EDUCATIONAL TOURS TO CUBA NOW FORBIDDEN
Global Exchange, the nonprofit internationalist organization based in San Francisco, has organized educational tours to the developing world for the past ten years. Our popular Cuba tours have focused on every aspect of Cuban society (art and culture, religion, education, women's issues, economics, environment, public health, etc.) In September 1998 Global Exchange received a "cease and desist" order from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the Treasury Department, ordering us to stop organizing travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens and to provide the names of all participants on such trips since March 1996. We will not comply with this order. We believe U.S. citizens have not only a right, but a responsibility to inform themselves as fully as possible of the realities of other nations and cultures, especially those with which the U.S. government may have a conflictive relationship, as is the case with Cuba.
This latest Treasury Department action against us--based on an overly broad interpretation of the archaic 1919 Trading with the Enemy Act and an overly narrow interpretation of the travel restrictions themselves--is part of a long history of outrageous infringements on the right of U.S. citizens to travel.
Given our history of challenging the travel restrictions, from spearheading the Freedom to Travel Campaign to our ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against OFAC in 1994-95, we have clearly been the victim of OFAC's discriminatory practices.
We have taken over 5,000 people to Cuba in the last 10 years. In 1999, despite OFAC, we will organize over 20 tours to Cuba. The trips help develop a significant constituency of committed people working to end the embargo.
Please support Global Exchange at this time. E-mail Pam Montanaro <pam@globalexchange.org> for more info about what you can do.
Spring 1999-- NCX Home -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor