Cuba consular problem in Washington may cause ripples for US diplomats in Havana

[MPS]

http://www.miamihera...washington.html

CUBA

Cuba consular problem in Washington may cause ripples for US diplomats in Havana

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

[email protected]

Cuban diplomats in Washington have said they will wait for a fix to their banking roadblock, but hinted that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana could suffer the consequences if the problem continues, according to Cuba travel company employees.

The diplomats met with the employees Wednesday to brief them on the situation after they stopped all consular services last week following the M&T Bank’s decision to close the Cuban consulate’s account.

Halting the visa and passport applications created a crisis in the Cuba travel industry because the travel agencies, virtually all of them based in Miami, were preparing for the heavy travel period during the year-end holidays.

Two employees of Miami travel companies who attended the briefing, held at the Cuban diplomatic mission in Washington, said the diplomats indicated they are not interested in a temporary or complicated workaround to the banking issue.

Cash will not be accepted for the visas and passports, the employees said. And there’s no agreement on allowing visitors on so-called people-to-people trips to pay for their $80 visas on arrival in Havana, instead of in Washington.

The diplomats indicated that the Cuban government will wait “a prudent” period for a solution, but that if nothing happens after that the U.S. mission in Havana may be affected, the employees said, asking for anonymity because the briefing was private.

The Cubans gave no details but noted that an agreement between Washington and Havana requires each side to provide the other with the same facilities for their diplomatic missions, the employees added.

Cuban diplomats in Washington have privately said that the money from the consular fees pays their salaries and even their mission’s light bills, hinting that with consular services halted the mission may have to shut its doors.

“If the (Cuban) Interests Section cannot pay its bills, it might have to shut down, and then the U.S. Interests Section may have to shut down,” said one of the employees. “And all that would take Cuba-US relations back 20 years.”

The U.S. and Cuban diplomatic missions are known as Interests Sections because the two countries do not have full relations. They are manned by U.S. and Cuban diplomats but are officially part of the Swiss embassies. It is not known whether the M&T decision also affected the Cuban mission to the United Nations in New York City.

More than 475,000 Cuban-Americans traveled to the island last year to visit relatives under a U.S. “family reunification” license. Another 98,000 U.S. residents went to Cuba on “people-to-people” trips, according to official Cuban figures.

State Department officials have portrayed the decision by M&T Bank, based in Buffalo to close all its consular accounts as a purely commercial decision and said that the U.S. government cannot force any bank to service any country.

Some critics of U.S. sanctions on the island have alleged that M&T shut the Cuban account because of the onerous controls required by the island’s inclusion on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. They urged that Havana be taken off the list immediately.

In turn, some sanctions supporters have argued that Cuba is doing little or nothing to resolve the banking problem because it wants to use the threat of a disruption in U.S.-Cuba travel to win its removal from the terror list.

Cuba has been on the terror list since 1982. Also on it are Iran, Sudan and Syria.

http://progresoweekly.us/20131126-consular-business-washington-suspended-notice/

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/12/02/3793228/us-cuba-money-transactions-could.html

[Bartolomeo]

Great article Robbie, was speaking with John about this during Thanksgiving

[Jeremy Festa]

Very interesting. Cheers

[CUBANO]

My parents and sister were planning to go to Cuba in January to visit family. I don't think is going to happen now with this issue.

[MPS]

http://m.miamiherald.com/mh/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=tTlTnCNX

Cuban diplomats in Washington resume consular work [email protected] (Juan O. Tamayo) 12/09/2013 16:04

Averting a chaotic disruption in U.S. visits to Cuba, the island’s diplomatic mission in Washington announced Monday it had resumed processing visas and passports and other consular matters until at least Feb. 17.

The announcement said the resumption came after M&T Bank, based in Buffalo, agreed to postpone the closure of the Cuban mission’s accounts until March 1, and to continue to accept deposits for consular fees until Feb. 17.

When Cuban diplomats in Washington stopped processing consular requests Nov. 26, there were fears the move would jeopardize travel as tens of thousands of Cuban-Americans and other U.S. residents prepared to visit the island for the busy year-end holidays.

The halt also sparked concerns that the cut in revenues would lead to the closure of the entire Cuban diplomatic mission in Washington — since consular fees pay for salaries and monthly bills — and, in turn, force the closure of the U.S. mission in Havana.

The Cuban mission said Monday it had “immediately restored consular services, in a temporary arrangement,” after M&T notified diplomats Friday that it had decided “to grant an extension to the definitive closing of the accounts.”

The mission “continues to carry out efforts to identify a new bank that would assume the operation of its accounts, and if that is achieved it will be able to definitively normalize the consular services,” the announcement said.

It added that M&T’s decision had affected the accounts of “the Cuban diplomatic missions in the United States” — for the first time indicating that the island’s mission to the United Nations in New York City also would have been impacted.

The two countries’ diplomatic missions are officially known as Interests Sections because they do not have full diplomatic relations. Technically, they are part of the Swiss embassies in Havana and Washington — though both countries staff them with their own diplomats.

M&T notified Cuba in July that it planned to stop servicing all foreign consulates, not just Cuba’s. U.S. State Department and Cuban government officials have been searching for a replacement, but that has been difficult because of a combination of factors.

Some banks have been getting out of all international transactions because of the onerous screening, record-keeping and reporting controls imposed by U.S. laws against money laundering, fraud, terrorist financing and other crimes.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and the Antiterrorism Act of 1996 all require controls. In addition, Cuba is subject to other requirements because of the U.S. trade embargo and its inclusion on the U.S. list of state sponsors of international terrorism.

State Department officials have portrayed M&T’s decision to close all its consular accounts as a purely commercial judgment and said the U.S. government cannot force any private bank to hold accounts for any country.