ATLANTA COURT ACCEPTS THE US GOVERNMENT'S APPEALS Working Group against Terrorism
Yesterday, October 31, 2005, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit accepted to consider the US Government's appeals against the decision, unanimously taken by a panel of judges of the same Circuit on August 9, 2005, which revoked all the convictions of the Cuban Five and remand for a new trial.
The Court approved by a majority vote the rehearing of this case en banc (the all 12 judges in active service).
The panel of three judges had determined that the trial against the Cuban Five was full of improper prosecutorial references and took place in an environment with a pervasive community prejudice against the defendants, for these reasons the trial should had been carried out in other venue.
It considered also that "a new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment, and extensive publicity both before and during the trial, merged with the improper prosecutorial references".
The 93-page decision of the panel sustained that the publicity before and during the trial was prejudiced against the defendants and that the jurors were harassed by the local media. Therefore, the Court considered that "empanelling an [impartial] jury in this community was an unreasonable probability because of pervasive community prejudice."
CORTE DE ATLANTA ACEPTA APELACION DE LA FISCALIA Grupo de Trabajo contra el Terrorismo
Ayer 31 de octubre de 2005 la Corte de Apelaciones del Onceno Circuito de Atlanta aceptó considerar la apelación de la Fiscalía contra la decisión tomada unánimemente por un panel de jueces del mismo Circuito el pasado 9 de agosto de 2005, la cual revocó la totalidad de las condenas de los Cinco y ordenó la realización de un nuevo juicio.
La Corte aprobó por mayoría reconsiderar el caso por el pleno de sus 12 jueces en activo.
El panel de tres jueces había determinado que el juicio realizado contra los Cinco estuvo plagado de problemas procesales por parte de la Fiscalía y tuvo lugar en un ambiente donde existía un intenso prejuicio en la comunidad contra los acusados por lo que el juicio debió haberse realizado en otra sede.
Consideró además que la necesidad de un nuevo juicio se "impuso por la tormenta perfecta creada cuando la ola de intensos sentimientos de la comunidad [de Miami] y la amplia publicidad antes y durante el juicio se combinaron con las referencias inapropiadas de la Fiscalía".
La decisión del panel de 93 páginas sostuvo que la publicidad antes y durante el proceso legal estuvo prejuiciada contra los acusados y que el jurado fue hostigado por la prensa. Por consiguiente estimó que "conformar un jurado imparcial en la comunidad de Miami era una probabilidad poco razonable debido al prejuicio existente en la misma".
WHAT HAPPENED AND WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Cuba, friends of Cuba, and Cuban-American families lost big this week, as some members of Congress succumbed to heavy lobbying (that is, threats and bribes) and for the first time in five years took a step backward in the efforts to bring some normalcy to US-Cuba trade and travel.
Following are some articles explaining what happened, and then --MOST IMPORTANT -- what you can DO ABOUT IT.
While we don't yet have the details of all the threats and bribes (sometimes called "lobbying") employed by the Bush regime to get Congress to reverse a five-year trend of opposing his harsh and vindictive anti-Cuba policies, there are certainly interesting points in the Miami Herald article below. Among them, the role played by the "hardline" Cuban-Americans and their on-island co-conspirators. One has to wonder if Martha Roque et.al. could possibly do any more to discredit themselves among their fellow countrymen (who must certainly think of them as traitors) than what they have been doing in siding with those who literally take food from the mouths of the hungry and medicine from the sick by openly supporting Washington's anti-Cuba measures. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on Fri, Jul. 01, 2005
U.S. CONGRESS House blocks efforts to ease U.S. sanctions against Cuba The U.S. House, reversing a years-old trend, dealt a heavy blow to supporters of easing sanctions on Cuba by rejecting three proposals. BY PABLO BACHELET pbachelet@herald.com
WASHINGTON - Reversing years of congressional votes that showed supporters of easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba gaining strength, the House on Thursday rejected three such proposals and gave a categorical win to supporters of a tough line on Havana.
An amendment seeking to overturn limits on Cuban-Americans' family travel to Cuba was defeated211-208 -- the first time such an initiative was beaten back in a congressional vote. A similar amendment, also submitted by Florida Democrat Jim Davis, was approved last year on a 225-174 vote. [Which means we need to be speaking to those congress members who changed their votes!]
Both opponents and supporters of the sanctions credited the turnaround on a determined lobbying drive by Cuban-American lawmakers and the entreaties made by dissidents in the communist-ruled island such as Martha Beatriz Roque, who recently addressed the Congress members on a phone link from Havana.
Two other amendments -- all three were part of a spending bill for the treasury, housing and transportation departments -- were shot down by lopsided margins.
A proposal to ease restrictions on U.S. student travel to Cuba, presented by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., was defeated 233-187. Last year it was so heavily backed that it passed by a simple voice vote.
And an amendment that would have completely lifted the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, submitted by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., was rejected on a 250-169 vote.
Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, a Republican and always one of the strongest critics of the U.S. restrictions on travel to Cuba, withdrew several amendments after the defeat of the Davis initiative.
Miami Republicans Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hailed the votes as ''historic'' in a joint statement.
''The solid defeat of these amendments sends a definitive message of support for the president's Cuba policy,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.
EMBARGO PROTECTED
Since 2001, a group of moderate and farm-state Republicans have annually joined with Democrats to pass a series of amendments to spending bills that tried to chip away at the embargo, and especially the travel restrictions. Even after Fidel Castro's security agents arrested and jailed 75 dissidents in 2003, an amendment to lift the travel restrictions passed by a comfortable 30-vote margin.
[Which clearly refutes the rhetoric about these votes being a response to "Castro's crackdown on dissidents". Cuba this year in fact allowed a national meeting of these US-supported oppositionists --which included a videotaped message from George Bush! -- to take place without incident. The vote could be attributed to nothing other than increased threats and bribes by the administration that rules our so-called "democracy", and perhaps, as indicated in the next paragraph, to demoralization on the part of some who see that their efforts bear no concrete results because of the Bush regime's anti-democratic refusal to let their voted preferences be enacted into law. So some lawmakers have to weigh the pros and cons of voting for something they think is right, but will never become law, vs. the gains and losses that might be attached to their votes.]
The amendments were never implemented because congressional negotiators, operating under a veto threat by the White House, would strip them out of the final bill. But each year it seemed that the next would see a significant weakening of the sanctions.
But this year Cuban-American groups that support the sanctions say they have recovered some of the political weight the community had when Jorge Mas Canosa ran the Cuban American National Foundation. Some say they let down their guard with President Bush in the White House and his brother Jeb in the governor's mansion.
''The void that occurred with the death of Jorge Mas Canosa has slowly and steadily started to be filled again,'' said Ignacio Sánchez, a member of the Cuban Liberty Council. Many of its members broke off from CANF to espouse a tougher line on Castro.
In March, Cuban American lawmakers and their congressional allies arranged for three Cuban dissidents -- Martha Beatriz Roque, René Gómez and Félix Bonné -- to endorse Bush's restrictions in a phone-link testimony before a House panel. [Well, that should certainly endear them to the Cuban people on the island! Perhaps the Cuban-American warhawks aren't so dumb after all. They are making sure that in their much-dreamed about take-over of the island, there will be so few local opposition leaders with any credibility whatsoever that the only way to govern the island will be by force -- as their parents' generation did. Sort of a clearing the path for the Diaz-Balarts, Ros-Lehtinen et.al to come seooping in with the 83nd airborne?? It used to be conventional wisdom that to justify a US invasion, there had to be at least the appearance of a local opposition force that was calling for US "aid" (a la the Bay of Pigs). But if the US-financed "opposition" on the island sets itself so far against the needs and interests of the rest of the population that they have no legitimacy whatsoever, this seems to undermine that game plan. Perhaps that's why some of the others try to hide their US backing and distance themselves from these most outspoken "dissidents". ]
Thursday's votes came atop other recent setbacks by those who favor relaxing U.S. restrictions. An amendment to ease humanitarian travel lost in a procedural vote in the Senate Wednesday night. Last month, a Flake initiative to lift a ban on sending personal hygiene items such as toilet paper and toothpaste to Cuba was also defeated in the House.
U.S. EXPORTS
And on Thursday, Bush threatened to veto a provision in the spending bill that would reverse recently enacted regulations making it more difficult for U.S. farmers to be paid by Cuba for U.S. exports. ''The administration is strongly opposed to any efforts to weaken these regulations, and if the final version of the bill contained such a provision, the President would veto the bill,'' the White House said in a statement.
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Missouri Republican who has been leading the charge to overturn the restrictions, said she would ``keep plugging forward and see what happens.''
John Kavulich, a senior policy advisor with U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which tracks economic trends in Cuba, said the Castro government has been purchasing less U.S. foodstuff since the new restrictions were adopted, but only to put political pressure on U.S. lawmakers who want their farmers back home to benefit from trade with Havana.
''The Cuban government has a genetic need to be a part of the U.S. political discourse,'' Kavulich said.
[Actually, that is an extremely reactionary statement. Cuba would be far better off if it were completely outside of "the US political discourse" and could simply engage in normal transactions of every type with the people in the US. As would the rest of the world.........]
I. As promised, here are the links to the Roll Call votes for yesterday’s Cuba votes. Check out how your member voted on each amendment, and call them to task if they voted wrong. Especially for those of you who talked with an aide in your member’s office who indicated a “yes” vote, let them know how disappointed you are at the deception if they ended up voting “no.”
Follow the money, and see how your member voted after taking “embargo money.” Then follow up! Here’s an example of a letter one of our Cuba Advocates wrote to his congressperson in preparation for yesterday’s votes and in protest of the money that this congressperson accepted from the hard-line embargo-supporting PAC.
Dear Congressman: Please vote for an end to the offensive ban against Americans traveling to Cuba, as well as an end to the embargo on trade with that country. We know you received a $5,000 contribution from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, which supports the ban and embargo. Please change your vote and help restore normal relations with Cuba. 45 years is long enough. A Cuban exile community in Florida should not trump the interests of [your state] citizens in free trade and travel. The Cubans didn’t vote for you; we did. Give the PAC back its $5,000, and let’s move forward.
If your member of Congress voted differently on Cuba policy from previous years after accepting this money, expose him/her in your local press. If you don’t know your congressperson’s previous votes, give us a call or drop an email; we’ll help you research past votes. We’re going to be in touch with some of you directly to solicit your help with local media work to expose “bought votes.”
Write a letter to the editor, or write an op ed for your local newspaper. Send a copy of it to your congressperson. Demand an accounting of his/her actions.
III. And remember, all members of Congress (House and Senate) will be in their district offices next week for the July 4 recess. Gather a small group to go visit them and register your opinions in person. At the very least, call your member’s home office next week and comment on his/her vote. You can look up district office phone numbers on each member’s web site, accessible through www.house.gov .
IV. AND, continue to encourage friends and colleagues to sign our travel petition; it is still useful with the Senate and with conference committee this fall. Our signatures are currently at 4,300; we’re still hoping for at least 10,000 (or more!) by the fall. Help us out! The link is: http://www.lawg.org/tools/petition.htm
V. Thanks, and let’s have these disappointing losses in the House of Representatives motivate us rather than cause us to give up. Giving up is what the embargo supporters want us to do.
Sincerely,
Mavis Anderson Philip Schmidt Latin America Working Group www.lawg.org
Title: Agricultural Export Facilitation Act of 2005. [H.R.719] A bill to facilitate the sale of United States agricultural products to Cuba, as authorized by the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000. Sponsor: Sen Craig, Larry E. [ID] (introduced 2/9/2005) Cosponsors (24) Latest Major Action: 2/9/2005 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
Title: Agricultural Export Facilitation Act of 2005, [S. 328], February 9th by Senator Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), along with Senators Max Baucus (D-Montana), Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana), Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Jim Talent (R-Missouri), Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyoming), Lincoln D. Chafee (R-Rhode Island), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), John Thune (R-South Dakota), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Patty Murry (D-Washington), Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Arkansas), Byron L. Dorgan (D-North Dakota), Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska), Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
Title: To lift the trade embargo on Cuba, and for other purposes. (Introduced in House)[H.R.579.IH] (Mr. PAUL)
Title: Cuba Reconciliation Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.208.IH] (Mr. SERRANO)
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