S.D. woman to pay fine for Cuba trip

[Mika]

S.D. woman to pay fine for Cuba trip
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20030726-9999_1m26slote.html

A San Diego woman's three-year battle to overturn a $10,000 fine for violating the U.S. travel ban to Cuba might be ending soon.
Joan Slote, 75, said she has agreed to pay a fine of $1,907.50.
Slote, who traveled to Cuba to participate in a bicycle tour in early 2000, said it became clear the U.S. government wouldn't reduce the fine any lower or grant her a formal hearing.

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She failed to appeal her case within the prescribed time because she was away when the Treasury Department sent the first notices to her home. Part of that time she was caring for her dying son in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She was fined $7,600 for spending a total of $38 on souvenirs and airport tax in Cuba. Her fine grew to nearly $10,000 while she tried to appeal it.

Tens of thousands of Americans visit Cuba each year without U.S. permission via Mexico or Canada. A growing number have been found and targeted for fines in recent years, according to Treasury Department statistics.

Keep in mind that at the same time the US government is cracking down on Americans who travel to Cuba (even via 3rd countries), that Cuban-Americans and Cuban immigrants who "fled' Cuba are the only group in America allowed to travel to Cuba without a special OFAC license. They are a 'special class' of US citizen/resident.

[raifield]

1. What's the problem with Cuba anyway?

Can someone tell me why Cuba is still the 'enemy' 40 or so years after the silos were sighted? It just makes no sense at all to me.

[mike_c]

2. ultimately, the travel ban/embargo has little or nothing to do...

...with the cuban missile crises. It's sour grapes about Castro and Che winning, and removing our pet strongman Batista frompower, nationalizing U.S. business and recreation resources in Cuba, etc. And of course, the spector of a communist government not only in the western hemishere but 90 miles from the U.S. border continues to haunt the U.S. government. It's a damned shame-- rather than take an opportunity to work with and shape the directions of the revolutionary Cuban government during the last half century, we've chosen isolation and embargo, which the Cuban people have weathered stoically. IMO, Cuba is one of the greatest failures in U.S. foreign policy during the 20th century.

[Mika]

7. Because the Dems pander to the "exile" minority

Here's an example,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=35808&mesg_id=35808&page=#35843

[SharonAnn]

16. Because there's a very powerful right-wing Cuban group in FL

that is comprised of all the Batista followers, monied landowners, olicopolists, etc. who fled Cuba when Castro ousted Batista. Prior to that, Cuba was a very corrupt country run by Batista cronies and the Mafia.

These R-W Cubans want Castro's government to fall and to get the right to go back to Cuba and get back all of their money and property and make things like they were in the "good old days". Therefore they insist that the embargo be maintained and that travel be restricted, etc. They are a very powerful Right-Wing voting bloc so some politicians cater to them.

Talk about people who need to "get over it".

[Melsky]

3. This is so sad

Why can we go to China but not Cuba?

Both countries have human rights problems.

I have heard about large US companies that do business with enemy states and are fined these outrageously small amounts. And now some tourist goes to cuba and they want 10 grand?

It's times like these I don't understand how this country got to be so messed up.

[ozone_man]

14. Precisely, we are applying a double standard here.

Travel should not be restricted in either case. Well, China has the bomb, over a billion people and makes a large part of what we consume in U.S. They are rising as the new economic power, and the U.S. is forced to go along for the ride or crash and burn in the looming depression.

Nice art BTW, I took a picture of a Saguaro just like that this spring against a setting sun, my 11 year old told me to take. "Dad, that's the classic Saguaro, you should take a picture of that".

[Judi Lynn]

4. It's great to learn she didn't have to pay the original penalty

yet it's a crime she was ever charged at all.

You make such an important point. Why should some people who claim they had to leave, some of them claiming they were wildly oppressed, be given every opportunity to go back to visit relatives, or go to Cuba on vacation, as did Elian Gonzalez's great uncle Lazaro, and native born American citizens be BANNED from traveling there?

You'd absolutely think people who insist they had to flee, would stay FLED, and not feel the urge to keep showing up there, time after time, with our blessings, while we remain locked out.

As has been pointed out, every reason for the embargo and travel ban, ennacted by Dwight Eisenhower, has long since disappeared. Americans are certainly free to visit China and Viet Nam, and do, frequently.

(Mika, did you read that "exile" "godfather" Jorge Mas Canosa was actually involved in setting up a business deal in China? Heard about this a couple of years ago. Believe it was through his "Tower and Church" company, involving telecommunications, or something. So much for the staunch anti-Communist position, when there was money to be made!)

Our gov't fears what will happen when we all are finally allowed to see Cuba for ourselves, and come to our own understanding about the validity of our 40+ years of being locked out of that country, and treating those citizens like hated enemies, by virtue of a vicious embargo, censured annually by all but one country + us, in the United Nations.

[Mika]

6. Mastec

The Mas Canosa family businesses have NO problem setting up shop in communist China's Red Army prison factories. Nor any problem setting up the Taliban government's fiber optic communication system.

As accused, the Canosa operations do cozy up to communists, and any totalitarian government, if there's profit in it.

They (and the ex Cuban oligarchs) just want Cuba for themselves again.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Oh, noooooo! Look at this spinning!

Just found the Mas explanation for doing business in China:

(snip) 2/18/94 The family engineering business owned by Jorge Mas Canosa has discussed investing nearly $ 200 million in hydroelectric power plant construction projects and purchasing a majority stake in Chengdu Machinery. Canosa is chairman of the company, Church and Tower Inc. and president of the Cuban American National Foundation, an anti-Castro organization. Church and Tower would have partners in companies controlled by the municipal government of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, according to Jorge Mas Canosa Jr. But on Friday, a spokesman for the Mas family said nothing is final. Mas Jr., Church and Tower's president, acknowledged that the family would be in for political criticism. But he defended the discussions, saying the Chinese and Cuban governments are ''totally different.'' He cited economic freedom and increasing political democracy in China, but said Cuba languishes as a totalitarian state. Mas Jr. said he, not his father who opposes trade with Cuba, made the decision to discuss investing in China. (AP 2/18/94) (snip/...)

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0146b.htm

[joshcryer]

5. Surreal... "fined 7,600 for spending a total of $38"

That's just... fucked up.

[Mika]

8. Not as f*cked up as

Not as f*cked up as the hardships put upon the Cuban people by the US Helms-Burton law (the trade sanctions).

The H-B law prevents businesses that do biz in Cuba from doing biz in the USA.

For example, Cuba has hundreds of Swiss made blood dialysis machines. Along comes the Helms-Burton law, which prevents the manufacturer of the dialysis machines from selling repair parts or replacement filters, motors etc to Cuba IF they want to retain the US market.

This is one example of how the US puts hardships upon the Cuban people. Its just not the way to make friends of the Cuban people.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Molly Ivins, a few choice words on Cuba policy

Just saw it for the first time in a search. Some snippets:

(snip) I know that the Cuban American community contains a substantial range of political opinion, but its loudest voice has always been that of revanchist nutters like the late Jorge Mas Canosa. These are the splendid advocates of democracy who threaten to kill those who disagree with them. Castro jails people who disagree with him. What's the difference?

Nor is the boy being sent back to a dreary island prison.

Actually, Cuba has the best educational system and the best health care in Latin America. Its illiteracy and infant mortality rates are lower than those found in many places in the United States. (snip)

(snip) Castro has the same effect on people in our State Department that the full moon has on wolves: He causes them to howl and foam at the mouth. Ditto our leftover Cold War spook establishment.

It is long past high time that this country changed its policy toward Cuba. (snip/...)

http://www.progressive.org/iv0200.htm

(A lightweight appraisal, of course. I'm sure she's learned a lot more about Cuba since writing this piece.)

[Judi Lynn]

11. Speaking of the Miami Cuban "godfather" Mas's company, Mastec

Have you seen the story on what they did to a company in Madrid, and what the angry, victemized employees did in return?

(snip) Sacked Tech Workers Make A Stand - And Win

By T.J. Snaith

Imagine you are forced to resign and then informed that you will not receive the wages you have been owed for months. You find yourself jobless and penniless. Soon you realise that everybody else in your company is in the same position. In this situation, most workers, once their initial anger had subsided, would cut their losses, say farewell to their colleagues and set about finding a new job. But if you know that your company's demise was unnecessary and your indignation refuses to go away, what course of action remains?

All employees at Sintel, a Spanish telecommunications firm, faced this very situation last year. Five years ago, the firm was sold by its owner Telefonica (the Spanish equivalent of British Telecom) to Mastec, a US cable installation firm. Last December, after months of non-payment of wages, everybody in the firm was laid off. There was no financial compensation and no new jobs to go to. Most blamed mismanagement and Mastec's aggressive policy of asset stripping. They felt that they had good grounds to refuse their forced resignations and had a reasonable claim to around $10million in unpaid wages. Now, in most cases, these demands would work their way through the courts, perhaps supported by a lobby group and a few noisy demonstrations: Sintel's ex-employees chose an altogether more direct and radical approach.


Paseo de la Castellana is the main artery road through the centre of Madrid, the Spanish capital. The boulevard passes between government ministries, shops and corporate headquarters. Its twelve busy lanes are divided by a tree-lined strip of land, about half a mile long. One morning last January, the finance minister had a major shock when he turned up for work at the ministry's premises - a shanty town had appeared overnight in the land that occupied the middle of the boulevard. Over one thousand disgruntled Sintel employees had installed themselves in a ramshackle collection of tents and blue tarpaulin shelters. The smell of breakfast and wood-burning stoves mingled with traffic fumes as some of the unemployed telecom workers queued up to use improvised showers and washing facilities.


We're not going anywhere until our demands are met, even if it takes years", insisted Joaquin Dominguez, a former fibre optic network manager. And so the squatters, who possessed technical expertise and practical know-how far beyond that of most shanty town dwellers, made their occupation more permanent by using the boulevard's underground road-sensing equipment and overhead cables as a pirated electricity supply; they dug down to the sewers and used them to dispose of their own waste water; their tents became more permanent shacks as the months went by, fitted out with cannibalised television and computer equipment, microwave ovens and even automatic washing machines. By late spring, an improvised and self-sufficient community of up to 1,800 people, complete with barbershops, a meeting hall, library, museum and three small swimming pools had become a seemingly permanent feature on one of Europe's most auspicious streets. (snip/...)

http://www.i-resign.com/uk/workinglife/viewarticle_102.asp
The main road with camp in the background







Makeshift toilet erected above drain

[pfitz59]

13. "Bladerunner" future......

Cyber-squatters and techno-wizards. Should give the outsourced techies on this board something to ponder.

[jfippse]

12. American Human Shields in Iraq

What might happen to those many Americans who went to Iraq to serve as human shields before and during the Bush war on Iraq?

[Judi Lynn]

15. Here's one for the books, something TOTALLY unique

They couldn't catch these guys for spending money in Cuba, so they got them for GIVING something to someone in Cuba! Wonders never cease!

(snip) The couple, Kip, 73 and Patrick, 58 Taylor of Traverse City, MI, sailed to Cuba on a boating trip in April 1996. Knowing that U.S. law prohibited spending money in Cuba, they stocked their sailboat with enough provisions to last for the duration of their three-month trip. While sailing back to Florida from Cuba, their boat was caught in a storm and struck by lightning that destroyed the mast.

The Cuban Coast Guard rescued them in international waters, and the boat was towed back to port. However, when they applied to the Treasury Department for permission to repair it, they were told to abandon the boat-and their two dogs-in Cuba and fly back to the U.S. After weeks of attempting to negotiate, unwilling to leave their dogs and dismayed by a decision that would leave in Cuba assets worth more than the costs of repairs, the Taylors had the boat fixed. Many of the repairs were done by the Taylors themselves with the help of visiting sailors who donated parts.

After their return, the Taylors responded openly to every question asked by government officers about their trip. The Taylors were never told about their Fifth Amendment privilege to stay silent, their right to counsel or that any statements or evidence produced by them could be used against them in court.

Remarkably, after disclosing that they gave band-aid to a local cook who had burned his finger in an accident, The Taylors were charged with provision of “nursing services to a Cuban national”-a transaction forbidden by the embargo. For the next four and a half years, the Taylors-who are on a fixed income-requested a reconsideration of the penalty or a hearing, without success. In April, 2001, Patrick Taylors’ tax refund, needed to pay for urgent medical expenses, was frozen and applied to the Taylors’ debt.
(snip/...)

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