[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 148 (Wednesday, November 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: November 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 A CUBA POLICY DRIVEN BY SADISTIC ZEAL

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I recently held a hearing in my 
Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee on 
the constitutional right to travel. I believe that our policy of 
severely restricting travel is unconstitutional.
  Senator Pell recently had a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee on the foreign policy aspects of our policy toward Cuba and 
opened the hearing with a remarkably forthright statement, which I ask 
unanimous consent to insert into the Record at this point.
  About the same time, the Los Angeles Times printed a column by 
Alexander Cockburn about our trade policies with Cuba and how we are 
hurting innocent people in Cuba through our policies.
  I believe we have to recognize that our policies need to be modified, 
and I hope we do that before too long.
  At this point, I ask that the Los Angeles Times column by Alexander 
Cockburn be printed in the Record.
  The column follows:

  Chairman Pell's Opening Statement, Hearing on Cuba, October 7, 1994

       I am pleased to welcome our witnesses today. I believe a 
     serious review of U.S. policy toward Cuba is long overdue and 
     I hope this hearing will begin that process. I have travelled 
     to Cuba three times since the revolution, meeting with 
     President Castro and other high-level officials, dissidents, 
     political prisoners and members of the religious community. I 
     have been frustrated by the Cuban government's failure to 
     implement political reforms and demonstrate respect for human 
     rights. I believe current policy, however, is 
     counterproductive to promoting a peaceful transition of 
     democracy and improving human rights. A recent CIA report 
     warned, President Clinton could face a major crisis in Cuba. 
     Serious instability ninety miles away could lead to a mass 
     exodus of refugees--far more than we saw in August--and spur 
     demands for a U.S. military intervention. I think we are 
     heading along a dangerous path and I urge the Clinton 
     Administration to reassess its approach.
       I am deeply troubled by the Clinton Administration's recent 
     tightening of sanctions and its unwillingness to enter into 
     broad talks with the Cuban government. I was pleased, 
     however, that the United States took one small step in the 
     right direction by finally reaching an agreement this week to 
     expand telecommunications between our countries.
       It is my view that the embargo hurts more than it helps. We 
     should move toward lifting an embargo which provides the 
     regime with a convenient scapegoat for its economic woes and 
     a rallying point for Cuban nationalism. Rather than isolating 
     the island, we should be expanding contact with the Cuban 
     people. By flooding the island with people, ideas and 
     information, we will better undermine the Castro regime.
       The approach I outlined has bipartisan support and I would 
     point out that previous Administrations, Democratic and 
     Republican, have understood that it is in the U.S. interest 
     to normalize relations with Cuba. Pierre Salinger recently 
     wrote in The Washington Post (August 28, 1994) that President 
     Kennedy, who imposed the embargo, realized he made a mistake. 
     Five days before his death, Kennedy sent a note to Castro 
     calling for negotiations to normalize relations. In his 
     posthumously published book ``Beyond Peace,'' (p. 138) former 
     President Nixon wrote that we should have an ``open door'' 
     policy toward Cuba, ``dropping the embargo and opening the 
     way to trade, investment and economic interaction.'' 
     Officials who served in the Reagan and Bush Administrations 
     have likewise criticized the embargo calling for a change in 
     policy as has the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, 
     New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, The Journal of 
     Commerce, The Chicago Tribune, and U.S. News and World 
     Report.
       I have invited some Members of Congress who have a keen 
     interest in Cuba to testify today as well as two former 
     government officials, William D. Rogers, who served as 
     Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs under the Ford 
     Administration and Wayne Smith, who as a foreign service 
     officer, served as Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in 
     Havana during the Carter Administration and the beginning of 
     the Reagan Administration. I look forward to hearing our 
     witnesses' views about how to promote change in Cuba and the 
     lessons we have learned during the three decades that the 
     United States has followed a policy of political and economic 
     isolation.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 8, 1994]

                          The Embargo Must Go

                (By Claiborne Pell and Lee H. Hamilton)

       The United States and Cuba have taken the positive step of 
     opening talks to address the refugee exodus. But we need to 
     look beyond this crisis. A comprehensive review of U.S. 
     policy toward Cuba is long overdue. Rather than focusing all 
     of our attention on Fidel Castro, we need to start thinking 
     about what's good for Cuban people, and how to promote 
     lasting, peaceful change.
       Current U.S. policy dates from when Cuba was a Soviet 
     surrogate, aggressively challenging U.S. interests from 
     Africa to Central America. That time is past. Cuba poses no 
     threat to the security of the United States. Yet Washington's 
     hard line stance continues--more a product of shortsighted 
     domestic politics than of prudent foreign policy 
     considerations.
       We share the president's goal of fostering democratic 
     change on the island: We want Cuba to join the community of 
     democratic nations by instituting political and economic 
     reform and respecting human rights. Unfortunately, current 
     policy seems based on the longstanding hope that isolating 
     Cuba will bring about change. We believe the critical 
     challenge is to construct a policy that doesn't put the pace 
     of change in Castro's hands but that proactively promotes a 
     peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.
       For the last 33 years, the cornerstone of U.S. policy has 
     been an embargo that restricts trade, travel and the flow of 
     information. Defenders of the approach argue that by 
     isolating the regime and aggravating Cuba's economic crisis, 
     the United States can force the Cuban government to 
     capitulate, or induce a desperate Cuban people to overthrow 
     the regime. Toward that end, the embargo was tightened two 
     years ago. President Clinton's recent decision to block Cuban 
     Americans from sending cash to relatives in Cuba and to 
     drastically restrict travel to and from the island further 
     tightens the noose.
       Unfortunately, after three decades the embargo has failed 
     to bring about democracy in Cuba. Though Cuba has suffered 
     the loss of Soviet subsidies and its worst sugar harvest and 
     most devastating tropical storm in recent history, Castro 
     remains in power. No matter how hard the United States 
     squeezes the Cuban economy, we doubt it will force the Cuban 
     government to embrace democracy. Castro has made a career of 
     defying U.S. pressure and is unlikely to yield: U.S. policy 
     provides a convenient scapegoat for Cuba's economic woes and 
     a rallying point for Cuban nationalism.
       Moreover, U.S. policy has done little to advance the cause 
     of human rights in Cuba. Instead, it creates an atmosphere of 
     hostility, reinforcing a siege mentality and providing a 
     justification for repressive policies. The U.N. special 
     rapporteur on Cuba stated in his 1994 report to the U.N. 
     commissioner on human rights that the embargo is ``totally 
     counterproductive'' to improving human rights. Reformers see 
     the embargo as an obstacle to change, providing ammunition 
     for Cuban hard-liners to accuse anyone advocating reform of 
     playing into the hands of ``imperialists'' to the north.
       Escalating economic pressure may actually reduce prospects 
     for a peaceful transition. If economic sanctions create 
     sufficient hardship to cause social unrest, the most likely 
     consequence would be widespread political violence. This 
     would be a tragedy for the Cuban people and a disaster for 
     the United States. Civil strife would generate a tidal wave 
     for refugees far beyond current flows from Cuba. And it would 
     provide intense domestic political pressure for U.S. military 
     intervention--far greater than we have witnessed with Haiti.
       We have learned that the best way to move a communist 
     country torward freedom is to intensify and broaden our 
     engagement with its people. The Cuban people need an invasion 
     of people, ideas and information, not a tightened embargo or 
     a blockade. The United States seeks to change regimes in 
     China and Vietnam through trade and broader engagement. If we 
     use this approach to pry open societies halfway around the 
     world, why should Cuba, 90 miles away, be different?
       The United States should open the door for a positive, 
     rather than punitive, influence on Cuba's future by expanding 
     contact with the Cuban people. As initial steps, the United 
     States should: (1) Lift the travel ban that prevents most 
     U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba; (2) lift the ban on 
     remittances to family members; (3) remove restrictions 
     limiting telecommunications and the exchange of press between 
     the United States and Cuba: (4) expand exchange programs 
     between United States and Cuban citizens; (5) lift the ban on 
     the commercial sale of food and medicine; and (6) remove the 
     extraterritorial provisions of the embargo that have angered 
     our allies and hindered a multilateral approach to Cuba. 
     Beyond these measures the United States can, over time, take 
     additional step-by-step measures to modify the embargo in 
     treassure to positive Cuban actions.
       In contrast to Haiti, where the United States is 
     collaborating with other countries to promote democracy, we 
     are alone in our Cuba policy. Many of our closset allies in 
     Europe and Latin America are establishing closer political 
     and economic ties with Cuba, diminishing the economic impact 
     of the U.S. embargo. At the last U.N. General Assembly, only 
     Israel, Albania and Paraguay joined us in opposing an end to 
     the embargo.
       We don't think lifting the embargo immediately is 
     politically possible. We may need to move gradually--but we 
     need to move. Lifting the embargo in stages can give the 
     United States leverage over the Cuban government, which fears 
     openness more than isolation. We will better erode 
     totalitarianison by reaching out in the Cuban people.
                                  ____


                 A Cuba Policy Driven by Sadistic Zeal

                        (By Alexander Cockburn)

       The United States is killing Cubans every day. The victims 
     are mostly over 65, and they are dying from such diseases as 
     TB, influenza and pneumonia. It's the kind of carnage 
     registered in small upticks on a mortality graph, not as easy 
     to focus on as, say, a pile of bodies dismembered by U.S.-
     trained troops in El Salvador in the early 1980s. But the 
     killing, engineered by the U.S. government, is just as 
     relentless.
       Cuba's crisis began with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 
     the late 1980s, but real devastation commenced with the Cuban 
     Democracy Act of 1992, reluctantly signed into law by 
     President Bush in order to head off candidate Clinton, who 
     had been eagerly promoting the bill in Florida. The new law 
     severely tightened the 33-year U.S. embargo on trade with 
     Cuba, banning shipments to Cuba from any subsidiaries of U.S. 
     firms. Foreign ships visiting Cuba are banned from docking at 
     U.S. ports for six months.
       U.S. government officials have been enforcing the 1992 law 
     with sadistic zeal. They once banned a shipment of Colombian 
     chickens to Cuba because their diet consisted of American-
     made chicken feed. Goods produced outside the United States 
     containing less than 10% U.S.-origin components aren't banned 
     under the act. But the United States determined that by the 
     time of shipment, the American feed was reckoned to make up 
     more than one-tenth of the chicken. It would take the pen of 
     Jonathan Swift to address this level of bureaucratic madness. 
     Would a Somalian kid fed on humanitarian shipments be able to 
     claim U.S. citizenship because he had been raised on corn 
     from the Midwest?
       The policy is sadistic and deadly. Cuba was able to import 
     a European-made water-purification system that contained 
     filters made in the United States. But the sale of 
     replacement filters was prohibited. So now the whole system 
     is useless. Deaths in Cuba from diseases such as diarrhea, 
     associated with unsafe drinking water, have been rising since 
     1992.
       Medical donations are sometimes permitted from private U.S. 
     organizations, but only under maniacally tortuous on-site 
     supervision.
       Cuba can buy food and medical supplies from other 
     countries, but pays about 30% more than U.S. prices; shipping 
     costs are anywhere from 50% to 4,000% higher.
       Under such duress, imports of medicines and medical 
     supplies have declined by about 40%. Substitution of some 
     American products is impossible: X-ray film for breast-cancer 
     detection; replacement parts for respirators, Spanish-
     language medical books from a firm bought by a U.S. 
     conglomerate. Bibliographic searches are impossible for Cuban 
     doctors, since they can't use the National Library of 
     Medicine's MEDLAR indexing system.
       Between 1989 and 1993, Cuba's overall mortality rate rose 
     15%, with a 79% increase from flu and pneumonia attributed to 
     lack of antibiotics. Since the Cuban medical system gives 
     priority to women and children, the elderly and men are 
     bearing the brunt of the shortage.
       Rationing protects the weak. Nonetheless, even though 
     overall infant mortality continues to decline, babies with 
     birth weights under 5\1/2\ pounds rose by nearly 2% from 1989 
     to 1993, wiping out 10 years of progress.
       Cuba's health system has always been one of the great 
     achievements of the Castro years. Childhood malnutrition 
     disappeared. Immunization coverage for those under 2 is still 
     higher than 90%. The population over 65 increased from 4.8% 
     to 8.9% in 20 years and life expectancy at birth is 75 years, 
     the highest in Latin America.
       There's one physician to every 214 residents and the number 
     of physicians continues to rise.
       This public-health system is resilient, and shows no sign 
     of the sort of collapse suffered by nations in the former 
     Soviet Union. When a shortage of B vitamins caused 50,662 
     Cubans to go temporarily (and 200 permanently) blind back in 
     1993, health workers were quick in distributing the necessary 
     supplements to every household.
       But Cuban people are dying because of the U.S. siege,and 
     one question is: What is the American medical community going 
     to do about it? Almost all the major associations have kept 
     their mouths obediently shut. They only one that fought the 
     1992 bill publicly was the American Public Health Assn. When 
     its own material interests are threatened, no group is more 
     tigerish in self-defense than American physicians. Is it 
     beyond the powers of one of the most powerful U.S. lobbies to 
     urge its government to drop this barbaric siege?

                          ____________________