November 28, 2005
Dear Friends in Christ,
As U.S. citizens we tend to take for granted our right to travel
where and when we want to travel. As U.S. Christians in partnership
with Cubans Christians, however, we experience significant obstacles
when it comes to Cuba travel.
During 2005 a number of regional and national church bodies in
the United States applied to the Department of Treasury’s
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for renewal of licenses
that authorize travel to Cuba and were denied. The General Assembly
of the PC(USA) and at least three presbyteries were among those
denied travel license. (See Presbyterian News Service articles
online: the August 25, 2005, article, “New
U.S. restriction on travel to Cuba raise hackles of religious
organization” and the September 21, 2005 article, “Presbyteries
Still Planning Trips to Cuba”).
After some months of information-sharing among various denominations
and further communication with OFAC, it appears that the current
policy is to grant travel licenses more broadly to local congregations
and on a restricted basis to regional and national church bodies.
It is not yet clear exactly how the latter will work.
Much of the mission relationship between the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) and the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba takes place
through presbytery partnerships. Nine presbyteries and one synod
have active partnerships with a presbytery or synod of the Iglesia
Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC). They are: Baltimore, Cascades
and Monmouth with El Centro Presbytery; South Louisiana, Twin
Cities Area and West Jersey with Matanzas Presbytery; Chicago
and Long Island with La Habana Presbytery; and Santa Fe Presbytery
and the Synod of Puerto Rico with the IPRC synod.
Each one of these bodies will be reevaluating how best to maintain
contact with the Cuban church, as will those of us who carry responsibilities
at the General Assembly.
One specific consequence of these new limitations is the (hopefully
temporary) suspension of Cuba travel-study seminars sponsored
by the PC(USA). In 2006 we will attempt to implement plans for
a trip of retired ministers and spouses (ARMS) originally scheduled
for the fall of 2005 and postponed due to the travel license situation.
Plans for 2007 and beyond will depend on the response of OFAC
to our 2006 requests for travel authorization.
The Cuba travel restrictions are part of the comprehensive economic
embargo that the United States has maintained for more than 40
years. While the basic policy remains unchanged, the details of
the restrictions and their enforcement do change frequently.
In addition to the practical side of dealing with travel restrictions
and their impact on mission, there is concern about the implications
of current policy (and the way it is implemented) for religious
freedom.
The PC(USA) is participating in ecumenical conversations about
a possible legal challenge to the travel restrictions as well
as working to generate political pressure for policy change. These
efforts are being coordinated by the Latin America Working Group,
of which the PC(USA) is a part. For more information, see the
Web site of the Latin America Working
Group.
Travel for religious purposes is only one casualty of U.S. Cuba
travel restrictions. Cuban families separated by the Straits of
Florida are suffering due to the policy that allows Cuban Americans
to travel to Cuba only once every three years. PC(USA)’s
2004 General Assembly passed an overture in protest of this policy
shortly after it was announced in the spring of 2004. When added
to the difficulty that Cuban citizens often have in securing permission
from their government to leave the country and to the increased
restrictions on Cuban Americans sending money to relatives in
Cuba, the stress of separation is compounded.
Human Rights Watch has recently issued a report called “Families
Torn Apart: The High Cost of U.S. and Cuban Travel Restrictions.”
It is available online at http://hrw.org/reports/2005/cuba1005/.
The report provides background on both Cuban and U.S. travel-related
policies and gives case studies of families affected by these
policies.
Here are two examples:
Nohelia Guerrero, age 46, a businesswoman,
left Cuba in 1992, and had returned three times before the restrictions
were imposed…. Her 65-year-old mother has advanced Alzheimer’s
disease and needs around-the-clock care. Guerrero pays a nurse
to take care of her. When her mother was hospitalized in February
2005, she decided to visit her, circumventing the travel restrictions
by traveling via a third country.
Under the new restrictions on remittances, Guerrero reported,
she cannot send enough cash to cover the cost of her mother’s
most basic needs: food, diapers, and the nurse’s wages.
[…]
The restrictions have hurt her on several levels, she told
Human Rights Watch. One is emotional: “Not being able
to visit a mother who is dying affects me daily….”
The restrictions have also hurt her financially. […]
When she traveled to visit her hospitalized mother, the airfare
was much more expensive than it would have been flying directly
to Cuba, she said, “and this means less money for my family.”
Moreover, she added, “you always have that terrible fear
that if they catch you you’ll have to pay a fine.
Juan López Linares, a Cuban physicist,
traveled with his wife to Italy in 1997 to participate in a
training course at the International Center for Theoretical
Physics in Trieste. When the course ended, he sought and was
denied permission from the Cuban consulate in Milan to continue
studies outside of Cuba. The Cuban consular official warned
him that, if he did not return to Cuba, he would be formally
classified as a “deserter.”
Despite the warning, López Linares decided to continue
his studies abroad, pursuing a doctoral degree in Brazil. His
wife returned to Cuba in February 1999 and gave birth to their
son two months later. The couple subsequently split up and she
chose to remain in Cuba. López Linares began requesting
permission to return to Cuba to meet his son in July 2000. His
requests have been repeatedly denied.
The clearest explanation of the government’s refusal
to allow López Linares to return to his homeland came
in a letter that Cuba’s ambassador to Brazil, Jorge Lezcano
Pérez, sent in August 2002 to a Brazilian senator who
had intervened in the case. López Linares could not return
to Cuba, the ambassador wrote, because he had ”abandoned
an official mission that he was carrying out in representation
of a Cuban government agency in a third country.” Such
restrictions were justified, according Lezcano, “to protect
national security and dissuade the harmful phenomena of illegal
emigration and the theft of brains.”
López Linares’s son turned six in April 2005.
The two have never met.
Thank you for your prayers for Cuban families and the Presbyterian
Reformed Church in Cuba.
Blessings,
Tricia Lloyd-Sidle
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
55
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