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Vol. 73/No. 12      March 30, 2009

 
U.S. Treasury Dep’t fines company
over business with Cuba
 
BY MAGGIE TROWE  
MIAMI—The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a division of the U.S. Treasury Department, has levied a $20,950 fine against Lactalis USA, a U.S. branch of the French food and dairy giant Lactalis. The company makes Sorrento, President, and other milk and cheese products.

OFAC, which enforces the U.S. embargo against Cuba, also issued a new license March 11 that eased restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to Cuba to visit family members.

Lactalis was fined for “making electronic financial transactions in which Cuba or a Cuban citizen had an interest” between February 2004 and March 2007.

The Cuban daily Granma reported that the fine is the first imposed by the Treasury Department on a company for ties to Cuba since President Barack Obama took power. "It reaffirms the policy of blockading the island,” the paper said.

In 2004 President George Bush's administration tightened restrictions on Cuban Americans traveling to Cuba, limiting them to once every three years. The new OFAC license officially overturned that restriction and permits Cuban Americans to travel to the island once a year. If they want to travel again that year, they must apply for “specific licenses,” which will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. The new guidelines also broaden the definition of who qualifies as family and can be visited. The per diem spending cap has been raised to $179, in comparison to the $50 allowed before.

According to the White House, the new OFAC guidelines are pursuant to the 2009 budget bill passed by Congress March 10. This legislation left the status of restrictions on travel to Cuba unclear by removing funding to enforce them without lifting the restrictions or the criminal penalties for breaking them. The new guidelines dispelled any illusions that unlimited travel would be permitted.

The budget bill also provides for the creation of a license for representatives of medical and agricultural companies to travel to the island.

The limited measures of the bill and the OFAC license fell short even of what Obama had promised during his campaign for president. In August 2007 Obama wrote an op-ed column published in the Miami Herald saying that if elected president he would grant Cuban Americans "unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island." Asserting that Cuba is a repressive country, Obama wrote that this course would also be “our best tool for helping to foster the beginnings of grass-roots democracy on the island.”

A March 15 editorial in the Miami Herald, a paper which for many years has been known as a powerful voice in favor of the embargo, took Obama to task, saying he “failed to follow through on the commitments he made.” Recent polls have shown that a majority of Cuban Americans now support an end to the embargo and normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba.

“This is incomplete,” Armando García, owner of Marazul charters, told the Herald. Marazul operates flights to Cuba. Silvia Wilhelm, executive director of the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights, called the bill and OFAC guidelines a step in the right direction but added, "This is not the presidential executive order removing all restrictions."

Andrés Gómez, a leader of Alianza Martiana, a coalition of groups against the embargo, said, “Every person in the United States should be able to travel to Cuba when they want and for whatever reason, as is their constitutional right.” Alianza Martiana is planning an event against the embargo later this month.

Ellen Brickley, Socialist Workers candidate for mayor of Miami, condemned the attack on Lactalis and called for an immediate, unconditional end to the embargo and all travel restrictions. Brickley told the Militant, “As capitalism in its deepening crisis throws millions here and around the world out of jobs and hurtles toward war, Cuba’s example of a revolutionary society based on human solidarity and internationalism is more important than ever. My campaign demands an end to all restrictions on travel and trade to Cuba.”
 
 
Related articles:
Cuban 5 High Court appeal gains international support
Defender of travel to Cuba fights gov't probe
Cuban women's leader speaks at N.Y. campus
Cuban government replaces 10 high officials
Cuba’s revolutionary leadership  
 
 
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