[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 14, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4326-S4327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CARTER, MISSION TO CUBA

  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, many of us have anticipated the trip of 
former President Carter to Cuba with a mixed sense of hope and concern. 
We had hoped that he would use this unique opportunity to help bring 
ideas of freedom and democracy to the repressed people of Cuba, just 90 
miles off our shores.
  However, it was amazing and disappointing for many of us to learn of 
Mr. Carter's visit to a Cuban biotechnology facility and his 
acceptance, at face value, of the assurances of communist Cuban 
officials there that the facility is engaged solely in medical and 
humanitarian pursuits.
  More distressing is that former President Jimmy Carter was accorded 
the same privilege and courtesy extended to former Presidents who have 
requested top-secret intelligence briefings and situation reports on 
global areas of interest of the United States.
  In the post-9/11 world, it is important that we as a united country 
protect the safety and security of our people.
  Instead, what we have in Mr. Carter's visit to this biotech facility 
is a former President--who himself was once responsible for our foreign 
policy and the safety of the American people--dismissing the concerns 
of his own government, revealing information to which he was privy in 
top-secret briefings, and buying wholesale the assertions of the 
dictator Fidel Castro and his minions.
  The words and actions of Mr. Carter at this facility are a breach of 
trust, and it is made even worse, in that the individual involved in 
that breach is one in whom the American people once placed the ultimate 
trust and responsibility of the Presidency.
  Rather than spending his time with Fidel Castro and his henceman, I 
would suggest the name of at least one person Mr. Carter would be 
better advised to get to know.
  Just a few short days ago I joined the Congressional Cuba Political 
Prisoner Initiative. As part of this initiative, I have decided to 
sponsor or ``adopt,'' if you will, a Cuban political prisoner named 
Francisco Chaviano Gonzales, and to advocate on his behalf, and on 
behalf of the thousands of others being held in Cuba in clear abuses of 
their basic human rights.
  Francisco Chaviano is president of the National Council for Civil 
Rights, an organization dedicated to promoting democratic practices, 
racial equality and human rights. He was arrested after government 
agents broke into his home and confiscated documents revealing human 
rights abuses in Cuba--specifically, information about the Castro 
government's sinking of a tugboat that claimed the lives of 41 men, 
women, and children who were attempting to escape to freedom.
  Chaviano was arrested and detained in prison for 1 year, and although 
a civilian, he was tried by military tribunal and sentenced to 15 years 
in prison.

[[Page S4327]]

  He has been confined in isolation and deprived of basic medical care 
for long periods of time. After being allowed to visit him for the 
first time in eight years, his wife reported that he is in very poor 
health. Other members of the civil rights organization have followed in 
Chaviano's footsteps and continued to press the Cuban government for 
democratic reforms, at great peril to themselves.
  Jimmy Carter is a man who is often praised in the media as a ``model 
ex-President'' or a ``statesman'' for his work with Habitat for 
Humanity. I do believe there is still time for him to make a more 
positive contribution to the plight of the Cuban people and to American 
foreign policy regarding Fidel Castro.
  Mr. Carter is scheduled to deliver a speech to the Cuban people 
tonight. His remarks have the potential to do enormous good or to cause 
further harm. Rather than legitimizing a tyrant and a man who doesn't 
care for the well-being of his own people; he could advocate positive 
change for the beleaguered Cuban people.
  If Mr. Carter in his speech tonight is looking for a road map to 
freedom and prosperity for the Cuban people, he need look no further 
than the words and principles of freedom written by George Mason in the 
Virginia Declaration of Rights. This document, adopted on June 12, 
1776, helped form the basis of our Declaration of Independence and 15 
years later in our Bill of Rights as the first amendments to our 
Constitution.
  I would read a few excerpts from George Mason's historic words from 
various articles of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which I think 
are instructive.

       Article 1: That all men are by nature equally free and 
     independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when 
     they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any 
     compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the 
     enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring 
     and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness 
     and safety.
       Article 2: That all power is vested in, and consequently 
     derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees 
     and servants and at all times amenable to them.
       Article 3: That government is, our ought to be, instituted 
     for the common benefit, protection, and security of the 
     people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and 
     forms of government, that is best which is capable of 
     producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is 
     most effectually secured against the danger of 
     maladministration. And that, when any government shall be 
     found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of 
     the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and 
     indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such 
     manner as shall be judged most conductive to the public weal.
       Article 12: That the freedom of the press is one of the 
     great bulwalks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by 
     despotic governments.
       Article 16: That religion, or the duty which we owe to our 
     Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed 
     only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and 
     therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise 
     of religion, according to the dictates of conscience . . .

  Those are the words of freedom, and of the inherent rights to which 
all people are entitled, even if only temporarily subjugated.
  Therefore, I call on former President Carter to embrace these truths 
and to use this unique opportunity to advance these enduring principles 
of liberty in Cuba.
  I urge him to support the Varela Project, which is a petition drive 
that has collected the 10,000 signatures needed under Castro's so-
called ``constitution'' to force a referendum on whether his government 
should be allowed to continue.
  I call on Fidel Castro to heed the concepts first enunciated by 
George Mason 226 years ago in the Western Hemisphere, and I also call 
upon him to schedule free and fair democratic elections on the island 
of Cuba within the next year.
  Mr. President, I will close with more words from George Mason, who 
said:

       There is a passion to the mind of man, especially a free 
     man, which renders him impatient of a restraint.''

  Mr. Carter has the power to either to fan the flames of those 
passions and aspirations of the Cuban people, or to throw cold water on 
them. The choice he needs to make is clear. Do not flinch. Stand strong 
for freedom!
  Thank you. I yield the floor.

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