The meeting also honored Jon Hillson, who died unexpectedly the day before. Hillson, a co-chair of the coalition, had been centrally responsible for organizing the meeting. Messages recalling Hillson’s work in solidarity with Cuba were read to the meeting.

Samuel Altamirano and Oriel Maria Siu, members of the steering committee organizing a youth seminar that will take place in Cuba March 26-April 4, co-chaired the meeting. “Our focus tonight is to speak out on travel to Cuba,” Siu said in introducing the program.

As part of its nearly 45-year campaign of aggression against the Cuban Revolution, the U.S. government restricts travel by U.S. citizens and residents to Cuba. In 2002, about 160,000 people traveled to Cuba on licenses issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. About half were Cubans visiting family on the island. Other licenses have been issued for educational institutions, journalists, and religious organizations. Last year the Bush administration announced it would eliminate licenses for “people-to-people” exchanges, under which a wide range of groups have organized educational trips to Cuba. Many of these licenses are now expiring.

Last November Treasury Department officials announced that they would begin judicial proceedings against U.S. citizens accused of going to Cuba without authorization. A featured speaker at the meeting was Fred Burks, who is “Case 001” under this stepped-up enforcement effort. Burks, who worked as a translator for President Bush during his 2003 trip to Indonesia, described how he began to receive threatening letters after he took a vacation in Cuba in 1999. He refused to settle the case by paying a fine of $7,500. His case will come before an administrative judge later this year.

“The travel ban doesn’t just stop us from traveling, it keeps us strangers,” said Laurence Shoobs, of the Los Angeles chapter of the U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities Association. For example, “the travel ban and ban on information keep us from knowing that 100,000 laid-off Cuban sugar workers are receiving their full pay and job training,” in sharp contrast to the situation faced by laid-off workers in the United States, he added.

Joel Britton, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of California in the last election, described how he and a Wisconsin dairy farmer participated in activities celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the National Organization of Small Farmers in Cuba in 2001, under one of the “people-to-people” licenses of the type that Washington is doing away with. U.S. rulers, “through 10 Republican and Democratic administrations,” have tried to destroy the Cuban Revolution, he said. “Its example is what they fear.” Britton cited Hillson’s “unstinting efforts in defense of the Cuban Revolution and in organizing meetings like this one tonight.”

Miguel Perez, a student at California State University, Northridge, who went to Cuba as part of the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange last summer, commented on the contrast between the free education and health-care systems he observed in Cuba and the fact that “here in California they’re raising education fees again.”

Actors Ed Asner and John Densmore sent messages that were read to the meeting. “I’m glad to add my voice to the majority of Americans who believe in the right to travel,” wrote Asner. Densmore noted, “Artists from all countries should be able to come together.”

Preston Woods spoke on behalf of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Committee to Free the Five. That group is working to defend five Cuban patriots who are serving lengthy jail terms in the United States for their work to gather information about rightist groups that have carried out attacks against Cuba. The case is at an important juncture, he said, noting that oral arguments in the prisoners’ appeal will be presented in federal court in Miami March 10.

Other speakers on the panel included Noemi Aguirre of the Latin American Society at California State University, Los Angeles; Alberto Valdivia, treasurer of the United Teachers of Los Angeles; Jan Goodman, leader of the National Lawyers Guild and of Americans for Democratic Action; Carol Frances Likins, an activist in Pastors for Peace; Don White, of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador; and Eduardo Torres of Casa del Pueblo.

Mark Masaoka, from the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress Cuba Committee, described how he had worked with Jon Hillson to organize the first Japanese-American delegation to Cuba in 2001.  
 
 
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