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| New rule closes moronic loophole in Cuba embargo |
| 2004-03-01 |
| EFL President Bush on Thursday strengthened emergency powers to choke off previously legal fishing and yacht trips to Cuba. Since 1996, 1,500 U.S. pleasure boats have received Coast Guard permits to tie up in Cuba, said a U.S. diplomat. Now, after a three-year interagency process, the Bush administration has found a formula ’’to stop this pleasure boating traffic to Cuba, which has the effect of putting money in the pocket of the regime,’’ the diplomat said. In Washington, the three Republican Cuban-American Congress members from Miami issued a statement celebrating the move. Rep. Lincoln DÃÂaz-Balart called it ``another firm step in the global war on terrorism. . . . President Bush’s commendable action will reduce the resources available to the Cuban terrorist regime.’’But in Key West, a charter boat operator who has taken part in Cuban Blue Marlin tournaments based at the Hemingway Marina in Havana lamented it as pre-election political maneuvering. I find it laughable when someone calls the embargo a blockade. Can anyone imagine Abe Lincoln allowing the Coast Guard to rubber stamp "pleasure trips into the port of Willmington or Charleston? ’’If he puts the pressure on Cuba, the Miami Cubans vote for him and get him back in the presidency,’’ opined Mark Baumgarten, 46, who said he has tied up his 36-foot Hatteras, The Cowboy, there eight times with Coast Guard permits. The State Department official said a range of different Bush administration agencies had worked on the measure for three years. He said the goal was to increase enforcement of the embargo, and denied it was an election-year ploy. ’’Honestly, we’ve been working this for years,’’ he said. Hemingway Marina is known in international sailing circles as an exotic, well-equipped port-of-call; Castro opponents call it an insidious aspect of Cuba’s tourism apartheid -- enticing foreign funds for the government rather than ordinary Cubans through a market economy. Under an earlier 1996 presidential emergency order, pleasure boaters wanting to visit Cuba needed to get a Coast Guard permit, or security pass, to enter Cuban waters legally. They had to give an itinerary and list of passengers, none of whom could be felons, said Baumgarten. The Coast Guard then issued the permits. Why would Clinton have cared about felons transitting to Cuba and back? |
| Posted by:Super Hose |