[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 21, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3146-H3148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CUBA'S REPRESSIVE REGIME

  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. Mr. Speaker, this past week we were once again 
reminded of the lengths that the Cuban people will resort to to sink 
freedom from the repressive regime. Eleven Cuban refugees were rescued 
by the excellent men and women of our United States Coast Guard after 
being spotted by an aircraft of the humanitarian group, Brothers to the 
Rescue.
  The refugees had spent 17 days in an isolated area of the Bahamas 
known as Dog Key. Dog Key, Mr. Speaker, is nothing but a rock, a big 
rock in the middle of the ocean.
  For 2 weeks the refugees had little to drink or to eat. They ate 
snails and birds to survive in the middle of the ocean.
  One of the refugees, Rolando Martinez Montoya, would break snail 
shells with his teeth so that his children who accompanied him on this 
horrible journey would be able to at least eat the inside of the 
snails.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Martinez' daughter, Camilla Martinez, only 4 years 
old, and his step daughter, only 13 years old, died at Dog Key last 
week.
  Twenty-six-year-old Leonin Ojeda Rivas also died after complaining of 
chest pains soon after trying to swim toward a passing ship in a 
desperate attempt to be rescued.
  Mr. Speaker, the tragic search of these Cuban refugees for freedom 
portrays the picture of desperation that the Cuban people feel under 
the Castro dictatorship. Unfortunately, the American people never 
learned of this story in the so-called mainstream media. It was not in 
the major newspapers, nor in the television networks. Why? Because the 
press prefers to promote Castro's propaganda of Cuba as a tourist 
paradise rather than exert some effort in reporting the repression 
subjected on the people of the island every day.
  Just this past Sunday, the Washington Post travel section had a 
lengthy piece on how to travel to Cuba. The story's author, Elinor 
Lander Horwitz, could barely control her excitement about being in the 
forbidden island as she walked past children engulfed in poverty, the 
deteriorated beauty of Havana, and the lack of the most basic needs 
such as soap that the Cuban people endure daily.
  The author soothes her guilt of, as she calls it, of having a good 
time while being surrounded in this poverty by handing out two pesos to 
a poor Cuban child. Oh, wow. Now she can return once again to her 
paradise vacation.
  Throughout the article, not one word, not one single word, is 
mentioned about the destruction caused on Cuba by the Castro tyranny 
and the misery that has resulted from it. However, she makes sure to 
provide tips on how to circumvent the United States embargo in order to 
travel to Cuba.
  I wonder, Mr. Speaker, what led these refugees I have described 
earlier tonight to leave the paradise that this author so aptly 
describes? Is it the lack of human rights under Castro, the lack of 
civil rights under the last totalitarian dictatorship of the 
hemisphere? The complete mismanagement of the Cuban economy by the 
Communist elite, the complete control of the population by Castro's 
police state? I venture to say that it was a combination of all of 
these put together.
  Cuba remains, whether the Washington Post or other publications admit 
it, a repressive totalitarian state. Just ask Ana Maria Agramonte, a 
prominent Cuban dissident who was recently sentenced to 18 months in 
prison for contempt against the regime. It is clear that the paradise 
as portrayed by the Washington Post must feel like hell for Ms. 
Agramonte and the rest of her compatriots who have to endure Castro's 
brutality.
  Let us hope that the press will one day wake up to the horrors of the 
Castro's tyranny, to the repressive police state, to the complete lack 
of, and the violation of the most basic of civil rights.
  Mr. Speaker, I insert for the Record the article from the Washington 
Post by Elinor Lander Horwitz which I earlier referred to.

                [From the Washington Post, May 18, 1997]

                      Return to a Forbidden Island


       in impoverished cuba, nothing--and everything--has changed

                       (By Elinor Lander Horwitz)

       Maritza smiles wistfully and passes her tongue slowly over 
     her lips. ``The `52s and

[[Page H3147]]

     `53s are best,'' she says. ``Fifty-four was not so good a 
     year, but `55--it was really excellent.'' She's not talking 
     wine: She's talking Chevrolets.
       Parked randomly along a street near the Plaza de Armas in 
     Havana's old city, where she has taken me sightseeing, is a 
     particularly dense grouping of 40- to 50-year-old American 
     cars, predominantly Chevrolets plus one Dodge, an Oldsmobile, 
     a Buick and a Plymouth. These are not rich people's 
     collectibles. They are poor people's means of transportation. 
     Maritza, a Cuban woman whom a friend had urged me to contact, 
     casts a connoisseur's eye on a red-and-white, wide-finned 
     1953 relic parked next to her midget 1972 Polish-made Fiat. 
     How in the world do the owners get replacement parts? She 
     laughs at my simple-minded question. ``We make them, we 
     improvise,'' she says. ``Cubans are very good mechanics.''
       I feel caught in a time warp. The decaying Chevys--the very 
     ones I might have seen hot off the assembly line more than 
     four decades ago--suddenly take on the status of metaphor for 
     the once elegant, now deteriorating city. This is the second 
     visit my husband, Norman, and I have made to Havana. The 
     first, a few years before the 1959 revolution, was on our 
     honeymoon. I was a college student-bride who longed to go 
     abroad, and Havana was the only patch of abroad we could 
     afford. And it was so easy to get there!
       This time we arrived via three tedious flights: Washington 
     to Miami, Miami to Nassau, and Nassau to Havana. With long 
     waits in between. We carried impeccable visas and letters 
     from the U.S. Treasury Department and our sponsoring 
     organization verifying our permission to visit (there are 
     severe restrictions for U.S. citizens trying to travel to 
     Cuba). Norman, a neurosurgeon, was coming as a volunteer with 
     an international relief agency in a program it runs jointly 
     with the Cuban Ministry of Heath. He would spend a week 
     conferring with colleagues, examining patients, teaching 
     interns and residents, and presenting research material. I 
     was licensed to tag along. Earlier participants in the 
     program had given us the names of people they'd met here, 
     which is how I came to know Maritza and a number of other 
     engaging Habaneros.
       We had always hoped to return to Havana and, according to 
     the laminated Cubana Airlines boarding pass I handed over as 
     I boarded the flimsy-looking old Russian plane in Nassau, the 
     feeling was mutual. ``Cuba te espera,'' it said in decorating 
     script. ``Cuba is waiting for you.'' The bright yellow card 
     was decorated with three red hearts.
       The 1950s Cuba, under the repressive rule of Fulgencio 
     Batista, had plenty to offer American tourists. It was 
     romantic, and it was glossy! Most people stayed in the pricey 
     and glamorous Hotel Nacional, with its luxurious 
     accommodations, highly regarded dining room and nightclub, 
     and private talcum powder beach. We stayed at the Ambos 
     Mundos on Obispo Street, in the heart of Old Havana.
       Hemingway, still very much alive when we first visited the 
     island, had lived in the Ambos Mundos while writing--
     depending on your informant--either ``A Farewell to Arms'' or 
     ``For Whom the Bell Tolls.'' We ogled the room he had 
     occupied, dined at the rooftop restaurant where he had often 
     dined, and drank daiquiris at the Floridita, which we were 
     assured was his favorite bar. When we had dinner at a 
     sidewalk cafe, ragged children came up to the table and 
     begged for the bread on our table. We gave them that and 
     pesos and smiles, and we told each other it was wrong to be 
     having such a good time in a country where so many lived in 
     unconscionable splendor while others didn't have enough to 
     eat. And then a man with a guitar strolled over to our table 
     and began to sing while we held hands across the table and 
     blissfully dug into dinner.
       Maritza is amused by my honeymoon tales. First stop on our 
     1996 tour is the Ambos Mundos. The hotel was closed for many 
     years and has been in the process of renovation for many 
     more. The place is entirely gutted and a man on the ground is 
     sending a small bucket of plaster up to the fifth floor on a 
     pulley-and-rope contraption. A pamphlet I've picked up says 
     that you can learn about the life of Ernest Hemingway by 
     staying there. ``Ambos Mundos Hotel will open up in summer 
     1996 with 53 rooms of which 4 suites,'' it promises, but it 
     is now fall, and it still looks like it's going to be a 
     while.
       Nearby, in the palace occupied by Batista way back then, is 
     the Museo de la Revolucion. There are photographs of the 
     rebels in the mountains, bloody shirts and pants, canteens, 
     rifles, the engine of an American plane shot down over the 
     Bay of Pigs, and other mementos of turbulent times. One 
     display, titled in English ``The Hall of Cretins,'' features 
     huge, cartoonish figures of Batista in military garb, Ronald 
     Reagan dressed as a cowboy and George Bush dressed as a Roman 
     senator. Above the figure of Reagan, the caption says, 
     ``Thank you cretin for strengthening the Revolution.'' 
     Bush's caption is, ``Thank you cretin for consolidating 
     the Revolution.''
       In the nearby Plaza de la Catedral, craftspeople hawk 
     costume jewelry, maracas, woodcarvings and other knickknacks. 
     Che Guevara's face appears on key rings, ashtrays and T-
     shirts.
       Why doesn't Castro's face appear on T-shirts and key rings? 
     I ask Maritza. ``It wouldn't be respectful,'' she says, and 
     it's impossible to determine whether her inflection is dead 
     serious or mocking.
       I am trying hard to recapture the city I remember. One 
     afternoon Norman and I journey uptown to peek furtively into 
     the splendidly tiled lobby of the Hotel Nacional, fearful of 
     being accosted and asked whether we are paying guests. 
     (Reopened and refurbished after years of being shut down, the 
     hotel is as handsome and crowded as ever.) We gape at the 
     splendid Spanish colonial mansions on the tree-lined avenues 
     of the Vedado and Miramar districts. And then we retreat to 
     the colorful narrow streets and shady squares of Old Havana, 
     where we remember Cubans strolling, singing aloud. Our 
     memories of this are so vivid, it must have been true, 
     although there is no evidence of such today.
       West of Old Havana is the Vedado neighborhood and our 
     hotel, the Victoria, which is across the street from a row of 
     picturesquely decaying Spanish colonial mansions, now 
     occupied by many poor families. Up close, things aren't quite 
     so picturesque. Laundry hangs from the windows, balusters are 
     missing from the galleried rooftops, stairs are broken, 
     garden statues are headless, yards are littered with trash. 
     Nothing has been painted or repaired in decades. And 
     venturing out at night onto the darkened, crumbling sidewalks 
     and streets--where hordes of bikes without lights scoot by--
     is dangerous whether or not you encounter the street crime 
     everyone warns about (we didn't).
       Tourism has been revived in Havana, and crowds of 
     Europeans, Asians, South Americans, Canadians and a much 
     smaller number of Americans can be seen in the more 
     celebrated restaurants. There is the luxurious new Melia 
     Cohiba hotel, a joint venture between Cuba and Spain; much 
     talk of further foreign investment in tourism; and work is 
     going on around the clock on a new airport. Baseball games 
     and performances by the excellent national ballet company 
     provide stimulating entertainment, yet information about 
     schedules is difficult to glean.
       Restaurant food ranges from so-so to bad. The Cubans we 
     invited to dine with us all chose paladares--the small, 
     often-excellent restaurants families are now permitted to run 
     in their own apartments. Families licensed to establish a 
     paladar may set up no more than 12 chairs, arranged in 
     whatever grouping of tables they prefer. Some paladares have 
     signs, but most are known only through word of mouth. You 
     ring a doorbell and enter a lobby, push the button for the 
     proper floor and walk into someone's living room, where 
     tables are prettily set and family members graciously rush 
     to serve you.
       At one paladar, we are seated on a breezy balcony, 
     overlooking the water. At another, a particularly pleasant 
     three-course dinner with assorted tasty appetizers set up on 
     a small buffet table, a roast lamb entree and dessert of a 
     rich fig pudding costs $12 a person, including beer and 
     coffee.
       These paladares, named for a family-run restaurant dubbed 
     Paladar in a popular Brazilian TV sitcom, are one of the few 
     forms of self-employment now permitted in Cuba. Since they 
     accept payment only in U.S. dollars, paladar owners have the 
     means to buy a wide range of foods at the hard-currency 
     stores.
       The Hemingway shtick is still going strong here. Several 
     restaurants and bars in the old city claim to have been his 
     favorite. One of these, the tiny crowded La Bodeguita del 
     Medio, a block from the cathedral, still has ambiance 
     aplenty. Since the 1920s, customers have carved their names 
     on wood paneling, and there's no more space. Above the bar is 
     a blow-up of a scrawled message by the great man himself. 
     ``The best mojitos are at the Bodeguita,'' it reads. ``The 
     best daiquiris at the Floridita. Ernest Hemingway.''
       Squeezed into a corner, in full view of this snippet of 
     immortal prose, we order a mojito. It arrives in a tall 
     glass, jammed with what appears to be seaweed but is, in 
     fact, very soggy mint, and filled with a watery rum, lemon 
     and sugar mixture. An undistinguished meal is tossed at us 
     irritably. It is almost heartening to find that there still 
     are tourist traps in Havana.
       Just about everything is in short supply in this 
     underdeveloped island country. Everyone is short of soap, and 
     I lift a few tiny bars from the hotel maid's cart and pass 
     them along to my new friends. All food is rationed. Staples--
     rice and beans--are cheap and abundant, although milk is 
     available only for children under 7. At the Hotel Victoria, 
     the milk is made from powder and manages to be foamy and 
     lumpy at the same time. Meat, chicken and fish are not 
     generally available, and at the time of our visit, the egg 
     ration was seven a month. Each person is permitted one piece 
     of bread a day.
       Cubans call this a periodo especial, a special period that 
     date from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the 
     sudden cessation of what had been lavish subsidies. Gas, 
     electricity, public transportation--all are in very short 
     supply. When the periodic blackouts occur, not only the 
     lights go out, but also the water, which is pumped by 
     electricity.
       The glittering and bustling tropical city I remember is a 
     drab and quiet place today. For decades, there has been no 
     money to maintain buildings and streets. Automotive traffic 
     is light at all times. Gas, at $4 a gallon, is too expensive 
     for most Cubans, who earn on average $12 to $15 a month.
       I ask a highly placed government official what he hopes, 
     expects, fears the future will bring if Castro, now a fit-
     looking 70-year-old, retires? He laughs at the notion of 
     retirement. ``When Fidel dies,'' he says, ``people won't be 
     ready for raw capitalism. That's certain. They think they 
     want more free enterprise, but they are too accustomed to 
     free

[[Page H3148]]

     education and health care to ever give that up. It will be 
     some sort of socialism.
       ``Don't misunderstand,'' he adds, when I ask about the one 
     piece of bread a day. ``things here are difficult now, but 
     there is absolutely no question that life under Batista was 
     far worse for most Cubans. What you have to recognize is 
     this: Cuba has always had one corrupt form of government or 
     another.''
       While we are in Havana, everyone is talking about the 
     International Trade Fair, an annual event that showcases 
     products from countries worldwide (72 of them at this fair). 
     Finally, I decide to go to the new exposition grounds outside 
     the city with Roberto, a translator for the medical program 
     that brought us to Cuba. The fair is jammed with people. Cuba 
     is displaying pharmaceuticals, rum and cigars, and there are 
     sparkling new cars from Japan and France, shoes from Italy, 
     tablecloths from Mexico, furniture from Canada and children's 
     clothing from Panama. As Roberto seats himself longingly 
     behind the wheel of a shiny little yellow Fiat mounted on a 
     revolving stand, my eye falls on an Argentinean food 
     exporter's display of Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers, Libby's 
     Vienna Sausages, Wrigley gum, M&M candies, Kellogg's Frosted 
     Flakes and Froot Loops.
       Will Cuban children get to eat Froot Loops despite the U.S. 
     embargo? Roberto rolls his eyes, but declines further 
     comment.
       I buy lunch at a sunbaked outdoor cafe, and we dine 
     greedily on a cholesterol nightmare of fried chicken, french 
     fries, beer and ice cream. Four musicians--two guitar 
     players, a man on a bongo drum and another on maracas--
     suddenly appear at my elbow, grinning with mock 
     flirtatiousness and breaking into the songs their fathers 
     sang to diners in the cafes of Obispo Street in the 1950s: 
     ``Besame Mucho'' and ``Perfidia.'' I am overcome with 
     nostalgia and tip generously, and they repeat the two songs 
     over and over. And then, with almost manic zest, they break 
     into a long song about Che Guevara.
       The next day, at the airport gate, waiting hours for our 
     return flight, we Americans--doctors, missionaries, 
     journalists--exchange stories about the charm of the people 
     we've met and the hardships we've witnessed. No one has 
     answers.
       The airport's air conditioning has been turned off to save 
     electricity. Everyone is hot and avid to leave. But everyone 
     wants to return ``someday.''
       ``Bring soap,'' we remind each other. ``Next time don't 
     forget to bring everyone a few bars of soap.''


                              ways & means

       Tourist travel to Cuba is severely restricted by the U.S. 
     government. To travel to Cuba legally, Americans must have a 
     passport and visa and obtain a license from the Treasury 
     Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (1500 
     Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, D.C. 20020, 202-622-
     2480). OFAC has a fax-back system (202-622-0077) offering a 
     dozen documents detailing the guidelines associated with 
     travel to Cuba.
       Those who may visit Cuba under an official Treasury 
     Department license include: journalists who are regularly 
     employed by a news organization; official government 
     travelers; members of international organizations of which 
     the United States is also a member, traveling on official 
     business; persons making a once-a-year visit to relatives in 
     Cuba in circumstances of extreme humanitarian need; and 
     travelers who have received specific licenses from OFAC 
     before they go. These legitimate travelers can bring home 
     $100 worth of Cuban goods.
       A number of air and travel providers are authorized by the 
     Treasury Department to arrange trips to Cuba for qualified 
     travelers. One of the best known, Marazul Tours (4100 Park 
     Ave., Weekauken, N.J. 07087, 1-800-223-5334), will advise you 
     about eligibility and the procedure for obtaining a Treasury 
     license. Once you obtain the license, the agency will provide 
     a visa, plane tickets and hotel reservations. For groups, it 
     can set up a program in Cuba if needed.
       Visa information also is available from the Cuban Interest 
     Section, 2369 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20009, 202-797-
     8518.
       Despite the restrictions, there are indeed American 
     tourists in Cuba. Plane tickets to Cuba and a visa--a 
     separate tourist card--can be obtained in Canada, Mexico or 
     the Bahamas. But beware. Attempts to catch U.S. tourists 
     returning from Cuba have been stepped up, and U.S. Customs 
     officials may now greet you in Nassau or Cancun as you step 
     off your flight.

                          ____________________