WASHINGTON (ABP) — A missions partnership between Baptist groups in the United States and Cuba may be in jeopardy, pending the outcome of an investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department.
In a letter received June 27, department officials notified the Alliance of Baptists that the group's special Cuba travel license had been suspended effective immediately. Stan Hastey, the Alliance's executive director, said the suspension was tied to an investigation of alleged violations of the visa's terms by a team from an Alabama congregation that visited the island nation in March.
“Upon review of the March 10-16, 2005, travel itinerary for a trip conducted by the Baptist Church of the Covenant under the auspices of your organization, it appears that the group did not engage in a schedule of religious activities as required by the license,” the letter read, according to Hastey.
The Birmingham church group visited Cuba in what Hastey and church leaders described as a visit to study beginning a partnership relationship with a Cuban Baptist congregation. The Alliance has a missions partnership with the Fraternity of Baptist Churches in Cuba, one of several indigenous Baptist denominations in the island nation. Through it, individual U.S. congregations are paired with Cuban churches.
The Birmingham church group was studying whether to establish a missions partnership with the Shalom Baptist Church in Boca de Mariel, in central Cuba. Both congregations have since approved the project.
Due to the U.S. government's economic embargo on Fidel Castro's communist regime and corresponding travel restrictions, the Alliance must use a renewable travel permit for religious activity to enable U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba.
According to the letter, Hastey said, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control was investigating whether the Birmingham team had engaged only in “transactions directly incident to a full-time program of religious activities in Cuba,” as department guidelines require.
Hastey said the letter indicated Treasury officials had reviewed a trip itinerary he had provided them and determined that the team had spent only four hours per day on such religious activities and had spent much of the rest of their time traveling to visit farms and tourist sites.
Hastey and Todd Heifner, a lay coordinator for the trip, said that determination was inaccurate, because the activities were not what they seemed.
“There's nothing subversive about it. Essentially, we've gone down there to establish a partnership with these folks,” Heifner said in a telephone interview from Birmingham. “What we were about is Christians figuring out in different countries how to work with and pray for each other. That's the easiest way I know how to say it.”
The Alliance's Hastey also said that, while he “can understand why someone reviewing the itinerary would conclude there was a lot of free time in it,” the examples the Treasury officials pointed to were misconstrued.
“For example, the reference to visiting farms had to do with retreat center sites that the Fraternity of Baptist Churches is establishing,” Hastey said.
He and Heifner also said the fact that the group spent a night in Varadero — a beach resort town near Havana — had a religious explanation. It, Hastey said, “had to do with [the fact] that we were visiting a [Baptist] church in the same province and there is a Presbyterian guest house there. So it was just for convenience's sake” that the group spent the night in the town.
Of the trip to Varadero, Heifner said, “To my knowledge, not a single person from my group went to lay on the beach.”
A Treasury Department spokesperson, interviewed July 7, refused to confirm or deny that the Alliance's license was under investigation. But Molly Millerwise pointed an Associated Baptist Press reporter to two Treasury documents — one listing the regulations by which religious Cuba-travel licensees must abide, and a more recent warning to such licensees.
According to the regulations, “Religious activities that are consistent with U.S. foreign policy include, but are not limited to, attendance at religious services as well as activities that contribute to the development of a Cuban counterpart's religious or institutional development such as: ministerial training, education, or licensing; religious school development; youth outreach; training in or the conducting of marriage seminars; construction of places of worship or other facilities for full-time use by a Cuban counterpart; production and distribution of religious materials; assistance in holding religious services; religious preaching or teaching; and training or assistance in church administration.”
Millerwise also said that the second document — a letter sent March 31 to the more than 200 religious Cuba-travel licensees — was a reminder of the regulations. The letter was a “warning that we had become aware that some organizations may be abusing their travel authority to Cuba, may be abusing the license, perhaps,” she said.
Hastey said religious licensees received that letter as a result of investigative reporting by the Miami Herald, exposing a Florida-based religious group had used its travel license to solicit Cuban-Americans who wanted to take trips to visit family members in Cuba.
Millerwise said she would not confirm nor deny any connection between the story and the warning letter.
Hastey said he was first notified of the investigation into the Alliance's license in April. However, the license wasn't suspended until June.
He said the letter also indicated that both he personally and the organization may be subject to “civil and criminal penalties” should they ultimately be found in violation of the embargo.
The investigation of religious groups is only the latest development in strict enforcement of the Cuba trade embargo by President Bush's administration. In 2004, the Treasury Department issued new guidelines — that took effect only two weeks later — that virtually ended U.S. citizens' ability to travel to Cuba for the purpose of educational and cultural exchanges. They also cracked down on the ability of Cuban-American groups to perform humanitarian work on the island.
Hastey, who opposes the embargo, noted that those changes took effect with no public input and with no further legislative authorization from Congress.
“I would venture to say most U.S. citizens have no idea how broad the regulatory power of the executive-branch agencies is,” he said. “They have sweeping regulatory power — they can take a simple piece of legislation, like this Cuba economic embargo, and turn it into a labyrinth — a vast labyrinth — of rules and regulations.”
Nonetheless, Hastey added, “[A]s much as I disagree with the prohibition on travel generally to Cuba, I recognize and acknowledge that this office of the Treasury Department has regulatory authority to decide who may and may not travel there, which religious groups are to be issued licenses, and on what basis those licenses are to be maintained.”
Hastey said he was hopeful that the Alliance's license would ultimately be reinstated after the investigation. However, its suspension has already disrupted two Alliance trips to Cuba scheduled for July. And, Hastey said, there are “a host of other groups” scheduled to visit the island before November.
Heifner said he was similarly hopeful that the investigation was based on simple misunderstanding, not misuse. “We were doing religious activity the whole time we were there. I mean, that was the purpose for our being there,” he said. “It is a laborious process to get everything in order to go [to Cuba under the license]. Stan and the Alliance of Baptists have been very helpful to the Church of the Covenant, and, I'm sure to other churches, to make sure we are following the regulations.”