[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 124 (Thursday, August 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           THE CUBAN REFUGEES

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will be brief.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the dilemma the administration is 
currently confronting in the mass exodus of Cuban refugees to the 
United States. It is a complicated, urgent problem that, as the 
President noted, is at least in part an attempt by Fidel Castro to 
control our immigration policy.
  As past experience has shown, along with the many politically 
persecuted Cubans who have joined the exodus and who deserve refuge in 
the United States, there are certainly many thousands of Cuban prison 
and mental ward inmates whom Castro has again attempted to export to 
the United States in the expectation that their arrival on our shores 
will weaken American opposition to Castro's cruel regime.
  With one exception that I will mention in a moment, I support the 
actions the administration has taken to demonstrate to Castro that his 
latest, cynical attempt to coerce the United States into terminating 
the embargo against Cuba will have the reverse effect.
  Included in the administration response are the following steps: The 
termination of charter flights from the United States to Cuba; the more 
aggressive use of television and radio broadcasts from the United 
States to Cuba, supporting Radio Marti with additional broadcasts from 
United States military aircraft; and the pursuit of a U.N. condemnation 
of Cuban human rights abuses.
  As I said, I support these actions and commend the President for 
taking them. I do disagree, however, with the administration's decision 
to cut off remittances from Cuban-Americans to their loved ones who 
remain trapped in Castro's island prison. I appreciate the fact that 
these remittances help sustain--to a limited degree--the economy that 
35 years of Castro's socialism has devastated. However, the hardship 
that a curtailment of these remittances would impose on Cubans whose 
misfortune it is to live in tyranny is too great a cost to make this 
additional sanction worthwhile.
  In fact, there are many aged and elderly citizens of Cuba. Without 
these remittances, many of them would literally starve to death. It is 
a mistake. It will increase--not decrease--the pressures for people to 
leave Cuba, and works in direct contravention, in my view, as it does 
in Haiti, with our desire to prevent people to have incentives for 
people not to immigrate.
  We cannot forget that the ultimate object of our policy for Cuba is 
the liberation of the Cuban people from tyranny and deprivation. And 
while an economic embargo intended to hasten their liberation from 
tyranny will unavoidably contribute to their current deprivation, we 
should not exacerbate their misery to such an extent that it becomes 
impossible for human beings to bear. It is a difficult calibration, I 
admit. But closer cooperation between the head and the heart will help 
U.S. policymakers to mamage it.
  Let us also take this moment, Mr. President, to illuminate the 
means--the only means--by which Castro can escape the economic embargo 
imposed against him by the United States--free, fair, and 
internationally supervised elections. Should Castro at long last 
succumb to the verdict of history and admit that his aging experiment 
in Marxism-Leninism has failed utterly, and in recognition of that 
failure, agree to holding free and fair elections, the United States 
should be prepared to initiate a series of modifications to the embargo 
tied to different stages in the election--from the conclusion of an 
agreement to hold them to the point when it is assured that the verdict 
of the Cuban people will be respected by Cuba's current leaders. The 
United States should also be prepared to help provide the means to hold 
and observe these elections.
  The United States should be prepared to provide assistance to Cuba so 
that, when a definite date is set for free and fair elections in Cuba, 
the United States will move forward rapidly, and we will provide 
incentives along the way.
  Should Castro, at long last, concede the failure of this regime and 
recognize his people's longing for the inevitable triumph of democratic 
values in Cuba by allowing truly competitive and regular elections, 
then, and only then, should the United States begin to normalize our 
relationship with Cuba.
  Mr. President, the other day the President said he was not going to 
allow Fidel Castro to dictate our emigration policy. The fact is Fidel 
Castro is, because there is no carrot here. We have to make it clear 
that free and fair elections will alleviate the suffering of the Cuban 
people, and they will also allow Castro to have some incentive to 
finally recognize the failure of Marxism-Leninism in that small and 
very unhappy country.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the patience of my colleague from Utah.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.

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