[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 27, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1284-H1290]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THESE MURDERS WILL NOT STAND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank those members from the 
Florida delegation, the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek] and of 
course the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart] and the gentlewoman 
from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen] and all the others that have come to 
this floor today and decided to speak out for freedom and speak out for 
those very values that our Founding Fathers fought for over 200 years 
ago, and now though the war for freedom is being waged right off our 
shores, less than 90 miles away from the United States of America. All 
I can say is this:
  As Mrs. Lincoln stated before, we have had Castro send a strong 
message. It is time for America to send a strong message to Fidel 
Castro and let him know that this will not be permitted to stand, let 
him know that we will not allow this senseless slaughter to stand, that 
we will not allow these murders of Americans to stand, flying in a 
Cessna airplane, being gunned down by a Soviet MiG.
  Now many of Castro's apologists in this country and across the world 
are claiming that these Cessnas may have strayed into Cuban airspace. 
Well, first of all the facts show that clearly to be false. Fishermen 
saw the smoke rise and saw the wreckage fall, and that wreckage fell 
clearly outside of Cuban airspace. But even if those apologists wanted 
to apologize for Castro and claim that the wreckage fell within Cuban 
air space, which it did not, still it goes so far beyond the normal 
accepted standards of international diplomacy and behavior to have 
Soviet MiG jets gun down unarmed Cessna airplanes that it clearly shows 
that Castro is a war criminal and should be treated as such.
  I am going to be flying down to the area this weekend, and I 
certainly invite any other members of the Florida delegation to join 
in, if they wish. As a member of the Committee on National Security and 
as a member from Florida of the Committee on National Security, I think 
it is important that we go there, see exactly what happened and ask the 
difficult questions, and I am going to be calling for hearings. 
Hopefully we can get a field hearing in Miami at the site of where 
these planes took off and have a hearing to see what happened, now it 
happened, and what we can do not only to make Castro pay for what he 
has committed, but more importantly, to finally bring down after 
decades of his tyrannical rule a government that is illegitimate and is 
the last remaining Communist dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere. 
The fight is for freedom and the fight is for American lives, and again 
it is extremely important that we do not let these senseless slaughters 
stand.
  I, like many others, would like to thank the President for stepping 
forward and taking the first step yesterday by talking about some 
sanctions, which are not sweeping, which do not go far enough, but I am 
hopeful that this is merely the President's first step. I think we need 
to step forward with a blockade and let Castro know that it will not 
stand. I think we need to sit back and even have our military leaders 
consider selective military strikes against military targets, to let 
them know that we will not stand back idly and let Americans be killed 
by a hand of a Communist tyrant. I mean, what is the Federal 
Government's responsibility in the end?
  We have seen an explosion of proliferation of power coming into 
Washington, DC, but what do our Founding Fathers in the Constitution 
say this Federal Government was supposed to do first and foremost? It 
was to protect our shores and to protect American lives.
  We have lost American lives now, and the question is are we going to 
sit back and do nothing, or are we going to respond in an affirmative 
manner that will make Castro think twice before he decides to kill, 
murder, and maim Americans again? I think we have no choice.
  The history of Castro, really indeed the history of civilization and 
mankind, shows that the only way to stop a tyrant from being a tyrant, 
the only way to stop a bully from being a bully, the only way to stop a 
murderer from being a murderer is to step forward with strong enough 
responses to scare them from ever doing it again.
  We could go back to the ages of the Roman Empire when Julius Caesar 
put down a rebellion and he struck back and explained to his generals 
and said why do we not be lenient and let them back in. Julius Caesar 
said we cannot do it because the order of our society depends on 
rewarding those who live by the accepted norms in our society and by 
punishing those that live outside the accepted norms in our society. 
Fidel Castro has shown this past weekend with the murder of these four 
Americans that he does not care to live within accepted means of 
behavior and to be a member of international civilization, and he needs 
to be punished.

  But we do not have to go back to the times of the Roman Empire, the 
times of Julius Caesar, to see how this plays out. All we have to do is 
go back to 1984. Do you remember leading up to 1984 when Muammar 
Qaddafi went around and took credit for every single act of terrorism 
across the Mideast and across the world, in fact? And he took credit 
for it and claimed that he was striking back against Americans. 
Finally, in 1984 some American Marines were blown up and killed in West 
Germany, and at that point President Ronald Reagan had enough, and he 
said that it was our responsibility to protect the lives of Americans 
wherever they were, either at home or abroad, and he went ahead and 
issued orders for a selective military strike against one of Qaddafi's 
military bases. The strike was successful. The military base was 
destroyed. And an interesting thing happened, did it not? The next time 
there was a terrorist attack in the Middle East, guess who the first 
leader was to step out and say he had nothing to do with it? It was 
Qaddafi, because we taught him a very simple lesson, and that lesson 
was that we were not going to stand for the slaughter of innocent 
Americans' lives.
  That is the same message that I am pleading with President Clinton 
that he will send to Fidel Castro.
  Of course, earlier this morning the United Nations made a pitiful 
gesture, hardly even condemning these senseless slaughters. Not having 
the courage to step forward and call a war criminal a war criminal, 
they merely provided some words. But let me tell you something, 
friends. Words are not enough. We can talk tough to thugs on the 
street, to bullies in the school yard, but unless we step forward with 
positive action and have swift and decisive retribution against those 
who feel free to kill Americans in broad daylight, we are merely 
inviting another attack.
  As the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart] mentioned, Castro 
felt 

[[Page H1285]]
he needed to make an example, extract some blood, end some lives, to 
help extend his own dictatorship in a country that he has run into the 
ground.
  Communism does not work, it did not work for the Soviet Union, it did 
not work for Eastern Europe, and it has not worked for Fidel Castro. 
But unlike the Soviet Union, Castro on his tiny island has been able to 
continue to beat back the will of free-thinking Cubans. This past 
weekend he took it upon himself to murder four Americans, and in doing 
so told America and its leaders just how little he feared us. It is 
time we put the fear of God in Fidel Castro and let him know that this 
will not stand, and when we hold field hearings, hopefully in Miami in 
the coming months on this act, and hopefully when we hold hearings up 
in Washington, DC, we will come up with a clear set of objectives and a 
clear plan, a clear prescription to rid the Western Hemisphere of this 
disease we call Fidel Castro and let him know that even if this 
administration is not going to take the steps required to bring Castro 
to his knees to pay for these murders, that we in Congress have come up 
with a plan that the next administration who comes to Washington can 
pick up and carry through.
  These murders will not stand, and they will not stand because the 
first responsibility of this Federal Government under the Constitution 
given to us over 200 years ago was to protect and defend the shores of 
the United States of America, and we will be promoting freedom and we 
will be doing what our Founding Fathers wanted us to do with the most 
noble tradition of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and all our 
other Founding Fathers.

                              {time}  1615

  When I was back this weekend I held town hall meetings. Not only were 
they talking about the need to expand freedoms in Cuba and across the 
globe, many were talking about the need to expand freedom in our own 
country, in our own backyard. The fight is over for the United States 
to conquer the world. We are the lone superpower. Now it is time, 
though, for us to take care of our own backyard, to take care of 
Castro, and to turn our attention inward and look at some of the 
problems we are facing in America.
  In fact, at my town hall meetings across northwest Florida, I had so 
many people come up and tell me to stay the course, to fight for the 
things you fought for in the 1994 election, to fight for freedom, to 
fight for personal responsibility, to fight for less government, to 
fight for less taxes, to fight for less regulation, and to fight for 
more freedom. That is what we promised to do in 1994 and that is what 
we have done for the past year.
  We lived by a very simple creed. That creed was do what our Founding 
Fathers told us we were empowered to do in the Constitution. During my 
campaign and during the campaign of many other conservative Republicans 
that were elected to this institution in 1994, we talked about Madison 
and Jefferson and the Constitution. We quoted James Madison, one of the 
three Framers of the Constitution, and talked about the need to 
decentralize the Federal Government and to empower communities and 
empower families and individuals.
  James Madison, who was one of the three Framers of the Constitution, 
said that we have staked the entire future of the American civilization 
not upon the power of government, but upon the capacity of each of us 
to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, and to defend ourselves 
according to the Ten Commandments of God. That was about freedom. That 
is what they were fighting about at Lexington, the freedom to get away 
from a highly centralized, tyrannical dictatorship in England under 
King George III, the same type of centralized government that we now 
see by Castro in Cuba and across other parts of the world, in China.
  We also talked about Jeffersonian ideals. It was Jefferson who said, 
``The government that governs least governs best.'' People respond to 
that. That is what the electoral revolution of 1994 was about. It was 
about freedom, freedom to go to work and to make wages and work hard to 
live the American dream and bring those wages home; and possibly, after 
working for many years in a business, possibly going out and taking the 
chance of starting your own business without interference from 
Washington, DC, and without interference from your State capitol. It is 
about freedom.
  Jefferson, he was not saying the government who governs least governs 
best because he was antigovernment. That is an important distinction to 
point out after the tragedies that occurred in Oklahoma City. Jefferson 
believed in the power of government, but he believed in the power of 
government and he believed that the most noble thing, the most noble 
pursuit any government could pursue was the protection of God-given 
freedoms. That is what the Constitution says, that is what the 
Declaration of Independence says, and that is what they put into 
practice in the Bill of Rights.
  Many of you, I am sure, have heard presidential candidates talking 
about the 10th amendment. Let me tell you something; of all the 
amendments we have, the 10th amendment tells us what we should do as a 
Federal Government more than any other amendment. Again, this is what 
we campaigned on. The 10th amendment says, ``All powers not 
specifically given to the Federal Government are reserved to the States 
and reserved to the citizens.'' Is it not great that in our 
Constitution, unlike the Soviet Constitution that the Soviets lived by 
for many, many years, that we believed that the powers came from God to 
the individual. The Soviets believed powers came from the State to the 
individual, so when the Founders made the two Constitutions, these God-
given rights, according to our Founding Fathers, and I am not being a 
religious extremist here, I am not being a fanatic--I can mention the 
word God in this Chamber because I am merely quoting what the Founding 
Fathers said--these God-given rights came from God above to the 
individual. The Soviets, because it came from the State to the 
individual, felt like they could take out those rights at any time.

  Our Founding Fathers gave us a government to keep the Federal 
Government out of our way and gave it the sole responsibility to 
protect those freedoms and to protect Americans across the globe.
  Because of that, when we came to Congress we, as freshmen, felt 
firmly committed to those things we campaigned on, to get the power out 
of Washington, DC, to get the money out of Washington, DC, to get the 
bureaucracy out of Washington, DC, and send the money and the power and 
the authority back to the States, because the Federal Government grew 
way beyond what our Founding Fathers ever envisioned it would grow.
  What is the first thing we talked about? We talked about the need for 
tax reform. We talked about the need to get the Federal Government out 
of our pockets. It was very interesting. If you stay in Washington, DC, 
inside the Beltway long enough, a funny thing starts happening. Your 
brain gets clouded. You get a brain cloud. It is hard to recognize what 
reality is.
  I will tell you what; back home at my town hall meetings, I found out 
what reality was. I found out when a young, single father earning less 
than $30,000 said,

       Congressman Scarborough, please continue to fight the 
     administration and the liberal Democrats in Washington that 
     do not want us to get any tax relief. Do not listen to them. 
     Please remember who you are doing it for.

  I said, ``You know, it is difficult, because they are painting this 
as tax cuts for the rich and they are saying that we are trying to help 
out wealthy people.'' He said,

       You have got to stay the course. I am working over 50 hours 
     a week. I have two children. I cannot afford health 
     insurance. I cannot afford to put any money aside for my 
     children's education fund. I cannot afford to pay my bills. 
     And it is because before I get the first dime from my 
     paycheck, I am sending 25 percent of it to Washington, DC. 
     You have got to do something to help.

  So I started doing a little bit of research. I found out something 
that was actually shocking, and went completely against the grain of 
what the most liberal Members of Congress and the most liberal members 
of the administration have been telling the American people for the 
past year. I found out that these so-called tax cuts for the rich and 
for the wealthy did not actually go to the rich and the wealthy. CBO 
scored it this way, that 89 percent of the tax relief that we have put 
on the table goes to working-

[[Page H1286]]
class families making less than $75,000. Let me say that again. It is 
easy to blur the distinctions when you hear somebody get up and yell, 
They are giving tax cuts for the rich. Our tax relief plan, which will 
help start a process where we will free working-class blue-collar 
families from Federal Government enslavement, our plan allows working 
class families earning under $75,000 to get tax relief. Eighty-nine 
percent of the tax relief in our plan goes to working class families. 
We have to keep fighting for that. We cannot back down. We cannot be 
cowed by demagoguery. We have to stay the course.
  Mr. Speaker, let us talk about the impact on American families. It is 
important to recognize that even under our plan that people said cut 
taxes too much, that even under our plan revenue to the Federal 
Government in the next several years is going to be increasing by 37 
percent. Yet we have the administration and Members in this body say we 
are cutting taxes too much.
  We are not cutting taxes too much. The working-class families making 
less than $75,000 that are getting 90 percent of the benefit from this 
tax cut plan are going to be paying 37 percent more taxes to the 
Federal Government over the next 7 years. That ain't a tax cut, folks. 
That is not radical. That is providing real relief to working class 
families.
  Again, we talked about it when we talked about what Castro was doing 
in Cuba, squashing freedoms; to a much lesser degree, that is what this 
Federal Government has been doing. It has been moving towards a 
centralized Federal Government that is trying to take freedom away. Our 
tax relief plan helps free working class families from the crushing tax 
burden.

  It is also important to recognize that the average middle-class 
American is going to work 50 percent of their time to pay off taxes, 
fees, and regulations imposed on them by the Federal, State and local 
governments. That means that you work from January 1 to June 30 for the 
Federal Government. You do not get a cent. When you go to work on 
Monday, you are working for the Federal Government. Go to work on 
Tuesday, you are working to pay taxes to the Federal Government. When 
you go to work on Wednesday, you work until lunch, half of your week, 
paying taxes, fees, and regulations to the government. Let me tell you 
something, that is not the vision that our Founding Fathers had when 
they set up this constitutional Republic over 200 years ago.
  I want to go on and talk about regulations and the burden that that 
puts, and sort of talk about the debt. But before I do, I yield to my 
friend, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart], to talk a little 
more on the situation with Cuba. While you were away, I was talking 
about what Ronald Reagan did in 1984 in Libya where we actually had the 
courage to strike at the heart of the tryant that killed Americans back 
then.
  Let me ask you this, these were your friends: Do you not feel that 
the four Americans who were murdered this past weekend are every bit as 
important as those three Marines that were murdered in West German that 
caused Ronald Reagan to scramble the jets and go over to Libya and 
strike at the heart of the tyrant?
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Yes, Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman so much for 
yielding, and I did have the opportunity to listen to his very eloquent 
remarks, as always, but I thank him for his words of genuine concern 
about the death of the constituents from my district and the district 
of the gentlewoman from Florida, [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen].
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opporunity to put into a little bit of 
a perspective or context the murders of Saturday. As I stated briefly 
before, it was back in December when 130, over 130 pro-democracy groups 
in Cuba came together and formed a sort of parliament. The whole gamut 
of the ideological range is represented by what is known as the Cuban 
Council. From Christian Democrats and supporters of limited government 
to Democratic socilists, the whole gamut of pro-democracy people in 
Cuba came together, and they announced to the world that they had come 
together. They have differences, but they came together on the concept 
of elections, democracy, respect for human rights, release of all 
political prisoners. They were going to meet publicly for the first 
time.
  They sent a letter to Castro asking for authorization to meet, and 
they did that in December. They asked the Catholic Church's cardinal in 
Cuba to be present as an observer. They asked the Martin Luther King 
Center for Nonviolent Change to also send observers. Castro's answer 
came--that was in December--beginning on the 15th of February.
  They had said they were going to meet on February 24, this last 
Saturday. February 24 is the date in Cuban history that is remembered 
as the beginning of the war of independence against Spain in 1895. So 
these over 130 pro-democracy groups said, ``We want to meet on February 
24. We want authorization.''
  On February 15, Castro began his crackdown and arrested the 
leadership, and most of the delegates, some of them were already on 
their way because the crackdown began on the 15th, but between the 15th 
and last Saturday the crackdown continued. Over 100 of these pro-
democracy activists were thrown in jail.

                              {time}  1630

  And as I mentioned before, the leadership, in summary trials, were 
sentenced to prison terms. Of the two vice presidents, one was already, 
the vice chairmen, the one was already sentenced to prison, the other 
one, a lady I mentioned before, she was taken to a hospital for 
surgery. I mean, that is really Orwellian.
  If ever there is an example of something that is from 1984, ``The 
Brave New World,'' the horrible novels about the total, all-
encompassing totalitarian state, imagine this vice chairman of this 
pro-democracy umbrella group taken to a hospital and given some sort of 
surgery that we do not even know what it is, and no one has been able 
to meet with her. The chairman that I mentioned before, he was 
sentenced already to prison, and his mom, who had an opportunity to see 
him briefly once, she is convinced that he is receiving electroshock 
torture.
  Now, this has been happening since February 15. Note that the 
Brothers To The Rescue, it is a humanitarian group of volunteers who 
fly out of Miami looking for refugees to save lives.They have flown 
over 1,800 missions. They have saved thousands of refugees. If they see 
refugees on a raft, they call the Coast Guard and they save the lives 
of those refugees.
  Every Saturday, the Brothers To The Rescue, they fly missions. It is 
a standard practice for that wonderful humanitarian group. 
Interestingly enough, on Friday, February 23, a gentleman who had 
defected from the Cuban Air Force less than 2 years ago, and he had 
gone into the base at Guantanamo, he said he was a defector, he had 
volunteered during these months that he was in Miami at the Brothers To 
The Rescue mission there, and on Friday all of a sudden he disappeared. 
He had gotten married, by the way, in Miami and had some family there. 
He disappeared. His family did not know where he was. And he appears 
all of a sudden in Cuba.
  So Castro then says, I have got one of these pilots from Brothers To 
The Rescue and they are a terrorist group. So this spy have been 
planted here in the United States to infiltrate Brothers To The Rescue, 
and notice what premeditation existed with regard to this murder. 
Castro knew that on Saturdays they fly, that this day, the 24th of 
February, which was a day he is so scared about because it was the 
beginning of the pro-democracy conference, that there would be a 
Brothers To The Rescue flight, and he, with premeditation, decided to 
knock down planes, shoot down planes and kill the American citizens on 
those planes on February 24.
  As I stated before, the message is clear to the Cuban people. Castro 
is saying, I can act with impunity, not only against you, but against 
Americans. If I can act with impunity against Americans, imagine how 
you, the Cuban people, have got to be scared. So Castro does that very, 
very purposefully.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Reclaiming my time just for a moment, I think it is 
important because you talk about these flights and, again, I have heard 
apologists for Castro, the same people who so warmly embraced him back 
in 

[[Page H1287]]
October, basically claiming he was a hero when in fact he is the 
Western Hemisphere's own version of a little Stalin, these same people 
are now apologizing for Castro, suggesting that the murders occurred in 
Cuban airspace.
  I want to just bring up briefly and have you discuss this excellent 
Miami Herald article where we actually had a fisherman say that the 
murders occurred well within international air space. Can you talk 
about that for a second? Because this is what I hear on talk radio. 
When I call in, people are saying, well, but did they strays into the 
Cuban Air space? Would you mind addressing that?
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. That is such an important issue because, No. 1, 
obviously even if they had, international law is clear. You do not 
shoot down unarmed civilian aircraft if they happen to stray over the 
territory of a country. We do not even shoot down drug dealers. I mean, 
international law does not permit you to shoot down a drug dealer 
unless that drug dealer is shooting at you or threatening by flying 
over the land that the drug dealer is flying over.
  You follow the drug dealer, you tell the authorities where they are 
flying to. So they are reported, but you do not shoot down even 
criminals, much less unarmed American citizens on a humanitarian 
mission, over 1,800 flights flown, missions flown, never have they 
carried even a handgun.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And Castro knows that.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Completely, and he even had a spy. He even had a spy 
within the organization that the day before the murders he took back to 
Cuba, and he had him there for the day of the murder saying that he had 
been a pilot for Brothers To The Rescue and that they are a terrorist 
group. It was all planned. It was all premeditated.

  You bring up a fascinating article that came out today in the Miami 
Herald. It so happens there was a fishing boat right under the 
airplane, one of the airplanes that was shot down, and very near the 
other one that was shot down. It is very interesting about the issue of 
territorial waters which, by the way, is irrelevant because they could 
not have shot them down even if they had strayed into the territorial 
waters of Castro's Cuba.
  But this fisherman, he said he had last checked his coordinates 2 
hours before the attacks. Back then, he was about 12 miles north of 
Cuba's coast. Twelve miles is the international line. But it was a 
clear day, he could see Havana. Since then, his boat had cruised north 
for about 2 hours at about 8 miles an hour. So that is about, you are 
already talking at least 20 miles now.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Right.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. At least 20 miles away. At least 8 or 10 miles out 
of the international line. The boat was at least, the fisherman says 
that the boat was at least 20 miles off Cuba when he saw the planes 
being shot down. He says in your mind, this fisherman, Mr. Reilly, says 
after he got back to the United States, because he did not realize what 
he had seen, he thought it was shooting practice, because he says, in 
your mind, you do not think somebody is going to shoot something down 
with people in it. And then he says the boat was at least 25 miles off 
Cuba. ``I know exactly where we were. It was definitely no doubt in 
international waters. They were heading north again about two miles 
away from the wreckage, the first wreckage. Then they saw a small, 
another small white plane circle past the north. It was headed 
northeast. All of a sudden, here comes a jet right behind them and I 
watched this missile ignite off his left wing. I started counting, one 
thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four. 
It blew up the second plane. It was about 200 feet above the water. It 
tumbled twice and it fireballed before it hit the water. You could see 
flames and smoke when it hit. I would say the possibility of survivors 
on the second plane as well is absolutely zero.''
  So we have actually eyewitnesses, as also people on a cruise ship saw 
it from a little more distance: Definitely in international waters.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. If you could yield just for 1 second, you know, I, 
by hearing this account, and it is a harrowing account, thinking about 
a Cessna plane flying and a jet firing these missiles at him, at a 
Cessna. I am reminded of a common strain that runs through the 
characteristics of most tyrants, people like Hitler and Stalin and 
Castro. They are complete and utter cowards, putting a jet up against a 
Cessna unarmed.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Unarmed.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. An unarmed Cessna, knowing it is unarmed, knowing 
the people inside are freedom fighters, knowing that they have 
committed no acts of violence against Cuba, knowing that they can do 
nothing to strike back and, unfortunately, calculating that America's 
response is going to be weak and tepid. And I think that is where 
hopefully we can come in as a Congress and urge the President of the 
United States to do what his duty is and send a strong, strong message 
to Castro, letting him know that it will not stand.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Yes, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so very much the 
gentleman yielding and I appreciate my colleague from Florida and his 
leadership, as well as the leadership of the gentlewoman from Florida 
[Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], and the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek], in 
this regard. I have just arrived and have not had an opportunity to 
come to the floor, but I want to make it very clear that I support the 
action as offered by Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and 
denounce totally the shooting down of unarmed airplanes in either Cuban 
waters or international waters.
  I have heard this argument made about the planes, where they were 
shot down. I would hate like the dickens to feel that an unarmed 
airplane coming into the United States with no obvious military mission 
would be shot down. We have forced planes down from Cuba into Florida 
air space without having to shoot them down and certainly had the 
ability to shoot them down. On that score, there is no question but 
that the act itself was extremely ruthless, and appropriate action and 
response should be undertaken.
  I would immediately say that the actions taken by the State 
Department and by the President of the United States were appropriate 
for that time, but they certainly need to stay in consultation with 
those of us and especially Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, 
who have a clear understanding of the dynamics that are involved in 
trying to eradicate this dictator.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Reclaiming my time just for 1 minute, I would ask 
you as a judge, I want to ask you a question. If you had somebody that 
owned a convenience store and a 6-year-old came in and picked up a pack 
of gum and started walking out that door, and that convenience store 
owner had the ability to go over and take the gum out of that child's 
hand but instead shot him dead with an assault rifle, as a judge, would 
you say, well, this is a thief? Even, again, I am saying even if they 
were in Cuban air space, and this shows clearly that they were not, 
what would you do as a judge?
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I would certainly not condone the 
overreaction of the store owner in your analog. But putting this in its 
proper context, there are international laws that countries that are 
decent observe. This was an indecent act, and that is putting it 
mildly.
  I really appreciate an opportunity to intervene in this special 
order, but I just wanted to have it clearly understood I will have more 
to say in the appropriate stages, but I did want it understood, 
certainly by my colleagues, where I am coming from.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank the gentleman and yield back to the 
gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I was very disappointed that President Clinton 
yesterday, when he announced his sanctions, and it is a separate issue, 
the fact that I think they were woefully insufficient. But I think that 
I was very disappointed that he never mentioned, not once, that the 
downed airplanes were American airplanes and that the murdered men 
within them, the passengers, were Americans.
  Not once did he say that. Now, the question that I would have for the 


[[Page H1288]]
President is because these murdered Americans were of Cuban descent, 
does that not make them American? Are they not, do they not merit to be 
called American citizens? One of them, my good friend Armando 
Alejandre, he was a war hero. He went to Vietnam, two tours of duty in 
Vietnam. Is he not an American? The other two Americans born in the 
United States, are they not Americans for the President? Why did he not 
even mention once the fact that these airplanes were American airplanes 
in international waters with Americans murdered within them? That was 
really insulting that not once did the President even choose to call 
them Americans.
  Now, Castro acted with premeditation. The fact that he had, he 
withdrew the spy that he had planted in Brothers to the Rescue, and to 
showcase him with lies in Cuba the same day of the downing of the 
airplanes and the murder of the American citizens, that shows the 
premeditation, the level of premeditation by Castro.
  One former military officer who has visited Cuba recently was asked 
by a high-ranking general in the Cuban Government, what would the 
Clinton administration do if we shot down one of those Brothers to the 
Rescue airplanes? And he reported back to Warren Christopher.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Can you repeat that again? When did that happen?
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Yes, about 4 weeks ago.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. That is shocking.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. About 4 weeks ago.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. They asked what would happen?
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. A delegation of former military people who advocate 
getting along with Castro, you know, it is a very small group of left-
wing former military people that are always advocating for better 
relations with North Korea, with China, and of course they are 
advocating for better relations with Castro, they went to Cuba to see 
the nuclear power plant that Castro is building down there and to meet 
with the Cuban officials and General del Todo, one of the high-ranking 
thugs around Castro, asked former Admiral Carroll what would the United 
States do if we shot down a Brothers to the Rescue plane?

                              {time}  1645

  And Carroll came back, and he told Warren Christopher that, so notice 
how Castro has been planning this for weeks, if not months.
  Obviously, what he said the other day, the message to the Cuban 
people, as I stated before, is if I can kill Americans with impunity, 
imagine what I can do to you, and the message to the Clinton 
administration is obviously clear, no respect, and you know he is 
laughing at the lack of response of the Clinton administration.
  But, as you said, if the administration will not protect American 
lives, we, in Congress, will. We will pass our sanctions bill. We will 
not permit the murder of these U.S. citizens go unpunished, and I truly 
believe that the President's measures were woefully insufficient.
  I recommended to him before he announced his insufficient measures 
yesterday that he announce that any further blackmail by Castro, like 
the immigration blackmail by Castro, like the immigration crisis of 
1994, will be met inevitably and immediately by an American embargo of 
Castro, including oil shipments, and mark my words, that blackmail is 
coming unless President Clinton can change right now his course of 
action and convey clearly to Castro that he will face a blockade if he 
threatens the United States once again.
  He believes, Castro believes, that he can once again terrorize 
President Clinton with blackmail. We, we here in Congress, must pass 
our sanction bill, as we will. We certainly hope that we can get the 
support of the President. He is moving in our direction but still has 
not supported the House version, which is the firm version of the 
Helms-Burton bill, and as I stated before, and this idea came from 
Cuba, from a prodemocracy group today, that the United States must seek 
the indictment of Castro for crimes against humanity in the 
international court of justice in The Hague.
  There are clearly crimes committed in the recent past by Castro, even 
though his crimes began with the show trials and the firing squads in 
1959, but clearly the use of electroshock torture on political 
dissidents like Nujenio Lesosa, who has been here in Congress with my 
dear friend, the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], and right 
now today, Colonel Enrique Labrada, who has held a prodemocracy 
demonstration in October or November of last year, they are receiving 
electroshock torture. Mr. Labrada is still in this day receiving 
electroshock torture.
  The murder of unarmed men, women, and children, like in the tugboat 
that was sunk on July 13, 1994, over 20, over 40 men, women and 
children, mostly children, upon the direct order of Castro, that is a 
crime against humanity.
  The gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen] and I here have 
received, we have in our offices a 10-year-old boy who came with his 
parents in a small boat and told us how helicopters, it was at night; 
they were saved by the fact that it was nighttime, were dropping these 
large sandbags on the raft to sink the raft. A 10-year-old boy told us 
how he managed to survive that. Of course, the February 24, 1996, 
murder of American citizens in international waters, those are crimes 
against humanity that must be punished.
  I know Mr. Clinton may wish he did not have to confront the Cuba 
problem. He obviously could like not to have to. But he has to protect, 
he is constitutionally required to protect, the lives of American 
citizens. It is his constitutional duty.
  We have got this court of justice in The Hague as part of the U.N. 
structure. We pay a lot of U.S. taxpayer dollars to maintain it. I 
think it is the appropriate forum to discuss these crimes against 
humanity, even if we do not go in and arrest them, and I think we 
should. But even if we do not go in and arrest them, there can be few 
things that would give more hope and hasten more the liberation of Cuba 
than to label through the indictment in the international court of 
justice, Castro as the war criminal that he is.

  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Reclaiming my time, I want to recognize another 
Member from the Miami area in a moment. But let me just say, adding to 
what you said, you talked about this meeting with Christopher that the 
information that got to Warren Christopher, and they were asked what 
would happen if we went ahead and blew up some of these planes, 
obviously the response was tepid, and let us go back through our 
history not only with Castro but, again, American history. Look what 
happened in 1994 when North Korea asked what would happen if we invaded 
South Korea. Harry Truman at the time gave a tepid response, and as a 
result of it, we had the war that cost tens of thousands of American 
lives.
  We are making the same mistake in China right now. We continue to bow 
down to Communist oppression in China, and we have done the same thing 
in Cuba over the past 35 years. So it is no wonder that Castro feels 
emboldened. I mean, the guy has learned over the years that you can 
kick America and they are not going to kick back. It goes all the way 
back to the Bay of Pigs, when America did not fulfill the duty that it 
was supposed to fulfill, to go in and liberate Cuba then and to bring 
freedom to the islands, and it has fast-forwarded to a few months ago 
when they asked what happens if we blow up Cessna airplanes.
  I do not want to point fingers, but let us get back to what you said. 
What would somebody say in the Clinton administration if somebody from, 
let us say, Bulgaria said, listen, if some people from Kansas are 
flying across the Atlantic Ocean and we decided to take them out, what 
is your response going to be? Do you think that they would have a tepid 
response to that? No. They are buying into the Castro propaganda that 
this is somehow an arm of some militant revolutionary guard. It is 
Americans who have fought for the American cause in wars, like you 
said, in Vietnam. They are Americans in American planes fighting for a 
very American cause of freedom.
  Bill Clinton's administration, I am not pointing directly at Bill 
Clinton on this one, but the administration has given a tepid response, 
and because of it four Americans are dead today that we, as a country, 
should have protected, and now it is our duty to step forward as a 
Congress and do that.

[[Page H1289]]

  I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen].
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I congratulate our colleague from Florida [Mr. 
Scarborough] for taking the opportunity to discuss what we believe is 
an international incident of epic proportions that could very well 
change the nature of relations between our countries, and we hope that 
they change in the way that will help bring about democracy, freedom, 
and justice to the enslaved people of Cuba, who have been under the 
yoke of communism and godless communism for over 35 years.
  We have been talking, and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-
Balart], with his many years of experience in this, was talking about 
the crackdown on incidents, the human rights violations. We know that 
if you are a person who wants to practice your faith, no matter what 
faith that is, if you are in Castro's Cuba, you are unable to practice 
your faith, you are unable to worship your God because the only God 
that is allowed to be worshiped in Cuba is Fidel Castro, and I think 
that that positive change is going to come about.

  The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart] has been talking about 
the change that could be possible in Cuba without Castro, but certainly 
with Castro there, those changes are going to be very difficult to 
bring about. And that is why we saw this as a very sad opportunity, but 
an opportunity nonetheless, to bring further sanctions, and on this we 
have a very strong bipartisan support, especially in our Florida 
delegation, whether it is the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Hastings], 
who has always been in favor of freedom and democracy for the enslaved 
people of Cuba, whether it is our colleague, the gentlewoman from 
Florida [Mrs. Meek], who is always there with us, the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Deutsch], who has been in a leadership position for us, 
the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Brown], in fact, if I say all of the 
names, we will be here for a long time because we have many wonderful 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle who know and understand the 
suffering of the Cuban people.
  But I wanted to have the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart] 
take this opportunity, if I could, to explain to the American public 
what has been going on with the nuclear powerplant in Cuba and also to 
talk a little bit about the lords intelligence facility, which has not 
been discussed at length, which is also a very important element of our 
United States-Cuba relations and the Soviet Union, the new Soviet 
Republics are very much tied in.
  The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart], what would you say, 
what is your opinion on those who say that we should have a North Korea 
type of solution to the unsafe, dangerous unsafe nuclear powerplant in 
Cienfuegos, Cuba, those who say we should go in there and help Castro 
build the best darn nuclear powerplant that we can get?
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. God save us, God saves us, Congresswoman Ros-
Lehtinen, from a North Korea solution for Castro. The reality of the 
matter is the administration decided when they heard North Korea was 
building some nuclear powerplants, maybe they could use some of that 
nuclear power for transformation into nuclear weapons. They went in and 
offered $5 billion to the North Koreans to build for the North Koreans 
the nuclear powerplants with the promise that in 5 years we can go and 
inspect. Now, God save us from that solution for Castro, because if 
Castro has been able to, as he has, blackmail the United States with 
refugees, because that is what he does, he has already begun, we will 
see in the next hours, Mr. Speaker, we will see in the next hours, I am 
very confident in the next hours we will see again some more blackmail 
using refugees because it works for Castro.
  The last time he did it, he got Clinton to sit down with him, and he 
no longer has the Soviet Union that protects him, because the Soviet 
Union had worked out the deal at the end of the missile crisis in 1962 
where the United States committed not only to not permit an invasion, 
to permit anybody to do anything against Castro from anywhere in the 
hemisphere. It has been comfortable for Castro to rant and rave against 
the United States since 1962 with the United States as bodyguard. There 
is no Soviet Union now. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and Bill 
Clinton got elected in 1992. Castro no longer has the shield of the 
agreement with the Soviet Union, because there is no Soviet Union, but 
he managed to get Bill Clinton to sit down at the table and work out a 
so-called immigration agreement with him, which is a sword, in effect, 
over the head of President Clinton because it can be withdrawn at any 
time, the agreement, and now with sanctions that have to come because 
the President has a constitutional obligation to protect American 
citizens, with Castro I have no doubt he will start trying to wield 
that sword up again, shake that sword again, I will send you refugees. 
Tyrants cannot be appeased.

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Another thing, if I could, a naval blockade which 
would enable no supplies to get to Castro, if you could explain how 
that would work.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. With regard to your earlier point, which is so 
important, though, imagine Castro with refugees has been able to 
blackmail the United States, it is laughable, but it happened with 
refugees, he has been able to blackmail the United States, and imagine 
with a nuclear powerplant. That is an accident in the making, or an 
incident in the making, because Castro can say, you know, just like he 
says, what are Castro's codewords for every time he threatens Clinton 
with an immigration crisis, ``I cannot control my borders.'' Well, 
imagine, ``I cannot control my safety of my nuclear powerplant,'' 
imagine that. And that is now, that is something that could affect the 
lives of people in half of this hemisphere if he creates an incident 
with a nuclear powerplant. So we cannot, because of national security 
concerns, permit a nuclear powerplant to be built in Cuba during the 
dictatorship of this madman.
  I think what we need to do sooner or later, I am convinced it is 
going to come anyway, I mean even Neville Chamberlain had to confront 
the tyrant Hitler. If there is anybody in the history of the 20th 
century that did not want to have to confront the tyrant Hitler, it was 
Mr. Neville Chamberlain. I have here ``Peace for a Generation,'' 
remember that, Neville Chamberlain, when he came back from Munich, Mr. 
Duvalier, the Prime Minister of France, if there had ever been a pair 
of tough hawks in this century who did not want to have to challenge 
Hitler, it was Duvalier and Chamberlain. Even they had to challenge the 
tyrant Hitler, and the reality of the matter is that President Clinton, 
whether he likes it or not, since Castro does not respect him, and the 
other day he already called Warren Christopher a cynical liar. I do not 
think anybody called Warren Christopher that, he is such a diplomat. 
Castro called him a cynical liar. He is going to continue calling 
Warren Christopher and Clinton and everyone else names. We have a 
report of what he called President Clinton. He said his knees shake, 
that is what he called President Clinton, his knees shake and he has no 
backbone. That is his description in public of President Clinton. 
Sooner or later, since he does not respect President Clinton, he is 
going to continue to blackmail and continue to blackmail and continue 
to blackmail, and sooner or later the American Government is going to 
have to help the Cuban people free themselves of that tyrant, then the 
Cuban Republic will be among the best friends, as traditionally they 
were, of the American people and American Government, the Cuban 
Republic, however, independent, free, sovereign, and democratic.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I am optimistic that day is around the corner, and 
with the help of all the countries joining together, we will make that 
dream of freedom a reality for the enslaved people of Cuba.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank both of you.
  Again, we are going to be going down there this Friday, and I am 
looking forward to input from all the Florida delegation and also those 
who have suffered under Castro as we try to move the Committee on 
National Security, of which I am a member, to hold hearings, hopefully, 
field hearings down in Miami, down where the incident occurred, to see 
what happened and to come up with a strategy to make sure 

[[Page H1290]]
that such a disaster never happens again. We have no other choice. We 
must stand up to Castro. We must protect American lives, and we will do 
that.
  Freedom will come to Cuba, and we will win that fight because we have 
no other choice. We are Americans.

                          ____________________