[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 47 (Tuesday, March 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3087-H3088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   STATE OF AFFAIRS AT GUANTANAMO BAY

  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I just returned from a quick visit down to 
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to see how the situation was there with the 
Cubans who are in the detaining camps and see how our military is 
doing, and I have nothing but accolades to give to our military for the 
fine job they are doing down there under very difficult circumstances. 
They are running a city of about 36,000 people in reality and they are 
doing it with very little material and very little preplanning and 
under difficult circumstances when everybody who is there is not 
necessarily happy to be there in terms of the Cubans who have left.
  Cubans had hoped to go to Miami rather than to Guantanamo Bay, but I 
will say that the Cubans themselves who are in the camps are doing very 
well. They are well cared for. I spent a good deal of time with Senator 
Bob Graham from Florida talking directly with them about their 
problems. The main complaint of course is the paroling process. The 
immigration process is too slow and it is moving very, very slowly for 
the children, the elderly, the sick among them, and then the big 
problem, of course, that it does not provide for some 17,000 to 20,000 
Cubans who don't really know where they are going to go because there 
is no process for them and at the present time they are just living in 
a camp, a tent camp in Guantanamo without too much hope of what is 
next.
  We talked about the problems that they were having in those camps, 
the remoteness, the feeling out of touch, the medical attention, the 
priorities, not enough medicine to go around, not enough doctors' 
visits, the food. Everybody always complains about food in situations 
like that, but by and large the Cubans are being very, very well cared 
for and I think Americans can be proud of that.
  Improvements are being made. We are putting in food galleys, putting 
in air-conditioning in some areas, better recreation areas, better 
bathrooms, getting away from the port-a-potties, better shelters, 
sturdier tents with hard roofs. This matters because it is a harsh 
climate down there. It is an area where the wind often blows hard, the 
windward passage, and it is subject to hurricanes. In fact, some call 
it Hurricane Alley in that part of the world.
  We have dealt with the water problems, the sewer problems and 
landfill problems, and all of this is going on while there is a very 
intense opposition to
 Fidel Castro in these camps that has not diminished in any sense at 
all, and people who think we should negotiate might want to talk to 
some of these Cubans down there at Guantanamo about the human rights 
violations, the suffering, the misery, the economic hardship that the 
Castro government has put them through, even to the point of death and 
confiscation.

  Right now Fidel Castro is in Europe in a self-rehabilitation program 
promoting himself and what a great guy he is and he has apparently 
convinced a few people in Copenhagen and is on his way to meet with the 
President of France and have some type of a photo opportunity to prove 
to the world that he has not really done all the bad things that these 
witnesses in Guantanamo are there to attest that he has done.
  What is going on in Guantanamo is not without cost. It costs us about 
$20 million a month and it doesn't account for all of the costs we are 
putting in there. Right now, we are using Navy funds, operational and 
maintenance funds that the Navy needs for steaming, keeping up our 
readiness, national security, defense, as it were, is being used and we 
are going to have to restore those funds. When we get through, we are 
talking about hundreds of millions of dollars for this problem that 
Fidel Castro has given to the American taxpayer in the way we are 
handling it today.
  There are some very serious problems staring us in the face right 
now. What is going to be the future of Guantanamo as a base once it is 
no longer a refugee camp, I don't know, but we are putting a ton of 
money in the place so we ought to know. But more important than that, 
what is going to happen when the long hot summer starts and 17,000 to 
20,000 Cubans, mostly young 
[[Page H3088]] adult males, discover that they really have no place to 
go and no way to get there. That is not a good situation and those who 
are working in the camps are very, very concerned about it.
  There are probably more visits to the psychiatric side of the medical 
facility right now than any others by people who are already feeling 
stressed and as hope begins to erode and the summer gets warmer, it is 
going to be a very difficult situation and one that we cannot wait to 
solve itself or erupt.
  We need to get ahead of the curve. Senator Graham has a very good 
idea about shifting the visas that were arranged with the Castro 
government to apply to those folks in Guantanamo so that they can come 
here rather than some other folks that Fidel Castro might choose.
  Senator Graham makes a convincing case that Fidel Castro has violated 
the agreement that was made in New York with him at the United Nations 
because he is already charging a thousand dollars for visas for victims 
of his regime to leave, which is a real extraordinary--it would be a 
crime in this country, I guess.
  I believe very strongly we should encourage our allies to tighten the 
embargo. It is extraordinary to me that Mexico and Canada and Venezuela 
and our good friends in France and Spain are trading only with Cuba, 
sustaining the Castro regime. There are solutions but we don't have 
much time. We must deal with the issue that is there.


                          ____________________