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Note #8041 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Cuban Presbyterians rap travel ban
03532
December 9, 2003

Cuban Presbyterians rap travel ban

U.S. embargo limits religious cross-fertilization, leaders say

by Evan Silverstein

HAVANA, Cuba - The Rev. Wayne Herstad returned recently from Cuba, where he
connected with church leaders, made new friends, and experienced spiritual
life on the island up-close.

The Minnesota pastor joined a group of 12 Presbyterian clergy and lay people
on a trip to the Communist island nation under a special "religious license"
that permits the Presbyterian Church (USA) to participate in religious
activities and provide humanitarian aid here.

During the 10-day visit in October - which included stops in Havana, Matanzas
and Permco - the group took in an ecumenical seminary, an elementary school,
several Presbyterian churches, a problem-pregnancy clinic and an experimental
farm.

They also formed new relationships with leaders and members of the
Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba (IPRC) and the Cuban Council of Churches
(CCC).

"I would go back in a heartbeat," said Herstad, the pastor of First
Presbyterian Church in Shakopee, MN.

Although Cuba is only 90 miles south of Florida, few Americans in recent
years have had a chance to view everyday life there, as well as life in the
pews. A 40-year-old U.S. ban on travel to the island has kept the nation's
flourishing religious community virtually unknown to many in the United
States.

Church representatives, diplomats, politicians, journalists and academics are
generally the only Americans allowed to visit, and there is no sign that that
will change anytime soon, despite recent efforts in Congress to overturn the
travel ban.

Earlier this year, the House and Senate approved identical measures that
would have withheld funds used to enforce the ban, but a joint committee
dropped the provison from a compromise $88.9 billion bill funding the
Transportation and Treasury departments.

President George W. Bush had vowed to veto the entire bill if it included an
easing of restrictions on Cuba. He opposes any easing of U.S. economic
sanctions unless Cuban leader Fidel Castro allows free elections and releases
political prisoners. Bush says the travel restriction, imposed by President
John F. Kennedy in 1963, is a way of denying economic resources to Castro and
his Communist regime.

Herstad doesn't see it that way.

"I express disappointment and regret that the travel ban wasn't lifted so
that we could work for issues of peace from inside the churches and inside
our political and economic structures," he said. "There's so much opportunity
to learn, both ways."

Cuban religious leaders agreed, arguing that the ban on travel is as outdated
as the vintage Chevrolets that cruise their homeland - a relic of the Cold
War that clearly has failed in its aim of unseating Castro, who has outlasted
nine U.S. presidents since his rise to power in 1959.

The Cuban church leaders said the ban keeps many would-be visitors away,
depriving believers of valuable opportunities to exchanges ideas, traditions,
values, and experiences.

"We want to share this feeling between Christians," said the Rev. Carlos
Camps, general secretary of the IPRC.

Camps said he believes the travel controls are the most significant effect of
the old embargo or "blockade," as Cubans call it.

"It's more than money, it's more than medicine, it's more than all material
things," he said. "It is the relationship between us, the feeling between us,
how many things we must share of both experiences. It's the first need that
we have."

Camps said that he believes the second major need is to dispel Americans'
misconceptions about the state of religion in Cuba - for example, the notion
that Cubans must worship "underground," as they sometimes did during the
early days of the revolution.

In 1992, Castro changed Cuba's official status from "atheist" to "secular."
Since then, Christians and other faith groups have been growing
exponentially.

Because of the travel embargo, "fewer Americans will be able to see how
vibrant the church is," Camps said, "and to express to others in the United
States, 'Yes, there is a church that is alive, who God has transformed, and
they have a strong feeling of evangelicalism."'

Religious leaders in Cuba said they understand why the U.S. government
adopted its policy of isolating the island, diplomatically and economically,
because of Castro's alliance with the former Soviet Union. And they
understand that Cuba was once viewed legitimately as an enemy of the United
States. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War
more than a decade ago, all of that has changed - except for U.S. policy.

"My personal opinion, this, especially compared to attitudes of other
countries, this is backwards," said the Rev. Joel Ortega Dopico, a Cuban
Presbyterian pastor in the resort town of Varadero. "It's an attitude that is
taken from a position of power. I see this as an attitude of a government
that is uncivilized."

The sanctions fly in the face of international opinion, Dopico said, noting
that for eight years running the United Nations General Assembly has called
for an end to the economic embargo.

"The people who represent the world, an international body, are opposed to
this very strong policy of the United States," said Dopico, vice moderator of
the Presbytery of Matanzas and president of its governing council. "I don't
see how this policy could help anyone. Not Cuba, not the United States. Nor
could it help to bring a solution to any of the conflicts within the
Caribbean or within Latin America."

Dopico echoed other leaders' comments in suggesting that Bush is putting
politics ahead of the Cuban people, wooing anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in
advance of next year's presidential election.

"The problem is with the Cubans who are in exile in Florida," Camps said.
"Not all the Cubans, but the old persons and the political interests that are
making impressions in the Bush government and in all the government of the
United States. They vote, and Florida is a big state in the Electoral
College."

One Cuban Presbyterian minister urged the White House to allow Americans to
travel to the island to assess conditions under a regime President Bush has
called "brutal."

The Rev. Sergio Arce Martmnez, a respected theologian, retired Presbyterian
pastor and one of three clergy members in the Cuban Parliament, said:
"Because of the propaganda, it's thought that the Cuban people are very sad,
because we are under a Communist system, a socialist system. This is not
true. There is no person (in Cuba) who is without shoes. There is no person
without clothes."

 The Rev. Pedro Jiminez, a Presbyterian pastor and a vice president of the
CCC, agreed. "Cuba is different than the Cuba that Bush tells the American
people about," said the pastor of Sancti Spiritus Reformed Presbyterian
Church in central Cuba. "Let them come and see."

Jiminez said travel could bring many advantages, social and religious.

"We can share experiences, we can have new ways of doing things and talking
about enterprises, about business," he said. "It can help us develop our
economy. As churches, it can help us get new experiences, new ways of
speaking (to each other) and coming closer. I think this could be very
positive."

For years, Cuba's government has been keen to revive American tourism to
boost its hard-currency earnings to pay for food imports. It estimates that,
if the ban were lifted, about a million Americans would visit in the first
year. The U.S. Treasury Department believes 160,000 Americans visited Cuba
legally last year, half of them Cuban-Americans, who are allowed to make one
visit per year. But thousands of Americans are believed to have made illegal
visits through third countries.

In theory, violators of the travel ban can be fined up to $250,000 and
sentenced to 10 years in prison.

"We want many Americans to visit us," said Martmnez, a professor emeritus at
the Matanzas Evangelical Seminary of Theology. "Perhaps we will - when the
blockade is finished, when the embargo is finished - have a lot of American
tourism here. It would be wonderful. We currently have tourism from Canada,
from France, all over the world."

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