More trash, when will this end???

May 2004 SOUTHWINDS www.southwindssailing.com 48
FLORIDA KEYS SAILING
I
t was a humid Easter Sunday when I
headed into Key West’s waterfront for
an exclusive interview with Mr. Peter
Goldsmith of the Conch Republic Cup.
Taking place for eight years, this race to
Cuba from Key West experienced diffi-culty
last year when officials from the
Department of Commerce seized the
private property of returning sailors.
The stolen personal items have not yet
been returned. Early this year, a grand
jury convened in Key West and people,
confused by the government’s treatment
of a group of American citizens who
love to race sailboats and had raced to
Cuba, wanted to learn more. I sat with
Peter in the spacious loft of Geslin
Sailmakers overlooking the bight. Soon,
I learned of the events that may have
led up to the current prosecution of sail-ors
involved in the race.
The sailors had held their public
skipper’s meeting in Key West the night
prior to the race on May 21st of 2003.
Accompanied by four men who were
wearing guns, Jonathan Barnes, from
the Department of Commerce, came to
the skipper’s meeting and was shown
all relevant paperwork. A lawyer was
present along with the issuer of the ex-port
license, and these individuals con-vened
with Jonathan for at least a half
an hour. According to Peter, all Mr.
Barnes would say before he left the
meeting was, if this is what you think you
need to go to Cuba. The sentence ended
right there.
The next morning while the Conch
Republic Cup boats were casting off
their lines to start the race, officials
showed up at the docks and handed out
papers that required the boats to obtain
another type of export license. The rac-ers
were told not to go to Cuba. It is not
known why officials waited until the
boats were casting off when there had
been sufficient time months in advance
and an opportunity at the last night’s
skipper’s meeting to give sailors notice
of this previously unknown requirement.
After the race, when the sailors re-turned
to Key West, authorities searched
the boats and seized various personal
items belonging to the sailors. By Feb-ruary
of 2004, various people involved
in the Conch Republic Cup were called
to testify before a grand jury in Key
West. The situation seems to concern an
export license requirement that the sail-ors
were not aware of and did not have.
Actual details of the grand jury’s inten-tions
are not known.
Peter told me that Jonathan Barnes
had stopped by his house just before the
grand jury convened. He asked
Jonathan why wasn’t anyone informed
of the additional export license during
the skippers’ meeting when all paper
work was shown, verified and checked
over. Jonathan’s response was to say
that it wasn’t his job; it was someone
else’s department.
“That’s like entrapment,� Peter told me.
“But entrapment’s not a legal argument
anymore so there’s really nothing we
can say. We just have to go through the
process, and this grand jury is trying to
determine whether we did something
criminal or not.�
For the eight years of racing, was
part of it to bring medicine, humani-tarian
aid? (In 2003, a number of boats
carried aid, but this is not considered to
be part of the violation; just the boats
and their destination are.) “No. I’m not
political about this. We’re not doing this
race for any political reasons. I’m in it
because I like sailing and racing sail-boats.
Racing around here gets old, and
we were invited to race down there.�
You were invited? “Yes, the com-modore
from Club Nautico at Marina
Hemingway invited us.� Peter went on
to explain that the racers were fully
hosted by Cuba. Eight years ago, the
Conch Republic Cup was first started
when a letter of invitation from the Cu-ban
commodore was sent to Key West
sailors at their local club. The Key West
Sailing Club backed out of all involve-ment
with the race after receiving cease
and desist orders from the Treasury De-partment.
Peter ended up with the race.
Was a specific reason given for the
cease and desist orders?
“Basically, they didn’t want us to
go. Here’s what we based the race on
for all these years. First is our constitu-tional
right to travel. Second was that
the embargo on traveling to Cuba has
never been challenged in a court of law.
So this is what we based the race on until
they came up with this export license
last year. So we got an export license.
But it wasn’t good enough. Can you
imagine? That they’re convening a
grand jury over this?�
Obviously confounded, Peter
plunked down his cigar, threw his hands
up in the air and said that he’d heard of
a person from the South Pacific who was
subpoenaed and has to be flown over
to testify. People from all over the coun-try
are being subpoenaed.
That’s a lot of work over a group
of sailboats just trying to do a race, isn’t
it? Peter shrugged and told me about
one of his fellow sailors, Mark, who was
called in to testify. Mark told the pros-ecution
that he thought the export li-cense
the sailors had was sufficient; oth-erwise,
they wouldn’t have gone to
Cuba. Why wouldn’t the license be
good? Mark had asked. Prosecution’s
response was that the license wasn’t
good enough, and the sailors needed
this other license. Mark’s response was
to say that it’s just a technicality, right?
Peter shakes his head over the rec-ollection
of Mark’s words. He couldn’t
believe that a grand jury would convene
over a trivial matter such as a technical-ity,
or that people would be prosecuted
for having the wrong license when they
had not been aware that it was wrong
in the first place.
Is this really what this whole thing
is based on? A wrong license? “Well,
you never know where a grand jury is
coming from. They hide their real inten-tions
and they don’t tell you right away
because that would give you time to set
up a defense. With grand juries it’s to-tally
one-sided. You can’t go in with a
lawyer. You’re sitting there with the jury
and thirty-some people working for the
government, and these people are all
trying to convince the jury that you did
something wrong. This seems so uncon-stitutional
and against everything that’s
American.� Peter didn’t believe that
there was anything in the Constitution
that supported the convening of a grand
jury, nor that there was anything mor-ally
or ethically correct about the
government’s actions against the sailors.
Do you think that the government
is doing this because they’re worried
Interview with Peter Goldsmith, Organizer of the Conch Republic Cup Race to
Cuba:
Sailors Intimidated by Authorities — Race Cancelled
By Rebecca Burg