{

Americans Forgotten

The largest uncompensated confiscation of American propertiesAs told by one U.S. Certified Claimant

On October 16, 1964, the President signed into law, H.R. 12259, which became Public Law 88-666, title V of the International Claims Settlement Act of 1949, as amended, under which the Commission is authorized to determine the amount and validity of the

CLAIMS OF *AMERICAN CITIZENS, *WHO WERE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AT THE TIME OF CASTRO’S RISE TO POWER,

AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT OF CUBA based upon: (1) debts for merchandise furnished or services rendered by nationals of the United States; (2) losses arising since January 1, 1959, as a result of the nationalization of other taking of property belonging to United States nationals; and (3) disability or death of nationals of the United States resulting from actions taken by, or under the authority of the Government of Cuba since January 1, 1959.

Subsequently, the Government of the United States terminated relations with the Government of Cuba after all attempts to negotiate these claims failed.

President John F. Kennedyhttp://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58824

Foreign Claims Settlement Commission - U.S. Department of Justice

Before the 1959 Castro revolution, Cuba and the United States had many business ties and successful business partnerships. Cuba was one of the most advanced countries in Latin America, and because of its proximity to Florida’s coast, it was easy to transport goods from each other's ports. A passenger ferry ran from Florida to Cuba, making it easy for people to travel routinely back and forth as well.

Their successes benefited both countries economically and socially, and Cubans traveled to America and Americans vacationed in Cuba. The United States was the largest buyer of Cuban sugar, making the U.S. consumer vital to Cuba’s economy.  Americans lived, worked, and had businesses and industries in Cuba. They were from many different U.S. states and some traveled back and forth between countries. Ranchers sold cattle from Florida, farmers sold wheat from Iowa, and business professionals from major U.S. cities managed their Cuban branch offices. The relationship between the Cubans and Floridians was even more heavily invested because of the mere 90 miles between them. And unlike what Hollywood movies depict, Americans in Cuba were not mobsters or corrupt corporations running Cuba. These Americans were from “all walks of life” and provided goods and services to Cuba for generations, surviving through the turmoil of revolutions and regime changes.

American and Cuban Relationships

1902 Poster Depicting Cuban and U.S. Relations

Castro Takes Control of the Cuban GovernmentIn January 1959, Fidel Castro and his militia overthrew the Cuban

government. Castro’s rise to power was one of the most grievous debacles in Cuban-U.S. political history. Castro’s revolution was not a singlehanded event, but rather it was a series of events and betrayals, which lead up to the dissolution of a relationship with a friendly pro-American Cuban government. Castro and his militia were known terrorists, who were responsible for bombings, murders, kidnappings, blackmailing, and other terroristic activities throughout Cuba for many years, including the kidnapping of many Americans. One of the most grievous decisions that lead to the betrayal of Cuba was when the U.S. decided to suspend a shipment of arms in March 1958. When news of the suspension got out, the uncertainty of whom the U.S. supported was ruinous to the Cuban armed forces and its citizens. This was the beginning of the end for the Cuban government.

Ousted political opponents that were exiled and living in the U.S. pressured our politicians to rally behind the Castro movement, so some of them did. Meanwhile, Castro’s militia was receiving secret shipments of weapons via their exiled supporters from the U.S., while the legitimate Cuban government was denied arms to protect their citizens from these terrorists.  Once Castro was in power, he ordered the death of all those affiliated with the previous regime, killing over 500 people. Castro’s infamous murders by firing squads shocked the world.

Originally Published in the Daily News, Washington D.C. on July 4, 1958

Fidel Castro and Rebels, Havana, January, 1959

U.S. Hostages Captured by Raul Castro - June, 1958

Castro began to confiscate private properties when he gained control of Cuba in January 1959. He initially targeted the properties of anyone affiliated or associated with the previous Cuban government, regardless of citizenship or nationality. Castro then started to confiscate all properties of Americans in Cuba, including both corporate and private individual properties.

The first U.S. corporate asset expropriated in March 1959, belonged to the International Telephone and Telegraph’s subsidiary, the Cuban Telephone Company. Castro enacted a series of laws that sanctified and allowed his new government to expropriate all private properties in Cuba. Castro signed the Agrarian Reform Act in May of 1959, which allowed the confiscation of farmlands. The following year, in October 1960, the new Cuban government passed laws nationalizing all assets in Cuba. Within two years, Castro had essentially stripped all citizens living in Cuba, from their rights to own property, thus enriching his new ruling junta. Castro took an estimated $1.8 billion (in 1960 dollars) in American properties between 1959 and 1960.

The U.S. government did nothing to protect the American properties or stop Castro from taking them. Many Americans were terrorized when Castro’s militia showed up with guns, forced them out of their homes, and took all their worldly possessions. Bank accounts were frozen; cars, land, farms, and all personal possessions were gone. They took everything and anything that they deemed valuable, and told the Americans to leave or else. So they left with nothing but their lives and some families simply never financially recovered.

The American Confiscation

Confiscated Home of an American in Cuba

The U.S. Certified Claimants

In 1964, the U.S. Congress passed legislation allowing the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission to open up the Cuba Claims program, with the intention to certify and verify what the American businesses and individual families had lost due to expropriation, and to determine a dollar value of lost assets for each claim. In the end, after all the data and documentation collection was complete, 5,913 Americans were able to have their lost assets certified by our United States Government, and we are referred to as the U.S. Certified Claimants.

This claims program was our one and only hope to ever see compensation for the expropriation of our properties by the Castro Government. And we were all hopeful that one day things would change, the embargo would end, and that our certified claims would be settled and resolved.

No one, including our parents and the U.S. Legislators who were alive and active with these claims issue in 1964, would have ever imagined that the Castro government would still be in power and that the claims would still remain unresolved more than 50 years later.

The Cuban ConfiscationIn October 1960, the Cuban Government passed laws allowing the nationalization of all Cuban business and industry, thus making it legal to steal from their own Cuban citizens. The Cuban government took all Cuban owned businesses, hotels, factories, mills, plantations, stores, restaurants, farms, and much more. The American confiscation was small in comparison to what was taken from the Cubans.

The only possession the Cubans were allowed to keep was their cars and certain personal possessions. It was forbidden to own any items that the Cuban government deemed as luxury items, so in many cases these were taken away from their rightful owners and used by the government officials as they pleased. The final blow to the Cuban people was when the Cuban currency changed, making it impossible to trade the new currency on the international markets. The Cuban government also limited the amount of money you could have, so if your bank account was over the limit, any overage went into its coffers.

The well-educated upper and middle class Cubans fled Cuba in droves. Many of them settled in Miami, New Jersey, New York, and New Orleans, and eventually became American citizens. These original Cuban exiles succeeded in the U.S., as they did before in Cuba. Their children were born, raised, and educated in the U.S., and many have become outstanding and successful American citizens, and are leaders in business and government. They are a reflection of their parent’s resilience and determination to begin a new life where their children could prosper and live free from tyranny.

Cuba Exiles Arriving at Miami Airport

 After the new Cuban government confiscated the American properties, Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, marking the beginning of the Cuban threat against the United States.

The Soviet Union was more than happy to partner with Castro’s Cuba and send their missiles to Cuba. With this new powerful ally and weapons of mass destruction at his disposal, Castro launched an agenda of propaganda, of hate and lies about America. It was during these times that we all were on edge because of the real threat of the U.S. being bombed by Cuba. Castro’s famous anti-American speeches were fueled with rhetoric and threats that the U.S. would be bombed by Cuba, so we were living in tense and fearful times. Cuba’s proximity to Florida’s coast was now to our disadvantage.

JFK'S "CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS" SPEECHhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgdUgzAWcrw

Castro’s Threats to the U.S.

Record Setting four-hour and 29-minuted speech denouncing the United States, 1960, United Nations

Fidel Castro’s Anti-American SpeechNovember 5, 1963

Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, 1961

The United States Cuban Embargo

In 1962, President Kennedy signed Proclamation 3447, enacting the embargo on all trade with the Cuban government. This was in retaliation for the confiscation of American properties and in response to other hostile Cuban actions and its alignment with a subversive communist Soviet Union.

Prior to the signing of this proclamation, President Eisenhower began a partial embargo against Cuba in October 1960, and approved an anti-Castro plan. This was the beginning of the trade sanctions against Cuba, and it was imposed as a way to induce the return of the American properties.

Today, there are two political sides to the embargo. One side wants to absolve the Cuban Government’s past crimes and atrocities, by dissolving our sanctions against Cuba, thus allowing their constituent's businesses to profit and gain on an early foothold in the Cuban markets. The other side wants the communism out of Cuba, personal freedoms restored, and properties compensated to their rightful owners, including some sort of possible restitution for the Americans that were victims of Castro’s nationalization of their properties in the 1960’s.

The U.S. Certified claimants understand that Cuba has many complex issues and that the embargo will soon end. However, the certified claimants are usually omitted from the Cuban embargo argument and the embargo cannot end, by law, if the claims are not resolved.

The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis were past historical events that continued the downward spiral in American and Cuban relations. Today’s issues between Cuba and the U.S. involve an American citizen named Alan Gross, who was wrongly imprisoned and has been sitting in a Cuban jail for many years, and the Cuban Five, who were arrested and jailed in the U.S. for espionage against our country. One of the Cuban Five has been released and is back in Cuba and the other four are still in jail.

While both the past and current issues between Cuba and the U.S. are important and significant, this presentation’s goal is to explain what happened to the Americans that were living and doing business in Cuba, when Castro overthrew the Cuban government. This was the largest uncompensated expropriation of properties belonging to Americans, yet most Americans are unaware of this crime.

Cuba’s Past and Present – Issues Concerning Cuba

BAY OF PIGS – ATTEMPTS BY EXILES TO TAKE CUBA BACK April, 1961

The Solution

The solution can come in many forms, including the idea of a user fee on Cuba’s exports to the United States, and additionally, a user fee tacked on to what the U.S. exports to Cuba. This would rectify our claims and allow the Cuban economy to grow, without the burden of a large lump sum cash settlement. Cuba’s economy will flourish once again, when markets between the U.S. and Cuba flow again. This fee can be used to pay back the U. S. Certified Cuban Claimants in full. Even though the U.S. is not directly to blame for the American confiscation, the lack of action to protect American properties should reflect some blame and responsibility.

Once all the American claims are paid in full, this user fee can be eliminated from U.S. exports to Cuba, and maybe the fee can still be collected from the Cuban exports to the U.S., in order to pay back the original Cubans that had their properties seized by the Cuban Government. This would be a fair solution to both confiscations, thus resolving the embargo, and rectifying what happened to our Cuban American citizens, with the restitution resting on the shoulders of the Cuban government.

 If you are a U.S. Certified Claimant, please contact your Congressman and Senator, and let them know that you want their representation concerning a fair resolution of your claim. Contact the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission and make sure they know you are an active participant of your claim and that they have updated contact information for you. If you remain silent and inactive and expect the best outcome from your claim by waiting for the Cuban embargo to end, you would be wrong, because by then, decisions on a settlement would have already been negotiated.

Even though there has been no announcement of official negotiations for ending the embargo, we know that there are negotiations going on during “behind closed doors meetings”. The fate of the claimants will be decided in those meetings, without our input.

The confiscation of our properties was a main element in the embargo legislation, so we should also be the main focus and element to the ending of the U.S. Cuban Embargo.

Wake Up U.S. Certified Claimants!

Varadero Beach, Cuba, 1941

Why Americans Should Care

Americans and our political leader cared about us in the past, but today’s Americans are either misinformed or uninformed as to who we are, and what happened to us in Cuba some 55 years ago. The generalization and assumption that all Americans living and working in Cuba were corrupt or associated with the mafia, is emphatically not true, but nearly impossible to rectify. Some call us an “obstacle” to the ending of the embargo, however, when it first happened, we were the “victims” of a confiscation. We bought our properties legally and within the Cuban legal system, unlike the way Castro’s militia took our properties, which was sometimes at gunpoint.

The Americans that lived in Cuba were also well-educated wealthy and middle class Americans. They were successful leaders and entrepreneurs who were conducting business as usual, contributing greatly to the Cuban economy, when their personal belongings and businesses were taken. If your agenda is to discredit and dismiss us as un-American and not worth helping, then that is an indication of where the United States is headed. Some people prefer to regard a communist dictator as the victim, and the Americans that were harmed by him as criminals. Our forefathers fought and died for our freedoms, and it is an inherent “right” to own property. Property rights are the foundation of a free and civil society, and without those freedoms and rights, we are slaves. This is true for both Cuban and American citizens.

Isle of Pines, Cuba, 1941

It is time to assert yourself and let other Americans know what happened to your family. Write to your Senators and congressional representatives, and President Obama. Let them know that you are a holder of a U.S. Certified Claim, and as an American citizen, you expect your government to find a solution for a fair compensation of our claims before the embargo ends. Please President Obama, don’t let Castro steal from us again.

If you are a certified claimant and are interested in hearing about the current issues and our solutions concerning the claims and embargo, please feel free to contact us. We are always working on the claims issue. We know that there are those who are attempting to rewrite history by tainting us as something other than what we really are. We are the Americans who were wronged. This needs to be made right! The emotional impact of this crime may have appeared to have diminished over time, but the lessons still remain clear. Those lessons should not be forgotten and should serve to teach and / or remind all Americans about this injustice so that they too will know and care about the U.S. Certified Claimants!

Email us at: AmericanCertifiedClaims@gmail.com

Help Fight For Your Claim!

Pinar del Rio, Cuba, 1941

Property rights are human rights. The definition, allocation, and protection of property rights comprise one of the most complex and difficult sets of issues that any society has to resolve, but one that must be resolved in some fashion.

PropertyRights.html

Cuban Embargo Proclamationhttp://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58824http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58824

Suspension of Arms to Cubahttp://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cable/cable-5-2-58.htm

Castro’s Kidnapping of Americanshttp://cuba1952-1959.blogspot.com/2009/12/1958-castro-rebels-take-us-hostages.html

Castro’s Infamous Firing Squadshttp://www.therealcuba.com/page5.htm

Castro Denounces the U.S. Record Breaking at the UNhttp://www.nbcnews.com/id/39292095/ns/world_news/t/what-watch-un-world-leaders-who-dislike-us/#.U4FlsV4ipZh

Foreign Claims Settlement Commissionhttp://www.justice.gov/fcsc/final-report-cuba-1972.pdf

Office of Foreign Asset Controlshttp://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/cuba.aspx

Who Lost Cuba-Hearing with U.S. Cuban Ambassadors Gardner and Smithhttp://latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/gardner-smith.htm

Names of the American’s Who Have U.S. Certified Claimshttp://www.justice.gov/fcsc/readingroom/ccp-listofclaims.pdf

Castro’s Speech Threats to the U.S.http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1959/19590422.html

U.S. State Department Meeting-The Future of Castro’s Revolution 1959http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/embassy/R25-Memo-9-18-1959.pdf

Classified Communications U.S. Cuban Embassy and the State Dept.http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/embassy-1955-59.htm

PBS Timeline for Cubahttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/castro/timeline/

Outstanding Claims Expropriated Property Cubahttp://www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume21/pdfs/anillo.pdf

Solution User Feehttp://www.pobletetamargo.com/the-pt-law-blog/international-claims/settle-american-claims-against-cuba