[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE CASTRO REGIME'S ONGOING VIOLATIONS OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 13, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-219
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
CURT CLAWSON, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee AMI BERA, California
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Oscar Elias Biscet, M.D., president, Lawton Foundation for Human
Rights (former Cuban political prisoner)....................... 5
Ms. Sirley Avila Leon, democracy advocate........................ 8
Ms. Maria Werlau, president, Free Society Project................ 12
Mr. Geoff Thale, program director, Washington Office on Latin
America........................................................ 21
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Oscar Elias Biscet, M.D.: Prepared statement..................... 7
Ms. Sirley Avila Leon: Prepared statement........................ 10
Ms. Maria Werlau: Prepared statement............................. 15
Mr. Geoff Thale: Prepared statement.............................. 24
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 42
Hearing minutes.................................................. 43
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations: List of political prisoners in Cuba............. 44
Written responses from Mr. Geoff Thale to questions submitted for
the record by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith............... 46
THE CASTRO REGIME'S ONGOING
VIOLATIONS OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL
RIGHTS
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. And first
let me begin by apologizing for the delay. There were a large
series of votes in the House which precluded our meeting at the
appointed time, so I do thank you for your forbearance.
Good afternoon. It has been 1 year and 8 months since
President Obama announced a major change in our country's
policy toward Cuba. It has been 11 months since Secretary Kerry
visited Havana and reopened our Embassy, and it has been nearly
4 months since our President visited Cuba. Clearly, a lot has
changed in just over 1\1/2\ years but for the people of Cuba,
particularly those espousing fundamental human rights, what has
changed?
Today we will examine the sorry state of the civil and
political rights in the Castro brothers' Cuba, and how despite
all the promises by the administration and that an opening to
Cuba would lead to greater opening domestically for the Cuban
people, we still see political repression, including it must be
noted repression directed at the Afro-Cuban population. And in
the past, this subcommittee has had a previous hearing where we
focused in great part on that terrible repression.
This is not the first time this subcommittee has expressed
concern about the lack of openness to democracy and the
mistreatment of dissenters in Cuba. In fact, one of our
witnesses, the courageous Dr. Oscar Biscet, offered dramatic
testimony before this subcommittee in February 2012 when he
testified via telephone from the U.S. Interests Section in
Havana after evading the Cuban police to get there.
Likewise, on February 5, 2015, we held a hearing entitled
``Human Rights in Cuba: An Opportunity Squandered,'' wherein we
asked whether the Obama administration had used the
considerable leverage that it wields to better the condition of
the Cuban people, or whether it was squandering the
opportunity.
Since then our fear that the administration has not been
pushing sufficiently for the release of political prisoners and
other human rights concerns has only grown with the focus on
President Obama's legacy instead of on the Cuban people.
For example, when President Obama made his visit to Cuba,
he and Raul Castro appeared in a photo opportunity press
conference. CNN's Jim Acosta, much to his credit, asked the
hard question about Cuba's political prisoners. Raul Castro,
much to his discredit, denied that there were any political
prisoners in Cuba. ``Give me the list of the political
prisoners and I will release them immediately,'' Castro
taunted. ``Just mention the list,'' he said. President Obama
did not present him with a list.
Well, Mr. President, I have the list right here of 50
political prisoners compiled by our good friend and colleague,
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and without objection we'll insert that
list into the record and we will send it to the Embassy here in
Washington for Cuba. And, hopefully, it will be then sent down
to Raul Castro. This is the list that President Obama should
have had in his breast pocket ready to pull out when Raul
Castro dared him to call his bluff.
When I came to Congress in 1981 with Ronald Reagan, in the
days of the old Soviet Union, one of the first issues I worked
on was the plight of Soviet Jews and refuseniks who were
imprisoned or not allowed to leave the Soviet Union. I recall
Secretary of State George Schultz when he said that whenever he
met with his Soviet counterpart, and from him down to the
lowest level State Department officer, he would bring with him
a list of imprisoned dissidents and human rights advocates.
Front and center of any discussion whether at nuclear arms or
tension in the Middle East, Secretary Schultz would bring up
dissidents, naming them by name. It was this constant focus on
human rights that helped move the Soviet Government to allow
Jews and others to leave the Soviet Union, great people such as
the great Natan Sharansky.
And I have another list of names I would like to read, that
of six members of the Cuban National Front of Civic Resistance
who have applied for visas to come to the United States, but
for some reason, inexplicably, our State Department has refused
to allow to visit the U.S. They are Orlando Gomez Echavarria,
Jose Alberto Alvarez Bravo, Yaite Diasnell Cruz Sosa, Yoel
Bravo Lopez, Lazaro Ricardo Fiallo Lopez, and Ciro Aleixis
Casanova Perez. I call upon Secretary Kerry to allow these
brave people to enter the United States so they can meet with
all of us who want to hear their stories about what is truly
happening on the ground in Cuba.
Finally, I note that the administration has failed to
secure the release of fugitives from justice, such as JoAnne
Chesimard, who is on the FBI's Most Wanted Terror List,
convicted of killing a New Jersey State Trooper, Werner
Foerster. The administration must insist upon the unconditional
return of Chesimard and all other fugitives from justice, as
well as demand that the Castro regime respect the civil and
political rights of the Cuban people before making any further
concessions. And to underscore the point, unconditional means
unconditional. There should be no swap where we exchange
convicted Cuban spies like Ana Montes, or Kendall Myers for
these fugitives as a concession to the Castro regime. The
effect of that would be to trade Americans who have committed
crimes in the United States for other Americans who have
committed crimes in the United States demoralizing our
intelligence community further in the process.
With that, I want to turn to our witnesses. And before
that, we turn to my good friend and colleague, Ms. Bass, for
any opening comments she might have.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For me, I think I will probably sit here today and say
minority in terms of what my opinions and viewpoints are. And
with all due respect, especially to my colleague Albio Sires,
who I know is a Cuban-American and had a terrible experience
with his family and all in Cuba, but I do stand here as
somebody who is happy that we have finally changed our policy
in Cuba. For over 50 years having a policy that I think many
people in the world viewed as a failed policy, and then our
history on the island prior to 1959 was not positive, and I
think in the last 50 years was not positive. The numerous
attempts that have been--there are the numerous incidents that
have been documented of the U.S. trying to overthrow the
Government of Cuba, versus the Cuban people standing up,
attempts by the CIA to assassinate Cuban leaders. There was the
suspect plane that was shot down in the mid-1970s in which an
entire athletic team was lost, a Cuban plane. And now we have
President Obama who on December 17 finally changed our policy.
Many countries around the world disagreed with our policy for
many years. The embargo that we had really limited a lot of
trade with Cuba, but over the years, especially the last 20
years, a lot of countries began ignoring that embargo, and I
think we looked rather strange, especially in the Americas. So
the President reestablishing diplomatic relations while
removing Cuba as a designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism,
increasing travel and commerce; I, frankly, have always felt
that as a U.S. citizen I should have the right to travel
anywhere in the world I choose to travel. The increase in
remittances and trade and communications, the idea of U.S.
companies beginning to have a physical presence on the island.
We do know that the embargo still remains, and I'm hoping over
time we lift that embargo.
One concern I have in terms of Afro-Cubans that you
mentioned is, I know that because of the remittances, not
everybody has family here that can give remittances to their
family members on the island. And maybe it's time we reconsider
some of our other policies. For example, we provide a lot of
U.S. support to media that is supposed to go into Cuba, but as
I understand it, the Cuban Government blocks, and so I wonder
what is happening with all of those resources. And maybe those
resources could be redirected to help address some of the
inequities in Cuba, especially with the Afro-Cuban population
and the population that does not have the access to
remittances.
Again, I welcome my colleague here, Mr. Sires from New
Jersey, and more than willing to share with the approval of the
chair my time with him, so I would yield to my colleague.
Mr. Smith. I would yield such time as it may consume to
Albio Sires, a good friend and colleague from New Jersey.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass.
Thank you very much, and thank you for allowing me to
participate with you today, both chairman and ranking member.
And for holding this important hearing, and for allowing me to
attend.
It has been 18 months since our relationship with Cuba has
changed, and what continues to trouble me is that for all the
talk of additional actions to be taken by the United States,
little has been said of the steps the Cuban regime must take.
Far too much has been given already. We need to see more
concrete measures in terms of human rights, political freedoms,
and the release of all political prisoners.
People are routinely jailed and innocent women are beaten,
while Castro continues to harbor dangerous fugitives, including
JoAnne Chesimard, one of the FBI's Most Wanted individuals for
killing a New Jersey State Trooper, and then fleeing her prison
sentence to live out her days on the island.
What also upsets me is that while the Castro regime
continues to oppress innocent people, he will be able to
strengthen his grip on power by pocketing all the tourism
dollars that the U.S. engagement will bring into the state-
owned businesses further depriving the Cuban people an
opportunity at a better life.
We need to do more to bring attention to the plight of the
Cuban people and implore our neighbors to stand up to the
Castro regime and speak out against the continued human rights
violation.
I thank my colleagues once again for holding this important
hearing, and I urge the administration to finally make human
rights in Cuba a top priority. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Sires, thank you very much, and I thank you
for your leadership on human rights in general, but especially
as it relates to Cuba. You have been tenacious, and I want to
note that Mario Diaz-Balart was here earlier and when he served
here and now out of office in like manner does the same great
work. And Kristina Arriaga, I want to thank her. As some of you
saw, she was sworn in earlier right before the hearing. She
from being one of the leaders of the Becket Fund to the United
States Commission for International Religious Freedom as one of
the commissioners. And I look forward to her work on the
Commission, and then the entire commission as we go forward.
Is Lincoln still here? I guess Lincoln has left, but he was
a great leader like his brother, Mario.
Let me just introduce our very distinguished group of
witnesses, people for whom, and I believe this subcommittee has
just such great respect for beginning with Dr. Oscar Biscet,
who was born in Havana. In 1987, he began practicing the
medical profession and teaching at the hospital in Havana. Dr.
Biscet openly opposed Cuba's communist regime and in 1994,
Cuban authorities opened an official case where he was accused
of carrying out ``dangerous activities.''
Dr. Biscet was arrested in 1999, and officially accused of
crimes such as dishonoring national symbols, disorderly contact
and inciting delinquent conduct. These are obviously catchall
phrases so often employed against dissidents. As a result of
these accusations he was sentenced to 3 years in prison. After
his release in 2002 he was rearrested but later released thanks
to pressure from religious and human rights organizations.
He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from
President George Bush. While this is Dr. Biscet's first time
appearing before the subcommittee in person, he offered
dramatic testimony, as I mentioned earlier before to the
subcommittee in February 2012 when he testified via telephone
from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
We'll then hear from Ms. Sirley Avila Leon who is an ex-
delegate of the People's Assembly. She joined the democratic
opposition after she was driven out of her position for trying
to keep a school open in her community. Official channels
ignored her and after she went to the international media, she
was removed from office.
Following escalating acts of repression by state security,
she was gravely wounded in a machete attack in May 2015, in
what was believed to have been an officially sanctioned attempt
on her life.
In September 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights concurred that she was in a ``serious and urgent
situation since her life and physical integrity are at risk.''
In March 2016, she arrived in the U.S. to tell her compelling
story and to obtain medical care.
We'll then hear from Ms. Maria Werlau who co-founded in
2012 and still heads the Free Society Project, a nonprofit
organization to advance human rights through research and
scholarship. Its leading initiative, the Cuba Archive Truth and
Memory Project focuses on transitional justice issues and human
exploitation.
Ms. Werlau is a former Second Vice President of Chase
Manhattan Bank and a longtime independent consultant
specializing in Cuban affairs and other international issues.
Her extensive publications on Cuba cover a wide range of
topics, including policy, international law, foreign
investment, and other economic issues. She has served task
forces on U.S.-Cuban relations for the Council on Foreign
Relations and the American Enterprise Institute.
And then we'll hear from Mr. Geoff Thale. Mr. Thale
oversees the entire range of the Washington Office on Latin
America's research and advocacy, on Latin American policy, and
human rights issues, along with a focus on specific countries
and themes. Mr. Thale led the team that authored ``Forging New
Ties,'' as well as recommendations for new directions in U.S.
policy toward Latin America.
Mr. Thale has studied Cuba issues since the mid-1990s, and
has traveled to Cuba more than a dozen times, including
organizing delegations of academics and Members of Congress. He
coordinates WOLA's advocacy on this issue with a coalition of
business, agricultural, and human rights groups who favor
lifting the travel ban and rebuilding contacts between the
United States and Cuban society.
Dr. Biscet, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF OSCAR ELIAS BISCET, M.D., PRESIDENT, LAWTON
FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (FORMER CUBAN POLITICAL PRISONER)
[The following testimony was delivered through an
interpreter.]
Dr. Biscet. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity
to address you on behalf of the suffering people of Cuba. This
subcommittee of the House directed by Congressman Christopher
Smith has been an unshakeable bastion of the promotion and
defense of the freedom values of the American nation. These
values that ennoble human dignity for those whose rights are
violated flagrantly and systematically in my nation.
In my country, Cuba, a small group of individuals using
criminal conduct have taken over the administrative power and
through state terror have kidnaped the sovereignty and freedom
of the people and set up a society of fear. For more than 57
years the basic human rights, the freedom to talk, freedom of
the press, to gather, association, and religious freedom have
been undermined against the dignity of my people.
The socialist regime that rules my country run first by
Fidel Castro, now by his brother, Raul, was imposed by force
with the use of weapons of war and overrode the 1940
Constitution. This Constitution was suspended de facto, never
abolished de jure; that is why even in theory it is still in
force and it declares the Castro communist regime as
illegitimate.
The 1940 Constitution guarantees the freedom and the human
rights of the Cuban people through its Letter of Rights in
Chapter IV. This letter was inspired in the American Bill of
Rights of the United States Constitution of 1788, that
strengthens modern democracy in the world starting with its cry
of independence in 1776.
Actually, the Obama administration has established
diplomatic relations with the dictatorship in Communist Cuba
violating the Act for Freedom and Cuban Solidarity, or known
also as the Helms-Burton Law. But worst of all was the
undermining of the American values of freedom enshrined in the
Bill of Rights of its Constitution.
Admirable Mr. Smith, Congresspersons, excellencies, I'm
here today to highlight the honorable example of George Mason
and Patrick Henry in the Congress of the State of Virginia
where they firmly opposed to countersign the Constitution of
the United States until the Bill of Rights was introduced.
Congresspersons, don't allow that the creed of a nation, the
Bill of Rights, continue to be violated flagrantly. Don't be
tolerant maintaining the American and Cuban people separated in
two nations, yours free, and mine, Cuba, slave. With your
solidarity you not only enhance human dignity, but you
accelerate the process through which democracy and freedom
comes to the Cuban people.
Thank you very much. God bless America and Cuba.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Biscet follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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Mr. Smith. Dr. Biscet, thank you so very, very much. I'd
like to now turn to Ms. Avila, and please present your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF MS. SIRLEY AVILA LEON, DEMOCRACY ADVOCATE
[The following testimony was delivered through an
interpreter.]
Ms. Avila Leon. My name is Sirley Avila Leon. I am Cuban,
and I live in Cuba. Because of my work as a delegate to the
Municipal Assembly of People's Power for the Majibacoa
municipality since 2005 I have perceived, have seen the double
standards of our leaders who in reality are not interested in
the people. The biggest problems were bureaucratic. There was
so much corruption that the system did not work.
From the beginning, I started to take interest in the lives
of the citizens and, in particular, the children of my region
who walked more than 9 kilometers through difficult roads in
order to attend the nearest school. The parents needing to
accompany their children had no time to cultivate their land
despite the abject poverty in which they lived. Some emmigrated
to other villages in order to spare their children. I set
myself to the task of demanding the school that the
neighborhood needed so much. I reached the highest echelons of
power in Cuba passing through all the intermediate levels, and
although I managed to get a school built, it was soon closed
leaving the village and rural children in the same situation of
helplessness.
Because of my work and my demands in favor of reopening the
school, I began to be accused of being a leader, and the
families of the farmers in my area began to receive threats
that their school-age children would be taken away from them. I
was threatened and repeatedly repressed by government
officials, and in Havana I was even expelled from the Council
of State and threatened with being accused of threatening state
security.
All this is what led me on September 8, 2012 to denounce
the regime's human rights violations against the farmers and
the people in general from the island itself by means of the
broadcast Radio Marti. From that moment onwards I was a victim
of several attempts on my life, attempts to eliminate me
physically and other acts of vandalism against my farm, my
animals, and my property all organized by the regime and its
political police as part of its attempt to get rid of me.
A young woman, Yudisleidy Lopez Rodriguez, alerted me to
the fact that the political police had offered highly dangerous
common criminals rewards for murdering me. She was killed on
September 26, 2014 for publicly decrying an attack on me in
which my bed was set on fire during the early morning. Her
murder was covered up as a crime of passion.
On May 24, 2015, I was attacked in my home by Osmani
Carrion, who was sent by state security to kill me. I am sure
he was sent by the political police because I later discovered
that he was a highly dangerous common prisoner who had been
granted parole only days before attacking me. He attacked me
with a machete severing my left hand and mutilating my right
arm and both knees. He did not cut off my head thanks to the
presence of a child at the scene of the events, and thanks to
God who protected my life so that I could be here today and
offer my testimony. In the days before the attack the regime
had started a rumor that I had sold the farm and had left the
area so that the neighbors would not be concerned about my
physical disappearance. And I am sure of this because today
marks the 22nd anniversary of the sinking of the 13 de Marzo
tugboat that claimed the lives of 37 men, women, and children.
Today before this subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs and the United States Congress I want to ask two
questions. Taking into account the U.S. Government's new
relations with the dictatorship of Cuba, I wonder why has the
situation of systematic human rights violations in Cuba not
been a fundamental point in negotiations with the regime that
has been in power for 57 years? How is it possible that the
U.S. Government has made so many concessions to the regime of
Cuba without demanding respect for human rights on the island,
and justice for the many attacks on the civil and political
rights of the Cuban people? I am a direct witness of the
workings of the legal system in which citizens are not
guaranteed any procedural safeguards.
I am very grateful that over the years other victims of
repression in Cuba have had the chance to come forward in this
very space in order to denounce and publicize the realities of
life in Cuba, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to
participate here today. I ask only that the Government of the
United States, international human rights organizations, and
the governments of the free world not abandon the people of
Cuba in their struggle for freedom. Do not allow yourselves to
be confused by the regime's propaganda campaign presenting Cuba
as a country in transition. Cuba remains a military
dictatorship. In Cuba, human rights continue to be violated,
and the people of Cuba are now more alone than ever behind the
curtain of foreign investors and North American tourists. I ask
you not to abandon Cuba and to denounce the harsh reality we
live. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Avila Leon follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Ms. Avila, thank you so very much for your
testimony and for suffering personal injury for your beliefs,
and your testimony was outstanding.
I'd like to now ask Ms. Werlau if you could present your
testimony, as well.
STATEMENT OF MS. MARIA WERLAU, PRESIDENT, FREE SOCIETY PROJECT
Ms. Werlau. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee for the opportunity to offer you this testimony.
Please consider for the record my more extensive written
statement.
Mr. Smith. Without objection it will be made part of the
record.
Ms. Werlau. Thank you.
Today I will focus on the Cuban Government's continuing
violations of the right to life. To illustrate the extreme
contempt for human life the Castro regime has displayed from
its inception, we need just recall three of its flagrant
atrocities that occurred on the month of July of different
years.
In 1994, on a day like today, July 13, a group of 68,
including many women and children, boarded a tugboat to escape
to the United States. Three boats were waiting for them,
alerted by infiltrators. With high-pressure water jets, they
began ripping children from their parents arms and sweeping
terrified passengers off to sea. Finally, they rammed and sunk
the fleeing tugboat, drowning all those who had taken refuge in
the cargo hold. With survivors clinging to pieces of wreckage,
the pursuing boats then circled around them seeking to drown
them with wave turbulence. Thirty-seven perished including 11
children.
Fourteen years earlier, on July 6, 1980, Cuban Navy boats
and an air force plane had attacked an excursion boat that
toured the Canimar River of Matanzas loaded with passengers who
tried to flee to the United States. The exact number of victims
from that massacre is unknown, but numbers in the dozens and
included children.
Among hundreds of July victims of the Castros, two stand
out. On July 22nd, 2012, Oswaldo Paya, arguably Cuba's leading
opposition figure, and Harold Cepero, a young activist from his
organization, were killed in a car accident believed to have
been caused by state agents. These are just examples of the
large-scale and growing tragedy the Cuba Archive Project, which
I head, is documenting and for which the Cuban regime has not
been held accountable.
To date, we've recorded over 6,100 deaths and
disappearances caused by the Castro regime--or so attributed to
the Castro regime by our Project--not from combat situations.
Each has a detailed record. The victims include infants,
pregnant women, the elderly, human rights defenders, Protestant
pastors, Jehovah's Witnesses, political prisoners, young men
objecting to military service, and anyone who gets in the way
of the Castros. Also on the list are 21 U.S. citizens executed,
assassinated, or disappeared, and six killed in terrorist
attacks sponsored or supported by Cuba.
We know, sadly, that this count is woefully lacking. What's
more, for it to be comprehensive it would have to include many
more Cubans who have perished and extended to many countries
where Cuba has created, supported, and promoted wars,
subversion, and terrorism as today in nearby Venezuela and
Colombia. The human toll of the Castro dynasty is easily, in my
view, several hundred thousand and counting.
Things are not much better since Raul Castro, until 10
years ago the number two man, assumed supreme command in Cuba,
replacing his brother, Fidel. Since then and until last
December 31st, Cuba Archive has documented 264 cases of death
and disappearance, a count we know is very incomplete.
A particularly troubling aspect of the ongoing crimes of
the Cuba regime relates to the grave abuses committed by Cuban
authorities against persons attempting to escape the country.
The attacks appear to have declined, in part because Cuba has
perfected a highly lucrative business from exporting people
that welcomes most departures; yet killings, beatings, torture,
and other abuses perpetrated on those fleeing have not stopped.
To take just one example, on December 16, 2014, the day
before President Obama made his surprise announcement of
normalizing relations with Cuba, 32-year-old Liosbel Diaz
disappeared after Cuban border guards sunk, reportedly in
international waters, the boat in which he was escaping with 31
passengers, including women and children.
What's perhaps more egregious is the aberration of a
tropical Berlin Wall at Guantanamo, altogether overlooked by
the free world. Twenty-six years after the fall of the infamous
Berlin Wall, a deadlier replica now lasting twice longer stands
in Communist Cuba. Barbed wire, mine fields, watch towers,
ferocious dogs, sharpshooters, all to prevent escapes to the
U.S. base in Guantanamo. It has a sordid extension, a sea wall
in the Bay added in the mid-1990s to prevent swimmers from
reaching the U.S. base.
Cuba Archive has documented several dozen individuals
killed or disappeared while attempting to flee to our base in
Guantanamo, but we believe that hundreds, perhaps thousands
have paid with their lives, limbs, eyes, or years of prison for
attempting the crossing in the last 5\1/2\ decades. Our
Government is well aware of the land mines on the Cuban side
and that the Cuban guards stationed around our base have orders
to shoot to kill the fence jumpers.
Let me finish with an important clarification. Our work is
not primarily about lists or statistics. Each number or name on
these lists, or the victims missing from them, is a story, a
stolen life, a circle of loved ones left behind in grief, and
to date without foreseeable justice. We try to honor each
person by gathering as much information as possible and
dedicating an individual record of our database to each one,
but it is impossible to have a full tally of the magnitude of
this tragedy, and much less to convey the loss and suffering
connected to each story, or to this overall calamity. At times,
it overwhelms.
I urge you to visit our Web site, CubaArchive.org, and
familiarize yourself with these stories, at least see some of
the faces, as we have pictures of many victims. The Cuban
regime is guilty of egregious, extensive, and ongoing crimes
against humanity. This is an amply documented fact that
reputable governments and institutions, as well as principled
individuals can only ignore at will. I firmly believe that
continuing to afford the Cuban Government impunity and engaging
it on its terms only produces more victims and provides
resources for its tyrannical ways. That is not just bad for the
Cuban people, the imprint of this regime is exported globally
with the help of rogue allies, and that is to the detriment of
our security and of global freedom and peace. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Werlau follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Werlau.
And I'd like to now go to Mr. Thale.
STATEMENT OF MR. GEOFF THALE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON
OFFICE ON LATIN AMERICA
Mr. Thale. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Mr. Sires
and Ms. Bass, as well, for the opportunity to speak here. I
will probably present, as Ms. Bass said, something of a
minority view on the panel.
I'm the Program Director of the Washington Office on Latin
America. We look at human rights and social justice issues in
the hemisphere. I have followed Cuba issues since the mid-
1990s, and I've traveled there about three dozen times. We have
a pretty broad set of contacts from Cuban Government officials
through academics, the religious community, and to people in
the dissident community.
I think we heard on this panel a set of very serious and
real concerns about the human rights situation in Cuba. There
are serious and real human rights problems on the island;
although, I probably wouldn't paint them in as uniformly grim a
way as some of the other panelists here would. But I think the
question is less about the specifics of the situation than
about how the U.S. responds to that situation. And the argument
I would make is that after we have spent 56 years on an embargo
and a policy regime change, this had little impact on the human
rights situation on the island. Since December 17, we've made
what I think is a healthy shift to a policy of engagement that
over time is far more likely to make a real difference in the
human rights situation in Cuba. It will give us an opportunity
to project our values and our interests, and will strengthen
broadly our contacts in human society.
So overall, I want to make three points, one very quickly
about Cuba today, one about changes that are going on in Cuba
itself, and then finally come back to the U.S. role in
addressing the human rights situation and U.S. policy toward
the island.
We've heard about the human rights situation in Cuba today.
There are violations of freedom of speech and freedom of
association. There's only one legal political party on the
island. Those are real and very serious concerns. And as we've
heard, there's harassment of dissidents, and though we didn't
talk about it much here, pretty clearly a policy of torture and
detention of dissidents.
As important for most Cubans along with the human rights
situation, probably for most Cubans more important, the economy
is stagnant and people, especially young people, are looking
for opportunity. I don't think we should paint everything as
grim in Cuba. Life expectancy is long, the medical system is
reasonably good, literacy is high. There have been some efforts
to address racial inequity, LGBT issues, and women's
participation in the workforce. All that said, no question
there are real and serious human rights in Cuba.
I think what's important, my second point here, is that
there is a process of change going on on the island itself. I
think we know about some of the economic changes. They are
halting, there's a lot of back and forth in this process, but
there's clearly movement toward the emergence of a private
sector, toward greater foreign investment, and toward what
eventually will be a more mixed economy in Cuba.
Along with that, and I think this has been less talked
about, but I think it is evident that within Cuba itself we
have seen greater political openness, and greater political
debate, and greater access to and sharing of information in the
last several years than we have seen in previous decades. And I
think that's important.
I think we've seen the spread of cell phone technology. I
think we've seen limited but real increases in Internet access.
I think we've seen far more blogs and bloggers in Cuba itself
expressing a much wider range of political opinions. I think
we've seen the sharing through thumb drives of regular sets of
information, including a lot of information from the United
States, and everything from newspaper columns to the latest
television shows. I think we've seen greater official tolerance
of all of that behavior, and I think we've seen more debate
among the nascent civil society, in the academic community, and
even at official Cuban media than we have in the past. So I
think there's a limited, we shouldn't exaggerate, but there's a
real process of internal change going on driven in part by the
economic change, driven in part by increased access to
information and the internet.
In that context, the change in our relationship with Cuba
is important. Before December 17th, our policy, a policy of
embargo and regime change, did very little. I think if you look
back, it did very little to actually encourage change on the
island. In fact, more often than not, it offered the most
hardlined sector in the Cuban Communist party an excuse to
crack down further on dissent. I think since December 17th and
under the new approach we have seen that U.S. policy
interacting with changes going on on the island encourages
greater openness and greater tolerance.
We heard a comment earlier about President Obama's visit,
and I'd say I think President Obama's visit is actually an
example of ways in which U.S. engagement helps open space. The
President came, he gave a press conference. Raul Castro may or
may not have responded to the question about human rights and
political prisoners, but he was forced for the first time in
public and on Cuban television to answer a set of uncensored
questions from an international press audience. The President,
our President, followed that with a nationally televised live
speech in which he warmly greeted the Cuban people and made
some of the strongest criticisms of the Cuban Government that
they've heard on public television in many years. And then that
whole visit was both preceded and followed by real debate in
Cuban society, in its blogosphere, and even in the official
media about what the President's visit was and meant, and what
its impact has been.
So I think the argument is, in fact, our engagement rather
than allowing the Cuban Government to tighten its grip, has
actually helped loosen the grip, and increased flexibility,
access to information, and openness. I think it's clear the
President's policy and our approach to Cuba is broadly
supported on the island itself. Polls show that Cubans
overwhelmingly support normal relations with the United States
and, in fact, that many Cuban dissidents and whatever their
view of the government support normalization of U.S.-Cuban
relations. It's clearly popular in the Cuban-American community
here, and among U.S. population in general. And I think over
time it is going to contribute to greater political openness in
Cuba, and that is in our national interest and the interest of
the Cuban people.
We shouldn't be naive about that process. It will be slow,
it will be complicated, there will be difficulties along the
way, but I think in the end the evidence is very strongly that
a policy of engagement is more likely to contribute to change
in the human rights situation in Cuba than the policies we've
had in the past. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thale follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Mr. Thale, thank you very much.
I'd like to begin the questioning first asking Dr. Biscet.
Years ago I met Armando Valladares, who had spent numerous
years in Cuba prisons. He was tortured horribly. He wrote a
book called ``Against All Hope,'' I've read it twice. I
actually went with him to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.
Frank Calzon has been there many times bearing witness to human
rights abuses, including sex trafficking, and I'll never forget
reading the book when he described the tortures that were
systematic, the Ho Chi Minh poles, the terrible degrading
perversions that were imposed upon political prisoners by the
guards with the full assent of the Castro brothers for years.
And I wonder if you could tell this subcommittee what it was
like for you when you were in prison, how were you treated? How
much time did you spend in solitary confinement? And if you
could just provide us that insight.
It was books like Richard Wumbrand's ``Tortured for
Christ,'' which got me into the religious freedom issue back in
1981 when he talked about what Nicholae Ceausescu's secret
police, called the Securitate, had done, that it woke up many
of us in Congress about what, in that case, Ceausescu was all
about.
In the Communist regime of the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn
laid bare what was going on in the gulags in Siberia. It is
important that we know truly what's going on behind those
closed doors. If you could provide us with some insight?
[The following was delivered through an interpreter.]
Dr. Biscet. When one wants to know the nature of a society,
first visit their prisons. And perhaps that's why the Castro
Communist regime doesn't allow anyone to visit; the
International Committee of the Red Cross is not allowed in,
Amnesty International is not allowed in, Human Rights Watch is
not allowed in, because then they would see the perverse nature
of that regime. And first you need to remember that what you
have in Cuba is a totalitarian Communist regime. You need to
remember Stalin, remember Hitler; that's what you have in Cuba.
When many were making a profound critique of torture taking
place in the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay prison camp with the
terrorists, Fidel Castro at the same time was torturing in
Cuba. One of the tortures that they used to commit was to hang
people from the roof, from the ceiling with handcuffs with
their legs dangling in the air for 10 to 24 hours. Another one
was where they handcuffed individuals with their hands behind
their back, and also handcuffing their feet in a reverse fetal
position and leaving them several hours in their cell in that
prone position. Another one is that they used the electric
shock gun as a tool of persuasion for those who protest or
complain. Another punishment that I saw was to be closed off in
a punishment cell sometimes completely closed off, sometimes
not, but with people sick with active tuberculosis. Another
thing that I saw and suffered were being placed in small cells
with people with HIV, but also with people who are mentally
ill, and in that process people becoming infected with the
virus. In another case they placed me in a very small cell with
people who were mentally ill, taking away their psychotropic
medication so they would be in a state of delirium so they
would attack me. Also, the political police use common
political prisoners to force dissenters to cease and desist
from their thinking by inciting to beat them. On three
occasions, three inmates tried to murder me sent by officials
of the prison. And this is how they with these inhuman
practices seek to drive mad those who are there innocently. On
one occasion, I was kept 5 months in a dark punishment cell. I
only received water once a day, and it was at the same spot
where one would defecate. In this cell, on one occasion I was
without the ability to speak to another human being for 1
month. In broad strokes, those are the tortures applied or
carried out in the prisons.
We know that the Castros use the prisons and the common
prisoners to try to break the freedom spirit of the Cuban
people. In my last years in prison, my last 10 to 12 days, I
was just eating bread and water because I feared that the
political police would have me murdered. And they not only
torture the person who dissents, but also their families.
Families, when they go to make their visits, are searched and
harassed as if they were criminals. And food and nutrients or
vitamins that are taken there are also searched and often
damaged in ways that negatively affect the health of the
prisoner. And they also use the suspension of family visits as
a way to impact not only the family, but also the prisoner. And
the most barbaric thing I've seen, also, is the use of medicine
as an instrument of torture where patients who are sick are
denied medical assistance, and then have died.
Mr. Smith. As we said, I do have a lot of questions. I'll
ask one, yield to my good friend, Albio, and then come back to
some of those questions. But let me just thank you for giving
us that terrible insight as to what you have endured.
I have tried to get to Cuba for 20 years and have been
denied a visa each and every time. Most recently, I met with
Jose Cabanas, the Ambassador of Cuba to the United States. He
made it clear that if I were to go, I'd have to agree to
certain parameters in terms of who I could meet with. And I'm
wondering, Mr. Thale, last time you were here in February 2015
testifying, I asked you if you had in your many visits, and I
think you said 36 so far, or approximately, whether or not you
visited any dissidents in prison, and I'm wondering have you
done that, one. And, secondly, did you raise the case with your
Cuban interlocutors the case of Dr. Oscar Biscet while you were
in Cuba?
Mr. Thale. I have not visited a prison on my trips. I have
visited----
Mr. Smith. Have you requested to do so?
Mr. Thale. No, and I'd be happy to do that, as a matter of
fact. In Cuba and in many countries prison systems are terrible
places and need to be reformed, and I'd be happy to make that
request. And I know there's been discussion about the ICRC
visit, so think that's perfectly legitimate.
I have not raised Dr. Biscet's case. I have raised a number
of cases, of individual cases as well as general human rights
cases with Cuba authorities----
Mr. Smith. But no specific dissidents, or no dissidents by
name?
Mr. Thale. I have named--no, I've named a number of
individual cases over the years, including the 75 who were
arrested in 2003. I raised that personally with the Cuban
Foreign Minister, so I've raised a range of those cases. I
obviously raised the Alan Gross case, as well.
Mr. Smith. Just so I know, was there any reason why you
didn't raise Dr. Biscet? There was a campaign that Albio Sires,
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart,
and I, and many others to have Dr. Biscet named as a Nobel
Peace Prize Laureate. I know he was under review for that. It
was a global effort. We certainly in Congress had a bipartisan
effort to do so. His prominence and his gravitas, his courage,
I don't know how he survived all of the cruelty that was
imposed upon him. I have no idea. Faith, I'm not sure how he
could have survived it, and to be here speaking so eloquently
and in such calm tones when he has been so maltreated by a
dictatorship. I would have hoped you would have raised his
case.
Maybe you could help me get that visa, because I want to go
to the prisons. I have been asking--just let me say
parenthetically and I, again, will yield to Dr. Biscet. I've
been in Chinese gulags, Beijing Prison Number One, when Xanana
Gusmao of East Timor was in a Jakarta prison. Jakarta, the
Indonesians allowed me into that prison. Along with Frank Wolf,
we got in during the worst days of the Soviet Union into Perm
Camp 35 which is where Sharansky was held and many other
political prisoners. All of those dictatorships allowed us in
into the prisons, and we can't get into the prisons of Castro's
Cuba. It is very telling. Albio.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Biscet, thank you
very much.
You know, Mr. Thale, I came here when I was 11 years old,
1962, and I have been dealing with the Cuban community where I
live ever since. I represent the second largest concentration
of Cuban-Americans outside of Miami. And I get that 55 years or
57 years without any kind of talking. It's a long time, but my
biggest complaint is that we have given away pressure points
where we could have drawn concessions from the Cuban
Government. At a time when Venezuela can no longer provide the
kind of assistance that it provided before, at a time when
Russia can't actually do anything for Cuba, Cuba seems to be on
its own, and we seem to be throwing them a lifesaver, in terms
of getting concessions from them. This government is not going
to give any concessions until some pressure is put on them. And
the President can go to Cuba, the Pope can go to Cuba, two
Popes can go to Cuba and nothing changes. So to me, you know,
this picture that you paint of all these changes, I disagree
with you. I don't think it's that great of a change.
People go to Cuba, they tell you who you can meet with.
Have you met with dissidents? Do you get a chance to meet with
any dissidents you want? Because I know that Members come, you
know, first thing they tell the Members when they go to Cuba is
this is the group of people you can't meet with.
I'm not finished yet. In terms of the economy, 85 percent
of the economy in Cuba is controlled by the government. When
they talk about economic growth for the people of Cuba, we're
not talking about the people of Cuba. Maybe they own an ice
cream parlor, maybe they sell hot dogs, maybe they sell
hamburgers, but still you have companies that go to Cuba and
they have to ask the government for the workers. And the
government tells you what to pay, and then they in turn pay
peanuts to the workers of Cuba. So how are the Cuban people
going to benefit?
My complaint is we just don't insist on concessions from
this government. And, you know, I don't know, I've made it
clear to the President. I'm not telling you anything that I
haven't told the White House, or I have said at the committee.
But, you know, negotiations are a two-way street. Now they want
Bank of Cuba, they want Cuba to buy--they don't--they can't buy
anything. They're one of the biggest debtor nations in the
world, so how are they going to buy anything? They're going to
run billions of dollars of debt and then they're going to
expect people to forgive the money. So I know we have to start
someplace, but my biggest problem is we started and we didn't
get any real concessions.
And in terms of JoAnne Chesimard, I'm constantly meeting
with the State Troopers in New Jersey. I was the Speaker of the
House in New Jersey for 4 years. We went down Florida when they
put the $1 million bounty on JoAnne Chesimard, and we had a
press conference. Now it's $2 million. And now they're talking
about exchanging prisoners, Montes for JoAnne Chesimard.
There's no reason we should give up a spy because you have a
person who shot somebody point blank on the New Jersey Turnpike
and ran to Cuba, and has been living there as if she was a
hero.
So, I get your position, I understand your job. You get
your orders, but what I have said to you I have told the people
at the White House. I've been here 10 years and I've been firm
on my position. You want something for Cuba, give me something
in return. Stop the abuses. Just listen to some of the abuses.
Why must we always give in?
And as far as all the--I get this--people tell me all the
time oh, we now have a better relation with everybody else
because now--there's not one country that has spoken up about
the abuses of human rights in Cuba for 18 months. I hear
Argentina talking about the abuses in Venezuela, but I don't
hear anybody talking about the abuses in Cuba. So that argument
to me is bogus because they don't speak, they're afraid of the
Cuban Government. They're afraid that they may foment the
college studies and the universities in their country against
the government if they speak up. So there you have it; tell me
what you think.
Mr. Thale. Well, thank you, Congressman Sires.
Respectfully, obviously, we do see the situation differently.
I've had family that lived in Cuba at one time or another, but
I'm not Cuban-American, and my family members were passing
through. My family is Irish, and they feel--through three
generations feel personal and incredibly powerful stories about
the British and their attitude toward the Irish. And I
understand those kind of strong personal feelings. So I
understand, and I think we've heard stories here that are very
real, and very powerful. I understand the importance of that.
My view is that the decision to normalize relations was
made because it was--I think because it was in the U.S.
national interest to do so. I think it did help with our
relationship with other partners in the hemisphere,
particularly with Colombia. I think it does help with some of
our business interests, and I think it's fundamentally clear
that what we have done over the last 57 years, which is to say
no concessions, no nothing until you change or collapse hasn't
worked, so I think we need a new approach. I don't think that
the Obama administration came in, and I know we'll dispute
about this, but came in saying we're going to make concessions.
I think the Obama administration came in saying we are going to
take a new approach that's in our interest, and that we believe
over time will lead to change in your society. I don't think it
came in saying the changes will be A, B, C, and D in exactly
this order, and we're going to tell you what to do, but I think
it came in believing that engagement and ending hostility is
more likely to generate greater flexibility and more people
inside Cuba and inside Cuban society who want to push for
change internally and on their own terms. And I think we're
beginning to see that. I don't think it's easy. I don't think
any of this process is magical, but I don't--but I do think
that over time it's far more likely to make a difference.
Mr. Sires. I want the best for Cuba. I just think we have
different ways from my experience, my life experience of how to
approach and deal with the Cuban Government. I'll just give you
an example that just happened to me. My aunt came from Cuba not
too long ago. She went back to see her daughter. I asked her to
get me a copy of my birth certificate. She went to the
Municipal Building, they denied my birth certificate because
they said I was a terrorist. So like anything in Cuba, they
gave $20 to somebody, I have four copies in my house today. I
can tell you other things that has happened to families of mine
because they're related to me, how they lost their job, how
they pressure the family. And people that were educated on the
island, and educated in Russia, once they found out they were
my cousins, they became persona non grata. So, you know, I do
have emotional ties to Cuba, but my biggest problem is look,
let's negotiate, let's negotiate.
And this business that the Cuban people are improving the
economy when 85 percent of the economy is run by the
government, and if you don't work for the government you can't
get a job, which is what happened to my cousin. He was an
engineer; he lost his job. And where do you go; you're an
engineer in Cuba and you don't work for the government? You
become a taxi driver.
Mr. Thale. The emerging private sector in Cuba does
probably include between 25 and 30 percent of the workforce.
Within that, there's a small set of people who are making real
money. I think there's very little question about that. And
then there actually is--we're beginning to see for the first
time in 55 years people working in the private sector for
others. Right now, those people are probably making more than
they'd make in the state sector; although, down the road we'll
have to see what happens there. But there is an emerging
private sector. It is not the----
Mr. Sires. It's a small group of people that are
benefitting from the tourists, but it's not the island or the
workforce of the island. That's still controlled by the
government.
Mr. Thale. So the government workforce is probably 70
percent, 75 percent. It's smaller than it was, but it's clearly
an overwhelmingly majority; that's true. All I'm saying is that
we are seeing the beginnings of a small private sector
emerging, and within that we're seeing some workers and some
owners.
Mr. Sires. Mr. Thale, quite frankly, a lot of that force, a
lot of those people were there before the engagement. Okay? A
lot of these people that were selling and trading, and
everything else, it was there before we did this engagement
with them, so there was already a small amount of people
trading back and forth within the country. You can only repress
an economy so much. The Cuban people tend to be pretty good at
making a buck, whether it's here or there. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Sires.
I'll ask a question or two, then yield to my friend. And
then I have some final questions after that.
The Washington Post has been probably the most outspoken in
its editorial pages; one of the editorials was ``Failure in
Cuba.'' They've had a series of important statements to be
made. They've pointed out that the economic lifeline to Cuba
when the Soviet Union diminished, then Russia in terms of their
ability to provide economic assistance to Cuba; Venezuela, with
the decline of oil prices they lost their capability. Now
they're really in dire straits and cannot funnel money to
Havana. And then the U.S. stepped in right at the precise time
to keep the dictatorship afloat.
The Washington Post, one of their editorials, on January 31
said, ``Mr. Obama continues to offer the Castro regime
unilateral concessions requiring nothing in return. Since the
United States has placed no human rights conditions on the
opening, the Castro regime continues to systematically engage
in arbitrary detention of dissidents and others who speak up
for democracy. In fact, detentions have spiked in recent
months. The state continues to monopolize radio, television,
and newspapers.''
In another just published editorial, this by Jackson Diehl,
deputy editorial page editor, he writes and he does profile Dr.
Biscet. He says that, ``Obama's policy has had the effect of
stranding the most American pro-democracy people in Cuba, the
activists who have spent their lives fighting the system at
enormous personal cost. While the regime collects U.S.
cooperation in dollars, repression of the opposition has
sharply increased. According to the Cuban Commission for Human
Rights, there were 6,075 political arrests during the first 5
months of this year, 2016, the highest number in decades.'' If
that isn't a clear suggestion of a failed policy, wait, and
wait for what, as things go from bad to worse, as more people
are being rounded up, as catch and release becomes the modus
operandi for the Castro brothers. So I think we need to put
this in perspective.
I was for the Apartheid sanctions against South Africa, the
sanctions against Russia most recently, the sanctions against
China when they were in place. Unfortunately, they've been
lifted, and we have seen a diminution of human rights respect
under Xi Jinping's regime in the People's Republic of China. We
put sanctions on in order to say we're not kidding, conditions
are about human rights, and about the great people like Dr.
Biscet and others who are suffering unspeakable cruelty because
they want freedom and democracy.
I would ask a question, how many people--and maybe, Ms.
Werlau, you might have this answer, one of you might. How many
people has the Castro regime tortured over these many decades?
How many people have they killed because of their political
positions? It seems to me the number is so high, and I've seen
estimates, but I would appreciate your thoughts, that the
Castro brothers ought to be referred from the Security Council
to the International Criminal Court, the ICC, the tribunal for
crimes against humanity. We are talking about large numbers of
people over the course of many decades, systematic repression
and, of course, a systematic murdering of people who don't
agree with the regime. Your thoughts? And, again, if anyone has
any insights as to how many people. Ms. Werlau?
Ms. Werlau. I don't think anybody can answer how many
people because we simply don't know. But I just want to point
out that the Stasi files that were recovered point to around
60,000 political prisoners, I forgot, I think in the early
1970s or late 1960s. There are just no statistics.
But I do want to say something that comes to mind. We do
know how many the Pinochet dictatorship killed in its 15-year
life, and that's 3,187 is the total of disappeared and killed
by the Pinochet regime. And I never heard any human rights
organization argue that we must engage the Pinochet regime on
its own terms, that we must somehow convince them, by giving
people cell phones or whatever, that they need to change. The
fact of the matter is, the Chilean society was never
totalitarian, and yet the whole community, the whole worldwide
community, condemned dictatorship in Chile. And that's what's
been missing, a multilateral approach to say we're not going to
engage an illegitimate criminal regime on its terms. We're
going to demand conditions.
What has failed is that government. Engagement has been
tried by European countries, by Canada, by Latin America for
decades; we traded, invested, supported, given credibility,
given assistance to Cuba, you name it, and nothing has worked.
What we need to do is to try to get a multilateral approach to
understand that that is the nature of that regime, that we must
set conditions to engage it.
[The following was delivered through an interpreter.]
Ms. Avila Leon. I was surprised to hear the defense of the
regime by the gentleman on my left. The rental houses provided
by the regime have been used as a reward for torture, for
assaults. This is similar to what happened with the opening of
agricultural and other properties, that it was done for a show
externally, but it was being provided to those with privileges
in the regime, with those that are well connected. It's not
something that helps the Cuban people.
And if you want a more clearer demonstration of the failure
of this policy, is what happened within hours of President
Obama's arrival in Havana, which was the repression and
violence visited upon the Ladies in White in Todos Marchamos.
Sole proprietors are getting most of the money. They're
there to control tourists, they are getting their remittances,
but I can provide firsthand evidence. My son, who was 18\1/2\
years a member of the Cuban Armed Forces for not tying me down
and declaring me insane was fired from the Armed Forces, and is
unable to get work now.
I believe that the gentleman who was testifying to my left,
what he's reporting on is the regime's propaganda campaign.
It's what he's observing. The investors and the tourists are a
smokescreen that do not demonstrate the profound poverty that
the Cuban people are submerged in, the cruel poverty, which
really does descend to the level of slavery in terms of the
little payment that is provided for those who work in the
government sector. And I invite those who have this view, if
they come to Cuba to walk with me, and I can show them the real
Cuba.
[The following was delivered through an interpreter.]
Dr. Biscet. I think we need to remember people, we who are
present here, that when I said that this regime is Hitler and
Stalin-like, it is Hitler and Stalin-like. The number of dead
may not be the same, but there is a machinery of death that
operates as that of Hitler and Stalin. They arrived in power
January 1, 1959. Raul Castro engaged in the first mass
execution with a mass grave in the first month of the
revolution; 900 people in the first month were executed, 500 of
them for thinking differently. They did not pertain to the
previous regime. The death penalty exists to terrorize the
population and to control it.
Prior to the revolution between 1902 and 1950, there was no
practical death penalty in practice in Cuba. There was a
regulation that if someone in the military was a traitor to
their country with a foreign power, they could be executed, but
beyond that it didn't exist on paper, and it wasn't applied in
practice.
This dictatorship has engaged in mass executions, mass
jailings, mass confiscations of properties to impose state
terror, and to use the state terror to control the Cuban people
through fear. So it really is state terrorism, and there is a
Cold War continuing in our country, but it is against our own
people. And these days because that terror has been so
effective, it doesn't have to be a mass terror, it's a
selective terror against all who raise their voice, all who
associate freely or assemble freely. They can be targeted.
The last three young men to be executed in Cuba in 2003,
young Afro-Cuban men, were executed with the purpose of
terrorizing the Cuban population, especially the Afro-Cuban
population. Since then there have been no more executions, but
the death penalty remains on the books. Raul Castro has said
that if they need to do what they did in 2003, they will do it
again. And please have that present.
Ms. Bass. Okay, we're going to be called for votes in just
a second. Okay, I just wanted to say a couple of things. Number
one, I do hope that I see the day in the United States that we
get rid of the death penalty, as well.
I just wanted to correct a couple of things, or at least
give my viewpoint, anyway, of President Obama's visit. I was
there with the President, and I thought it was frankly
extremely remarkable that the President of the United States
spoke to the Cuban people and was quite openly critical of
Cuba. He had a meeting with dissidents, and the people that he
met with were chosen by the U.S. Embassy, they were not chosen
by the Cuban Government. I think, frankly, that that was a very
remarkable thing, and I could only imagine a head of state
coming to the United States and meeting with a group of Black
Lives Matter or other people here who have issues, or raise
issues in the United States and say that Raul Castro wants to
come and visit San Quentin, or wants to raise questions about
what it happening in this country, raising questions about the
African-American population in the United States, why so many
people have been killed by police officers, why the
unemployment rate is so high, why the education rate is low,
why we have systemic discrimination in the United States.
So I think that, to me, 50 years of one policy that didn't
work, I understand the definition of insanity is to keep going
the same thing and then expect different results. To me, it
makes sense that we have a new policy and it is certainly my
understanding when the Obama administration has been in
negotiations with the Cuban Government, that they have
consistently raised human rights, human rights violations. And
it's my understanding that when we engage in negotiations with
many other countries, that that is also what we do. We don't
leave that off the table.
With that, I'm going to go vote. Thank you. I'll yield back
to the chair.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Dr. Biscet, you wanted to
finish your comment?
[The following was delivered through an interpreter.]
Dr. Biscet. I think it's important because we just brought
up the issue of race, and I think it's important that we talk
about the issue of race in Cuba.
In the U.S., these difficulties can be resolved in the
court of law where the judiciary is independent, but in Cuba
the courts are subject to the arbitrary whims of the executive.
The Afro-Cuban population in Cuba is one that's most
discriminated against, but that's not the greatest issue
confronting Cuba. The greatest issue is the political and
ideological apartheid that exists in the country where all
persons who think or speak differently are discriminated and
looked down upon by the Cuban regime.
In Cuba there's no right to vote, there's no right to free
elections. The elemental human rights that are defended so much
here in the United States are what is lacking, or what are
lacking in Cuba. The history of the United States and the
people of the United States is a beautiful story of
integration. When you fought for your independence from Great
Britain, there were Cubans on the island who sent assistance to
help you in your struggle. There were poor families in Cuba
that although they had very few resources gave what little they
had to assist in the independence of the United States. And
we're also very proud that the American people took a part in
the independence of Cuba. And when the Joint Resolution of 1898
was done, it guaranteed the independence and freedom of the
Cuban nation. Four years in 1902, thanks to this Joint
Resolution to this document, the Cubans had their freedom and
their independence. And it was signed here in this place by
this Congress, and signed by President McKinley.
And we also have to be proud of another law that exists
today, which is the law of freedom and solidarity, otherwise
known as the Helms-Burton Law which guarantees a democratic
Cuba. And that document has within it that law, that to have
diplomatic relations that the regime or the government that
you're dealing with has to be undergoing a transition to
democracy, or that it be a democratic government. Nevertheless,
this law has been violated by the administration that's
actually in power. Our people are still living under this
modern slavery which is communism and socialism.
Many years ago, your country had a Civil War because part
of the country wanted to maintain part of the population in
slavery, and that violated the U.S. Constitution; principally,
those basic human rights found in the Bill of Rights. We have
our own Rights Charter like that of the Bill of Rights in our
Constitution of 1940. And for that reason I ask Representative
Starling to reflect on this, that all those rights found in the
1940 Constitution have been abrogated in a de facto manner. And
that's what we want, we want to have the same rights you have.
And please take a look at the conditions on the ground before
you start giving additional concessions.
I want to show you something beautiful. The first thing
that free Cuban people did when they got their independence was
to have a referendum of what statue they would place in Havana.
The Cubans voted for our Apostle Jose Marti, and while they
waited for the building of the statue of Jose Marti, they
inaugurated another statue remembering America; and that is the
Statue of Liberty in the Central Park of Cuba, which is the
most famous park in Cuba. That's what the United States
represents to Cuba, freedom.
Mr. Smith. Dr. Biscet, we're out of time for 14 votes that
have just occurred on the House floor. I want to thank you, and
thank all of you for your testimony. I wish this could go
longer, but it is on zero, and I will miss an important vote on
Iran. So I want to thank you.
I have some additional questions on trafficking. Yesterday,
the administration gave an upgrade again for the second year in
a row to Cuba. I wrote that law on trafficking. I think it was
a horrific decision politically motivated, and my hope is that
they will revisit it even before next year because it was a
mistake to give a passing grade to a country where sex and
labor trafficking flourishes.
The hearing is adjourned, and again I thank you. I do have
to run.
[Whereupon, at 5:24 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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