2011

"We write to express our deep concern for the rights of Colombia's Afro descendents and indigenous populations, and to affirm that the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) should not be considered as drafted. We believe that the United States and the Colombian Government should take the immediate steps to strenghthen Afro-Colombians' territorial rights and prevent further displacement of Afro-Colombians." Read the full letter here (PDF).

List of Members who signed letter:

• Hank Johnson (D-GA-4)
• John Conyers (D-MI-14)
• Gwen Moore (D-WI-4)
• Bobby Rush (D-IL-1)
• Barbara Lee (D-CA-9)
• Donals Payne (D-NJ-10)
• Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-7)
• Michael Michaud (D-ME-2)
• Keith Ellison (D-MN-5)
• Maurice Hinchey (D-NY-22)
• Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL-2)
• Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX-18)
• Lynn Woolsey (D-CA-6)
• James McGovern (D-MA-3)
• Bob Filner (D-CA-51)
• Dennis Kucinish (D-OH-10)
• Maxine Waters (D-CA-35)
• Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-9)
• Marcy Kaptur (D-OH-9)
• Bennie Thompson (D-MS-2)
• Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1)
• Emanuel Cleaver (DD-MO-5)
• Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC-At large)
• Danny Davis (D-IL-7)

The steps up to the conference room were plastered with faces. Faces of the missing fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, mothers and wives. They looked out at us, some faded, torn photographs, others as real as if they could be ready to pick up their child, eat dinner with their family, head off to work, today.  Gathered in this hotel conference room in Bogotá were the women and men who had lost a part of themselves when their loved one was taken away in “the perfect crime”: forced disappearance.

As of April 21, 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control released new travel guidelines for travel to Cuba that mirror the intentions of President Obama’s directive aimed at liberalizing the regulations. Under these guidelines, many groups that have been previously denied access to Cuba can now travel under either general or specific licenses.

To travel to Cuba, you must be eligible under regulations published by the U.S. Treasury Department. There are two kinds of licenses: a General License, which requires no permission or advance notification to U.S. officials; and a Specific License, an actual piece of paper for which one needs to apply to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) which oversees the travel restrictions within the U.S. Treasury Department.

To learn how YOU can travel to Cuba, we invite you to take a look at the on-line brochures that LAWGEF has compiled. These brochures are intended to be a guide. If you have further questions regarding travel to Cuba, you should consult the full OFAC guidelines here, or consult with a licensed travel service provider or an attorney. Let the travel begin! 

 *Please feel free to print these documents as we will not be distributing them via regular mail* 

• Organizations Sponsoring People-to-People Travel  (Just Updated!)
• Educational Travel
• Religious Travel
• People-to-People Travel
• Family Travel
• List of Licensed Travel Service Providers 
• List of Licensed Charter Service Providers 
• Schedule of 2013 Planned Trips to Cuba (Just Updated!)
  * This list is not comprehensive, rather a compliation of some organizations that are organizing group trips to Cuba.
• Become an Advocate for Policy Change
• Share YOUR Travel Story
  

 Background:

The United States maintains travel restrictions on no other country in the world except Cuba. Restrictions on travel to Cuba have existed since 1961, except under President Jimmy Carter beginning in 1977. Restrictions were re-imposed in 1982 during the Reagan Administration, codified (written into law) under the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, and were tightened further by the Bush Administration in 2004. Since being codified, only Congress can end the travel ban (and the embargo) through legislative action (passing a law). The President has limited powers to loosen—or tighten—regulations that govern 12 categories of travel.

The restrictions apply to all citizens and residents of the United States—no matter whether you travel to Cuba through a third country, or even if you hold citizenship from another country. Up to 2009, travel was severely limited for all Americans until President Obama eased restrictions for Cuban Americans visiting family. On January 14, 2011, President Obama directed that travel regulations be eased for certain categories of citizens, and many more people are now able to travel to Cuba without breaking the law (a law which we consider to be a violation of our fundamental rights as citizens of the United States). 

Yesterday, June 23, 2011, the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and more than 400 other organizations, academics, and individuals from both the United States and Colombia, sent a letter to the U.S. Congress asking representatives to vote no on the pending U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Human rights violations in Colombia–abuses against labor activists, Afro-Colombians, human rights activists and others–continue to take place at alarmingly high levels. In this climate, it would be a mistake to approve the FTA.

Today the House Appropriations Committee voted in favor of an amendment, put forth by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida (R-FL 21st), to the FY 2012 Financial Services Appropriations bill. This amendment, which passed by voice vote, rescinds changes that President Obama made in 2009 to Cuban-American family travel and remittances regulations. If this amendment were to become law, Cuban Americans would only be permitted to visit their families in Cuba once every three years, with a limited definition of what constitutes family, and with no humanitarian exceptions. Cuban Americans would also be limited in what they could send in remittances to Cuba. We would be back to Bush Administration-era regulations on family travel. This is totally unacceptable.

Calling for justice for their murdered or disappeared loved ones and peace for the nation, family members representing just a fraction of the 40,000 individuals who have lost their lives since President Calderon initiated his militarized crackdown against organized crime, crisscrossed Mexico in a week-long, 1,550 mile Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity. The caravan arrived at its final destination on Friday, June 9th, in Ciudad Juarez–a city dubbed the epicentro del dolor (epicenter of pain) by caravan leader Javier Sicilia, a Mexican writer and poet whose own son 24-year old son was brutally murdered earlier this year. 

We fought for "travel for all" and we got "travel for some." Now we face the possibility of "travel for none. "

The House Appropriations Committee is meeting first thing tomorrow morning, and Cuba may very well come up. Opponents of exchange with Cuba will likely offer amendments to the financial services appropriations bill that will reverse the changes the President has made during his term in office – which has allowed travel by Cuban-American families, students and professors, religious groups, academics, musicians. We can't let this happen.

On Tuesday, June 21st, Cuban contemporary artist Sandra Ramos spoke about her work at the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art. Her art represents deeply personal accounts of the connection between herself, society and Cuba. Sandra breaks through censorship issues to present an honest view of Cuba by discussing issues such as migration, political education and cultural contradictions.  The paintings and exhibits that she creates make audiences take an introspective look at the effects of various influences in their lives and how those aspects affect them.

“PLEASE SAVE US. We as in my fellow inmates find ourselves in the Torrance County Detention Facility and we are scared for our lives.”

Fearful of being kidnapped or murdered if they were deported to Mexican states that border Texas and New Mexico, individuals held on immigration charges in New Mexico sent this plea to No More Deaths, a humanitarian aid organization that works to protect migrants in the Arizona/Sonora border area.