Correa Condemns U.S. Blockade of Cuba at Inter-Parliamentary Meeting

[Judi Lynn]

11. The current application of this embargo has been protested globally

concerning its actual illegality internationally.

An older article which explains some of the aspects of this filthy bill:

Helms-Burton Act (Libertad): Violation of
International Law & International Agreements

Introduction

For almost forty years, Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States. In fact, during this period of time, the U.S. has placed an embargo on Cuba, hoping to bring down the government of Fidel Castro and to restore the backyard entertainment center Cuba used to be prior to its revolution.1However, despite a total embargo, the government of Fidel Castro has survived every American effort, and is well and alive thumbing its nose at the United States.

In 1996, the Helms-Burton Act (HBA) was swiftly passed and signed by President Clinton into law. Its aim, in keeping with the Cuban-American relationship, purports to be the precipitation of democratic reforms, i.e., the introduction of capitalism and the free market economy in Cuba.

The HBA empowers U.S. citizens to bring suit against foreign nationals or entities whose business is to "traffic" U.S. property seized by the Cuban government subsequent to the Cuban Revolution. Further, it empowers the United States government to deny entry to foreign nationals and their families who have been found guilty of violating the Act, and have been found "trafficking" in seized U.S. property.

This paper attempts to comment on the illegality of the HBA by looking at the principles of Public International Law, and international agreements currently in effect. It will attempt to first familiarize the reader with the HBA and then to show that it does not have a legally accepted basis upon which to apply its restrictive mandates. The HBA is nothing but an attempt to restrict not only acts of domestic nationals and entities in dealing with other international player, but also, attempts to restrict acts of foreign nationals in foreign lands in violation of accepted public international law principles.

More:
http://www.taradji.com/hba96.html

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Had you been here years ago, you would have already known about the Canadian man, who works for a Canadian company, headquartered in Canada. It was discussed at length, over a long period of time as DU'ers followed this man's travails at the hand of the U.S.

Thursday, 4 April, 2002, 09:45 GMT 10:45 UK
Canadian convicted of trading with Cuba

By the BBC's Mike Fox in Montreal
line


A US court has convicted a Canadian national of breaking the 40-year old American trade embargo against Cuba, in one of the first cases of its kind.

The man, James Sabzali, and two American company executives were found guilty of trading with an enemy of the United States by selling water purification chemicals to Cuba.

Prosecutors said the three men conspired to use foreign subsidiaries to channel American products to Cuba.

Mr Sabzali faces a maximum sentence of more than 200 years in jail although prosecutors have recommended less than five. He is to be sentenced on 28 June.

Criticism from Canada

The Canadian government has criticised the United States over the charges filed against Mr Sabzali, saying it was trying to impose US law outside its own borders.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1910284.stm

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June 26-July 2, 2003
Battle Eternal
Cuba traders’ convictions are overturned. Is smooth sailing ahead?
by Steve Eckardt

Seven years ago, the U.S. government dropped a bomb onto the life of Jim Sabzali, a onetime standup comic and a Canadian now living with his wife and two children in suburban Wynnewood.

The explosion was 76 charges of violating the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, plus one count of conspiracy. The damage was a possible 205 years in prison and more than $19 million in fines. The crime? Selling water-purification supplies to Cuba.

What's more, almost half the charges were for sales he made while working and living in Canada, where obeying the U.S. embargo against Cuba is illegal. In the dock with him were his employers, Stefan and Donald Brodie, and their Bala Cynwyd-based Purolite Company, which manufactures water-purification resins in plants across the United States and at wholly owned subsidiaries in Wales and Italy.

Last spring, all were found guilty of helping to make water in Cuba drinkable.

Fast -forward to last week, when the same case blew up on Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Poluka. The bright young prosecutor saw his hard-won convictions of the Canadian and his Bala Cynwyd co-defendants turn to dust.

Not only did the judge overturn her own jury's verdicts, but she blamed it all on Poluka and his fellow prosecutor's "misconduct." U.S. District Judge Mary McLaughlin wrote in a decision released last Monday that Poluka's closing-argument story of defendants engaging in "deception, concealment and obstruction" -- not to mention shredding and withholding documents -- was "not supported by the evidence."

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=364744&mesg_id=366935

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No hospitality for Cubans at Hilton hotels

The U.S. government is cracking down on enforcing the Cuban embargo, and American businesses overseas are paying the price, says Fortune's Eliza Barclay.

FORTUNE Magazine
by Eliza Barclay, Fortune Magazine
February 16 2007: 5:49 AM EST

(Fortune Magazine) -- When a delegation of 14 Cubans tried to stay at their usual hotel in Oslo for a travel fair in January, they found themselves bounced from the reservations roster.

It turns out the Scandic Edderkoppen Hotel had been acquired last spring by the Hilton chain, which is forbidden by the U.S. embargo from hosting Cuban guests - even in Norway. Norwegian activists called it discrimination and threatened suit; others called for a boycott of the entire 140-hotel Scandic chain.

Hilton acted preemptively without a directive from Washington, D.C. But the fear of a phone call and a fine from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is enough to keep businesses dealing with Cubans on vigilant watch.

That's because OFAC has been cracking down in line with the Bush administration's tightened policy against Cuba since 2003 - the relinquishing of power by the ailing Fidel Castro last year notwithstanding. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act, U.S. businesses and subsidiaries are prohibited from providing services to Cubans - a provision more restrictive than for other sanctioned countries, including Iran and North Korea. "Various measures under the Cuban sanctions have been strengthened under the Bush administration," says OFAC spokeswoman Molly Millerwise.

In December, OFAC fined Oliver Stone's production company, Ixtlan Corp., $6,322 for filming the documentary Comandante, about Fidel Castro, in Cuba. And OFAC now scrutinizes the rare licenses granted for travel to Cuba. Until 2003, Americans could skirt restrictions by touring with organized cultural or "religious" groups. "OFAC wants to send a message: Trade with Cuba is still prohibited," says Douglas Jacobson, a sanctions and export-control attorney with Strasburger & Price in Washington, D.C.

More:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/02/05/8399194/index.htm

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MEXICO CITY HOTEL EXPELS CUBAN DELEGATION AT U.S. REQUEST, CAUSING DOMESTIC, INTERNATIONAL CONTROVERSIES

The Hotel Sheraton Maria Isabel in Mexico City set off an international controversy after expelling 16 Cuban officials from its premises in early February. The hotel said it made the decision at the instruction of its parent company, US-based Starwood Hotels. The parent company was following the directive of the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in accordance with the US embargo against Cuba. Under the Helms-Burton Law, US companies are prohibited from supplying services to Cuban individuals or companies.

The Cuban officials, most of whom were representing the country's industry and energy sectors, had been scheduled to participate in a three-day meeting with counterparts from private US companies Valero Energy Corp. and ExxonMobil, as well as the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas

Cuba, which is seeking foreign investors to help develop its deep-sea oil-exploration capabilities, recently forged agreements with energy companies from China, India, and Norway. The meeting in Mexico was intended primarily to gauge the interest of US companies in participating in the Cuban oil sector, said Kirby Jones, founder of the Washington-based nonprofit US-Cuba Trade Association (USCTA). "It's outrageous that I, as an American citizen, can't go and talk to someone on Mexican soil," said Jones, a former World Bank official.

Bush administration officials defended the decision of Starwood Hotels to expel the Cubans. "The hotel acted in accordance with US sanctions," said a spokesperson for the Treasury Department.

Mexico City, federal governments lodge protests

The Maria Isabel's decision brought protests from various entities of the Mexican government, which accused the US of again violating Mexican sovereignty through the Helms-Burton Law. The US law governing the US embargo against Cuba has been a thorn in the side of US-Mexico relations. In 1996, the Mexican Senate unanimously approved legislation establishing stiff fines for Mexican companies that submit to "extraterritorial sanctions" imposed by a foreign government (see SourceMex, 1996-09-25).

More:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/MEXICO+CITY+HOTEL+EXPELS+CUBAN+DELEGATION+AT+U.S.+REQUEST,+CAUSING...-a0142166398

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This photo was taken at a demonstration in Chile.



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ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC.

The U.S. certainly conducted the form of blockade you do recognize against the desperate, frantic people trying to escape the bloodbath in Haiti during _{George W. Bush's} presidency, with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships, surrounding the island, preventing the people from their one bid for life and feeding them right back onto the shores where the U.S.-trained and outfitted right-wing paramilitary death squads were slaughtering Haitians, leaving them lying in the streets bleeding and dead. Didn't want these people to be spared, although the U.S. government has, for many years, extended warm, loving arms to Cubans who want to come to the U.S., giving them instant legal status, green card, work visa, social security, welfare. Section 8 US taxpayer-financed housing, food stamps, medical treatment, financial assistance for education, etc., etc. all under the provisions of the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Bush made sure the black ones went back and got fed into the meat grinder.

That was a blockade you would recognize, I would hope.

In Latin America, people call the embargo on Cuba the Bloqueo.