[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 27, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1280-H1281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              ATROCITY COMMITTED 90 MILES FROM U.S. SHORE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Deutsch] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues in the 
fastest possible time and the quickest possible moment to pass the 
Helms-Burton bill to bring the end of the Castro dictatorship in Cuba.
  Just this weekend, we witnessed less than 90 miles from our shore, 
actually about 85 miles from our shore, 85 miles from my district, an 
incident that will be remembered throughout American history as one of 
the most brazen, really cruel, vicious, evil acts in the 20th century.
  Two aircraft, civilian aircraft, unarmed civilian aircraft, 
irrefutably over international waters, and again the evidence is 
irrefutable at this time of where they were, and regardless of where 
they were, over international waters, shot down by military fighter 
jets, and all passengers perished. A rogue state, not a country, but 
the leadership of that country, that just recently in the so-called 
13th of March incident of last year killed 40 innocent Cubans, men, 
women, and children trying to escape persecution. A country and a 
leader, not a people, but a leader, Castro, who just really immediately 
before this incident, February 15 of this year, began a nationwide 
roundup of members of an opposition group called Concilio Cubano, over 
100 members of Concilio Cubano were arrested and over 20 members are 
still missing and presumed in jail.
  The Clinton administration has offered on the table some things that 
will be helpful. But what this country needs to do, what we need to do 
as Americans, is bring the last and only dictator, the last and only 
Communist ruler in our hemisphere, to an end. We have the power to do 
that within this building, within this Hall, within this Chamber, with 
the help of the Chamber on the other side and the support of the 
President.
  I point to several of my colleagues who really are still thinking of 
or fixated in Castro the liberator, Castro the reformist, to think of 
what he is doing to his own people.
  I am glad that the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], the chairman 
of the committee dealing with this issue and the author of this bill is 
here. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me say to my colleague from Florida that 
we really appreciate his leadership on this bill. He has been very, 
very helpful in getting the Burton-Helms bill through the U.S. House of 
Representatives with a veto-proof majority.
  This horrible act that took place this weekend to which the gentleman 
referred should eliminate any doubt in anybody's mind about the 
necessity for passing this bill and cutting off Castro's ability to get 
hard currency by selling confiscated United States property that was 
owned by Americans in Cuba. I cannot stress strongly enough the support 
that the gentleman has given and how much I appreciate that.
  The President has now come on board, a little late, but we are very 
happy he is on board, and he said he is 

[[Page H1281]]
going to support some modification of this bill. I hope the President 
will sign the bill in the original form as it passed the House. That is 
the toughest bill we are going to have. If he cannot, I hope he will at 
least give us a very tough alternative so we can send Castro a unified 
message, and I know my colleague wants to do that, that this country 
stands together in opposing the human rights violations and the 
travesty that happened down there last weekend.
  I want to thank my colleague once again for his leadership.
  Mr. DEUTSCH. I see my colleague from Florida, the first Cuban-
American to be a Member of the U.S. Congress, the gentlewoman from 
Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], is on the floor. Another colleague of ours, 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Lantos], who is actually a survivor 
of the Nazi Holocaust, who in an official capacity, not spending any 
money but going through the U.S. intervention, as opposed to other 
people who visited that country, visited that country and met with 
dissidents, people tortured. This is a man who lived through the pre-
Holocaust and actual Holocaust time, and described in Cuban, what is 
going on there, as bad as what was going on in Germany before the 
Holocaust.
  So that is the reality of the situation on the ground 90 miles from 
our shore, 90 miles from my district, and we have the ability in this 
Chamber to change that. Hopefully by the end of this week we will take 
an important significant step and pass the Helms-Burton bill.

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