Cuba Race prosecution

I'm making this posting on the forum site as I feel that all boaters should be aware of this subject. Cuba is a huge island only 90 miles from our shores. Many may eventually get a chance to visit there.
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* From Doran Cushing:
What's wrong with this picture? Osama's still out there spending his Saudi wealth; Corporate executives with multi-million dollar salaries are bankrupting companies along with thousands of employees and investors who are dragged down in the process; consumer credit card interest rates are at an all time high while the cost of money for the rich is at an all time low; and the U.S. Attorney General finds time to two sailors who organized a regatta and carried humanitarian aid to Cuba. Peter Goldsmith and Michele Geslin are facing up to 15 years on felony charges of "trading with the enemy" due to their role in a sailing event from Key West to Cuba and return. The U.S. government has spend hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing grand jury indictments and now criminal prosecution against Geslin, a Key West sailmaker, and her partner Goldsmith...and they likely will spend their life savings defending themselves against a politically-driven show of force which panders to the wealthy extremist right wing element of Cubans living in South Florida.
Ironically, it may just be a case such as this which forces legal review of the anti-Cuba policy and ultimately ends the failed embargo.
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Required multihull content: There have been quite a few multihull vessels competing in this race in the past. And about 4 years ago I took a 1.5 month trip there on a friend's 60 cat.

Very friendly people who need our help with economic reform....and that will ultimately topple Fidel. When are we going to wake up and return to the real word. Our past policies are no longer valid there.

I think we all need to send a letter to every congressman protesting this prosecution of our fellow sailors.

 

The question is why bother to prosecute instead of just saying 'don't do it again'. As I understand it, they had the cooperation of the Customs/Immigration folks, so they had some reason to assume the approval of the US Gov't.

Fidel took over Cuba when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. Now I'm 57. The US policy toward Cuba is a failure without doubt, but the politicians won't stand up to the Cuban ex-pat voter bloc in Florida. If they had any principles, they would not give any weight to folks who are hoping for a chance to leave the US and go back to Cuba.

 

Forbbiden Zone

Hi.

I think the issue with Cuba is a bit more more than the rich exhiles. I can see four possible reasons our beloved gov'ment might want to keep us away:

1.) that It still has much natural beauty. Many of its beaches are most likely clear of the usual super hotels and condos that infest just about every beach in the 'free world',

2.) that I hear the Cubans have a much higher literacey rate than we have,

3.) that they have survived on a much lower GNP than anyone else with out massive absoute poverty (homeless people eating out of trash mounds), and

4.) that the average Cuban may actually be happier (not including dissidents, of course) than the average American dispite their puniary state and our dripping maldistributed wealth.

In short, I think our beloved gov'ment is afraid of what we might see. Sound familliar? I think they want to keep us away 'for our own good' lest we get the wrong impression of a 'communist dictatorship'.

Now that I'm on my soap box, I'd like to add that we are living in an age of diminnishing resorces. I can see, within a generation, a massive global blanket fight over cheap oil, cheap lumber, cheap fresh water, and cheap food. Not to mention the creaping specter of 'global warming'. In order for capitalism to provide for everyone's basic needs, It seems to need to be in a state of continual robust growth. And that usually means masive consumption. Massive consumtion, the way I see it, may not be in the cards in the near future. In that case, we would be forced to resort to a 'steady state' form of capitalism which would mean, in a nutshell, that the rich would stay rich and the poor would stay poor, with a tiny middle class smushed in between.
In that case, capitalism would have to be more of a doctrine (along with 'democracy') than an actual practice. And doctrines work best when the 'indoctrinated' are sheilded from 'possible alternatives'.

If I were a Turneresque billionare, I would finance a robust defense for these poor fellows to see to it that this makes it all the way to the Supreme Court.
At issue here may not be just a boat race to where it 'shouldn't be', but our very future as a free people as well.

Bob

 

Isn't it ironic that in the so-called "free world" people aren't allowed to go where they want? Can you think of other countries/systems where people weren't allowed to travel freely? I can!
Pres. Reagan once said "Tear down the wall..." I think it's about time the imaginary walls are torn down, too!
But as I already wrote in another thread: Let's keep politics out of these pages!

Best regards,
Søren

 

Political Discussion

This posting wasn't meant to start a political discussion on this forum as I am sure we can get numerious views on the subject.

But rather it was to try and solicit some letters to congressional members to hopefully help get this prosecution of our fellow boat community members thrown out of the legal wrangling that will end up costing them a lot of money in their defense of this political (verses truly legal) doctrine.

Maybe someone on this forum knows the contact emails for these two that are charged with this crime, and we could get their views, and discover how we might best help them out of a sticky situation.

Defending oneself against Ashcroft is not going to be cheap. Makes you kind of wonder why he didn't pick on some of those congressmen that made trips to Cuba recently and suggested we get involved with new trade relations.

 

Although this is a compelling topic, especially for Americans, it should not be here on the Boat Design forum; it is more suitable for the Open Discussion forum. Can we have it moved there so as to keep this forum apolitical?


Thank you. Carry on...

 

Observer

This illegal "for-profit" regatta was run for the benefit of Peter
Goldsmith and no one else. He was properly warned by the
authorities not to act as a "tourism agent" without a license.
Trying to demand protection and sympathy by claiming that
it was a humanitarian effort is ridiculous. One boat transporting
old baseball and gloves out of 40 entries does not make a
special mission exempt from the law. The pirate Goldsmith
has sailing his last voyage into troubled waters and the
loot he plundered from regatta skippers will now sink into
his "hopeless" legal defense effort.

 

Dismissed

Nov 1, '04
(Key West) A judge dismissed charges Friday against the organizers of a sailboat race from Key West to Cuba, who were accused of violating the Trading With The Enemy Act. U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King dismissed the indictment against Peter Goldsmith and Michele Geslin, but the charges were dismissed without prejudice to the United States to seek a superseding indictment, which means they could press other charges later. Goldsmith and Geslin had been charged with two counts of providing unlicensed travel services to Cuba. If convicted of both counts, they could have faced a sentence of 15 years. Carlos B. Castillo, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office, said his office is reviewing the decision and exploring its options.

Crews competing in the Key West Sailing Club Conch Republic Cup departed May 22, 2003 for Havana and several Cuban shore communities after receiving pre-race warnings they would be violating U.S. Department of Commerce licensing regulations. About 20 boats took part in the race, which was then in its third year. King wrote in his decision that the indictment was insufficient to charge Goldsmith and Geslin because regulations in effect at the time didn't bar coordinated travel by independent participants in a sailboat race. - Sun-Sentinel, http://tinyurl.com/4dpq6

 

The Dying Havana Daydream

The Dying Havana Daydream
The American sailor is a rarity in Cuba these days, as the once-hopping Marina Hemingway languishes in a back eddy of international politics.

Cruising World article