with Cuba in critical areas.
This can be studied further at length any time.
The Helms-Burton Act bans foreign companies selling diagnostic and treatment equipment to Cuba, like dialysis machines, water purifiers, cancer treatment equipment, X-ray machines, cameras, and a VAST array of products which are made abroad, with even ONE part in them bearing a US patent. Companies are FORBIDDEN to sell all kinds of hospital machines, machinery of any kind at all which contain any parts patented by a US citizen, company, etc.
Americas Program Bad Neighbor Policy
Bad Neighbor Policy No. 2
U.S. Treasury Evicts Cubans from Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City
International Relations Center | April 18, 2006
The U.S. Treasury Department ordered the Sheraton Hotel chain to expel 16 Cuban nationals staying at the Sheraton María Isabel in Mexico City on February 4th. The Cubans were participating in the U.S.-Cuba Energy Summit, a conference organized by the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association.
The Treasury Department did not issue a public statement explaining the unusual action, but it falls under enforcement of the Helms-Burton Act of 1996. The act prohibits U.S. companies from doing business with Cuban-owned interests in any part of the world and has reaped criticism from other countries as a violation of national sovereignty.
The Treasury Department knew about the event and its Cuban participants well before the eviction since the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association routinely advises the Treasury Department of its meetings. However, neither planners nor the Cuban participants were warned of the possible eviction until they were told to leave the hotel. Their room deposits were turned over to the Treasury Department.
The Sheraton Hotel management stated that it was merely following orders from the U.S. Treasury. The measure placed the company in a no-win situation, forcing it to violate at least one law—the U.S. prohibition on trade with Cuba abroad or Mexico's anti-discrimination laws.
The eviction caused a major uproar in the Mexican press. Both local and federal authorities began investigations of the action and of the Sheraton María Isabel, located near the U.S. Embassy in central Mexico City. Although the orders were received from Sheraton U.S. headquarters, the Mexico City Sheraton is a business constituted in Mexico and subject to its laws. Mexico has refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the Helms-Burton Act in its territory. The Mexican government briefly closed the hotel for various infractions but later allowed it to reopen after levying a stiff fine for violation of the anti-discrimination law.
The U.S. Secretary of State issued a statement saying the action was not meant to “irritate our friends in Mexico,” but the eviction was considered a direct provocation to a nation with close historical ties to Cuba. It not surprisingly stirred up public indignation and calls for retaliation measures.
The U.S. Helms-Burton Act has been challenged by many countries for illegally seeking to impose the extraterritorial enforcement of U.S. law. It has rarely been enforced as aggressively as in the Mexico Sheraton case.
More:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3220
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OFAC reaches into Mexican hotel to enforce Embargo
Published: Mon February 13, 2006
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. | New York Times
Mexico and Cuba criticized the United States on Monday February 6 for demanding that the Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel here order a group of Cuban officials, who were meeting last week with representatives of American oil companies, to check out of the hotel and leave the premises.
On Friday February 3, the United States Treasury Department contacted the company that owns the Sheraton and warned them that they were violating federal laws against trading with Cuba by allowing the meeting to take place in their hotel.
The hotel told the Cuban representatives to leave, and sent their room deposits to the Treasury Department. The meeting was moved to a hotel not owned by an American company.
The American action has provoked a minor storm. Mayor Alejandro Encinas of Mexico City, a member of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, said Monday morning that he would ask his prosecutors to find out if the hotel had broken local antidiscrimination laws and seek to shut it down if it had.
Then, the Mexican foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez, said the idea that a United States law was being enforced on Mexican soil was troubling. He said the government would take action against the hotel if it proved true. “There does not exist and neither should there exist the extraterritorial application of this law in our nation,” he said.
Cuba also lambasted the United States in an editorial in the state-run newspaper, Granma, saying that forcing the Cubans to leave the Sheraton had amounted to a “petty meanness” and represented “an outrage” against Mexican sovereignty.
“The tentacles of the blockade and the United States’ criminal economic war against Cuba tend to extend themselves to every corner of the planet, including to the detriment of the sovereignty and laws of other states,” the editorial said.
Various Mexican politicians, among them Felipe Calderón, the candidate for president from President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party, joined the chorus of criticism.
More:
http://havanajournal.com/business/entry/ofac_reaches_in... /
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Anti-US protest blocks Sheraton hotel in Mexico City
Posted on: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 21:17 CST
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Protesters waving Cuban flags blocked the entrance to a U.S.-owned Sheraton hotel in Mexico City on Tuesday, calling for it to be closed because it evicted Cuban officials on orders from Washington.
About 30 people shouted "Yankees out" as they demonstrated outside the hotel over its eviction of the 16 Cubans who were staying there last week for a conference with U.S. energy companies.
Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said Mexico was looking into the evictions and would apply the full force of the law against the Sheraton if a crime had been committed.
"It is an unacceptable application of a foreign law in our country, which goes against all principles of international law," Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Derbez said in a radio interview.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc., which owns Sheraton hotels, said it had been asked by the U.S. Treasury Department to tell the Cuban officials to leave the hotel because of the terms of the U.S. embargo on the island.
Mexican newspapers were filled with angry opinion pieces railing against perceived U.S. meddling in Mexico.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Sheraton in Mexico City was a subsidiary of an American-owned hotel group and therefore subject to U.S. laws and regulations.
"Very basically, U.S. law would apply to U.S. corporations or subsidiaries of U.S. corporations, no matter where they may be -- whether it's in Mexico City or in Europe or South America," McCormack said.
More:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/383299/antiu... /
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Posted 3/1/2006 12:32 PM
Mexico City officials attempt to shut down U.S. hotel
MEXICO CITY (AP) — City officials moved Tuesday to shut down a U.S.-owned hotel that angered many Mexicans when it kicked out a Cuban delegation under pressure from Washington.
Virginia Jaramillo Flores, head of the city borough where the upscale Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel is located, said authorities notified the hotel staff that it would be closed because it is in violation of building codes.
Jaramillo said the hotel could reopen when it had corrected the violations and paid a $15,000 fine.
Borough officials posted signs at the front entrance saying, "Due to infringement of local law, the Sheraton Hotel activities have been suspended."
It was not immediately clear if guests or employees would have to leave or if the hotel would be able to legally block the closure.
Laura Canepa, a representative for hotel owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., said company officials were consulting with their lawyers about the implications of the measure.
More:
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2006-03-01-mexico...
ETC.
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