MOST Trinidadians are aware of the embargo by the United States forbidding Americans from trading with Cuba, but how many Trinis know that someone could be charged in the US for doing business with Cuba even if he or she wasn’t an American citizen?

The embargo doesn’t simply bar Americans from trading with the largest Caribbean island territory. On February 3, 1962, then US President John F. Kennedy formally decreed by Executive Order a total blockade on trade between Cuba and the US.

In 1992, Cuba lost 85 per cent of its foreign trade when the Eastern European Communist block collapsed.

The US Government then sought to intensify the effects of Cuba’s loss by passing the Torricelli Act, removing Cuba’s ability to purchase food and medicine from US subsidiaries in third countries, a loss of US$718 million.

The Torricelli Act also placed restrictions on ships sailing to and from Cuba: A ship from a third country docking in Cuba is barred from entering US ports for six months.

In 1996, the Helms-Burton Act increased the number of sanctions on actual and potential foreign investors in Cuba.

According to a recent release from the Cuban Embassy here in Trinidad, “the administration of US President George W. Bush continues to take its policy of aggression and blockade to new heights, in blatant contempt of the United Nations Charter and International Law, the freedom of commerce and navigation, and an almost unanimous call by the international community to put an end to this policy”.

The document notes that the embargo affects not only the Cuban people. Last year, regulations, sanctions and threats against non-American individuals and businesses were made “stricter and more fierce”.

It was under these circumstances, a Trinidadian who had migrated to Canada and had done business with the Cubans while a resident in Canada was made to feel the full force of the US law when he decided to move to the US years later.

After migrating from Trinidad, Sabzali settled in Hamilton, Ontario, and worked there from 1991 to 1996 as a sales representative and marketing director for Purolite International, the Canadian branch of the US-based Bro-Tech Corporation.

Sabzali travelled to Cuba in this capacity on more than 20 occasions. He was then promoted and transferred to Philadelphia as head of the firm in 1996.

In April 2002, he was indicted for alleged crimes committed in Canada and found guilty on eight out of 20 charges.

The American media, in keeping with a current trend to defend their government’s national security decisions, closed ranks with their government and gave very little coverage to the Sabzali case despite the fact that Sabzali, as a Canadian citizen, is obliged to ignore the embargo.

Under Ottawa’s Extra-Territorial Act, legislation that prevents other countries from determining which countries Canada does business with, Canadian companies are obliged to inform the Canadian Government if they receive orders from the United States not to export to the island, as trading with Cuba is legal in Canada.

The 12 remaining charges, because they were based on exports from Bro-Tech’s offices in Canada, Mexico, Italy, Spain and Britain, had to be dropped because these countries do not recognise the US anti-Cuban legislation.

In fact, none of the products that Sabzali sold came from the US. According to a BBC report, Sabzali became the first Canadian to be tried and sentenced to house arrest for 12 months for violating the US “Trading With The Enemy” law that dates back to 1917, and which has been updated in order to utilise it against the island.

The sentence was particularly harsh, especially in light of the fact that in the past, persons so charged were simply fined several thousand dollars.

One exception, before Sabzali, was a Spaniard, who was given a prison term at the end of his trial, of which he served only a few months.

Now, almost four years after being accused of trading with the enemy, Sabzali is still trying to understand how the US Government could deem selling chemicals to purify drinking water in Cuban hospitals, a matter of national security.

Sabzali eventually pleaded guilty to a charge of “smuggling” several thousand dollars worth of supplies destined for the island.

He pleaded guilty in exchange for the probation and a $10,000 fine.

With the sentence, he avoids deportation.

Now, after nearly five years of what he calls “an all-consuming struggle” that left him “cut off from society, and unable to do anything else”, Sabzali looks forward “to resuming normal life, being finally free”.

After years without the use of his passport, it comes as no surprise that travel is near the top of his list.

Unfortunately for him, he won’t be able to continue his friendships in Cuba.

Like all US residents regardless of their citizenship, Sabzali is barred from visiting Cuba by the US travel ban, a strong reminder that the blockade continues.

However, while he has indicated that he is determined to start travelling again.

He didn’t say if he had any plans to visit the land of his birth.