[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           PRESIDENT SHOULD NOT UNDO THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Menendez] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I want my comments today directly to go to 
our President with reference to the situation in Cuba. I am joined this 
evening by my distinguished colleague from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], 
whom I will yield to in a few moments. I think this is a very important 
time.
  You know, Mr. President, Fidel Castro is a chess master. He has 
played skillfully with eight previous American administrations. He has 
now begun his game with you by threatening to instigate another 
boatlift like Mariel in 1980. He made his opening gambit, and we have 
responded with a very poor move.
  Mr. President, your new policy of repatriating freedom seeking Cubans 
hurts the people who are fleeing one of the world's most brutal 
tyrants. Human rights organizations such as Freedom House list him as 
among the 10 worse human rights abusers in the world. But it fails to 
address the root of the problem, which is the Castro government itself.
  Unless you assure us otherwise, the actions today in effect undo the 
Cuban Adjustment Act, which authorizes Cubans who flee Communist Cuba 
to ultimately seek U.S. residency.
  In my view, you would be well-advised to expand on today's 
pronouncements. We apparently have moved toward consistency with our 
immigration policy toward Haiti. We must now move toward a more 
consistent policy, if that is going to be our goal, with respect to 
both the Cuban and Haitian dictatorships.
  So I urge you to do the following measures: immediately suspend all 
United States flights to Cuba; immediately suspend all cash transfers 
to Cuba; immediately suspend, except for humanitarian assistance, all 
material remittances from the United States to Cuba. This adds up. The 
humanitarian response of the Cuban-American community comes to nearly 
$400 million a year. Castro cannot afford to lose approximately $1 
million a day from his economy. Now, $1 million a day in the context of 
the American economy is nothing. But $1 million a day in Castro's 
freefall of an economy is something that he cannot resist, he cannot 
have, and, in fact, you will see how quickly he changes his immigration 
policy. The fact of the matter is we have to understand what Castro is 
seeking to do here. He seeks to very clearly do two major things. No. 1 
is 2 weeks ago, nearly 30,000 Cubans, along Havana's seawall, 
demonstrated in unprecedented manner against the Castro government, 
saying that they wanted to see changes within the government.

                              {time}  1650

  And his response in those 2 weeks is to relieve the pressure. If they 
are unhappy with my government, do not let me seek to make change 
within my government. Let me seek to have them leave. And in a callous 
disregard for their danger crossing the Florida straits, for the 
numbers of hundreds that may have made it, there are hundreds who have 
died at sea. And so his response is, let me relieve the pressure and at 
the same time let me wreak havoc with U.S. immigration policy. Let me 
change this into an immigration issue. Let me take it away from the 
political issue that it is, as it relates to democratic and economic 
change in Cuba. And hopefully, while I am doing this and relieving the 
pressure, I will also go ahead and get my No. 1 foreign policy 
objective, which is to have undone the U.S. embargo against the Castro 
government.
  So the present situation, secondly, is not only a challenge but an 
opportunity. Now is the time to use our technology, to make sure that 
Television Marti fully penetrates the entire island of Cuba, nearly 10 
million people who live in a closed society, who do not have, as we do 
here, television of what is going on in their House of Representatives, 
who do not have free and unfettered press, who only have a state radio 
and television and, in fact, by doing so, communicate directly with the 
Cuban people as to our intentions. Show them the pictures of what it is 
to risk your lives on the Florida straits. Understand the many who have 
died, the children who have become orphans in this process. Understand 
and know about, because we cannot conceive, maybe, many of us, that 
what we see here instantly happens in one part of our country is known 
in another, that in Cuba that is not the case.
  Let them see the powerful images of television as we have seen 
through CNN throughout the world that in fact in Cuba there were 10,000 
to 30,000 people who rose up against the Castro government 2 weeks ago. 
Let them know that their desires for freedom are not alone.
  If we do this, and we have the technology, we have satellite 
communications that we could have, we have ship to shore possibilities, 
we have C-130 planes that can transmit as we recently did in Haiti to 
directly communicate with the Cuban people.
  This is a powerful tool, one that Fidel Castro spends an enormous 
amount of money trying to jam because of the present frequency that we 
use instead of using that money to put food on the plates of Cuban 
families. It would create an opportunity and force a hoped-for 
democratic change by opening a window on the world and even a window 
about what happens in Cuba.
  The administration must have the will that others have lacked to give 
the people of Cuba who live in this closed society that window on the 
world.
  Fidel Castro has challenged our national security at a time when we 
find ourselves busy in both humanitarian missions in Rwanda and the 
restoration of democracy in Haiti. It is in the national interest to 
provide free and unfettered information to the Cuban people.
  Also let us work with our hemispheric partners, who seek hemispheric 
integration, to voice publicly what we know that they are telling 
Castro privately. As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the 
Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, I have had the opportunity to speak to 
several Latin American leaders about our relationships between the 
United States and Latin America and their countries. I have also talked 
to them about our relationships with Cuba.
  We know what happened in the Latin American in Colombia where they in 
private told him that there must either be change or in fact he must 
go. Now we need for those who seek hemispheric integration, who want 
greater relationships with the United States, who say that they support 
democracy to say what they say in private, to say it publicly, because 
it is time to end this Havana-Washington issue. It is time to, 
certainly within our hemisphere, get our partners to speak up for the 
democratic principles they say they stand for.

  It is time to allow the Cuban people to freely express themselves by 
voting with ballots in a booth versus fleeing, voting by their feet, by 
fleeing on a raft.
  Lastly, before I yield to my colleagues from Florida, let me just say 
that we must take the long overdue move to establish a proactive policy 
toward Cuba. I have encouraged the administration for some time now to 
endorse our Free and Independent Cuba Assistance Act, to send a message 
to the Cuban people that we are in solidarity with you, but not the 
dictatorship who oppresses you. We respect your right to national self-
determination. We are prepared to assist you in your transitions toward 
a democratic government. But, in fact, we are unwilling to support the 
dictatorship that oppresses you.
  Had we done that, by sending the message of our both humanitarian 
assistance, developmental assistance that would be available, we would 
not have people fleeing because they would have seen the opportunity 
for hope.
  We would not, Mr. President, today be reacting to Castro's cynical 
ploy and, lastly, lest we forget, the 40 men, women and children who 
died nearly 3\1/2\ weeks ago at sea, which is another reason that 
Castro has done all of this. The world community was raising their 
voice against what he did, which is when 70 or so, men, women and 
children went to sea in an attempt to flee the tyranny of Castro's 
Cuba. Their boats were hit with high water pressure cannons knocking 
over women and children, nearly 20 children in this process. Their 
boats were rammed by Cuban Government boats. The boat was split. People 
were drowning and the Cuban Government, in circular motion with these 
three boats, created a whirlpool effect to have those people drown into 
the sea.
  Those who survived and were eventually brought back to Cuba, nearly 
30 survived, 40 died at sea, including nearly 20 children, were 
courageous enough to tell their story to what press exists in Cuba, to 
those limited press that are there from outside of Cuba. And in doing 
so, let the world community know about it. We should be seeking a 
resolution in the United Nations and refocusing the reality, that we do 
not need and the Cuban people do not want to flee in massive numbers.

  We need one person to leave the island of Cuba, and that is Fidel 
Castro.
  I want to yield to my distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from 
Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen].
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I 
congratulate him not only for his great leadership in many of the 
crucial domestic issues that confront this great country, health care, 
crime, education, but also for his leadership on the international 
domain, especially in his call, never ending, for the liberation and 
the freedom of the enslaved Cuban people.
  We are joined here tonight with another esteemed colleague from the 
Florida delegation, Mr. Diaz-Balart, who has an important piece of 
legislation which we all support that calls for an international 
embargo that, as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez], pointed 
out, would help to bring about the defeat of Fidel Castro and help to 
bring abut the democracy that the Cuban people so earnestly yearn for 
day in and day out.
  We are all deeply disappointed that President Clinton did not take 
the opportunity this afternoon at his press conference to announce a 
tougher U.S. policy against this failed Castro regime.
  The decision by the Clinton administration of intercepting in the 
high seas and then detaining at the Guantanamo Naval Base Cuban 
refugees who flee the Castro regime is indeed extremely disappointing. 
These Cuban refugees who risk their lives in the high seas in search of 
freedom should be processed as indicated by the Cuban Adjustment Act 
and be granted political asylum.
  The wave of Cuban refugees will not stop, as Mr. Menendez pointed 
out, unto the root cause of the problem, and that is the Castro 
dictatorship, is eliminated from Cuba.
  Castro's failed Marxist policies have brought misery and hunger and a 
repressive political environment to the island. The solution is not to 
detain Cuban refugees, who are the real victims in this cruel 
situation. The solution is to bring down from power Cuba's dictator, 
Fidel Castro.
  The United States should strengthen its foreign policy toward Cuba. 
it is hypocritical for the administration to lobby for an international 
embargo against the undemocratic government of Haiti but turn its back 
on the 35-year old Castro tyranny.
  President Clinton should encourage and actively lobby for the 
international community to cut off all of its commercial ties with Cuba 
and, instead, implement an international embargo against the thugs who 
rule the island.

                              {time}  1700

  An international embargo, as proposed by Congressman Diaz-Balart, 
would cut all resources to the regime, resources that it now uses to 
further enslave the Cuban people and maintain itself in power. If 
Cubans and Haitian refugees are to be treated the same in terms of 
immigration, why are the two dictators who rule these islands not 
treated the same in terms of the U.S. military response?
  There is an international blockade against Haiti. Nothing is to get 
there, except for strictly humanitarian aid. There is no such 
international blockade against Castro. There are strong worded U.N. 
resolutions, forceful, against the Haiti dictatorship. Where are the 
anti-Castro resolutions of action against Castro?
  This, today, has been a very sad day for the liberation of the Cuban 
people. On this day, the United States made it very clear to Fidel 
Castro and to the international community that we, indeed, have no 
proactive policy to remove this cruel dictator from power.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for this time.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida, who has 
been a strong voice on behalf of freedom for people of Cuba and freedom 
for people everywhere, and for respect of democracy and the rule of 
law.
  I would like to take this opportunity to yield to my colleague, the 
distinguished gentleman from Florida, Lincoln Diaz-Balart.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I agree with, obviously, what the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez] and the gentlewoman from 
Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen] said with regard to the sadness of the day.
  Yes, it is a sad day. It is a sad day in the history of this process, 
because, I guess, those who support the continuation of slavery for the 
Cuban people scored a victory in that the underground railroad was 
dealt a setback.
  We all know that the underground railroad, when we study our American 
history, was the hope during slavery that the slaves in the United 
States had to try to reach the North. Today, yes, it is a hopeful day 
for those who support the slavery of the Cuban people because there has 
been a setback to the underground railroad, but the underground 
railroad ultimately is not the issue. It is an important matter in the 
sense that it means hope in this process, this interim process, the 
duration of slavery, but slavery is not going to remain as a permanent 
condition.
  That is why it was so much our hope that even though we, under all 
circumstances, would oppose with vehemence and with firmness the 
interruption of the underground railroad, we hoped that that 
opportunity would have been used by the President to give hope that the 
source problem would be addressed.
  As has been mentioned by the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-
Lehtinen], in effect what was mentioned today was an immigration policy 
like the one that exists with regard to Haiti. Yet, there was not 
announced a foreign policy, like the one that exists toward Haiti.
  In Haiti we have a situation, as the gentlewoman from Florida 
mentioned, where there is a blockade. It is an international blockade, 
but in effect it is the United States doing the blockading.
  We did not ask permission when the decision was made to so-called 
quarantine Cuba because of the threat to the national interests of the 
United States in 1962 in Cuba. We did not ask the world's permission 
for that.
  Today there is one superpower, and it is the United States of 
America. Not only is it the superpower of the world, it is the moral 
reserve and reservoir of the world. There is absolutely no reason why, 
90 miles from our shores, we cannot give hope and concrete assistance 
to the people that for 35 years have been languishing under a torturer 
who has destroyed not only the economy but has brought the people to an 
extraordinary state of despair and desperation.
  We could have announced today steps not only to give hope but to give 
concrete assistance to the Cuban people, overtly and covertly, if 
necessary, like we are doing in Haiti, so that the Cuban people will 
shortly--would shortly achieve their freedom. There were many things 
that could have been announced that were not announced. The only issue 
that was addressed was the issue of the underground railroad. The issue 
of slavery was not addressed.
  Even this issue, this immigration issue, will not be solved while we 
ignore, and if we continue to ignore, the core, the source problem, 
because Castro knows now that it is his last card, but this card is 
working. He has used his last card, which is another threat, another 
form of blackmail, telling the United States, ``We are going to unleash 
this refugee problem on you.'' It is his last card.

  Instead of saying, ``You have used your last card and it backfired,'' 
we have said, ``No, well, okay, we'll cut the underground railroad.'' 
The reality of the matter is that now Castro is seeing that it is 
working, because he was given something. He was given something by 
virtue of having unleashed this threat and this blackmail, this 
instrument of blackmail.
  He is going to continue. The refugees may be put in Guantanamo 
tomorrow and third countries the next day. Castro is going to continue 
to unleash them, because he knows that the threat, the process of 
pressuring the United States, is working.
  If the United States today, while announcing this unacceptable 
policy, I think ethically improper policy that was announced today, if 
the United States would have announced, ``We are blockading, by the 
way, refugees,'' we still would have opposed that on ethical grounds. 
But if in addition to that the United States would have announced, 
``But we are blockading the ports of Castro, and no oil is going to go 
in, and your card, your last card, has backfired,'' then the Cuban 
people would see the source problem, the oppression, the dictatorship, 
the tyranny, is coming to an end.
  The oil, which is what runs regimes in these days, and which, by the 
way, the Haitian regime continues to obtain because of the filtering of 
the embargo through the Dominican border--there is no Dominican border 
in Cuba.
  Besides that, the Cuban people have already demonstrated, even the 
totalitarian state they are living under, that they have hit the 
streets, they have passed the threshold that was passed in 1989 with 
the peoples of Europe. They have hit the streets; they are in a state 
of insurrection.
  There is no press in Camaguey, there is no press in Oriente, there is 
no press in Pinar del Rio and a number of other places where 
insurrection has already occurred in recent days, and yet we hear the 
people have hit the streets. And in Havana, of course, since it is the 
capital city and there are so many tourists there, some of them with 
video cameras, 30,000 people were seen hitting the streets 
spontaneously, attacking the symbols of the dictatorship just a few 
days ago on the 5th of August.
  It was that day, on the 5th of August, that Castro unleashed, using 
his last card, this threat of the immigration crisis. Instead of 
calling his bluff and say, ``It is your last card and it has backfired 
and your ports are blockaded,'' like we are doing in Haiti, a 
dictatorship 2\1/2\-years old, not 35, that does not have a state of 
insurrection of the people against it, that does not have the political 
prisons full, like Castro does, instead of doing that we say, ``We are 
just going to deal with the immigration issue.''
  That is not correct. That is not wise. That is not understanding who 
you are dealing with, the demented mind of Fidel Castro, someone who, 
like you said today, a chess player but who has nothing left except one 
remaining threat, but he is going to continue to reiterate threats as 
long as he remains in power.
  It is time, I would say to the gentleman--and I appreciate him 
yielding these precious moments that he has obtained today to address 
our colleagues and the American people--it is time for the United 
States to say ``enough is enough'' with regard to the suffering of the 
Cuban people. We have a long relationship, a historic relationship of 
friendship with the Cuban people. When the Cuban people fought for 100 
years in the 19th century, it was the United States that ultimately 
came to their help. Now it is time to come to their help.

  Cuban people, Cuban-Americans do not want a single GI to die for the 
cause of freedom in Cuba. Cuban-Americans are not asking for U.S. 
invasion. They are asking for the right to fight for their brothers and 
sisters in Cuba. The Cuban people are asking for the right to fight, 
for the recognition of the State of belligerence of the Cuban people, 
which exists, but it should be recognized.
  We have gotten into a situation now where we are deciding which laws 
to enforce and which laws not to enforce. There is a law called the 
Cuban Adjustment Act that today the administration decided not to 
enforce.

                              {time}  1710

  Then we must question the enforcement as rigidly as it is in effect 
enforced of the so-called neutrality law. I mean, we had Nicaragua, 
20,000 people fighting in Nicaragua a few years ago, helped by the 
United States, despite something called the neutrality law. We had 
Angola. We had Afghanistan. But Cuba remains on the back burner and the 
issue has always been simply, whoever can reach here is able to be 
free, but there is no assistance, overtly or covertly, nor permission 
even for those who want to fight with regard to Cuba. The time for that 
has ended. The time for assistance has come. The time for solidarity 
has come. The time for freedom has come.
  Cuban people will be free anyway. The gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. 
Ros-Lehtinen] said it is a sad day. It is. But despite defeats like 
today, in the sense of lack of perceiving the historical moment and the 
opportunity, despite that, and despite the lack of solidarity in the 
world, a coldly indifferent world, that United Nations that condemned 
Cedras and condemns the South African apartheid and yet continues to 
ignore the suffering of the Cuban people, those elderly and those 
little children that we see striving for freedom, who are now going to 
be diverted and sent to who knows where under what conditions.
  Despite all that, despite the defeats, despite the indignity of the 
indifference of the world, I have no doubt just as Cuba was free at the 
end of a struggle of 100 years against Spanish and European 
colonialism, I have no doubt that that people will be free. And because 
of the difficulty of this process, that people will be able to hold its 
head very high and tell the entire world, after opening the 
concentration camps, ``Yes, we know what your attitude was, but we're 
free, and we're going to reconstruct and once again we will be the envy 
of Latin America.''
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his strong and 
passionate statement.
  We have the opportunity to turn around what we consider to be a 
failed policy today. We have an opportunity to be proactive and not 
reactive. We have an opportunity to stop dancing to Castro's tune and 
change it to our own music. I think that it is important to do so. 
Ultimately we do not want the Cuban people to have to leave their own 
country, a beautiful country, an idyllic island, but they leave because 
they cannot make political change within their own country. They do not 
have as we have a process here by which they can create that change. We 
have seen time and time again that lack of political opportunities in 
terms of political freedom creates lack of economic change. Because how 
does one go about creating economic change if they have no 
representative democracy?

  Lastly in that respect, if we look at this issue, and let me close on 
this note, that beyond releasing the pressure within Cuba for those who 
wanted to create change but for which the dictatorship will not respond 
to and seeks to have them go so that he will not have that pressure, 
the question then becomes and the issue I know that is circulating here 
in this House on the question of the embargo: Castro can buy food, 
medical supplies, and material goods anyplace in the world. He has 
allies in Spain, in Canada, and in Mexico. All he has to do is have the 
hard currency to purchase from them. Or in turn if they wish to give it 
to him, they could do that but they choose not to, and he chooses not 
to create the type of economic reform that would put more food on the 
table of Cuban families.
  We should never lose sight of who has the control to make life better 
for the people of Cuba and who has the arms so that they in fact cannot 
seek democratic change. There is only one group that has the arms 
within Cuba and that is the Castro army and its security. There is only 
one person under that structure that exists that can permit market 
reforms in Cuba, and when he has done it, when he has done it, it has 
been tremendous success and the industriousness of the Cuban people has 
shown to rise up and live up to expectations.
  When he created farmers markets and said if you meet the state quota, 
anything above and beyond that state quota, you will be able to keep 
the benefits of, and it was a tremendous success. Not only were the 
state quotas met that had not been met for many years before, but they 
were surpassed. More food was created for Cuban families, and the 
personal profit of that was kept by those who worked hard to do it.
  The response: The reform that Castro himself had permitted was shut 
down in 6 months. Why? Because he cannot control it. And as his 
daughter who escaped to the United States told me here in the House of 
Representatives, ``You call him a dictator. I call him a tyrant. A 
dictator is someone who wants to dictate the policy of the country. A 
tyrant is someone who wants to dictate every aspect of your life.''
  Fidel Castro will not willingly--he did not do it when the Soviet 
Union was giving him $6 billion a year at that time that the Soviet 
Union existed in assistance, $6 billion a year which kept his economy 
afloat, when Gorbachev went to them and said, ``Let's have some 
openings, let's have glasnost, let's have perestroika,'' he said, 
``No,'' and he bit the hand that fed him. When he did on his own create 
market reforms, he rejected them, because again he could not control 
them. He privatized over 100 jobs and told people, ``Go get a license, 
we'll see how it works.'' It was very successful. And what did he do? 
He repealed it. Then subsequently passed a harsh decree law 149, I 
think it was, that says, ``All the ill-gotten gains you have got from 
that which we permitted you to do in terms of private enterprise cannot 
be kept anymore.''
  Castro has shown that he is unwilling on his own to permit reform, to 
create reform. He does not need any signals from the United States. He 
can do it on his own. He refuses to do so, he will only do so by 
necessity, and that is where we must learn our lesson, that is where we 
need to respond and that is where we need to be in solidarity with the 
Cuban people.

                          ____________________