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Below is a summary of actions announced, in
Miami, this week Monday, with a link to the official announcement
of increased DOT efforts to harass and threaten US tourists and visitors to
Cuba,
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js1160.htm
Here are a few most notable of its claims:
1) 275 people about to board U.S. charter flights to Cuba were barred (generally at the last minute) by agents who decided they really were not entitled to go.
2) OFAC is openly considering removing or limiting
the longstanding $100 importation allowance of Cuban goods for licensed
travelers, including rum and cigars.
3) Re the unprecedented start of administrative
prosecutions and hearing process: for those charged with violations (in which
OFAC has relied on its own regulations which purport to allow it to presume
guilt prior to a hearing, and mandate that virtually all of the hearings will
only be held in the Washington, D.C. area), it states that a significant
majority have agreed to make settlement payments rather than proceed with
their ostensible hearing rights.
4) OFAC's announcement further indicates its
rather blatant presumption of guilt by repeatedly referring to the people who
have requested hearings as being "violators," as in its description on the
role of its judges: "Administrative Law Judges - OFAC now has 3 ALJs in place
to hear civil penalty cases and the ALJs have begun issuing orders of hearing
to violators. . . . One hundred eleven violators have been given
acknowledgments of timely hearing requests along with advisories that orders
instituting proceedings before the ALJs will be forthcoming in short order
absent settlement of the case."
5) OFAC boasts that it has suspended the licenses
of two religious and humanitarian groups, and is investigating whether they
exceeded the parameters of their licenses, and that it has four other groups
for identified for possible suspension.
6) Even more ominously, OFAC boasts of working
with the U.S. Federal Prosecutor's office in South Florida to pursue criminal
prosecutions: "3 cases have been referred for criminal investigation by OFAC
Enforcement directly to federal law enforcement agencies . . . OFAC is
working with special agents and Assistant U.S. Attorneys on a number of
potential criminal cases. . . . The U.S. Attorney [for the Southern Dist. of
Florida] voiced the support of his Office. It was agreed that working groups
from participant agencies will meet quarterly, beginning in March 2004, to
review promising criminal cases."
--Art Heitzer, chair, NLG Cuba Subcommittee,
www.nlg.org/cuba
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