The first brigades participated in sugar harvests and subsequent contingents have done agricultural and construction work. By 2006, over 9,000 people had traveled with the Brigade, none of them with a U.S. government license to travel. While, in the past, the U.S. had granted “people to people” licenses (used by cultural institutions and non-profit organizations for educational and cultural trips), the Brigade has never requested permission, based on the belief that there is a constitutional right for U.S. citizens to travel where they wish.
Four years ago Venceremos joined with a group called IFCO/Pastors for Peace to organize and call for open and public “travel challenges” to Cuba. With these “challenges,” not only do brigadistas travel unlicensed but also they do so openly, calling as much attention to these act of civil disobedience as possible. They take trips to Cuba and prepare for a legal and political battle upon return, and are always prepared for a political fight all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The political context of unlicensed travel is quite different than it was 38 years ago when the brigade began. There is now majority public support for an end to the travel restrictions, with polls showing that between 67 and 75 percent of the American public, including over 50 percent of the Cuban American community, support an end to the travel restrictions. Many Republican and Democratic politicians business people, and farmers, who have a financial interest in free trade between Cuba and the U.S., no longer support restrictions on travel or the economic blockade. Both houses of the U.S. Congress have voted not to enforce the travel restrictions.
On the other hand, President Bush has unleashed an unprecedented attack on travel to Cuba. Throughout his term, Bush eliminated 90 percent of legal travel to Cuba, doing away with the most common categories of legal travel, which include the people-to-people licenses. The new rules also severely restrict licenses to Cuban Americans for family visits and academic licenses. The Bush administration has gone after Cuba travelers by increasing harassment against them and ordering the Office of Foreign Asset Control (the wing of the Department of Treasury charged with enforcing the travel restrictions) to carry out legal cases against those accused of traveling to Cuba. Most recently, Bush has called for the criminal prosecution of people deemed to be organizers of unlicensed travel to Cuba.
The travel restrictions fall under the Department of Treasury. Why? Tourism is an extremely important aspect of the Cuban economy, and the prevailing assumption is that travelers to Cuba spend money there, aiding the economy of a perceived “enemy” of the U.S.
A more important reason for the blockade is political rather than economic. If people don’t travel to Cuba they can’t know what is going on there and will thus continue to believe only the image of Cuba projected by the U.S. If these travel sanctions are ended, the entire blockade will come crumbling down behind it.
It is not just those who want to end the blockade that sees the importance of the travel to Cuba. Those who support these policies know that travel to Cuba is the blade that will keep cutting at the lies about Cuba and, ultimately, normalize relations with the island nation. In fact, in threatening letters to Brigadistas, OFAC has written that their travel to Cuba “causes serious harm to the sanctions program.” All of the reports issued by Bush’s “special commission on transition” in Cuba over the last three years have included measures to severely restrict travel.
Terrorism against Cuba has also targeted travel. Over the last few decades, travel agencies that coordinated travel to Cuba have been bombed and travel organizers assassinated. The most infamous act of terrorism against Cuba occurred in 1976 when a civilian Cubana plane was blown out of the sky and 73 passengers were killed. In the early 1990s, a string of bombs went off in Havana hotels and an Italian tourist was killed. In fact, the last piece of evidence presented to the U.S. by Cuban security exposed a plot to bomb American planes going from the United States to Cuba. But whom did the US government pursue? Not the terrorists planning the bombing. Instead they arrested and imprisoned the Cuban Five, a group of Cuban men who were actually investigating these crimes.
The American people cannot allow the U.S. government to instill fear into people’s hearts and stop us from exercising our right to travel to Cuba. Our right to travel is our right to know, our right to associate of our own free will, and our right to freedom of speech. Cuba and the Cuban people are not our enemy. If we are not allowed to go to Cuba, how can we know the truth?
Over 600 people have participated in travel challenges over the past three years. These are people from Venceremos Brigade, IFCO/Pastors for Peace Caravans, the US Cuba Labor Exchange, the African Awareness Association, and The Seattle Women’s Organization. Of those 600, more than 300 have received letters from OFAC, beginning a judicial process in an administrative court. Of these, nine people have received penalty notices – threatening fines of almost $7,000. They are currently awaiting hearings.
It is for these reasons that anyone concerned with ending the blockade, expressing solidarity with Cuba, and defending our constitutional rights should join the next travel challenge, scheduled for July 2007. It is necessary to build larger and larger contingents of travel challengers. Without this, the U.S. government will have been successful in its attempts to intimidate and break our friendship with Cuba.
Join the Venceremos Brigade in Cuba this summer! For more information please go to: www.venceremosbrigade.com or www.yclusa.org
Bonnie Massey is one of the lead volunteer coordinators of the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba, and co-chaired the 2006 US Delegation to the World Festival of Youth and Students. By day, she works in New York City schools.
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Dynamic Magazine
