Global Exchange, the non profit internationalist organisation based in San Francisco, California, has organised educational tours to the developing world for the past ten years. Our very popular Cuba tours have focused on every aspect of Cuban society (art and culture, religion, education, women’s issues, economic and environmental issues and public health, to name but a few.) We are probably the second largest provider of travel services to Cuba in the U.S. and our trips have spawned many activists and organisations now working to end the U.S. embargo of Cuba.

In September of this year, Global Exchange received a "cease and desist" order from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the Treasury Department, ordering us to stop organising travel to Cuba for U.S. citizens and to provide the names of all participants on such trips since March 1996. Global Exchange will not comply with this order.

The mission of Global Exchange is to build people to people ties between the U.S. and the developing world. It is our view that ordinary 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. A commitment to the development of a better informed and more active citizenry is a major goal of Global Exchange.

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 but one in a long history of outrageous infringements on the right of U.S. citizens to travel. These violations of an internationally recognised human right, committed by a government that repeatedly holds itself up as a model of democracy and human rights, must be resisted.

We at Global Exchange view the cease and desist order as a significant threat but also an incredible opportunity. We have begun the complicated task of putting all of the pieces together for a major struggle with OFAC. We have garnered the legal support of the Center for Constitutional Rights. We have formally requested a meeting with the Treasury Department to discuss our now four year old application to be licensed as a Cuba travel service provider.

Global Exchange is one of the best suited organisations in the country to qualify for a Cuba travel providers license. Each of our trips has a "clearly defined educational purpose", which is a category of licensable travel according to OFAC’s own regulations. We have submitted numerous license requests to OFAC in the past several years, to no avail. Typically, we do not even receive a response, as in the case of the Travel Service Providers license we applied for in 1994. 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.

Global Exchange has taken over 5,000 people to Cuba in the last 10 years, with the number of delegations increasing each year. In 1999, despite the obstacles OFAC has thrown in our way, we will organise over 20 tours to Cuba. The trips contribute to the development of a significant constituency of highly committed people working to end the embargo. Our past trip participants include Ann Bardach, whose New York Times exposé on links between the Cuban American National Foundation and exile terrorist Luis Posada made headlines across the U.S. this summer; Delvis Fernandez Levy, founder of the Cuban American Alliance and an increasingly important moderate exile voice on the Cuba question; and A.W. Claussen, former President of the World Bank and current member of Americans for Humanitarian Trade. On a lighter note, we are the fiscal sponsor for the highly successful Send a Piana to Havana Campaign of Benjamin Treuhaft, who first visited Cuba on one of our tours.

As one of the most well-known and widely respected providers of educational travel to Cuba, we must defend ourselves from this frontal assault on our work. We will use this opportunity to draw national attention to the travel restrictions and hopefully build the support necessary to effect their demise. As we build our case with Treasury on the right of ordinary citizens to travel, we need to have the support of the organisations, progressive and mainstream, that supported our Freedom to Travel Campaign and lawsuit during 1993-1996. We hope that you and your organisation will be in a position to assist us again on this all important issue.

It is imperative that we act immediately as the Administration is currently reviewing the travel regulations and intends to make its changes—if any—before the middle of February.

See the Urgent Action Alert! below.

In peace,

Medea Benjamin Pam Montanaro

Co Director Cuba Program Coordinator