    [House Hearing, 118 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                   THE COMMUNIST CUBAN REGIMES DISREGARD
                             FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL
                    HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZA-
                    TIONS

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               December 11, 2024

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 118-138

                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT

    Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
                           or http://www.govinfo.gov

                                   __________

                             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    63-408 PDF                      WASHINGTON : 2026
    =======================================================================

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                       MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman
    CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey     GREGORY MEEKS, New York, Ranking
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina               Member
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            BRAD SHERMAN, California
    DARRELL ISSA, California             GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
    ANN WAGNER, Missouri                 WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
    BRIAN MAST, Florida                  AMI BERA, California
    TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee              JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee             DINA TITUS, Nevada
    ANDY BARR, Kentucky                  TED LIEU, California
    RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
    YOUNG KIM, California                DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
    MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida        COLIN ALLRED, Texas
    BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan              ANDY KIM, New Jersey
    AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,       SARA JACOBS, California
        American Samoa                   KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
    FRENCH HILL, Arkansas                SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
    WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio                    Florida
    JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   GREG STANTON, Arizona
    MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida               MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
    THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey         JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
    MICHAEL LAWLER, New York             JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
    CORY MILLS, Florida                  SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    RICH McCORMICK, Georgia              JIM COSTA, California
    NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas               JASON CROW, Colorado
    JOHN JAMES, Michigan                 KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
    KEITH SELF, Texas                    BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
    RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
    JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam

                    Brendan Shields, Majority Staff Director

                     Sajit Gandhi, Minority Staff Director
                                     ------

     SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL
                                 ORGANIZATIONS

                    CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
    MARIA SALAZAR, Florida               SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania, Ranking
    AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa          Member
    FRENCH HILL, Arkansas                AMI BERA, California
    RICH MCCORMICK, Georgia              SARA JACOBS, California
    JOHN JAMES, Michigan

                           C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                                  ----------

                                REPRESENTATIVES

                                                                       Page
    Opening Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Christopher H. Smith..     1
    Opening Statement of Subcommittee Ranking Member Susan Wild......     4
    Opening Statement of Representative Amata Radewagen..............     6
    Opening Statement of Representative Kathy Manning................     6

                                   WITNESSES

    Statement of Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Former Chair, U.S. House
      Foreign Affairs Committee......................................     8
      Prepared Statement.............................................    11
    Statement of Maria C. Werlau, Co-Founder and Executive Director,
      Free Society Project/Cuba Archive..............................    16
      Prepared Statement.............................................    18
    Statement of Joseph F. Connor, Author and Advocate...............    26
      Prepared Statement.............................................    30
    Statement of Juan Pappier, Deputy Director, Americas, Human
      Rights Watch...................................................    36
      Prepared Statement.............................................    38

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing Notice...................................................    58
    Hearing Minutes..................................................    60
    Hearing Attendance...............................................    61

             THE COMMUNIST CUBAN REGIMES DISREGARD FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

                                  ----------

                          Wednesday, December 11, 2024

                      House of Representatives,
    Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights,
                       and International Organizations,
                                  Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                        Washington, DC.

        The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:31 p.m., in
    room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
    Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
        Mr. Smith. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Global
    Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations
    will come to order.
        Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
    recess at any point, and all Members will have 5 days to submit
    statements, extraneous material, and questions for the record
    subject to the length limitations in the rules.
        I note the presence of a quorum, and I now recognize myself
    for an opening statement.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

        I would like to just make an announcement. Remind audience
    members that disruption of committee proceedings is against the
    law. Holding up signs or making verbal outbursts during the
    proceedings is a disruption, and will not be tolerated. Any
    disruptions will result in suspension of the proceedings until
    the Capitol Police can restore order.
        Let me just begin with a very, very special welcome to the
    distinguished former House Foreign Affairs Committee
    chairwoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for her amazing leadership
    over the course of 30 years as a Member of Congress, and as
    chairwoman, as chair of the Africa Subcommittee, Western
    Hemisphere--I mean, she did it all and did it with class.
        I just want to thank her for her leadership, for her
    insights, the wisdom that she has displayed for all of us to
    follow over the years, especially in the struggle to protect
    human rights and liberty throughout the world, including and
    especially Cuba.
        We are deeply honored, Madam Chair, to have you here
    providing the Congress and the new administration with a path
    forward. What do we do next? What steps need to be taken? So
    again, I can't thank you enough. We will benefit, as we always
    have, for everything that you have provided. So thank you.
        And thank all of our other distinguished witnesses for
    being here. This will become the basis for our next steps as a
    committee, a subcommittee and for me and my colleagues. So I
    want to thank you for that. Again, Ileana, it is a delight to
    have you here.
        You know, when he was appointed Ambassador--and that is
    Armando Valladares--to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights,
    President Ronald Reagan said, and I quote him, ``I have an
    impossible mission for you. Try to convince the U.N. that there
    are human rights violations in Cuba,'' close quote.
        Well, I traveled with Mr. Valladares to Geneva for a week
    to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. I was happy to carry his
    bags. I was so in awe of this man who had suffered so much and
    had done so with such grace. He got the U.N. Human Rights
    Commission to investigate the cruelty of Castro's prisons.
    Missions went there; people were interviewed. Even though there
    was a statement made that there would be no retaliation, sadly,
    there was.
        But it was a breakthrough of a very significant way that he
    was able to achieve that. I have read his book not once, but
    twice, ``Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's
    Gulag,'' and I encourage people to read it. A brilliant expose
    of what he and other political prisoners endured and did so
    with extraordinary courage, faith, and perseverance.
        Mr. Valladares said, however, and I quote him, ``I can tell
    you that the saddest thing was to see the indifference of the
    world toward the human rights violations in Cuba. That is, when
    my fellow inmates died, were being tortured, were murdered,
    disappeared, the world absolutely ignored it and didn't want to
    listen.''
        Well, we are here today to recommit ourselves to the noble
    struggle by the Cuban people to stand behind them and finally
    achieve freedom. For too long, the Cuban people have long
    suffered under communism, and now continues that suffering
    under the current president.
        Ninety miles from American shores resides one of the most
    repressive and brutal regimes in the world. Ninety miles from
    the shores, the Communist Cuban regime remains ensconced in
    power, terrorizing and abusing the Cuban people. Ninety miles
    from our shores, the Communist Cuban regime remains a threat to
    the American people and our national security, but especially
    through their deepening partnerships with the Chinese Communist
    Party and the People's Liberation Army.
        Many still wish to speak of engagement without
    acknowledging the plain reality of the threat Communist Cuba
    poses to the United States, the world at large, and again, most
    importantly, to the Cuban people themselves. They yearn for
    freedom, and they are not free.
        Today, too many people in the free world do not understand
    the reality of life in Communist Cuba. In Cuba today, political
    and economic freedoms do not exist. The Communist Party rules
    through violence and fear and attempts to control not just the
    economy, but all elements of society.
        Civil society lives under heavy surveillance, harassment,
    and repression. It criminalizes all forms of dissent. It
    restricts what kind of jobs Cubans can take. It prohibits free
    movement to and from the island.
        It is also a Tier 3 country, designated so by the President
    of the United States and through the Secretary of State and the
    TIP adviser because of its egregious violations of both sex and
    labor trafficking.
        Today in Cuba, nearly 1,000 innocents are imprisoned for
    the offense of thinking differently from the official Communist
    Party line.
        In Cuba, there is no private sector, doesn't exist. The
    security State ultimately controls all forms of activity on the
    island. Every dollar spent by a tourist ultimately benefits the
    dictatorship.
        Every instance of American companies or politicians taking
    trips to Cuba to engage with State entities, such as healthcare
    providers, legitimizes the Communist regime, furthers their
    policies of human trafficking. Again, they are Tier 3. They are
    egregious violators. They are among the worst of the world.
    And, of course, terrorism and violent repression, delaying the
    arrival of the day when the Cuban people shall be free. And
    like--and like its close allies, Venezuela and Nicaragua, two
    other dictatorships, Cuba does not even pretend to hold
    elections.
        This is the fifth hearing I have chaired on human rights in
    particular in Cuba, although we brought it up in many, many
    other hearings, as has our distinguished former Chief of the
    Foreign Affairs Committee.
        The years may change, but the song, sadly, remains the same
    coming out of Cuba. It holds blatant disregard for the very
    concept of human rights, and the United States requires from us
    a firm policy. We need to do more, not less.
        It is time that American politicians, including Members of
    this House, stop signaling to the Communist regime in Cuba that
    if they wait long enough, they will be able to redefine their
    relationships with the U.S. without lifting their boots from
    the throats of the Cuban people.
        At one hearing I chaired in 2015, three human rights
    activists exposed the true reality of life, and they were very,
    very concerned about President Obama's so-called engagement.
    Two months earlier, President Obama had announced his new
    policy of engagement with Cuba after many months of secret
    negotiations with the Communists.
        Obama's push to normalize relations involved a series of
    unilateral concessions. As the administration reopened the U.S.
    embassy in Havana, relieved sanctions, restored tourist flights
    from United States without stating any preconditions for
    improving the regime's awful human rights record.
        2016, President Obama even visited the island. The first
    U.S. President to do so since the Communist revolution. In the
    days before, during and after his visit, the regime--this was
    their response--arrested hundreds of protestors. Human rights
    groups on the island begged Obama not to let himself be
    manipulated.
        Instead, he infamously did the wave at a Havana baseball
    game with dictator Raul Castro after a joint press conference
    and welcoming ceremony alongside the Communist Party Politburo
    under the portrait of Che Guevara.
        Normalization legitimized Castro's brutal dictatorship and
    made the human rights situation worse, not better. Active
    religious persecution skyrocketed and other repression
    increased. The year Obama visited the island, there were nearly
    10,000 documented political arrests, 10,000.
        I and many of my colleagues in Congress strongly oppose
    this naive and dangerous policy. I visited with the Cuban
    ambassador here in the District of Columbia. I said I wanted to
    visit the prisons. He told me--and it was going good. I thought
    it was a good conversation. He told me that the Cuban
    Government, however, will decide who I can see and who I can't
    see.
        I asked whether other congressional delegations accepted
    those terms and conditions. He said, yes. I never got the visa,
    and I want to go still. I have asked over and over again, and I
    will continue to ask to go.
        I, along with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, introduced H.R. 1782,
    the Cuban Human Rights Act of 2015, to prevent a softening of
    U.S.-Cuban relations without improvements to its human rights
    record. It needs to be a quid pro quo.
        Haven't we learned? You know, look at what we did with
    China? We give them most favorite nation status. Bill Clinton
    delinked it on May 26, 1994, a humans rights conditionality.
    Delinked it, infamously. And they said all they care about is
    profits, and China has been on a tear to destroy people and
    their livelihoods, and their human rights have been horrible.
        I plan on introducing the Cuban Human Rights Act again when
    we begin, and I know I have been talking to our distinguished
    former chair to get her inputs as to what--what provisions it
    ought to contain. Instead of standing with the Cuban people and
    demanding an end to their oppression, that outstretched hand to
    their oppressors, there was a lost decade in the fight to
    promote liberty and human rights in Cuba.
        Upon taking office, however, President Trump reversed many
    of these shortsighted policy which harmed the Cuban people, and
    rightly so. The new administration has before it a fresh
    opportunity to prioritize the recognitionof human rights and
    the release of political prisoners in its dealings with the
    Cuban regime.
        Today, our expert witnesses will shed light on the regime's
    human rights abuses. And, again, if you read the Country
    Reports on Human Rights Practices, if you read the TIP report,
    it flies off the page how oppressive they are, but the policy
    has to match the actual record on the ground. And that is not
    always the case.
        So I want to just thank you again. I would like to yield to
    my good friend and colleague, Congresswoman Wild, who is the
    ranking member of our subcommittee.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER SUSAN WILD

        Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
    witnesses. Thank you to our audience for being here.
        I would like to begin on a personal note. At the last
    hearing of this subcommittee, which I, unfortunately, was
    unable to attend due to a meeting on the Ethics Committee, on
    which I am also the ranking member, I submitted written remarks
    for the record. In those remarks, I stated that in a few weeks,
    I will no longer serve as a Member of this body.
        But to reiterate, it has been the greatest honor of my life
    to represent the people of Pennsylvania's greater Lehigh Valley
    in Congress over the past 6 years, and it has been a particular
    privilege to serve as a Member of the House Foreign Affairs
    Committee and as ranking member of this subcommittee. And, Mr.
    Chairman, I thank you for your many courtesies and kindnesses
    in the time I have been here.
        During my time in Congress, I sought to advance a vision of
    a foreign policy that reflects the best of who we are as a
    country and as a people; a vision centered on combating hunger,
    inequity, and disease, both here at home and around the world;
    a vision that defends universal rights and dignity; a vision
    that stands with workers and the labor movement whenever they
    come under attack; a vision that says that we can and must be a
    voice for prisoners of conscience who languish in prison cells
    the world over; a vision that says to all those whose rights
    and dignity are trampled on, you are not forgotten, you are not
    alone, we stand in solidarity with you.
        That brings me to today's hearing and to the challenge we
    face when it comes to shaping a U.S. policy toward Cuba that
    vigorously defends human rights and human dignity in a way that
    is strategic and effective in alleviating the suffering of the
    Cuban people rather than contributing to it. Our approach to
    Cuba, which has remained largely constant for more than six
    decades now, with the exception of former President Obama's
    second term, has not delivered for the Cuban people.
        This hearing begs the question, What is the end goal of
    U.S. policy toward Cuba, and what has our decades-old policy
    actually accomplished for the United States, let alone the
    Cuban people?
        Today, the Cuban people, not the government, face a
    devastating humanitarian crisis which has been exacerbated by
    the U.S. embargo and other sanctions. The current U.S. policy
    provides the Cuban government with a ready-made talking point
    on which to blame every failure and crisis that occurs under
    its leadership.
        As Human Rights Watch noted in a 2023 report, the U.S.
    embargo gives the Cuban government an excuse for problems, a
    pretext for abuses, and sympathy from governments that might
    otherwise condemn repressive practices. HRW has also noted that
    the embargo has imposed indiscriminate hardship on the Cuban
    population as a whole, and has done nothing to improve the
    situation of human rights in Cuba.
        Rather than strengthening people-to-people ties, cultural
    exchanges, and commercial relations that could open a new
    market for U.S. exports and benefit businesses in both of our
    countries, our policy serves only to further distance Cuba from
    the promise of a free society. Rather than providing relief for
    the economic hardship facing the Cuban people, our policy only
    deepens the hardship faced by everyday Cubans. Rather than
    seeking to build a future rooted in diplomacy, a future in
    which we secure the release of political prisoners and advance
    our interests, as former President Obama began to do, the
    status quo under administrations of both parties has succeeded
    only in damaging the image of the United States throughout
    Latin America and elsewhere around the world.
        I am determined to see the United States act in defense of
    human rights and dignity and seek justice for those like Mr.
    Connor who have suffered irreparable damage. That is why we
    must be at the table participating robustly in international
    fora, advancing our interests and defending our people through
    relentless engagement and tough, smart, and effective
    diplomacy. It is why we cannot retreat into a shortsighted and
    ultimately self-destructive unilateralism.
        Let us stand with the Cuban people in engagement and
    partisanship and let us shape a U.S. policy toward Cuba that
    delivers results in advancing both our ideals and our
    interests.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. I would like to--we have
    worked very closely together on so many issues, including
    trafficking. So thank you for that service.
        Ms. Wild. Thank you.
        Mr. Smith. I would like to now yield to Ms. Radewagen as
    much time as she would like to consume.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE AMATA RADEWAGEN

        Mrs. Radewagen. Good afternoon. Talofa. Thank you, Chairman
    Smith and Ranking Member Wild, for holding this hearing on the
    human rights abuses of the Cuban Government. Human rights are
    something I care deeply about. They are universal, and all
    people should be treated with dignity. All people should have
    the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to
    elect their leaders and hold them accountable.
        I have fought for these freedoms for my entire career. I
    look forward to hearing from each of you as we examine the
    Cuban regime's attack on these fundamental human rights.
        I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much. Ms. Manning.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE KATHY MANNING

        Ms. Manning. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I, too, will
    be leaving this Congress at the end of this term, regretfully,
    because of the extreme gerrymandering in North Carolina.
        Chairman Smith, I have enjoyed working with you greatly on
    this committee. I consider you a wonderful colleague and a
    friend. I have also enjoyed co-chairing the House Bipartisan
    Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism with you. We have worked
    closely on that committee as well and introduced very important
    legislation. I appreciate all your hard work to combat human
    rights abuses and discrimination against vulnerable people on
    this committee, on our bipartisan task force, and on the full
    Foreign Affairs Committee.
        Let me also say for Ranking Member Susan wild, I consider
    you a dear friend, and we will figure out together how to
    continue our important work from a different vantage point, not
    in Congress, but we will not give up our determination to fight
    for people who need our help around the world.
        So thank you--thank you both. Thank you to the witnesses
    today.
        And with that, I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you so much, Kathy. It has been great
    working with you on so many issues, including combating
    trafficking issues.
        I would like to introduce our panel.
        Ms. Wild. Mr. Chairman, may I just correct one thing that I
    said. I have been told that the record should be corrected.
        Apparently, I said--I meant to say, let us stand with the
    Cuban people in engagement and partnership and mistakenly said
    partisanship, which is definitely not what I intended to say.
        So the correct statement is, let us stand with the Cuban
    people in engagement and partnership. Thank you.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you. I would like to introduce our
    witnesses, beginning with Dr. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who served
    with distinction here in this body for 30 years as chairwoman
    on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, as I mentioned a
    moment ago. But previous to that, the Subcommittee on the
    Middle East in North Africa and Africa and just did a wonderful
    job in each of those roles. She passed many foreign policy
    issues, legislation that continue to enlighten and make a
    difference in today's world.
        I want to thank her for that leadership, and again, we have
    become good friends over the years, and I can't thank her
    enough for her leadership and look forward to her testimony.
        We will then have Maria Werlau, who is the co-founder and
    executive director of the Free Society Project, a nonprofit
    organization to advance human rights through research and
    scholarship. Its leading initiative, Cuba Archive Truth and
    Memory Project, focuses on transitional justice issues and
    human exploitation.
        Ms. Werlau is a former second vice president of the Chase
    Manhattan Bank, and a long-time independent consultant
    specializing in advisories on Cuban affairs and other
    international issues. Her extensive publications on Cuba cover
    a wide range of topics, including international law, foreign
    investment, and economic issues.
        She has served as--task forces on the U.S.-Cuba relations
    for the Council on Foreign Relations and the American
    Enterprise Institute.
        Then we will hear from Joseph Connor, who is an author and
    advocate whose father, Frank Connor, was killed in a terrorist
    attack by the Armed Forces of the National Liberation, FALN, in
    1975.
        Mr. Connor has testified before the Senate Foreign
    Relations Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee. His writings
    have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, L.A.
    Times, and The Washington Times.
        And, again, a full--your full resumes will be made a part
    of the record.
        And then we will hear from Juan Pappier, who is the
    Americas Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch. He supervises
    the organization's research and advocacy efforts, particularly
    for Latin America and the Caribbean. He has a decade of
    experience documenting and reporting human rights violations,
    including political repression and abuses related to armed
    conflicts, security policies, and attacks on the rule of law.
        He has worked as a consultant for Chile's National Human
    Rights Institute, and we welcome him as well and look forward
    to all of your testimoneys.
        Mr. Smith. Dr. Ros-Lehtinen.

                    STATEMENT OF ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN

        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith, and I
    thank you for the undeserved but lovely words bestowed upon me
    in my almost 30 years of service to the Congress. I am so proud
    to have worked alongside you on issues related to freedom,
    human rights throughout the world. So thank you so much for
    those words.
        And Ranking Member Wild and Mrs. Manning, the House will be
    a poorer place without your strong voices in favor of freedom
    and human rights as well. So we wish you much success in your
    future ventures.
        I have been a good friend of Mrs. Radewagen for the years
    that her service and my service coincided, and she has always
    been a strong voice for the freedom of the Cuban people. I am
    glad to say that--I am glad to hear that that voice has not
    diminished at all.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will talk today about the need
    for international solidarity in support of the struggle of the
    Cuban people for freedom. Apparently, being for freedom is
    hard; hard for the people who are struggling against the
    oppressive authoritarian regimes of their own countries, of
    course. But apparently, it is hard for other countries to take
    notice, to care, or to overcome their own country's political
    or economic self-interest. Being for freedom seems to be hard.
        But being for authoritarian regimes seems to be easy.
    Standing for values is hard. Ignoring values is easy.
    Authoritarian countries want to reinforce their authoritarian
    standards, so they seek no moral compass.
        Democratic regimes, on the other hand, are based on certain
    moral concepts. Nevertheless, democratic countries seem to
    always have trouble finding their true north of their moral
    compass.
        You have never found it difficult to get the true north of
    your moral compass, Mr. Chairman, and I am so glad that you
    mentioned the Cuban Human Rights Act of 2015. I congratulate
    you for introducing it at that time when it was difficult with
    that administration and power.
        And when I served in Congress, I was proud to introduce,
    alongside you, that important bill because it sent a strong
    message that the U.S. would never ignore the Cuban regime's
    human rights violations.
        Sadly, these years later, we are still at this same place,
    and I am quite pleased to hear that you will reintroduce this
    important legislation in the next Congress. We will stand
    alongside you, Mr. Chairman.
        We all know about Cuba's oppressive regime. Our witnesses
    will speak about that. But we will never know precisely how
    many people longing for freedom and seeking a glimpse of
    humanity have died in their unsuccessful journeys in
    unseaworthy vessels in the Florida Straits filled with hope and
    terror and ending in tragic death. We will never know that
    number.
        We understand the goals and the cruel motives of regime
    thugs in exploiting the Cuban population for their own selfish
    purposes. The lust for power, the greed for material dominance
    over others, this has resulted in political dictatorships and
    exploitation of the masses for time immemorial.
        Likewise, the passive tolerance of, and resulting
    legitimization of such regimes has led to their acceptance by
    others and the woeful habit of ignoring that oppression. This,
    the acceptance of oppressive regimes by nonoppressive regimes,
    is more difficult to understand than the motives and purpose of
    the oppressors themselves.
        The motivation and the dictatorial nature of oppressive
    states to support other similar State regimes is obvious. They
    share dictatorial values, they have in common a self-interest
    in protecting their regimes. But why do democratic states
    tolerate and even aid oppressive dictatorial states in which
    abuses and persecution of dissidents is clear, and the risks
    which people take to escape those regimes is so high?
        The U.S. Government, fortunately, has expressed its
    dissatisfaction and condemnation of the Cuban regime over the
    years through our sanctions, but the U.S. Government has, on
    occasion, exhibited weakness in its condemnation of the Cuban
    regime.
        The failure to respond to the shootdown of the Brothers to
    the Rescue planes in 1996 in international airspace involving
    the deaths of three U.S. citizens and one U.S. resident was a
    regrettable sign of weakness by the Clinton administration.
        Likewise, President Obama, as you alluded to in your
    opening statement, Mr. Chairman, doing the wave and eating ice
    cream cones with Raul Castro in Cuba at a baseball game,
    engaging in friendly conversation was lamentable fraternization
    which ignored the immorality of the Cuban regime and worked
    against the U.S. message of illegitimacy of the Cuban regime.
        It also undermined the dissident movements on the island,
    such as the Ladies in White. While the Ladies in White risked
    jail and savage beatings on the streets of Havana, President
    Obama hobnobbed with their oppressors.
        Just last week, as the International Republican Institute
    noted, another democracy activist in Cuba was killed in prison
    in Cuba, supposedly labeled a suicide--false--marking the
    fourth verified death of the July 11, 2021, protesters in State
    custody according to the watchdog group Justicia 11J, and the
    72d documented prison death since 2023 according to the Cuban
    prisons documentation center.
        Why have other democratic states tolerated and even
    embraced oppressive regimes? There is an idea of
    noninterference in internal affairs of another State serves as
    an excuse. Noninvolvement in internal affairs of other states
    is articulated, sadly, in the United Nations Charter. The
    Charter provides that ``States shall not intervene''--this is a
    quote--``in matters that are essentially within the domestic
    jurisdiction of any State,'' Article 2, Section 7.''
        And I use the word excuse because the noninvolvement
    concept does not override other principles of international
    law, especially those espoused in the Nuremberg War Crimes
    Trials after World War II. Countries which do not wish to
    condemn another country's dishonorable or immoral treatment of
    its resident turn to the noninterference idea as an excuse. Not
    my job, they essentially say.
        Another relevant characteristic of the international system
    is that a State acts based on its own interest, thus, the
    oppression of others does not affect my interest. Think Rwanda
    genocide or the Cambodian genocide or, indeed, even the
    Holocaust.
        Of course, this myopic definition of interest and the
    perception of threats ignores the dangers of the spread of
    oppressive doctrine. Such expansion of oppressive doctrine is a
    threat and should be perceived as involving another state's
    interest. But such perception requires leadership. It requires
    vision, and they are often in short supply.
        We need such understanding about the threats posed by
    legitimizing oppression. Appeasement of oppression carries the
    same danger as appeasement of military aggression. But many
    democratic states see no benefit in taking a principled stand
    against oppression, at least they do not see the benefit
    sufficient to justify the reduction in trade, the loss of
    tourism. Those are opportunities for their own residents as
    visitors, whose trips are partly conducted on the backs of
    those who are oppressed.
        Perhaps the greatest insight in this regard, Mr. Chairman,
    is that recognizing oppression and exploitation of people is
    psychologically distressing. We want to think that the world is
    better than it really is. And seeing the reality causes
    cognitive dissonance.
        It is easier to be a Pangloss in Voltaire's ``Candide,''
    who always sees the world with incurable, excessive, and
    unrealistic optimism in this best of all possible worlds. But
    Pangloss's foolhardy optimism is unwarranted in this most
    dangerous of all possible worlds.
        Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and Members. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Ros-Lehtinen follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, Chairwoman, for that
    powerful testimony.
        I would like to now recognize Ms. Werlau.

                      STATEMENT OF MARIA C. WERLAU

        Ms. Werlau. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished
    members of the committee for the opportunity and for caring.
        My written statement focused on some of the Cuban regime's
    worst crimes, although it violates essentially all rights in
    the universal declaration of human rights. The human cost of
    the hemisphere's longest dictatorship ever, at least in post-
    colonial times, has impacted citizens of many countries aside
    from Cuba, including ours.
        Comparisons pale with a regime that kills even defenseless
    children, and keeps its own version, almost identical, of the
    Berlin Wall at Guantanamo, lasting twice as long without
    receiving any attention, much less international outcry. It is
    impossible to do justice to so money horrors and its victims.
        Today, Cuba's totalitarian military rulers, Communists only
    in name and Stalinist ways, hold on to power by sheer terror.
    They became apartheid capitalists in post-Soviet times,
    enhancing their usual monarchic privileges, but continuing to
    impose failed socialist central planning on the masses to
    preserve absolute control.
        As a result, Cuba is a beggar State, a country of
    widespread ruin in a perennial State of crisis, its people in
    despair. The system is ideologically, morally, politically, and
    economically bankrupt, and its only foreseeable future is
    continuing decline.
        The dictatorship, bent on remaining in power at all costs,
    allocates meager resources to building luxury hotels, setting
    the stage for a Russia-style transition. It hyper-funds a huge
    secret police for internal repression and a gigantic diplomatic
    intelligence and propaganda apparatus for international
    influence.
        It expands its revolutionary model in neighboring
    Venezuela, Nicaragua, and beyond, has strong alliances with our
    enemies, such as Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China, and with
    criminal terrorist cartels. It infiltrates governments,
    including ours and around the world. It subverts democracies
    and even attacks our diplomats.
        The international community offers the regime impunity,
    engagement, even support, appeasement at best. But the United
    States is exceptionally positioned to curtail its main sources
    of revenues. One, it's modern slavery; a state-run business
    exporting doctors, teachers, sailors, construction workers, and
    many others as commodities. Just the medical brigades raked in
    around $31 billion in 2018 to 2022.
        And two, aid from a growing U.S.-based diaspora, in
    remittances, merchandise, travel, telecom, and more, abetted by
    the loosened sanctions by executive order. Estimated at $52
    billion in the 11 years to 2019, this can only have grown with
    over 640,000 Cubans who poured through the border in 2022 to
    2024 and around 100,000 granted humanitarian parole.
        Enforcing the legally mandated sanctions in the Helms-
    Burton law and implementing additional measures under the
    Trafficking and Persons Victim Act and the State sponsors of
    terrorism designation would probably push the terminal patient
    to face its certain death.
        Cuba's rulers could be forced to negotiate the peaceful
    transfer of power for a transition to democracy or flee the
    country counting on their large overseas assets, plundered
    systematically for decades. Otherwise, a protracted unraveling
    will likely lead to a worsening human rights humanitarian
    crisis with a growing potential for widespread turmoil and
    violence.
        Measures that could be implemented very quickly are the
    travel and remittance sanctions of Helms-Burton; to combat the
    trafficking, sanctioning ministers of health of Cuba's
    partners, conditioning funding to PAHO, the Pan American Health
    Organization, and declaring Mexico in violation of the U.S.-
    Mexico-Canada Agreement; denying visa waivers to all travelers
    to Cuba, including Canadians; forbidding most technical,
    scientific exchanges and funding to all Cuban State
    institutions. There are many more. We are just not--out of
    time.
        At the very least, these would combat exploitation and
    other nefarious activities, reinforcing Cuba's structural
    socioeconomic deformities and deny resources to the military
    monopoly. Anyhow, enforcement of our laws is essential to our
    democracy.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Werlau follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much. Mr. Connor?

                      STATEMENT OF JOSEPH F. CONNOR

        Mr. Connor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee
    members, fellow witnesses, and everyone watching.
        My name is Joe Connor. Since the Communist revolution, the
    Cuban government has been an abuser of human rights,
    domestically in Cuba and in the United States. Article 3 of the
    Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes that everyone
    has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.
        Cuba violated the Connor family's human rights,
    specifically the rights of our father, Frank Connor, and other
    Americans to live. Our father, 33-year-old Frank Connor, and
    three other innocent men, Alejandro Berger, Jim Gezork, and Hal
    Sherburne, were murdered while scores were injured and maimed
    on January 24, 1975, 50 years ago next month when the Marxist
    Cuban-fueled Puerto Rican terrorist group Armed Forces for
    National Liberation, FALN, blew up New York's historic Fraunces
    Tavern during a lunchtime crowd--a crowded lunchtime.
        The FALN appointed themselves my father's judge, jury, and
    executioner profiling, targeting, and savagely murdering
    reactionary executives, as they put it, in their Communique No.
    3 that day. The Connor family had planned to celebrate my 9th
    and my brother's 11th birthdays that very night.
        Fraunces Tavern was targeted by the FALN, who paid lip
    service to Puerto Rican independence, but, in reality, sought
    to impose a Cuban-style socialist regime in Puerto Rico. They
    chose it for its proximity to Wall Street, and for its storied
    reputation as the birthplace of American liberty. Alexander
    Hamilton and the Sons of Liberty met there. General George
    Washington bade farewell to his officers at the end of the
    revolutionary war at Fraunces Tavern.
        Between 1974 and 1983, the FALN claimed responsibility for
    over 130 bombs in U.S. and Puerto Rico, including another
    deadly bombing on August 3, 1977, when Charles Steinberg was
    murdered at the Mobil Oil Building in New York. Incredibly, I
    worked in that building four decades later.
        That same day in 1977, an FALN bomb threat caused the first
    evacuation of the World Trade Center. That is how serious these
    guys were. Though never prosecuted specifically for the
    Fraunces bombing, the unrepentant terrorists served only 18
    years of prison sentences ranging from 55 to 70 years. As
    Hillary Clinton geared up for her 2000 Senate run and was
    looking to connect with New York Hispanic community, Bill
    Clinton granted clemency to the FALN, a blatant political
    gesture orchestrated by then-Attorney General, Eric Holder.
        One of the FALN leaders, Oscar Lopez Rivera was so
    dedicated to his Marxist cause and his comrades that he refused
    the 1999 Clinton clemency. Although in 2017, he accepted an
    unprecedented second Presidential clemency from Obama-Biden in
    their last days in office.
        Shortly after his release on May 18, 2017, Cuban President
    Raul Castro released a message to Lopez Rivera congratulating
    the terrorists with all the honors and affection you deserve.
    William Morales, chief bomb maker, was not offered clemency by
    Obama or Clinton.
        Morales likely built the deadly device used at Fraunces and
    Mobil Oil. On July 12, 1978, which would have been my dad's
    37th birthday, Morales blew off part of his face and nine of
    his fingers when the bomb he was crafting exploded in his
    Queens bomb factory. The apartment contained explosives,
    incendiary devices, mixtures, tools, FALN communiques, and even
    the copy machine used to make those communiques, including the
    January 4one.
        Morales was captured, tried, convicted, and sentenced in
    1979 to up to 99 years, 10 Federal, 89 in New York State in
    prison, but escaped from Bellevue Hospital in May 1977 with the
    assistance of other radicals who called themselves the
    Revolutionary Armed Task Force.
        During the State trial, Morales boasted, No jail is going
    to hold me forever. They can put a thousand of us in jail, they
    are not going to hold us forever. That is what I have to say.
    Morales was right.
        Through an FALN investigation run by the Chicago Terrorist
    Task Force, Morales was located in Puebla, Mexico, in 1983.
    When the Mexican police closed in, he and an accomplice killed
    the Mexican police officer. Morales was arrested, charged with
    being accessory to murder and imprisoned in Mexico.
        In 1988, defying President Reagan's extradition demands,
    the sympathetic Mexican government allowed Morales safe-haven
    to Cuba, where he remains a guest of the regime, along with
    scores of murderous, felonious fugitives, such as Victor Gerena
    and Black Liberation Army cop killer Joanne Chesimard.
        On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and two accomplices opened fire
    on two New Jersey State troopers during a motor vehicle stop.
    Chesimard and her accomplice wounded one State trooper and
    executed Werner Foerster at point-blank range. After a 6-week
    trial in March 1977, Chesimard was found guilty of first-degree
    murder and sentenced to life in prison.
        On November 2, 1979, Chesimard, aided by armed individuals
    posing as visitors, like Morales, escaped from what is now the
    Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, and fled to Cuba
    where she has been a guest of the Communist regime.
        Soon after Morales's flight to Cuba in the early 1990's, I
    began my campaign to have Morales and Chesimard returned to
    American justice, writing letters to the Justice Department,
    making contacts with the NYPD, State Department, Joint
    Terrorist Task Force. Meeting only frustration, I persisted,
    expanding with communications to Presidents George W. Bush--
    George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, New Jersey State Senate--
    Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, New York's Cardinal O'Connor, and
    Mayor Giuliani. During this campaign, I quickly realized how
    closely Cuba and the FALN are connected.
        For the sake of brevity in my testimony, I will only
    provide certain highlights. Details are in my written
    testimony, and for additional information, please see retired
    FBI agent Rick Hahn's definitive history of the FALN,
    ``Terror's Dawn,'' and my book with Jeff Ingber, ``Shattered
    Lives,'' both sent to the committee previously.
        And just a couple of examples, President Castro met with--
    from ``Shattered Lives'' in our book, President Castro--Fidel
    Castro met with Puerto Rican-born Cuban intelligence officer
    Filiberto Ojeda and encouraged him to form a Puerto Rican armed
    resistance, which Cuba would help train.
        In 1974, Ojeda was in the U.S., and he began--he
    established the FALN, along with former MIRA members, and
    supported logistically by the Cuban intelligence services.
        In October 19---October 27, 1975, communique left at the
    site of the FALN's bombing of the Standard Oil Building in
    Chicago read: The FALN welcomes the support given the Puerto
    Rican National Liberation struggle at the solidarity conference
    in Cuba. We especially acknowledge the moral support given to
    our organization by the Cuban people and government in a speech
    made by Prime Minister Fidel Castro. But the history of Cuba
    supporting Puerto Rico through Marxist, through terrorism goes
    back decades before the FALN, and the Weather Underground, who
    was also involved.
        In September 1979, President Carter, as a significant
    humanitarian gesture, commuted the sentences of four imprisoned
    Puerto Rican nationalists who were convicted of a 1954 armed
    assault on the Capitol Building that left five Congressmen shot
    and wounded.
        After their release, the freed prisoners jointly embarked
    on a victory tour, appearing in Chicago, New York, and Puerto
    Rico. They claimed they had no remorse and could not rule out
    future violence in the name of Puerto Rican independence. Not
    long after, they returned to Havana as honored guests of Fidel
    Castro.
        In 1983, a $7 million Wells Fargo robbery in Hartford,
    Connecticut, was another demonstration of the ongoing links
    between Puerto Rican Marxist and Cuba. Some of these $7 million
    went to purchase of a motor home used for sneaking FALN
    terrorist Victor Gerena into Mexico. Masetti, one of the people
    involved, waited at the border and helped disguise Gerena,
    handed him a Cuban passport, and arranged his flight from
    Mexico City to Havana. Cuba kept about half the stolen money
    according to conversations the FBI intercepted among Los
    Macheteros members.
        Despite my efforts and Cuba's sponsoring of terrorists, the
    Obama administration removed Cuba from the State Sponsor of
    Terror list. On July 1st, 2015, President Obama announced the
    establishment of formal relations with Cuba before actually
    visiting the Marxist State in March 2016.
        As Obama announced the Cuba visit, I immediately began
    receiving texts, calls, and emails from reporters who knew our
    family's long-standing fight for justice. Ironically, I
    answered those requests from Joint Base Guantanamo Bay. You
    see, I am a 9/11 family member, too. My cousin Steve Schlag was
    murdered on 9/11 as I saw the planes hit. He was my dad's
    Godson. And I was in Guantanamo Bay at that time witnessing the
    pretrial hearings of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other
    terrorists.
        Our family has continued to fight through this endless
    injustices directed at my dad. Along with fighting the
    reprehensible clemencies ending Oscar Lopez Rivera's 2011
    parole bid by facing him at the Federal prison in Terre Haute,
    Indiana, we also successfully forced the City University of New
    York in 2013 to close down the disgusting Guillermo Morales/
    Assata Shakur Student Center on campus. CUNY had a student
    center named for two convicted terrorists, one of whom was
    complicit in my father's murder, and my father went to CCNY.
        Incredibly but not surprisingly, in November 2017, only 10
    months after his second Presidential clemency, Lopez was
    received as a honored guest in Havana where he paid tribute to
    the late commander in chief, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara, was
    decorated with the order of solidarity.
        Our families fought for Morales's extradition to the U.S.
    for decades to hold Cuba responsible for their role in our
    father's death and in protecting members of the terrorist group
    who murdered him.
        In 2024, following lobbying by our family, the Frank Connor
    Werner Foerster Justice Act was introduced by Senator Marco
    Rubio, co-sponsored by Senator Rick Scott. The Walter Patterson
    and Werner Foerster Justice and Extradition Act was introduced
    in the House of Representatives in 2023. We currently have a
    documentary film on these issues.
        The Connor and Patterson Acts both call out Cuba for
    stomping on American's human rights for supporting and
    sponsoring terrorists. They demand the return of Morales,
    Chesimard, Gerena and others to face justice and to keep Cuba,
    human rights violator, on the State Sponsor of Terror list.
        We call on President Biden and President-Elect Trump to
    secure the return of Morales and the other terrorists and
    guarantee Cuba ends its systemic human rights violations so
    Frank Connor's life will be remembered for justice. Cuba must
    first end their sponsorship of terrorists by returning Morales,
    Chesimard, Gerena and all before the U.S. considers their
    removal from the State Sponsor of Terror list.
        Thank you, Joe Connor.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Connor follows:]
       [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, Mr. Connor. Juan?

                        STATEMENT OF JUAN PAPPIER

        Mr. Pappier. Mr. Chair, ranking members, Members of the
    subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you
    today.
        Let me start by expressing my solidarity with the Cuban
    people, with the victims of repression there, and with Joseph
    Connor whose family has been seeking justice for 50 years. The
    Cuban Government continues to repress and punish virtually all
    forms of dissent and public criticism in Cuba.
        Prisoners Defenders, a rights group, reports that 919
    political prisoners remain behind bars in Cuba, and 229 others
    are under house arrest or other restrictions on liberty.
    According to Colectivo 11J, over 500 people who were arrested
    in connection with the landmark July 11, 2021, demonstrations
    remain in prison.
        Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 170 people
    involved in those protests, including victims, their relatives
    and lawyers. We also reviewed case files, verified videos and
    photos and obtained forensic evidence. Detainees arbitrarily
    have been held incommunicado for weeks and sometimes months.
    Some were beaten, tortured, and subject to other forms of
    treatment.
        Prosecutors in Cuba continue to frame peaceful actions as
    criminal behavior. Many protesters have been prosecuted for
    sedition and sentenced to disproportionate prison terms of up
    to 25 years in prison. People are convicted on unreliable and
    uncorroborated evidence, such as statements solely from police
    officers or alleged odor traces found in rocks, allegedly odor
    from the defendants.
        I would like to draw this subcommittee's attention to some
    specific cases.
        Jose Daniel Ferrer, the leader of the unrecognized
    political opposition party UNPACU, who remains in prison since
    July 11, 2021. His family has reported he suffers severe health
    problems and has reportedly been beaten. He has announced he is
    on a hunger strike for 7 days now.
        Artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and Maykel Castillo,
    who remain in jail since July and May 2021, respectively. They
    have been sentenced for participating in protests and
    publishing a meme, among other alleged crimes.
        32-year-old Luis Robles, who was sentenced to 5 years in
    prison for protesting with a sign saying, ``Freedom. No more
    repression.'' He is being held in La Lima prison in Havana.
        Cuban authorities have also passed legislation to dismantle
    the limited civic space that allowed the 2021 protest to occur.
    This includes a new criminal code and abusive legislation on
    telecommunications and social communication.
        In addition to political repression, Cubans endure a severe
    economic crisis. The country has faced three nationwide
    electricity blackouts in the last 2 months, and people suffer
    frequent blackouts in some places for up to 20 hours a day.
        The Cuban Government acknowledged in July that they only
    have regular stock of 30 percent of the basic medicines in the
    country. A recent survey of 1,100 people by the Cuban
    Observatory of Human Rights found that seven out of 10 Cubans
    interviewed skipped one meal per day, and 61 percent struggled
    to buy essential elements to survive.
        As a result of increased poverty and political repression,
    Cubans are leaving the country in unprecedented numbers. The
    Cuban Government acknowledges that the country lost 9 percent
    of the population between 2020 and 2023 to immigration, and
    independent reports indicate a total figure may be much higher.
        Mr. Chair, let me be clear about this. The human rights
    situation in Cuban is dismal, and the Cuban Government is
    solely responsible for the abuses it commits. At the same time,
    the long-standing U.S. policy of isolation has done nothing to
    improve this. Rather, the U.S. policy has been
    counterproductive.
        We continue to believe that the embargo--and may I add the
    State Sponsor of Terrorism determination--have provided the
    Cuban government with an alleged excuse for its problems, a
    supposed pretext for its abuses, and a way to garner sympathy
    abroad with governments that might otherwise have been willing
    to condemn the country's repressive practices more vocally.
        Any additional general sanctions on Cuba are likely to harm
    the population, which is already suffering severe deprivations,
    and to drive even larger migration flows.
        Instead, we urge this Congress to take steps toward a new
    approach on Cuba, one that progressively replaces the embargo
    with targeted sanctions against officials responsible for human
    rights violations; one that focuses on garnering support from
    governments in Latin America and Europe to push, to press
    multilaterally in a coordinated and strategic manner for human
    rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Cuba; and one that
    prioritizes empowering Cuban civil society.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Peppier follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for that testimony, all four
    of our very fine witnesses. I do have a few questions, and then
    I will yield to my colleagues, then I have some additional
    questions hopefully before we have any votes.
        The situation is dire, and I think it is getting worse. You
    know, we have had hearings here on Nicaragua and what they are
    doing to the church and what they are doing to Daniel Ortega
    is--I met him in 1984. He has only gotten worse. I met him in
    Nicaragua in 1984 when he was commandant, and his repression is
    just without--without end in terms of what they do to innocent
    and excellent people in their own country.
        Now, let me just ask you--before I go any further, Frank
    Calzon is here. I want to thank Frank for his many years of
    great work.
        I was at the U.N. Human Rights Commission 1 year, and he
    was there as well, and we were working with the diplomats on a
    Cuba resolution. And he had brought fresh information about
    child sex trafficking and how horrific that is. You know, we
    know that in this country, you get up to life imprisonment
    under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act if you sex traffic
    a child. And I am the author of that bill, so I believe very
    strongly in its implementation.
        Well, Frank was working that information around, and a van
    pulled up, some thugs from the government got out, and they
    attacked him. I mean, this is in Geneva now. This isn't in
    Havana. This is in Geneva. So there is a--there is an ability
    to extend their long reach of hate toward people outside the
    island, and I think we have to be very much aware of that.
        On trafficking as well, you know, Ileana and I worked very
    hard to get Liu Xiaobo in 2010 named as the Nobel Peace Prize
    winner, the great Chinese human rights activist. And I remember
    so vividly, we had dinner with a number of the parliamentarians
    that actually make the choice who is going to be the Nobel
    Peace Prize winner.
        So I spent the--much of my time literally about Liu Xiaobo,
    but he already got it, about Cuba. And I asked him about--and
    three of them that were at our table told me these are the
    people who actually pick the Nobel Laureate. They said, Well,
    they have got great healthcare, and they send all of their
    workers overseas, thousands of them, to do work in other
    countries.
        Well, the TIP report this year--and I said, you know, they
    coerce them. It is labor trafficking. We knew it then, we know
    it now. Well, the TIP report for this year says that there is
    22,000 such workers, 75--let me get the right--75 to 95 percent
    of their salary is taken by the Communist dictatorship. So they
    are working basically for free under threat of coercion and
    retaliation against their own families.
        So, hopefully, this myth that somehow they are doing
    wonderful humanitarian work abroad is exploded. If anyone wants
    to speak to that, I just--you know, that is this year's TIP
    report that points that out. It is ongoing. But it is 75 to 95
    percent of that.
        And then there is a lot of children who are left behind
    with that. Child sex trafficking continues to be a real
    problem. And in every category, protection, prosecution and
    prevention, this year Cuba got worse. And that is right from
    the U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons office.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. You are
    so correct, and Michael Moore popularized this idea of this
    great healthcare system in Cuba in his documentary, Sicko,
    which is a complete farce. And people in Cuba are so desperate
    to come to the U.S. to finally get the cures and the operations
    and the surgeries that they need, but it is a great myth.
        The regime has been wonderful in making sure that they can
    promote this, this myth. It is a lie. And they make a pretty
    penny on trafficking, on trafficking with people, and their
    doctor's program is a prime example of that as you point out.
        The first thing that they do is that they separate the
    families. If you are a doctor and you go to wherever,
    Venezuela, you will go, but your family has to stay behind in
    Cuba. As soon as you get to the country, Venezuela, they take
    your passport. So you are not free to leave. There is no--no
    opportunity for you to seek asylum. Then they garnish your
    wages.
        I mean, we have words for that, indentured servitude,
    slavery. But for some reason, the regime has been able to get
    away with glamorizing this and making it seem as if that is a
    humanitarian mission.
        And Venezuela--I am just using that as an example--pays the
    regime for every one of those workers. Now, that doctor doesn't
    get the majority of the funds. It gets very little of those
    funds. So the regime makes money for every medical professional
    that they send abroad.
        And for a while, one of our previous administrations, they
    had a great program that allowed these Cuban doctors and nurses
    to seek asylum in various embassies. And by doing so, then they
    were able to come to the U.S. That was taken away, but it was a
    very successful program because these folks know--these
    doctors, these medical professionals, they know that they are
    being trafficked, they know that they are being exploited. That
    is what you have to do in a dictatorship.
        There is no freedom. This concept of--that you have freedom
    in a dictatorship, you know, they control where you live, where
    you work, where you study, everything. And we have got to
    remember that above it all is a one-party system. You cannot
    have a political party other than the Communist Party. There is
    no such thing as freedom of choice.
        They don't even bother having elections because it is--you
    know, at least Maduro goes through the charade and then the
    opposition wins, and Maduro says, no, that was not a legitimate
    election. In Castro's Cuba, they just--they do away with that.
    No election. They will have--you know, you have the choice of
    one person, one party, and that does not an election make.
        But, yes, indentured servitude with their medical program
    is one of those myths that they have. They do it for
    humanitarian reasons, and that it is--that the Cuban people are
    happy with their healthcare program. Nothing could be further
    from the truth. But that is part of the myth that they have
    been able to successfully promote internationally.
        And, no, those--that Nobel Prize committee, would they ever
    recognize a true freedom fighter, of which there are many who
    are sacrificing what little they have, their very lives, to
    speak for freedom.
        And, you know, I referenced the July 11movement. It was a
    massive protest throughout Cuba. Many of them have lost their
    lives, many of them were killed, the rest were jailed, and
    others are exiled, as Ortega has done in Nicaragua when he
    threw out 200 of--of priests and human rights activists. They
    just get rid of the opposition.
        And that is one of the perks of being--living in a--being a
    dictator in a dictatorship. You get to do whatever you want,
    and people will just turn a blind eye. They don't see it. They
    don't see what they don't want to see.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Smith. No, I thank you.
        Yes.
        Mr. Pappier. Mr. Chair, with Human Rights Watch, we have
    produced an entire report about the abuses against these
    doctors in medical missions in Cuba, and the Cuban economy gets
    $6 billion to $8 billion a year through these medical doctors.
    This is the highest source of income of foreign currency to
    Cuba, higher than remittances or tourism. And I have personally
    interviewed some of these doctors who fled Venezuela. And
    because they are not allowed to take their own passport with
    them, they are given an official passport, which only takes
    them so far.
        They are forced, when they come to the United States, to
    come through Darien Gap and risk their lives in that very
    dangerous jungle. I interviewed them there. And they told me
    about the abusive regulations they are subject to when they are
    on medical mission. These regulations establish who they can
    talk to, what kind of things they can say, what they cannot
    say, who they are allowed to meet during their mission. And as
    you mentioned, they pocket their money on average 85 percent,
    in some cases more.
        Mr. Smith. Just very briefly, I was the sponsor of the
    Global Magnitsky Act, and it really was derived from the
    Belarus Democracy Act, which I wrote in the year 2004,
    sanctioned individuals and sanctioned so they can't get a visa
    and they can't do business here. There are only three Cubans
    that are on the Global Magnitsky--I mean Cuban leaders. There
    should be a large number of abusers that are on that list, so
    we have got a call for that as well. And I think that is what
    you were getting at in terms of more targeted, so that is
    something for the new administration.
        I have other questions, but I will yield to Ms. Wild.
        Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
        I would like to ask you, Mr. Pappier, to comment on the
    impact of sanctions on the Cuban population. I know that we are
    alone--not alone, but we are isolated in terms of our position
    in the United States on this embargo. I think the only other
    country that voted with the United States on this was Israel.
        And I would like to know, from your perspective--and then I
    am going to ask Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also to comment on the
    same--how you believe that it unnecessarily hurts everyday
    Cubans.
        Mr. Pappier. Thank you for your question, Ranking Member.
    First, let me say, I agree with you that the United States is
    isolated on this issue. The policy of isolation toward Cuba has
    isolated the United States. It has not isolated Cuba. And I
    think the votes in the U.N. General Assembly are very clear on
    this. Since 1992, the General Assembly has voted condemning the
    U.S. embargo every year. And by promoting this policy, you have
    been given a platform for the Cuban Government to present
    itself as a victim instead of allowing the world to see that
    they are perpetrators of gross----
        Ms. Wild. OK. I am just going to ask you to direct your
    answer--I don't want to hear about what the U.N. General
    Assembly has done. I am aware of it, and I have read about it.
    I would like to hear from your--what you know about the impact
    of the embargo on citizens on an everyday basis.
        Mr. Pappier. Absolutely. Let me draw your attention to
    the--there is a report by the U.N. Secretary General on
    November 1, 2023, where every agency of the United Nations
    analyzing the impact that the embargo and the sponsor of
    terrorism determination has both on the Cuban economy as a
    whole and on their own capacity to provide humanitarian
    assistance.
        So in that report, for example, UNICEF, the U.N. agency in
    charge of children; World Food Program, in charge of food, they
    all mention that they have limitations in their capacity to
    provide humanitarian assistance because of the embargo and
    because of the State sponsor of terrorism determination.
        I would say that the social economic catastrophe that we
    have today in Cuba is not exclusively because of the embargo.
    There are other factors, including the severe mismanagement of
    the economy by the Cuban regime, and external factors, such as
    the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and the COVID-19
    pandemic, but it is definitely exacerbated by the embargo and
    the State sponsor of terrorism determination.
        Ms. Wild. Would you care to comment on that?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Yes. I would say, point No. 1 is that the
    real embargo that is taking place in Cuba is the embargo that
    the regime imposes upon its people where they don't have
    freedom of press, they don't have political parties, they don't
    have election, they don't have--they are not free to dissent
    from the government. It is a one-party system.
        When it comes to the embargo that the Cuban people feel is
    being imposed unfairly by the United States, the Cuban people
    are voting by coming here to the United States in every way
    possible. They have been fed a diet of anti-U.S. rhetoric since
    the day that they were born. Those are their official books
    that they have in school saying the American people and the
    American government hate you, wants to keep you hungry, wants
    to keep you sick, and it is all the cause--the root cause is
    the embargo.
        And they will nod, but they will try to do--you know, this
    table would last 2 minutes in Cuba because it would be a raft
    trying to come to the United States. They----
        Ms. Wild. Well, just help me understand----
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Sure.
        Ms. Wild [continuing]. Then how the decades of U.S. policy,
    other than that second term that I mentioned of President
    Obama, has advanced the cause of the Cuban people. How has it
    helped them?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Well, because doing the right thing, even
    if you are by yourself, even if no one else is imposing an
    embargo, even if it is just us, it is still the right thing to
    do. And to reward a regime that is able to get everything that
    it wants from 200 countries throughout the world, and yet there
    is only the United States that is causing this great pain for
    the Cuban people, you can get everything that the Cuban people
    want from all of the other countries that have incredible trade
    without any restrictions.
        So if there is lack of food in Cuba--and there is--it is
    not because of the United States; it is let's have all of these
    wonderful countries contribute more food. You know where it
    goes? To the regime. And what does the regime do? It sells it
    to other countries.
        And you will often find, all of these great foodstuffs from
    Canada, let's say, one of the greatest trading partners and
    tourism partners of the Castro regime, their goods will be sold
    on the--in the markets.
        Ms. Wild. The other thing I would point out, you mentioned
    before the number of Cubans that want to come to the United
    States, and obviously there is a limit on the number of Cubans
    who will be able to come to the United States. I am not sure
    that any administration would welcome people who, by your
    words, have learned to despise the United States, and I think
    future chances of coming here are even less than they have had.
        So, you know, if--as a subcommittee that cares deeply about
    both global health and human rights, I am struggling with this
    issue. And I understand what--the right is right answer, but at
    the same time, it has been many decades and it hasn't
    accomplished anything that I can see. Do you want to comment
    further?
        And then I am going to yield, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Pappier. I think if the U.S. continues to do the same
    thing, it will produce the same results, and the results are
    more oppression, more poverty, and more migration. That is what
    the situation in Cuba is right now and will continue to be as
    long as this policy continues.
        Ms. Wild. I guess the problem I have is that, as you
    stated, all these other countries are providing goods and so
    forth. So how effective is our embargo? Is it just, we are
    doing it from--to use your words, because right is right or
    because we actually think we can accomplish something with it?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. We wish that there were more
    international solidarity, so what we are asking is for other
    countries to join us, not for us to say, oh, we are doing this
    all by ourselves. Let me join the folks who are keeping the
    regime in power.
        Ms. Wild. But wouldn't that just hurt the Cuban people
    more?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. It doesn't hurt--the Cuban regime has
    everything--gets everything it needs from all of the countries
    in the world. Everybody is trading with Cuba. There is an
    abundance. They have it, and they can provide it to the Cuban
    people. They choose to do other things with the food and the
    medicine that they get. There is no embargo on food. There is
    no embargo on medicine. You can collect them in your
    neighborhood and ship it to Cuba tomorrow.
        There is no problem whatsoever. You fill out a little card
    like this--and I am not even exaggerating--saying, this is
    foodstuff and medicine, and I am sending it to the people of
    Cuba. And you can fill a whole bin and send it over there. The
    problem is, it won't get to the Cuban people. It will get to
    the regime, they will sell it, they will give it away, and they
    pay no price for it. But the Cuban people are not fooled. They
    know we are a generous country.
        Ms. Wild. OK. I do just want to ask one more, if I may, Mr.
    Chairman.
        Again, back to you, Mr. Pappier, what programs and
    initiatives, if any, have been the most effective in promoting
    human rights and civil liberties in Cuba?
        Mr. Pappier. I don't think there has been much success
    because, as you mentioned, the policy for 60 years has been
    pretty much the same except for the 2 and a half years under
    the Obama administration. And I would say, the limited results
    in that policy, the fact that the 2--in 2 and a half years the
    policy did not produce a political reform in Cuba is not a fact
    to go--is not a reason to go back to a policy that has failed
    for decades.
        What is needed as a policy is multilateral support. And the
    reason why there is no multilateral support, the reason why
    other countries join the United States in condemning Venezuela,
    join the United States in condemning Nicaragua, but do not join
    the United States in condemning Cuba is the embargo. The
    embargo creates a distraction and impedes them with the lateral
    efforts that are necessary to press for a democratic transition
    in Cuba.
        Ms. Wild. Thank you. I yield.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Mrs. Radewagen?
        Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        It is so good to see you, Madam Chairwoman. We have
    discussed Cuban political prisoners today, but the regime also
    holds Americans in prison. Many of you know the case of Alina
    Lopez, an American who was unjustly and arbitrarily arrested in
    Cuba in 2017. She remains trapped in Cuba today under house
    arrest and unable to leave the island. Her mother in Miami just
    recently passed away. I mean, it is a heartbreaking and cruel
    case. Congress strongly calls on Cuba to release Alina. Are you
    familiar with this case? Why is Cuba detaining innocent
    Americans? How can we get her home?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you. I thank you, Mrs. Radewagen,
    for bringing this important case up. And like most
    authoritarian regimes or terrorist organizations, they
    understand the value that Americans place in a human life. And
    so the fact that she--that an American or a Cuban American is
    being held unjustly in jail, they want to get something in
    return for her, just as the terrorists in--that we have seen in
    the Middle East have done so. They hold hostages under false
    claims of accusations, and they want to see how can we bargain,
    when can we get for this life.
        They place no value on human life, and this is just another
    sad example. There is so many people who are languishing in
    Cuban jails and whose names won't--we will never know. But
    anyone who speaks out or dares to threaten the regime in any
    way is thrown in jail, and then they will see what they can get
    for it.
        Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
        Mrs. Radewagen. Ms. Werlau, please describe your
    organization's Truth in Memory Project in further detail. Why
    is it so important to record and commemorate the names and
    faces of those killed or disappeared by the regime in Havana?
        Ms. Werlau. Thank you for the opportunity. The Truth in
    Memory Project records the loss in lives attributed to the
    Cuban revolution. It starts with the Batista dictatorship up
    until now, and it covers the loss of life on all sides of the
    political spectrum.
        We have around 11,500 individual records of victims, and it
    is important because, of course, this tells a story of a very
    undercounted horror, because as you mentioned, the Balseros
    will never know. Death in prisons, you know, are very
    undercounted, extrajudicial killings. But it personalizes the
    suffering of the Cuban people and others who have paid the
    price of this terrible saga that Cuba is living under.
        We also have two other projects, one is based on the export
    of the Cuban labor, the medical missions that started in 2010.
    We started publishing reports. There is many reports on what
    was described here that is even worse than what is reported
    sometimes. I have interviewed dozens of doctors. Just 3 weeks
    ago, a doctor who was sent to Guinea-Bissau told me that they
    had found out Cuba was paying $10,000 a month for her service,
    and she was getting $250. So that is technically like 97
    percent of the salary.
        Our third project is based on Cuba's interventions, how
    Cuba has spread its model, infiltrated governments. And I
    think, if you allow me the opportunity to tie in what was
    discussed here before about why the embargo has not worked, I
    would say the opposite: Engagement has not worked. The whole
    world has engaged Cuba. There is a revolving doors, Presidents,
    kings, kings-to-be, ministers, human rights activists for over
    six decades trying to convince the Cuban regime to dialog about
    human rights, to bring about reforms. That hasn't worked
    either, because those totalitarian regimes do not succumb to
    dialog or to end treaties.
        And what we have is a United Nations system that is morally
    bankrupt, that has abandoned the Cuban people with a cheap shot
    at the United States with an annual declaration against the
    embargo that says nothing. But in terms Cuba, the dictatorship
    of Cuba sits in the U.N. Human Rights Council, is elected to
    the executive body of numerous United Nations entities. And
    nowhere have I seen any resolutions against any human rights
    violations of Cuba, much less what the United Nations is going
    to do with its responsibility to protect the oppressed people
    of Cuba.
        So I think what explains what we are seeing,
    Congresswoman--and we have multiple reports on this--is a Cuban
    regime that expends its resources on 126 embassies in the
    world, more than Spain, more than Canada. They each have an
    intelligence center. Cuba has almost 1,700 solidarity groups
    around the world that it funds, parliamentary friendship
    groups. This is a totalitarian bankrupt nation of Cuba. How do
    you explain that? That is what explains that they buy,
    influence, sway opinions, manipulate perceptions so that people
    think that it is because of the U.S. embargo that there is a
    totalitarian criminal regime for 60-something years oppressing
    the Cuban people.
        Mrs. Radewagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Ms. Manning?
        Ms. Manning. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for organizing this
    hearing.
        And thank you to our witnesses for being here, especially
    our former colleague, Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen. We are so glad
    that you are here with us, and thank you for all the work you
    have done in the past and continue to do.
        I want to commend Chairman Smith, and I want to echo your
    demand that Cuba should return Joanne Chesimard, a fugitive who
    murdered a New Jersey State trooper in 1973.
        I also want to acknowledge a constituent and good friend in
    my district, Bobby Mendez in Chastogee (ph), whose family
    suffered terribly under the Castro regime.
        After the revolution, Bobby's father was thrown in jail as
    a political prisoner. He watched his neighbor's children being
    shot and killed in front of him on their front lawn. And he and
    his mother, who is a journalist, were forced to flee the
    country.
        After many years, Bobby's mother was told that her husband
    had died in prison. She was devastated, but she subsequently
    remarried and tried to build a new family for Bobby. Imagine
    her heartbreak when years later her first husband was released
    and searched for his wife and son. And what should have been a
    joyful family reunion was a cruel blow to all with a
    devastating and long-lasting impact that Bobby still talks
    about today, as the entire family was broken.
        It is hard to believe that all these years later the
    cruelty of the Castro--and now the Daz-Canel--regime replete
    with its human rights violations continues. And my heart goes
    out to all the Cuban families who have suffered and continue to
    suffer under the cruel Cuban regime.
        And, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, as you know, my dear
    friend--our dear friend and colleague, Debbie Wasserman
    Schultz, has made valiant efforts to help free Cuban political
    prisoners Maykel Castillo Perez and Luis Manuel Otero Alcntara,
    and they have been unjustly imprisoned since the Cuban regime's
    crackdown on the July 11, 2021, pro-democracy movement.
        And like my good friend, I urge both President Biden and
    President-elect Trump to continue to seek freedom for these
    political prisoners, along with hundreds of other political
    prisoners illegally jailed by Cuba's secret police. How can we
    do more to prioritize their plight?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, and
    thank you for your years of service. We will miss you. And I
    know that you have been very active, especially in the Jewish
    community and the federations to build that solidarity, and
    many of your mission groups go to Cuba and help the----
        Ms. Manning. Yes, they do.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [continuing]. Families there, so we thank
    you for that.
        Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an amazing champion for the cause
    of a free and democratic Cuba, as is Frederica Wilson, as is
    Lois Frankel, and before--Ted Deutch is now the head of the
    AJC. We have been blessed in our Florida delegation to have
    such incredible bipartisan support in favor of freedom, human
    rights, and all the goodness that we enjoy here in this
    beautiful country. May all the enslaved people in the world
    have it, and especially my native homeland of Cuba.
        I think that there is more that we can do, and each one of
    us can be that Ambassador of truth and hope. We can do whatever
    little thing that we can in our own communities and in our own
    way to shed light, to give--in your vaulted position, to give a
    1-minute speech on these Cuban prisoners who are not known.
    There is some who are very, very well known, and there is some
    who just languish in jail and they think that no one hears
    them.
        To be able to write a letter to the editor, to your local
    paper, to be active in your church and synagogue and bring up
    their case and help them in Cuba; there is just a lot that
    every person can be that beacon of hope. And I never
    underestimate the power of an individual in making that amazing
    change.
        So we are blessed to have that kind of bipartisan
    delegation in Florida, and New Jersey has it as well, and many
    other places.
        But everyone can do more. Each day we should rise up and
    say, ``How can I make this a better place in my neighborhood,
    in my school, in my community, and for oppressed people
    elsewhere?'' Because we are all one island, and we are all
    interconnected.
        Ms. Manning. Thank you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And what happens elsewhere impacts us
    all.
        Ms. Manning. Thank you so much.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
        Ms. Manning. Let me move to the other end of the table for
    my second question, because I want to get one more in before we
    have to go for votes.
        And as I said, I strongly oppose the tyrannical regime, the
    Castro regime now the Daz-Canel regime. And I share the
    frustration that my good friend and colleague Representative
    Wild was expressing, and I think many Americans feel the same
    way. We are just concerned that the many, many years of the
    embargo just has not brought about the political and economic
    reforms that the Cuban people deserve.
        So, Mr. Pappier, let me just ask you, what else can
    Congress and the administration do to bring about the change
    and also to help improve the daily conditions for the Cuban
    people?
        Mr. Pappier. Thank you for that question. To bring about a
    reform change in Cuba you need, broadly speaking, two things:
    One, you need multilateral support; and, second, you need an
    empowered civil society in correlation of force with the Cuban
    Government. The embargo, sadly, has impeded both. It has
    impeded multilateral efforts, and it has imposed this criminal
    hardship on the Cuban people.
        We need to end this policy of isolation, think afresh--
    start afresh on Cuban policy, start working with Latin American
    governments and European governments to press strategically,
    multilaterally the Cuban Government, and replacing these
    general sanctions with targeted sanctions against the specific
    individuals and the specific companies, I may add, who are
    responsible for the atrocities that are being committed in
    Cuba.
        Ms. Manning. So that is unlikely to happen in the next
    administration. Are there any other steps that we could take?
        Mr. Pappier. Sadly, I think the efforts of the United
    States on Cuba are very much undermined by the policy of the
    embargo. There are other efforts you can take, but the embargo
    undermines your capacity to produce change, undermines your
    capacity to find allies to push for these reforms to happen. I
    would be happy and encouraged for targeted sanctions against
    those people responsible.
        I would encourage you to give more civility to specific
    individual cases of political prisoners, including some of the
    ones I mentioned, and to work multilaterally with other
    governments. But I fear that the embargo creates a whole
    destruction and makes it very difficult to create this
    multilateral coalition for democracy and human rights in Cuba.
        Ms. Manning. So I suspect we could go back and forth from
    one end of the table to the other end of the table. We could
    agree on the goal that we want; we just simply can't agree on
    how we can get there. So with that, I will thank you all for
    being here today, and I yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        Just a couple final thoughts and questions.
        Oh, did you want to--please, Maria.
        Ms. Werlau. She is prodding me to answer you.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Yes.
        Ms. Werlau. So I think, with all respect to my colleague,
    and I think we share the same goal, that is wishful thinking.
    Yes, the embargo is a distraction. Look at how we are talking
    about this. But to blame the embargo for a totalitarian regime
    that commits egregious crimes against humanity for six decades
    is wanting to be blind about a situation. This is not about
    individuals; this is a whole system of way of life, and it is a
    dynasty, it is their successors.
        Yes, I believe, of course, multilateral sanctions would be
    best, but the world ignores Cuba. And it is too late. The Cuban
    system is imploding. The main sources of revenue from Cuba are
    in our hands to cut to get that regime to recognize, face the
    reality, and allow for a transition to democracy. Nowhere in
    those propositions to sit in dialog with Cuba or find a
    multilateral position is there any solution to this. None of
    these countries are presenting this. It is too easy to push it
    on to the United States and to forget the Cuban people. I think
    we have the obligation to finally see this through.
        What we have not done is applied the sanctions, the so-
    called embargo has been diluted by executive mandate for many,
    many years. And the border is porous. This is constantly
    allowing an inflow of people who are sending money to Cuba,
    traveling back to Cuba, having claimed a legitimate fear of
    persecution, calling, sending aid. The embargo has not been
    enforced, and right now it is at the tipping point.
        So that is what I believe. Maybe there will be more
    suffering. There should be a humanitarian assistance
    multilateral program to aid the Cuban people, but feeding the
    regime and its conglomerate is only going to prolong the failed
    system that oppresses the people that there is no way out of
    this economic crisis, because it is a parasitic, bankrupt
    economy. Thank you.
        Ms. Manning. Well, one thing we have learned in the past 2
    weeks is that you never know what is going to bring down an
    oppressive, horrific regime, so maybe we can all hope that in
    the new year we are surprised in Cuba, just like we have been
    surprised in Syria.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Yes.
        Ms. Manning. With that, I really do yield back.
        Mr. Smith. Let me just ask a couple final questions. I am
    all for multilateral sanctions, but as the distinguished
    chairwoman said, if we have to go it alone, we ought to. I
    supported apartheid sanctions. There were many people who
    thought that that would be injurious to the people of South
    Africa, but I thought the horrendous apartheid system needed to
    be confronted, and thankfully over time that did jettison that
    off the face of the Earth.
        We need allies. I am shocked when I talk to other diplomats
    and other Members of Congress and parliaments what a naive view
    they have about Cuba, especially as it relates to the--for the
    foreign--the people that they deploy elsewhere for medical
    reasons. You know, you tell them 75 to 95 percent of that money
    is going to a dictatorship. That is--that is trafficking, and
    that is what the TIP report says. It is trafficking, indentured
    servitude, as you said, Ileana.
        One of the things that grabbed me when I read Armando
    Valladares' book, and then talking to people who have been
    imprisoned in Cuba, we have had Dr. Biscet, we've had so many
    people come and testify over the years, and it was that torture
    is given in those prisons. One of the things that Armando
    Valladares talked about was they took the prisoners, put them
    into human waste, submerged them; it went through their ears,
    their nose, their eyes. They all got infections. It was totally
    degrading. I mean, what evil dictatorship does that? And it was
    so bad that when Armando Valladares' wife gave birth to their
    children, he couldn't change the diapers. He had PTSD on that.
        Now, I have written four laws on combatting the problem of
    torture. They are called the Tortured Victims Relief Act. And
    it is all about the PTSD. We have got hundreds of thousands of
    Americans, or people in America, who come from all over the
    world, who have been in prisons all over the world and have
    been tortured. They need help. What do you say to a
    dictatorship that is doing this every day, as we meet here,
    they are being tortured so horrifically?
        Valladares talked about the Ho Chi Minh polls. They made
    sure that you didn't sleep. They would go in there and start
    hitting you, and they called them Ho Chi Minh polls. And that
    is just one of many. China, maybe more than anyone else, has
    perfected the cruel art of torture. I have had many hearings on
    that. I chair the China Commission.
        So what did we do there? We delinked human rights from
    trade on May 26, 1994. That was Bill Clinton. I joined, with
    Nancy Pelosi, in deploring that, because we just gave away the
    store. And look what they have done ever since.
        They are callosus when it comes to military capability,
    threatening not just Taiwan but hegemony throughout that
    region, but even us. I mean, China really is very strong these
    days. And we did it. It wasn't the Europeans; we did it,
    through a false sense that if you just trade more and lift the
    sanctions and the linkage to human rights, they will
    matriculate from dictatorship to a democracy. Nothing--I will
    sell you the Brooklyn Bridge if you really believe that, and I
    don't think any of you believe that.
        The International Red Cross has not been there since 1988.
    Why aren't they there talking to people, chronicling what is
    going in terms of the use of torture. So to lift the embargo,
    we need to get more allies, make a new effort to get others to
    join us. First it was the Soviets and then it was European
    Union and others who just continually offer life lines to this
    cruel dictatorship.
        So I think the next administration ought to try very hard
    to get others to say--you know, and it goes for places like
    China as well. We have learned that lesson. I can't tell you
    how many people have told me they wish they had voted--because
    we had votes on it, on PNTR, permanent normal charity
    relations--don't--they wish they could have that vote back,
    because they realize it didn't work out. It has gotten worse in
    terms of genocide against the Uyghurs and everything else.
    Nobody there from ICRC since 1989. I mean, what does that tell
    you?
        So with all due respect to my good friends and colleagues,
    and to you, Juan, I don't believe that lifting the sanctions--I
    think we need to double down on that, get other countries to
    join us. So I would ask that we, you know, look at that very
    seriously.
        I believe in targeted sanctions, but I also believe, like I
    did with apartheid, I was, you know, criticized for that by
    some. You are going to hurt the South Africans. Yes, but they
    need to be free of that racial prejudice that is being levied
    against them.
        So anyone want to comment on that?
        But we have got to renew our efforts to expose this
    cruelty. This hearing is the beginning of a new effort. And,
    again, having the distinguished chairwoman, Ileana Ros-
    Lehtinen, here, who is--nobody speaks stronger or better about
    it.
        And just let me say one other thing. The enablers of this
    country, I had a Reverend Walker come when Elian Gonzalez was
    abducted from his home--and Marisleysis, and the others,
    couldn't believe it when people with guns came in and extracted
    him. Well, I had a hearing on it. And we had a Reverend Walker
    from my own State, and he goes, you know, I want to tell you,
    my favorite scripture is Matthew 25. When I was in prison, did
    you visit me? And he goes, I visited the people in the prisons.
    So I said, OK. Do you visit political prisoners? And I had a
    whole list of people that--and he said--he hesitated.
        Lincoln Diaz-Balart, he had joined us on the panel. He
    goes, will the gentleman yield? I said, of course. He said,
    name them. Name one political prisoner that you visited. He
    didn't have anybody. Next thing you know, he was walking out
    the door to catch a plane. He did not want to--I mean, stop
    enabling. I am not saying that to you guys. I am saying it to
    those who just look the other way.
        Torture is the cruellest thing. I don't know how anybody
    overcomes that, you know, and we know from the PTSD that they
    suffer. And this regime gets A-plus for their horrible use of
    torture. I mean, they do it very well, as do the Chinese
    Communist Party. So double down on sanctions.
        Yes?
        Mr. Pappier. Mr. Chair, thank you. Just to--first of all,
    to clarify to Maria's comments with all due respect, I made
    very clear in my statement that the Cuban Government is solely
    responsible for the atrocities for it commits. It is solely
    responsible for those atrocities.
        I share your concerns about torture in Cuba. We have
    documented them extensively. Here are reports of torture that
    we have documented of people that day on July 11
    demonstrations. And I have also in preparation for this hearing
    listened to some of the hearings on Cuba in the past 10, 15
    years. And I have always listened to something along the lines
    of what you just mentioned, Mr. Chair, with all due respect. If
    only we wait a little bit more, if only we pressure a little
    bit more, we post a little bit more of sanctions maybe that
    will produce results. It hasn't produced results for 60 years.
        Mr. Smith. But with all due respect----
        Mr. Pappier. We need to try something different.
        Mr. Smith [continuing]. We thought that with China. When
    delinking occurred under Bill Clinton, May 26, 1994,
    Republicans and Democrats alike said, this is going to lead to,
    you know, improvements. It only got worse, and it got
    significantly worse.
        So I think we need to realize it only makes them stronger,
    more effective, and richer. The bad guys become richer. And it
    doesn't help the average person, and it certainly doesn't cause
    a change in politics, because for them, you know, make sure
    Colonel So-and-So is running this business over there and
    making money hand over fist.
        Maria, did you want to----
        Ms. Werlau. Mr. Chairman, can I share a story with you for
    the record. Randall Robinson, the architect of South Africa
    sanctions, I heard him speak at Columbia University in the
    early 2000's and then I went over to talk to him. There was the
    journalist, the reporter for Radio and TV Marti was recording
    this.
        So I asked him, so, if you are so--he was talking about how
    sanctions had been so important, how they were right even when
    they weren't effective and then they were.
        So I said, so why is your stance on Cuba so different?
    Because it is notable that many human rights defenders have the
    opposite stance with respect to sanctions on Cuba that they
    would have on the Pinochet regime, the South Africa regime, et
    cetera. Well, you know what he said? He said, oh, no, because
    there are no human rights violations in Cuba.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Wow.
        Mr. Smith. Yes.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. That takes my breath away.
        Mr. Smith. That is astonishing.
        Mr. Connor, just if I could ask you, you wrote Secretary
    Blinken earlier this year requesting that your father's killer,
    Willy Morales, be extradited to the U.S. Did you get a
    response?
        Mr. Connor. No. I contacted Secretary Blinken, Jake
    Sullivan, my New Jersey Senators and got no response from
    anybody.
        Mr. Smith. And one last question to you. I know you are
    trying to get the city, University of New York, to take down
    the naming of the center.
        Mr. Connor. Yes.
        Mr. Smith. I mean, they are naming it after Joanne
    Chesimard and Morales, and it is just absurd.
        Mr. Connor. They named the student center called the
    William Morales Assata Shakur student center, and this had been
    reported years ago, and I went up there----
        Oh. Yes, they had a student center called William Morales
    Assata Shakur at City College of New York, and it had been
    supposedly taken down in the early 2000's. And on a hunch,
    which I have had over the years, I called them years later and,
    sure enough, it was open. So I went up there by myself with my
    phone and camera and I started taking pictures. I have sent
    them to some of the guys on the committee here.
        And then I called the school and said, you know, I am going
    to go public with this, that you have a student center named
    for terrorists. And my father went to CCNY, and I didn't see
    anything there in his honor. So they fought me a bit, which I
    was a little shocked. And then they said, well, yes, it is this
    freedom of speech thing, but we are going to compromise. We are
    going to take it down, and we are going to say that it is
    because, you know, we need that space for the--for education.
        So when they went to do it, a near riot broke out, and cops
    were called in. And it was basically filled with like these
    guys from like the 1960's who were still living their 60's and
    70's weather underground crap and had infiltrated there, and
    were using that--they weren't even students, most of them.
        They were using that center for their own--you know, these
    guys, my age type. They are old. And they cleared them out. And
    to my knowledge, it has not been reopened, but it was really a
    slap in the face that they would do something like that, but
    not a surprise. This is what goes on in academia. Well, what
    passes for academia.
        Mr. Smith. Chairwoman, would you like to close us?
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. No, it really is shocking, the amount of
    ignorance and willful ignorance. Even when you point it out to
    them, you are glorifying a terrorist. And still, they are--the
    hold that the Cuban regime, the mystique of Che Guevara and the
    revolution and that was all in favor of the downtrodden, that
    it still permeates in so many of the college campuses. It is
    sickening. But as we saw----
        Mr. Connor. Yes.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Look at the anti-Semitism that was alive
    and well in all of these Ivy leagues. It is sickening, but----
        Mr. Connor. Well, Columbia University has hired terrorists
    over the years.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Yes. Terrorists, yes. Yes.
        Mr. Connor. And look what you get when you hire terrorists;
    you get students who start believing that stuff.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And to disguise this as freedom of speech
    is just ludicrous.
        Mr. Connor. Yes, it is ludicrous.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        I want to thank our great panel. Sorry we started late.
    That is because of the Blinken hearing. We were precluded
    from----
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Who does he think he is?
        Mr. Smith. And we can't have a hearing simultaneous with
    that. So thank you so much and----
        Mr. Connor. You are welcome. Thanks for having us.
        Mr. Smith [continuing]. Appreciate all of information. Even
    when we disagree, we do it civilly and respectfully.
        Mr. Pappier. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 4:11 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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