[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 71 (Thursday, June 4, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5660-S5661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SENATOR PELL ON CUBAN POLICY

 Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today to submit an editorial 
on U.S. policy toward Cuba written by my esteemed predecessor, the 
Honorable Claiborne Pell. The editorial was printed in the May 5, 1998 
edition of the Providence Journal Bulletin.
  Senator Pell served in the United States Senate for thirty-six years. 
While in the Senate, he served as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign 
Relations for eight years. Senator Pell's remarkable career also 
included eight years of service as a State Department Official and 
Foreign Service Officer as well as the United States Representative to 
the 25th and 51st Sessions of the United Nations General Assembly. 
Senator Pell's positions have taken him to Cuba on three occasions, 
most recently in early May. Senator Pell's observations of American 
foreign policy toward Cuba have led him to the conclusion that 
continuing the 38 year embargo on Cuba will not destabilize the Castro 
regime and is hurting the Cuban people.
  In his editorial, Senator Pell makes a number of insightful points. I 
hope all my colleagues will take the opportunity to read this piece by 
an expert in foreign relations and seriously consider his observations 
regarding relations with our neighbor.
  Mr. President, I ask that the editorial from the Providence Journal 
Bulletin be printed in the Record.
  The editorial follows:

          [From the Providence Journal-Bulletin, May 5, 1998]

                     Our Cuba Policy Has Not Worked

       One can only hope that the small but significant changes in 
     U.S. policy toward Cuba that President Clinton announced in 
     late March portend more sweeping changes in the months ahead 
     toward a more rational, more self-interested and more 
     effective U.S. policy.
       Having just returned from a five-day visit to Cuba with a 
     distinguished group of Americans, I am more convinced than 
     ever that our existing policy, built around the 38-year-old 
     embargo of Cuba, simply doesn't work.
       The embargo upsets the Cuban government and hurts the Cuban 
     people, but, from our discussions with an array of Cuban 
     government officials, religious and dissident leaders and 
     foreign diplomat observers, one thing emerged clearly: The 
     Cuban economy is strong enough to limp along for the 
     foreseeable future. There is no evidence at all to suggest 
     that U.S. economic sanctions are any more likely to 
     destabilize the Castro regime in the near future than they 
     have been over the past 38 years.
       Cuba is now some six years into what the regime 
     euphemistically calls the ``special period,'' the time of 
     economic distress that began with the collapse of the Soviet 
     Union. Cuba lost its preferential trading arrangement with 
     Moscow and the other former communist republics of Eastern 
     Europe, and was left to fend for itself.
       If U.S. economic pressure was ever to work, that was the 
     time. But Cuba has muddled through. In moves that must have 
     been bitter pills for Castro to swallow, Cuba ``dollarized'' 
     its economy, allowed private farmers' markets and other 
     small-scale private enterprises, and offered more favorable 
     terms for foreign investment.
       As a result, the Cuban economy, in free fall during 1993, 
     has started to come around. The evidence abounds in Havana. 
     Not only tourists, but all Cubans can purchase an array of 
     consumer goods in ``dollar stores'' that are prevalent in 
     Havana. When we asked one government official how Cubans with 
     no access to dollars can survive, he shot back: ``Who doesn't 
     have dollars?''
       One exquisite irony is that this dollar-focused Cuban 
     economy is now in part propped up by an annual deluge of 
     dollars, estimated at $600 million to $1 billion, that 
     arrives in Cuba from the United States, primarily from Cuban-
     Americans anxious to make life easier for their relatives. 
     Whatever pain the embargo causes is offset by this dollar 
     flow, which they will likely increase with the restoration of 
     legal remittances.
       Tourism has expanded greatly since I last visited Cuba 10 
     years ago, and brings both much needed hard currency and less 
     desirable consequences, including prostitution, which seems 
     widespread in parts of Havana after dark. Our delegation 
     visited only Havana and we were told that times are tougher 
     in the smaller cities and the countryside. But the Cuban 
     economy has clearly recovered and, while it could benefit 
     from many more reforms, there is no sign it will collapse.
       Cuba is still very much an authoritarian state with tight 
     state control over all aspects of society, including public 
     debate. One day, I visited a showplace medical campus where 
     very interesting neurological research is being conducted. 
     The center was equipped with what appeared to be 
     sophisticated computers and has its own ``web site.''
       Next, I sat with a group of dissidents and asked about 
     their access to the Internet. ``We can't use the Internet,'' 
     one said. ``We cannot even have computers; they just take 
     them away.''
       Yet I felt a much greater openness in Havana this time than 
     in my last visit, and certainly than in 1974, when Sen. Jacob 
     Javits (the late U.S. Republican senator from New York) and I 
     were among the first members of Congress to visit since the 
     revolution. Back then, we were shadowed everywhere we went, 
     were confident our hotel rooms were bugged, and sensed a real 
     oppressiveness in the city. In those days, the infamous 
     Committees for the Defense of the Revolution were an 
     effective neighborhood spy network; today, they seem more a 
     network of aging busybodies. Havana is certainly not a free 
     city, but it has a liveliness and verve that startled me.
       On this trip, everywhere we went people still were abuzz 
     about the visit of the Pope. Church leaders do not know yet 
     whether the visit, of which virtually all Cubans seemed 
     immensely proud, will lead to much greater openness. But 
     colleagues of mine went to Mass on Sunday at a Jesuit church 
     in a rundown section of the city, and described a vibrant 
     community with an abundance of

[[Page S5661]]

     young adults worshipping with pride and intensity. The 
     dissidents we met reported that a substantial number of 
     political offenders have been freed and the atmosphere seems 
     to them ``more relaxed.''
       Cuba's repressive communist regime has survived, if not 
     thrived, for 38 years in economic isolation from the United 
     States. When a policy has failed that long, isn't it time to 
     try something else? In my view, a policy of contact, trade, 
     cultural exchanges and dialogue, just as we had with the 
     communist states of Europe, could well lead to a more open, 
     free-market economy and more political diversity in Cuba. 
     Even if it doesn't, it won't be any less effective than the 
     policy we've been following these past 38 years.

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