[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2788-H2789]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AMERICAN POLICY ON CUBA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Madam Speaker, earlier today, we were privileged to 
have had the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Miami, Agustin 
Roman, deliver the opening invocation. In addition to being a model 
human being and a great role model for our south Florida community, 
Bishop Roman is one of the many victims of the Castro regime.
  You see, the bishop, who is a native of Cuba, was expelled from his 
own country in 1961 after armed militia men entered his church and at 
gunpoint led Bishop Roman and 132 other priests out of the country. 
Since then, the bishop has made it his personal mission to diffuse 
God's word around the world and to bring liberty and democracy to Cuba.
  Of Course, Bishop Roman was not the first nor the last victim of the 
tyrant who has ruled Cuba for 36 years. As we saw in this summer's 
rafter exodus, millions of Cubans still linger in the misery and 
oppression which Fidel Castro and his band of goons have imposed on the 
island.
  Most of these Cubans have fled the island this summer and risked 
their lives in hopes of reaching the shores of freedom, and they remain 
today detained like common criminals behind the barbed wire of their 
Guantanamo Base refugee camps.
  This policy by the Clinton administration has been a very unfortunate 
shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba, which previously gave the oppressed 
Cuban people the opportunity to begin a new and productive life in the 
United States, and at the onset of this policy the President promised 
tougher sanctions against Castro. But as today's front page story in 
the Washington Post reports, advisers to the President are considering 
proposing a plan to the President which calls for the easing of 
sanctions against Cuba and which promises Castro to consider further 
relaxation of the embargo if Castro makes what they consider to be a 
positive move toward democracy.
  Madam Speaker, this is the height of naivete and an utter denial of 
the reality of the way that Castro operates. For 36 years, the United 
States has been waiting for concessions from Castro and we have gotten 
none. In the 1960's, all we got were screams of ``paredon, paredon,'' 
announcing the execution of yet another Cuban. In the 1970's, we got 
the exportation of revolution, not only to Latin America, but also to 
Africa, where thousands of young Cubans were sent to their deaths in 
the name of the revolution.
  And in the 1980's, we got rectification and a special period of 
peace, which squeezed the Cuban people to mere subsistence.
  Today, we get word of reforms, cosmetic reforms, which are just a 
mask of the sad reality, the utter failure of Castro and of his 
Communist revolution.
  However, through all these decades, one element of the Cuban regime 
has remained intact, the absolute control of Castro over the island of 
Cuba and the denial of political and civil rights to the Cuban people.
  Unbelievably and apparently, some within the Clinton administration 
still believe that Castro can reform and that it is somehow the fault 
of the United States that Castro has remained unwilling to change.
  Just today, at an International Relations hearing, I was once again 
surprised by a member of the administration on the policy toward Cuba. 
On a hearing on the Mexico bailout plan, a state official
 made the incredible statement that Mexico does not ``provide 
assistance to the government of Cuba.''

  This is a disingenuous statement, considering that Mexico is one of 
the leading investment countries in Cuba and that the Mexican 
Government actively encourages Mexican investors to invest in the 
island. Thus Mexico, through its policy of investment promotion in 
Cuba, directly encourages the subsidizing of the repression of the 
Cuban people. Leave it to the Clinton administration officials to once 
again ignore the obvious.
  Furthermore, we have still not heard a word from the President on the 
recently introduced Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act 
introduced by Senator Jesse Helms and Congressman Dan Burton, and this 
bipartisan legislation is a joint effort by Democrats and Republicans 
to tighten the Cuban embargo against Castro. However, as of today, the 
President has remained silent.
  Madam Speaker, on a recent trip to Guantanamo, led by a very 
knowledgeable chairman of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, 
Congressman Dan Burton, as well as with Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-
Balart, Bob Menendez, Mark Sanford, Vic Frazer, and John Mica, we were 
able to once again visit with the victims of the 
[[Page H2789]] Castro revolution, the sons and daughters of the 
revolution as Castro has called them, and they are now his main 
adversaries.
  Madam Speaker, I call on the President to understand that dialogue 
and concessions are not the answer. Tougher sanctions are, and that is 
where U.S. policy should be directed.
  The stronger religion grows, the harder it may be for Castro to keep 
his monopoly on power.

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