[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 31 (Wednesday, March 12, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF HELMS-BURTON LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Duncan). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, a plea has gone out by the President of 
the National Commission, Jose Marti, the National Commission on Human 
Rights in Cuba, Professor Amador Blanco Hernandez, for three political 
prisoners who are in a very, very difficult situation right now. They 
have been on a hunger strike since February 20 because of the brutal, 
inconceivably inhumane conditions that they have been facing. One of 
them, and I will read their names, Juan Bruno Lopez Vazquez, Herminio 
Gonzalez Torna, and one of them, Levin Cordova Garcia, is near death.
  Now, Professor Blanco Hernandez is seeking some signs of solidarity 
and outrage in the international community. I today remember and my 
thoughts go out to all the Cuban political prisoners, but especially to 
these three, such dignified representatives of the Cuban people who are 
facing that extraordinarily difficult situation, and have had to embark 
on hunger strikes to try to get some attention of the world community 
so that their conditions will be looked at and pressure will be put on 
the Cuban dictatorship so that their conditions can improve.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been a year since President Clinton signed the 
Helms-Burton law, March 12, 1996. Sometimes it seems difficult to 
believe that it has been only a year, considering all that has happened 
since. Not just Castro but all those who seek to take advantage of the 
degradation and exploitation imposed by the dictator on the Cuban 
people received a blow by the adoption of Helms-Burton. With urgency, 
those who have invested or who are thinking of doing so in Castro's 
feudal, antiworker, slave economy have had to reconsider their actions 
or their intentions in light of the risk of being physically excluded 
from the world's largest market, the United States.
  That is why the European Union, in an act that classifies it as an 
unscrupulous merchandiser, has taken its complaint against U.S. 
sanctions to the World Trade Organization.
  The strongest blow in Helms-Burton against those who seek the 
definitive consolidation of the degradation of the Cuban people, of the 
oppression and the humiliation that they have to bear at the hands of 
the Castro brothers and the handful of their minions who also live the 
``dolce vita,'' however, is not what is most discussed and debated 
about Helms-Burton. It has nothing to do with the exclusion of 
foreigners from the United States who knowingly traffic in properties 
stolen from Americans, nor with lawsuits against those traffickers.
  What is most painful for those who seek the permanence of the 
oppression of the Cuban people is that the United States sanctions 
against the dictatorship can no longer be lifted by the President until 
there is a genuine Democratic transition on the island.
  Castro's defenders and the unscrupulous merchandisers had great hopes 
for President Clinton. They saw how he, in coordination with some large 
business interests, lifted the embargo on Vietnam and reestablished 
diplomatic relations with that country. With normalization of 
relations, a wide gamut of credits and other financing possibilities 
are opened to those who seek to do business with a recently legitimized 
regime.
  They sought the same for Cuba. It does not matter that Castro has no 
money to buy anything from the unscrupulous merchandisers. The 
financing mechanisms would take care of that. That is what they are 
there for. That is why those financing mechanisms have money from the 
United States taxpayer.
  Ever since Helms-Burton, the dreams that some had of being able to 
obtain massive financing for lucrative business deals with the Cuban 
dictator have gone down the drain. Congress has made absolutely clear 
that the President cannot lift the embargo and facilitate credits for 
those who seek to profit from deals in Cuba, nor authorize massive 
United States tourism to Cuba, until there is a government in Cuba that 
respects the Cuban people, a government that liberates all political 
prisoners, that legalizes all political activity and that agrees to 
hold free and fair elections. That requirement in Helms-Burton, known 
as the codification of the embargo, is definitive and will be decisive 
in Cuba's salvation.

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