National Summit and Elections Cuba Survey
October 17, 2006

First, we sincerely hope that over the next three weeks you are able to attend campaign events and call campaign offices in your districts/states to ask the Cuba policy questions we sent you two weeks ago for the survey in which LAWG is participating. If it has slipped your mind or been deleted from your e-mail inbox, you may access that alert and the survey information at: http://www.lawg.org/countries/cuba/alert_10-5-06.htm

Second, if you haven’t already heard this news, a week ago the Bush Administration created a task force of federal agencies to target embargo offenders more aggressively -- whether they violate the travel ban, trade restrictions or limits on currency remittances to relatives on the island. As you can see from the articles at the end of this message, the Miami Herald and the Washington Post both included mention of the possible electoral motive of a hard-line statement on prosecuting violators of the embargo at this particular moment. It is very timely to get the Cuba policy questions asked of candidates (incumbents and challengers) in the mid-term elections.

Third, we encourage you to attend the 2006 National Summit on Cuba. It will be held this year at Rutgers University School of Law – Newark, NJ, sponsored in conjunction with the World Policy Institute at The New School. We are hoping that our photo exhibit, "Love, Loss, and Longing: The Impact of U.S. Travel Policy on Cuban-American Families" will be shown at the Summit. This may be your chance to see it!!

Saturday, October 28, 2006
Center for Law and Justice
123 Washington Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102

Recent developments in Cuba have raised new questions about the future of the island, U.S. policy and the role of the Cuban American community. At the event, some of the most pressing issues will be debated and discussed in an attempt to find common ground. For more information and registration details, see: http://law.newark.rutgers.edu/CubaSummitInvite06.pdf (pdf)

Keep those survey responses coming! Click here to send your response.

Miami Herald
Posted on Wed, Oct. 11, 2006
TRADE EMBARGO
New task force to target Cuba ban offenders

South Florida's top federal law enforcement official unveiled a task force to crack down on violators of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

BY JAY WEAVER

Although the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba is more than four decades old, criminal prosecutions of violators have been rare -- especially in South Florida.

But if U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta has his way, that's about to change.

Acosta announced on Tuesday the creation of a task force of federal agencies to target embargo offenders more aggressively -- whether they violate travel bans, business restrictions or limits on currency remittances to relatives on the island.

''The purpose of these sanctions is to isolate the Castro regime economically and to deprive the Castro regime of the U.S. dollars it so desperately seeks,'' Acosta said at a news conference.

When asked why the task force was being created now, Acosta dismissed any suggestion that it was driven by next month's U.S. elections or the recent disclosure about Cuban leader Fidel Castro's health crisis.

He reiterated again and again that ''it's an appropriate time'' without discussing any specific reason -- even noting that there had not been any sudden ''upsurge'' in embargo violations.

Acosta -- flanked by nine law enforcement officials from the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Treasury Department and other agencies -- said the group was being set up ``with the aim of hastening the transition to democracy in Cuba.''

He said there would be serious consequences for those who don't follow the law -- ''more than a slap on the wrist'' -- including up to 10 years in prison and heavy fines for the worst offenses.

The Treasury Department annually imposes hundreds of fines against Americans and U.S. corporations, mostly for violating the embargo's business and travel restrictions, said agency spokeswoman Molly Millerwise. A ''handful'' of those cases are referred to federal law enforcement agencies for criminal investigations, she said.

Indeed, criminal prosecutions have been rare. Here are a few:

• In 2004, a federal judge dismissed charges against the organizers of a sailboat race from Key West to Cuba. They had been charged with two counts of providing unlicensed travel services to Cuba. Crews competing in the Key West Sailing Club Conch Republic Cup departed in May 2003 for Havana and Cuban shore communities after receiving prerace warnings that they would be violating U.S. licensing regulations.
• In the 1990s, a family-owned Philadelphia-area business, Bro-Tech Corp., sold some of its product, a water-purification material called Purolite, to Cuba. In 2000, two brothers and their company were charged in a 77-count indictment with violating the trade embargo. One brother, Bro-Tech's president, ultimately was acquitted. The other brother, a vice president, and the company itself pleaded guilty and paid fines.
• In 1989, federal agents seized about 220 Cuban paintings owned by Miami art collector Ramon Cernuda from his Brickell Avenue condo, allegedly because their acquisition violated the trade embargo. But a judge ruled the First Amendment protected Cuban art in the marketplace.

U.S. officials defend the embargo, which allows the sale of some U.S. food and medicine to Cuba, saying unfettered trade and travel to the island would prop up the communist government. They say Cuba's imprisonment of dissidents and restrictions on economic and political freedoms justify the policy, aimed at pushing Castro and his associates out of power.

Acosta, appointed as U.S. attorney by President Bush, said it was critical to enforce the U.S. embargo -- despite criticism that it has not loosened Castro's grip on the communist nation and that it has only harmed the lives of everyday Cubans.

Washington Post

WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A04

Violators of Sanctions On Cuba Are Targeted

The federal government announced the formation of a law enforcement task force that will aggressively pursue violators of the U.S. trade and travel sanctions that have been in effect against Cuba for more than four decades.

Miami-based U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said the task force will focus on prosecuting violators of laws governing such things as commercial business with Cuba, currency reporting requirements, money laundering and travel to the island.

The task force's formation comes about a month before U.S. elections in which Cuban American voters in South Florida -- most of them fervently anti-Castro -- constitute an important Republican constituency. It also comes as Cuba faces political uncertainty because of the illness of President Fidel Castro, who in July temporarily ceded power to his brother, Raul.

Acosta, however, would say only that this is "an appropriate time" to announce the task force and to put people on notice that "we intend to enforce these laws aggressively."