[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 60 (Saturday, April 12, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E771-E772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CRACKDOWN IN CUBA

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 11, 2003

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to submit the following interesting 
and insightful article for the Congressional Record.

                       Why the Crackdown in Cuba?

                          (By Wayne S. Smith)

       Various newspaper articles reporting the deplorable 
     crackdown on dissidents in Cuba have correctly noted that the 
     situation there earlier had seemed to be inching toward 
     somewhat greater tolerance. During his trip to Cuba in May of 
     last year, for example, President Carter met with Cuban 
     dissidents and in his televised speech to the nation spoke of 
     the Varela Project, an initiative of theirs calling for 
     greater political freedoms. And both before and after 
     Carter's visit, many other Americans, myself included, 
     regularly and openly met with the dissidents as part of a 
     broad effort to expand dialogue and improve relations between 
     our two countries.
       Oswaldo Paya, the principal architect of the Varela 
     Project, was even recently allowed to come to the United 
     States to receive the W. Averell Harriman award from the 
     National Democratic Institute in Washington, and from there 
     he went on to Europe. The Cuban government may not have liked 
     what he had to say while abroad, but he wasn't punished for 
     it when he returned home. It did indeed seem that things 
     might

[[Page E772]]

     slowly be moving toward somewhat greater tolerance of dissent 
     on the island.
       Why then the recent arrest of dissidents? Is it, as some in 
     the United States quickly posited, that Castro was simply 
     hoping the rest of the world was so distracted by the war in 
     Iraq, that no one would notice or react to the detention of a 
     few dissidents in Cuba?
       No, that explanation simply doesn't hold up. First of all, 
     no one in his right mind (and whatever else he is, Castro is 
     that) would have expected the arrest of over 80 dissidents, 
     many of them well-known international figures, to go 
     unremarked. The Cubans expected a firestorm, and they got it.
       Second, the timing could hardly be worse from Castro's 
     standpoint. The UN Human Rights Commission has just begun its 
     annual deliberations to decide, among other things, whether 
     to condemn Cuba for violations of human rights. Given the 
     greater tolerance discussed above, there had seemed a good 
     chance that Cuba would not be condemned this year. The 
     crackdown, coming just now, makes that far less likely.
       Given all that, why the crackdown and why now? To answer 
     those questions, we must first note that the greater leeway 
     for dissent noted above came in response to the overtures of 
     groups in the American Congress and the American public, not 
     to any easing of the hard line on the part of the Bush 
     Administration. Quite the contrary, its policies and rhetoric 
     remained as hostile and as threatening as ever. It ignored 
     all Cuban offers to begin a dialogue and instead held to an 
     objective of regime change. As Mr. James Cason, the Chief of 
     the U.S. Interests Section has stated publicly, one of his 
     tasks was to promote ``transition to a participatory form of 
     government.''
       Now, we would all like to see a more open society in Cuba; 
     that indeed, is what we are all working toward. But it is not 
     up to the United States to orchestrate it. In fact, it is not 
     up to the United States to decide what form of government 
     Cuba should have. Cuba is, after all, a sovereign country. To 
     the Cubans, for the chief U.S. diplomat in Cuba to seem to be 
     telling them what kind of government they should have seemed 
     a return to the days of the Platt Amendment.
       The Bush Administration was uncomfortable with signs of 
     greater tolerance on Castro's part, for that simply 
     encouraged those in the United States who wanted to 
     ease travel controls and begin dismantling the embargo. 
     New initiatives along those lines were expected in the 
     Congress this spring. What to do to head them oft?
       What the Administration did is clear enough. It ordered the 
     Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to begin a 
     series of high-profile and provocative meetings with 
     dissidents, even holding seminars in his own residence and 
     passing out equipment of various kinds to them. He even held 
     press conferences after some of the meetings. The 
     Administration knew that such ``bull-in-the-china-shop'' 
     tactics would provoke a Cuban reaction--hopefully an 
     overreaction. And given that the purpose was ``regime 
     change'', the Cubans came to see them as ``subversive'' in 
     nature and as increasingly provocative. Those arrested were 
     not charged with expressing themselves against the state, but 
     with ``plotting with American diplomats.''
       The circumstances are different, but to understand Cuban 
     sensitivities in this case, let us imagine the reaction of 
     the U.S. Government if Cuban diplomats here were meeting with 
     members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party to help them 
     promote Puerto Rico's transition from commonwealth to 
     independence. Perhaps the Attorney General would not arrest 
     everyone involved, but I wouldn't take any bets on it.
       And the beginning of the war in Iraq did play a role in the 
     crackdown. The Cubans saw it as a signal that the United 
     States was determined to throw its weight around and to blow 
     away anyone it doesn't like through the unilateral use of 
     force. As one Cuban official put it to me recently: ``This 
     new preemptive-strike policy of yours puts us in a new ball 
     game, and in that new game, we must make it clear that we 
     can't be pushed around.''
       It was this kind of mind set that led to the crackdown and 
     that turned the latter into a massive overreaction. The 
     Cubans did exactly what the Bush Administration had hoped 
     they would do. Virtually the whole active dissident community 
     has now not only been arrested but put on trial (or notified 
     that they soon will be) and given extremely heavy sentences. 
     Tragic. This is a blot that will not be easily erased and 
     that will impede any significant progress in U.S.-Cuban 
     relations until there is some amelioration of conditions in 
     Cuba. The Bush Administration meanwhile will certainly 
     continue the pressures, and the provocations, so as to 
     prevent any such amelioration.
       It has been argued that Castro simply saw this as a 
     propitious moment to halt dissent in Cuba, and there are 
     doubtless some elements of truth to that argument. Castro has 
     never liked to be criticized. Still, over the past few years, 
     he had tolerated criticism of the system. All things being 
     equal, he might have continued to do so. But the situation 
     has changed, not just between the U.S. and Cuba, but 
     internationally, in ways that the U.S. public is just 
     beginning to understand.
       In the dark days that lie ahead, people of good will in the 
     United States who want to see a more normal relationship 
     between our two countries, and to see a more open society in 
     Cuba, should hold to the demonstrable truth that the best way 
     to bring about both is through the reduction of tensions, the 
     beginning of a meaningful dialogue and increased contacts. As 
     Elizardo Sanchez, Cuba's leading human rights activist, has 
     often put it, ``the more American citizens in the streets of 
     Cuban cities, the better for the cause of a more open 
     society; so why do you maintain travel controls?'' The 
     policies followed by one administration after another over 
     the past 44 years have accomplished nothing positive. True to 
     form, the policy followed by the Bush Administration, and the 
     clumsy tactics of the U.S. Interests Section, have produced 
     only a crackdown. Exactly what we should not want!

       Wayne S. Smith, now a Senior Fellow at the Center for 
     International Policy, was Third Secretary of Embassy at the 
     American Embassy in Havana from 1958 until the U.S. broke 
     relations in January of 1961, and was Chief of the U.S. 
     Interests Section there from 1979 until 1982.

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