In the eyes of ordinary Cuban citizens, that is perceived as surrogacy for the Miami Cuban exile community — whose anti-Castro hardliners, with their dreams of resurrecting a pre-Castro Cuba, are as disliked by many Cubans on the island as the Castros themselves are.
What's more, by attaching his Administration to Cuba's dissidents so publicly, Bush may actually compromise the position of the Castro critics who remain on the island, whose credibility often rests on being seen as a movement independent of the Miami exiles. In past interviews with TIME and other media groups, Oswaldo Paya, an engineer who is the most prominent of Cuba's dissidents, says he is uncomfortable whenever the White House tries to coopt him and his colleagues. He says it simply makes their goals more difficult to achieve.
*********
My letter to the editor response:
The completely counterproductive character of President Bush's speech on Cuba is demonstrated by the Cubans printing half of it in Granma and putting him on TV for 15 minutes.
Congress must be pressed to restore now the right of all Americans to travel freely to establish people to people contact with Cubans.
(Readers should consider signing our letter to Congressional leaders and call or write their own Representative and Senators.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/congresstravel/ )
The Presidential candidates must also be challenged to say what they will do if elected. Dodd and Kucinich have called for ending all travel restrictions; Obama, Richardson and Edwards favor only ending restrictions on travel by Cuban Americans. Clinton has embraced the Bush policy rather than that of her husband. Paul is the only Republican who favors ending travel restrictions.
http://candidatecubawatch.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Florida Travel Trial: Phony Religious Licenses
Two to be sentenced for Cuba travel ban violation
BY JAY WEAVER jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
10/11/07
Posing as men of the cloth, businessman Victor Vazquez and his wealthy friend David Margolis flew back and forth to Cuba by cleverly exploiting a religious loophole in the long-standing travel ban to the communist island nation.
But on the afternoon of Dec. 13, 2006, a team of U.S. Treasury and Customs agents finally caught up with them upon their return to Miami International Airport.
When asked about the Fort Lauderdale waterfront home that he used as a ''church'' to obtain his religious license, Margolis admitted, ``You have me dead to rights.''
Vazquez, at first defensive, admitted he assisted Margolis in preparing his application and that ''he knew the church did not exist,'' agents said.
Vazquez, 40, of Delray Beach, and Margolis, 76, of Fort Lauderdale, would soon become the nation's first defendants to be charged with illegally obtaining religious travel licenses to get around the 44-year-old travel ban to Cuba.
Vazquez, who had obtained five such licenses illegally, profited by selling his permits to thousands of Cuban Americans seeking to dodge restrictions that became even tighter under the Bush administration.
Last month, a court presentencing report said Vazquez sold the use of his licenses to 6,500 travelers -- estimating the government's ''loss'' and his ''gain'' at $975,000. His attorney, Celeste Higgins, called it a ''reckless estimate.'' She said the government suffered no loss and Vazquez pocketed between $120,000 and $400,000, citing his plea deal.
Vazquez and Margolis, who recently pleaded guilty, will be sentenced Friday and Monday, respectively, in Miami federal court. Vazquez could face up to three years in prison for conspiring to defraud the U.S. government. Margolis, convicted of a lesser charge of filing a false government application, faces up to six months but could get probation.
The year-long investigation -- which also led to the conviction of Vazquez's ex-wife and a Hialeah travel agent -- revealed a profitable scheme that allowed thousands of Cuban Americans to shuttle to and from the island. It has spawned other investigations by a U.S. attorney's task force targeting violators of the trade embargo against Cuba.
In the case of Vazquez and Margolis, it was all done in the name of God -- at least on paper.
***
The case against Vazquez began in January 2006 when investigators with the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control found an extraordinary number of people had traveled on his permits -- and many of them didn't live anywhere near his licensed ``churches.''
Such licenses represent one of the few exemptions that allow travel to Cuba under the U.S. trade embargo. They gained greater value in 2004 after President Bush imposed new rules allowing only one trip to Cuba every three years to visit an immediate family member.
Federal agents discovered that Vazquez obtained religious travel licenses from the Treasury agency ''under false pretenses,'' according to a criminal complaint filed in February by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Agents learned that Vazquez, who was living with his ex-wife Kekalani Vazquez in Winter Garden in Central Florida, had first applied for a religious license in March 2004. The application sought the license under The First Church of Christ, using the Vazquez's residence as its address.
The religious information was false.
Treasury officials estimated that more than 2,000 people traveled to Cuba on Vazquez's religious license through April 2006, when it expired. Vazquez took 45 trips to the island himself, the ICE complaint says.
That's when Margolis entered the picture.
On March 17, 2006, Vazquez turned to his friend to apply for a religious license for travel to Cuba on behalf of Assumption Church of Christ. Margolis signed the application, listed his $1.7 million waterfront home on Middle River Drive as the church's address and noted that it ''has 2,954 members and four directors,'' according to the complaint.
His lawyer, Richard Rosenbaum, said his client made five trips to Cuba with the license, but didn't do any religious work.
''They weren't going over there to research churches,'' Rosenbaum said.
Vazquez fabricated four other phony ministries with bogus addresses in Florida and elsewhere to apply for religious licenses for travel to Cuba. He also enlisted his ex-wife in the scheme. Kekalani Vazquez recently pleaded guilty and faces up to six months in prison.
More than 4,500 people paid up to $200 to travel on three of Vazquez's religious licenses between April 2006 and January 2007, the ICE complaint said.
Among the local travel agencies that handled the arrangements was Super Cuba Travel of Hialeah. One of its sales people, Yury Rodriquez, pleaded guilty this summer.
His attorney, Hugo Rodriguez, no relation, said 1,010 people used Super Cuba to travel under Vazquez's religious license. Vazquez charged between $120 and $200 for the use of his permit. All that money went to him, the lawyer said.
''There was no loss to any victim or the government,'' Rodriguez said, estimating that his client made $20,200 in fees for booking the Cuba flights with a carrier. He faces up to six months' imprisonment.
During their illegal trips, Vazquez and Margolis seemed more interested in romance than religion.
Vazquez, who is living under house arrest with his mother in Delray Beach, got married last year to a young Cuban woman who is trying to come to the United States, court records show.
''He became an additional member of our family. To such an extent that on the day he proposed marriage, neither I or my family hesitated in accepting,'' his bride, Dayana Betancourt Mojena, 21, wrote in a letter to the federal judge presiding over the case.
Margolis, a Fort Lauderdale real estate mogul with serious heart problems, made arrangements for his Cuban girlfriend to come to South Florida in September.
''He became enamored with a 27-year-old woman in Cuba,'' said Margolis' lawyer, Rosenbaum. ``She's living with him now.''
Rosenbaum said both men, who had met years ago when Vazquez was a tenant in one of Margolis' South Florida shopping centers, did humanitarian work while they were in Cuba.
Vazquez also looked for business opportunities in a post-Castro Cuba.
************
From my letter to the author:
The article did not mention a question that was raised in the early coverage of their arrest: what is being done about or to the people who consciously and dishonestly used this illegal route to Cuba.
Related to that is the question of whether the red line that was crossed by the defendants was profit making exploitation.
There is at least a suspicion that lots of other religious trips that are organized for Cuban Americans are a thinly veiled cover for family travel. So far OFAC and the US attorney seem to turn a blind eye. This stands in marked contrast to the denial of licenses to well established religious groups that overtly or implicitly criticize the archaic travel restrictions.
There is a rumor in Washington that the Bush Administration recently debated whether to tighten restrictions by enforcing them against the less than religious travelers, or to loosen them to allow more frequent family travel. A possible motive is the potential cost Miami Cuban American Republican hard liners and their party are paying in voter support.
My own interest is that at a time when Cuba is obviously going through a leadership change and serious nationwide discussion of economic policy, it is not only vindictive but stupid to maintain any travel restrictions, but most obviously those imposed by OFAC for partisan political reasons on family and purposeful (non-tourist) travel in 2003-2004.
BY JAY WEAVER jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
10/11/07
Posing as men of the cloth, businessman Victor Vazquez and his wealthy friend David Margolis flew back and forth to Cuba by cleverly exploiting a religious loophole in the long-standing travel ban to the communist island nation.
But on the afternoon of Dec. 13, 2006, a team of U.S. Treasury and Customs agents finally caught up with them upon their return to Miami International Airport.
When asked about the Fort Lauderdale waterfront home that he used as a ''church'' to obtain his religious license, Margolis admitted, ``You have me dead to rights.''
Vazquez, at first defensive, admitted he assisted Margolis in preparing his application and that ''he knew the church did not exist,'' agents said.
Vazquez, 40, of Delray Beach, and Margolis, 76, of Fort Lauderdale, would soon become the nation's first defendants to be charged with illegally obtaining religious travel licenses to get around the 44-year-old travel ban to Cuba.
Vazquez, who had obtained five such licenses illegally, profited by selling his permits to thousands of Cuban Americans seeking to dodge restrictions that became even tighter under the Bush administration.
Last month, a court presentencing report said Vazquez sold the use of his licenses to 6,500 travelers -- estimating the government's ''loss'' and his ''gain'' at $975,000. His attorney, Celeste Higgins, called it a ''reckless estimate.'' She said the government suffered no loss and Vazquez pocketed between $120,000 and $400,000, citing his plea deal.
Vazquez and Margolis, who recently pleaded guilty, will be sentenced Friday and Monday, respectively, in Miami federal court. Vazquez could face up to three years in prison for conspiring to defraud the U.S. government. Margolis, convicted of a lesser charge of filing a false government application, faces up to six months but could get probation.
The year-long investigation -- which also led to the conviction of Vazquez's ex-wife and a Hialeah travel agent -- revealed a profitable scheme that allowed thousands of Cuban Americans to shuttle to and from the island. It has spawned other investigations by a U.S. attorney's task force targeting violators of the trade embargo against Cuba.
In the case of Vazquez and Margolis, it was all done in the name of God -- at least on paper.
***
The case against Vazquez began in January 2006 when investigators with the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control found an extraordinary number of people had traveled on his permits -- and many of them didn't live anywhere near his licensed ``churches.''
Such licenses represent one of the few exemptions that allow travel to Cuba under the U.S. trade embargo. They gained greater value in 2004 after President Bush imposed new rules allowing only one trip to Cuba every three years to visit an immediate family member.
Federal agents discovered that Vazquez obtained religious travel licenses from the Treasury agency ''under false pretenses,'' according to a criminal complaint filed in February by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Agents learned that Vazquez, who was living with his ex-wife Kekalani Vazquez in Winter Garden in Central Florida, had first applied for a religious license in March 2004. The application sought the license under The First Church of Christ, using the Vazquez's residence as its address.
The religious information was false.
Treasury officials estimated that more than 2,000 people traveled to Cuba on Vazquez's religious license through April 2006, when it expired. Vazquez took 45 trips to the island himself, the ICE complaint says.
That's when Margolis entered the picture.
On March 17, 2006, Vazquez turned to his friend to apply for a religious license for travel to Cuba on behalf of Assumption Church of Christ. Margolis signed the application, listed his $1.7 million waterfront home on Middle River Drive as the church's address and noted that it ''has 2,954 members and four directors,'' according to the complaint.
His lawyer, Richard Rosenbaum, said his client made five trips to Cuba with the license, but didn't do any religious work.
''They weren't going over there to research churches,'' Rosenbaum said.
Vazquez fabricated four other phony ministries with bogus addresses in Florida and elsewhere to apply for religious licenses for travel to Cuba. He also enlisted his ex-wife in the scheme. Kekalani Vazquez recently pleaded guilty and faces up to six months in prison.
More than 4,500 people paid up to $200 to travel on three of Vazquez's religious licenses between April 2006 and January 2007, the ICE complaint said.
Among the local travel agencies that handled the arrangements was Super Cuba Travel of Hialeah. One of its sales people, Yury Rodriquez, pleaded guilty this summer.
His attorney, Hugo Rodriguez, no relation, said 1,010 people used Super Cuba to travel under Vazquez's religious license. Vazquez charged between $120 and $200 for the use of his permit. All that money went to him, the lawyer said.
''There was no loss to any victim or the government,'' Rodriguez said, estimating that his client made $20,200 in fees for booking the Cuba flights with a carrier. He faces up to six months' imprisonment.
During their illegal trips, Vazquez and Margolis seemed more interested in romance than religion.
Vazquez, who is living under house arrest with his mother in Delray Beach, got married last year to a young Cuban woman who is trying to come to the United States, court records show.
''He became an additional member of our family. To such an extent that on the day he proposed marriage, neither I or my family hesitated in accepting,'' his bride, Dayana Betancourt Mojena, 21, wrote in a letter to the federal judge presiding over the case.
Margolis, a Fort Lauderdale real estate mogul with serious heart problems, made arrangements for his Cuban girlfriend to come to South Florida in September.
''He became enamored with a 27-year-old woman in Cuba,'' said Margolis' lawyer, Rosenbaum. ``She's living with him now.''
Rosenbaum said both men, who had met years ago when Vazquez was a tenant in one of Margolis' South Florida shopping centers, did humanitarian work while they were in Cuba.
Vazquez also looked for business opportunities in a post-Castro Cuba.
************
From my letter to the author:
The article did not mention a question that was raised in the early coverage of their arrest: what is being done about or to the people who consciously and dishonestly used this illegal route to Cuba.
Related to that is the question of whether the red line that was crossed by the defendants was profit making exploitation.
There is at least a suspicion that lots of other religious trips that are organized for Cuban Americans are a thinly veiled cover for family travel. So far OFAC and the US attorney seem to turn a blind eye. This stands in marked contrast to the denial of licenses to well established religious groups that overtly or implicitly criticize the archaic travel restrictions.
There is a rumor in Washington that the Bush Administration recently debated whether to tighten restrictions by enforcing them against the less than religious travelers, or to loosen them to allow more frequent family travel. A possible motive is the potential cost Miami Cuban American Republican hard liners and their party are paying in voter support.
My own interest is that at a time when Cuba is obviously going through a leadership change and serious nationwide discussion of economic policy, it is not only vindictive but stupid to maintain any travel restrictions, but most obviously those imposed by OFAC for partisan political reasons on family and purposeful (non-tourist) travel in 2003-2004.
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