[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 65 (Thursday, April 30, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4909-S4910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CASTRO BROTHERS

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, two weeks ago, the democratically 
elected leaders of the Western Hemisphere met for the Summit of the 
Americas. The Castro regime in Cuba was not invited, because it has 
violated the democratic charter of the Organization of American States 
for the last 5 decades.
  At the same time as that meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, Raul Castro 
gave a speech in Venezuela. He said he would be willing to negotiate 
with the United States and put everything on the table. Many considered 
this ``news.''
  Well, let me tell you, those comments aren't news to anyone who has 
followed the rhetoric of the regime over the decades. The Castros have 
made promise after promise and none of their promises have resulted in 
substantial change on the island, none of their promises have resulted 
in the release of the labor leaders, journalists or clergymen jailed 
for no crime other than speaking their minds, the end of the network of 
government spies on every block, or the granting of basic human rights 
that we in the United States take for granted. None of their promises 
have resulted in economic freedom for the millions of Cubans who try to 
get by on less than a dollar a day.
  And so it was hardly news that not long after Raul Castro spoke, his 
older brother Fidel made comments clarifying that nothing would change, 
and blaming all conditions in Cuba on the United States.
  He said President Obama acted with ``autosuficiencia'' y 
``superficialidad'', he called him conceited and superficial.
  I am surprised that Secretary Clinton, in her remarks, would jump so 
fast to consider that good news.
  While Raul Castro spoke at a meeting in Venezuela, there was another 
gathering going on in Cuba. It was a gathering of state security agents 
and secret police, outside the home of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, known 
as ``Antunez.''
  With tremendous courage, Antunez began a hunger strike to protest the 
oppressive Castro regime. In response, agents descended on the house 
last March 17. According to Amnesty International, they have orders to 
use force against and arrest anyone to prevent them from entering the 
house, including anyone who could provide medical treatment.
  Antunez and three other Cubans have vowed to continue their protest 
until the torture of political prisoner Mario Alberto Perez Aguilera, 
held at the Santa Clara Provincial Prison, ceases immediately.
  They will continue their protest until he is taken out of a tiny 
solitary confinement cell, until he is no longer beaten and forced to 
starve, until the regime allows Antunez' sister Caridad Garcia Perez to 
rebuild her home destroyed by the hurricanes last year, which they have 
not allowed, as further punishment to these activists.
  From his house in Placetas, Cuba, Antunez wrote me a letter on April 
13.
  Here's an excerpt, in Spanish:

       Compatriotas a nombre de nuestro pueblo cubano persistan en 
     sus nobles y sinceros esfuerzos, sepan que para los cubanos 
     la libertad, la dignidad y el respeto a los derechos humanos 
     tiened mucho mas permanencia e importancia que las ventajas 
     economicas que puedan traer los viajes de turismo y las 
     llegadas de insumos que financiarin mas que al pueblo a la 
     cruel tirania que nos oprime.

  He said:

       Those who continue their noble and sincere efforts on 
     behalf of the Cuban people, please know, that for Cubans, 
     liberty, dignity and respect for human rights are much more 
     permanent and important than the economic advantages that 
     might come with visiting tourists and the arrival of 
     products, which will benefit the cruel tyranny that oppresses 
     us more than the Cuban people.

  That is the kind of courage that can break a dictatorship. That is 
the kind of courage we should support. And that is the kind of person 
whose advice we should heed, the human rights activist, the Cuban who 
sacrifices day and night in a peaceful struggle for freedom, these are 
the voices we should listen to when we are making our policy toward the 
Castro regime.
  Some like to cling to a romantic notion of the Castros, but we cannot 
lose sight of these brutal facts. There is no indication that political 
prisoners are being released, free speech is being allowed or Cubans 
are being granted basic liberties that we take for granted.
  For the Organization of American States to readmit a regime that 
engages in this type of systematic suppression of human rights, it 
would have to rip up its Inter-American Democratic Charter as a farce. 
It would have to ignore Article 78 of the declaration, reaffirming, 
``the legitimacy of electoral processes and full respect for human 
rights and fundamental freedoms.'' And it would be sending a clear 
signal to other countries moving in the wrong direction, away from 
democracy, that it is perfectly OK to do so.
  In respect to the very complicated choices we have on Cuba policy, 
President Obama has proven himself a man of action. I support his 
allowing Cuban-Americans more opportunities to travel to Cuba, because 
I think families should have the chance to be reunited.
  On the other hand, and although I support finding ways to improve the 
financial situation of the Cuban people, I think allowing unlimited 
remittances was not the right move, when the Castro regime still takes 
for itself up to 30 percent of all the money sent.
  The administration also announced changes regarding 
telecommunications policy. Let me be clear: in spite of the fact that 
the regime has rejected such gestures in the past, I hope that it will 
now allow U.S. telecommunications companies to increase the flow of 
information to and from the island. That said, we need to be sure to 
prevent a repeat of what happened in China, where U.S. 
telecommunications firms helped the Chinese government monitor Internet 
users and control content. U.S. companies cannot and should not censor 
Internet searches and block Web sites at the request of the regime.
  But mainly what we have learned from these good-faith actions on the 
part of the United States is that they have not resulted in any change 
of behavior from the regime in Cuba.
  We have traded concessions and gotten only rhetoric in return. We 
have extended our hand, while the Cuban regime maintains its iron-
handed clenched fist.
  We cannot allow ourselves to start down a slippery slope of relaxing 
restrictions, that only winds up allowing the Castro regime to 
strengthen the iron fist by which it rules.
  The press is reporting that the State Department is looking to hold 
talks on migration and counternarcotics with the Castro regime.

[[Page S4910]]

  These are serious issues. But without seeing any progress whatsoever 
on the part of the regime, it is hard to see why we should be looking 
for more opportunities to make additional concessions. It is hard to 
see why we should believe whatever promises the regime might make. And 
it is hard to see why we should cooperate on migration or 
counternarcotics with a Cuban navy whose main mission is patrolling for 
and sinking ships carrying its own fleeing citizens.
  If we open up discussions now, we are essentially giving the regime a 
pass on progress and taking the focus off of where President Obama 
rightly put it, freedom on the island, freedom for political prisoners, 
freedom from seizures of a huge percentage of remittances sent to the 
Cuban people.
  So, this is exactly the wrong time to start these conversations and 
starting them would be in direct contradiction to the White House's own 
statements, as recently as April 17, that put the burden where it 
should be, on the Castro regime.
  After 50 years of brutality, we need actions, not words, on the part 
of the Castro regime. Mere words won't erase the lack of dignity that 
Antunez is protesting with a hunger strike. Words won't stop people 
like Oscar Elias Biscet, a renowned doctor, from being thrown into 
prison for refusing to give women a drug that caused abortions.
  And words won't finally allow Oswaldo Paya to see the free elections 
he's worked for and marched for and gone to jail for.
  Last week I heard one of my distinguished colleagues speak about 
human rights abuses in China. I think the Senator was absolutely right 
to highlight those abuses. And I think we should be no less concerned 
with prison camps in China than prison camps in Cuba, no less concerned 
with Tiananmen Square than with the Primavera Negra crackdown, no less 
appalled at a child laborer in Beijing than in Havana.
  And by now we should be convinced that economic interaction in the 
face of an authoritarian government will not end Cuba's human rights 
abuses, just as it has not ended abuses in China.
  Another of my distinguished colleagues has pointed out the peaceful 
revolutions that ended communism in Eastern Europe, including in his 
ancestors' homeland of Lithuania. I share the Senator's deep respect 
for those revolutions. And I think it is worth pointing out that when 
they took place, there was international support and recognition not 
primarily for the businesses who wanted to open those countries up for 
financial gain, but for the democracy activists within those countries 
who risked their lives to bring change.
  There is simply no excuse for the Cuban regime's behavior. Forgiving 
it and forgetting it is not the answer.
  If we want to change the way we conduct our policy, there are many 
things we can do to isolate and weaken the Castro regime, and hasten 
the day when the Cuban people can be free.
  Let's have the U.S. offer more visitor and student visas for eligible 
Cubans to come to the U.S., to see and live our way of life. Having 
Americans travel to Cuba could never be as powerful as having Cuban 
youth see the greatness of our country, and its pluralistic, diverse, 
representative democracy. That taste of freedom would be infectious.
  In return we simply seek a commitment from Cuba to accept their 
citizens' return, and to guarantee the issuance of exit permits for all 
qualified migrants.
  Cuba is one of the few countries in the world that will not permit 
its citizens to travel even when they have a legitimate visa to do so. 
And, when they give them license to leave, they must pay to do so. I 
find it ironic that when people mention the U.S. embargo, they fail to 
mention the Castros' blockade on their own people, a blockade that 
keeps Cubans not only from leaving Cuba, but from moving freely within 
their own country.
  If we want to facilitate the sales of food to Cuba, let us insist 
that they be sold in open markets, available to all Cubans, without it 
being part of Castro's food rationing plan, a plan meant to further 
control the Cuban people.
  In exchange for cooperation with Cuba on narcotics trafficking, let 
them hand over the 200 fugitives the FBI knows are in Cuba, including 
JoAnne Chesimard, the convicted killer of New Jersey State Trooper 
Werner Foerster.
  And in exchange for freeing commerce, let the Castros free the 
political prisoners they hold and allow them to speak freely, organize 
freely, elect their own leadership and freely practice their religion 
on Cuban soil. I hope we are not so blinded by the color of money that 
we forget how important it is for the Castros to close their dungeons 
and let the light of freedom shine down on everyone who calls the 
island home.
  President Obama, who saw repression in Indonesia when he was a child, 
promised us this: He said:

       My policy toward Cuba will be guided by one word: Libertad. 
     And the road to freedom for all Cubans must begin with 
     justice for Cuba's political prisoners, the rights of free 
     speech, a free press and freedom of assembly; and it must 
     lead to elections that are free and fair.

  For 50 years, the regime has been a social, economic and moral 
failure. It has succeeded merely at staying in power. Today, after the 
regime has offered few new words and fewer new actions, we can choose 
to change how we feel about the regime, or we can try to change the way 
it operates. That is our choice.
  We can choose amnesia or we can choose justice. We can choose strong 
words or we can choose strong actions. We can choose giving in to the 
commercial interests of a few, or we can choose holding on to the moral 
interests that unite us all.
  That is what I hope we will do. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Menendez). The Senator from New York.

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