Editorial

Milwaukee-Cuba Connection

 From the Journal Sentinel, July 1, 2002

The U.S. attempt to isolate Fidel Castro's Cuba has resulted in some exceedingly strange episodes over the past four decades. And as a Milwaukee case shows, it also has produced actions that can only be described as petty and capricious.

In January 1999, six members of the Central United Methodist Church of Milwaukee defied the U.S. government's ban on travel to Cuba by journeying there to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of their sister church in Havana. Now, after a correspondence with Washington, two of the six have been threatened with fines of $7,500 each and a third with a $5,000 penalty.

No action has been threatened against the other three, even though all six traveled together, and a spokesman for the Milwaukee group says the government has supplied no explanation for this discrepancy.

The political and economic embargo is not absolute; travel licenses are issued to U.S. journalists, academics and a few others. One can make a respectable case that the Milwaukeeans could and should have traveled to Cuba lawfully. If they had, they would not be in hot water now.

But the embargo and the government's attempts to enforce it are anything but respectable. When the U.S. government threatens fines or other legal actions against American citizens engaged in nothing more subversive than helping a Cuban church celebrate its 100th anniversary, it makes itself look merely vindictive.

As a practical matter, the government may never take vigorous action to collect the fines it has imposed, but the threat itself is a punishment and a source of uncertainty and fear. It ought to be withdrawn.

One more thing: The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is pursuing the government's case against the Milwaukeeans, is charged with administering and enforcing U.S. economic and trade sanctions against targeted foreign countries, terrorists and others. That means it's part of the team trying to track Osama bin Laden's money trail and dry up his sources of support. If the campaign against the three Milwaukeeans is weakening the war against terrorism, even by an iota, that would add just another dimension to its absurdity.
(http://www.jsonline.com/news/Metro/may02/44868.asp)

Article

Church members who visited Cuba without permit face fines

By LEITA WALKER of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: May 20, 2002

As President George Bush vowed Monday not to ease a trade and travel ban on Cuba, members of Central United Methodist Church reaffirmed their 1999 decision to travel to that country without a license.

Three of the six church members who traveled to Cuba in January 1999 have received notice from the Office of Foreign Assets Control - a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department- that they might be fined up to $7,500 each for traveling to that country without a permit. No formal hearings have been held in the case.
Sandra Edhlund, a church member and an attorney, said the group would fight the fines on the following grounds:

- Government restrictions on religious organizations' travel to Cuba violate the U.S. Constitution. 
- The harassment is racially motivated. Of the six people who went to Cuba, two were African-American. Both face possible fines. 
- The government should not be able to inhibit the travel of American citizens. 

Members of the church at 639 N. 25th St. visited their sister church in Havana for its centennial celebration. They chose not to apply for a license because a 1996 application was rejected.

Edhlund said Monday that the 1996 application was denied because members refused to specify why they wanted to go to Cuba.

"It wasn't their business why we were going, and it would contaminate the church to restrict our reasons to what would get us a license," she said.

Edhlund said church members went to Cuba with the intention of helping the Havana church.

"And my understanding of living in this country is, we get to do that," she said.

In his speech Monday, Bush said easing travel and trade restrictions on Fidel Castro's Cuba "will merely prop up this dictator, enrich his cronies and enhance the totalitarian regime."

"It will not help the Cuban people," he said.

Theron Mills, who went to Cuba, said she was disappointed with Bush's speech.

Mills, who faces at least $5,000 in fines for her 1999 visit to Cuba, said she did not think it was the United States' job to dictate to other governments.

Church members Dollora Greene-Evans and Bill Ferguson Jr., both of whom are African-American, face fines of $7,500 each. The two passed up an earlier settlement of $1,000 each.

Edhlund said next for the church members was to learn whether the government intended to follow through on what she called its threats.

"They could be empty, they could not be empty," she said.
But, she said, she was sure church members would return to Cuba.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 21, 2002.