[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 153 (Wednesday, November 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11450-H11451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE CUBA PROGRAM: TORTURING OF AMERICAN POW'S BY CASTRO AGENTS

  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, I would like to thank the gentleman 
from New York (Chairman Gilman) for convening tomorrow's hearing on the 
Committee on International Relations on ``The Cuba Program: The 
Torturing of American POWs by Castro Agents,'' and for his ongoing 
leadership and commitment to veterans' issues.

[[Page H11451]]

  This issue is particularly important to me for various reasons. But, 
more importantly, as I read through the accounts of what our men and 
women in uniform have endured through this century of war, I think of 
my husband, Dexter Lehtinen, who served in the special forces in 
Vietnam and was injured in combat. He was relatively fortunate, but so 
many of his colleagues were not.
  The Geneva Convention prohibits ``violence to life and person, in 
particular murders of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and 
torture'' and ``outrages upon personal dignity, in particular 
humiliating and degrading treatment.''
  This is exactly what took place in a prison camp in North Vietnam 
known as ``The Zoo,'' seen here in a declassified photo, the site where 
19 of our U.S. military officers were tortured.
  During the period of August 1967 to August 1968, 19 of our courageous 
servicemen were psychologically tortured, some brutally beaten, by 
interrogators assessed to be Cuban agents working under orders from 
Hanoi and Havana.
  Described by some to be a psychological experiment, the goals of The 
Cuba Program, as the torture project has been labeled by our Defense 
Department and by our intelligence agencies, has been described in 
different ways as an attempt to test interrogation methods, to obtain 
absolute compliance and submission to captor demands, or ultimately to 
be used as a propaganda tool by the international Communist effort, as 
Mike Benge will elaborate upon during tomorrow's congressional hearing.
  Some POWs were tortured and then instructed to write a series of 
questions and answers given to them by their interrogators. These 
scripts on most occasions included statements declaring that the United 
States was waging an illegal, immoral, and unjust war. Prisoners were 
tortured, again some psychologically and others physically, to ensure 
cooperation in appearances they were forced to make before visiting 
dignitaries. Refusal to comply with the captors' commands usually meant 
that Fidel, Chico, and Poncho, as the torturers were called by the 
POWs, would be called in for intense beatings of the prisoners.
  The ruthless nature of the interrogators and the severity of their 
actions led prisoners such as Captain Raymond Vohden, Colonel Jack 
Bomar, and Lieutenant Carpenter to question how human beings could so 
brutally batter another human being.
  Captain Vohden and Colonel Bomar will offer compelling and detailed 
testimony to us tomorrow, describing the heinous acts committed against 
them by Cuban agents at The Zoo, acts which are in direct violation of 
the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War.
  Survivors of The Cuba Program have been eager to identify and trace 
the Cuban agents who systematically interrogated them and tortured 
their fellow Americans. Yet, despite their efforts, a successful 
resolution of this matter has not been achieved. We hope that 
tomorrow's hearing will be the first of many steps aimed at changing 
that outcome.
  The first is to get leads that could take us closer to an 
identification of the Cuban torturers.
  Our second goal is to provide the basis for an ensuing interagency 
investigation of the new evidence that has been uncovered, including a 
search for pertinent data and sources previously unavailable under the 
Cold War parameters.
  We want our State Department, the CIA, the FBI, INS, and the Defense 
Intelligence Agency to coordinate a comprehensive approach to this 
case.
  Lastly, this hearing will begin to establish the foundation for 
future action against the torturers. On a broader scale, this 
investigation will serve to highlight the brutal nature of the Castro 
regime and the historic and ongoing threat that it poses to the 
American people.
  Ultimately, our hope is that tomorrow's hearing will serve to honor 
those POWs, and I will show my colleagues a poster that has their 
picture, 9 of the 19 who were involved in The Cuba Program. We hope 
that tomorrow's hearing will serve to honor these POWs, who were 
willing to give life and limb so that we may all be free. We will honor 
them by finding out the truth about Castro's participation in Vietnam 
known as The Cuba Program.

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