[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 195 (Saturday, December 17, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8766-S8767]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMPACTS TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Mr. RUBIO. It is a pleasure to be here. This will be my last speech
of the year. As I said yesterday in another speech, it has been an
extraordinary honor and privilege to serve in the Senate. I look
forward to the next 5 years of doing that, God willing. It is a
phenomenal institution and I am proud to be a part of it, even though
some days make you scratch your head.
I am here on two things before we close out the year. I have a
specific interest on items that impact the Western Hemisphere.
I wish to take this opportunity to say that one of the real treats of
the last year is being able to work with Senator Menendez on the
Western Hemispheric Committee. We share a lot of views in common, and
even on the ones we don't we have a very cooperative working
relationship. It has been a great experience working with him on that,
and I look forward to more of that next year on that committee and with
everyone on Foreign Relations.
I know there are a lot of big domestic issues happening, but the
things around the world matter. They matter a lot to us. I know when
times are tough economically, sometimes we wonder: Why should we care
what is happening halfway around the world?
We are not Luxembourg, with all due respect to Luxembourg. We are the
United States of America. What that means is that virtually every
aspect of our life is directly impacted by things that are happening
sometimes halfway around the world.
One of the things that is always in our interest is the promotion of
freedom and democracy. It is one of the things that sets us apart from
other nations. Our greatest export is the American example, the fact
that people look to this country and see it is possible for people to
have self-government.
I know self-government and this Republic sometimes look messy from
the outside looking in. As I tell people often, if you saw the way some
of your food is made, you wouldn't eat it. I think sometimes when you
look at the political process and the lights that shine on it, there
are some things about it and the process that I don't like and you
don't like. But it is still better than virtually any other form of
government that has ever existed on the Earth. We are all privileged
and blessed to be able to live in this Republic. Any time we have the
opportunity to speak out on behalf of democracy and freedom, we should.
I had, this week, the opportunity to engage on that issue, and I wish
to publicly acknowledge the work of Under Secretary Sherman, who has
spent a lot of time talking to me this week about Nicaragua and about
elections in Nicaragua that were, in my opinion, fraudulent and
unfortunate because the rest of the hemisphere is moving toward
democracy, the rest of the hemisphere is moving toward free and fair
elections. In Latin America, sometimes people whom we don't agree with
win elections, people who don't like us, who believe the national
interests of their country are contrary to ours. But the people chose
them.
Unfortunately, what happened in Nicaragua is grotesque. This person
Daniel Ortega, who was a Sandinista, who was once a dictator of that
country, basically has ignored the Constitution and ran for office
again. There were extraordinary irregularities. The Carter Center, for
example, wasn't allowed to come in and observe it. The OAS has already
talked about real problems with that election and we hope to see their
report soon.
Let me publicly acknowledge the time and effort the Department of
State spent talking to me on the phone about ensuring that the United
States is a forceful voice on behalf of democracy and freedom in
Nicaragua and in the hemisphere. I appreciate their work on that
behalf, and I know we are looking forward to the OAS's report fairly
soon.
Senator Menendez and I have filed a resolution in this institution
that I hope we will pass that recognizes the need for this country to
stand firmly on the side of the Nicaraguan people on behalf of freedom
and democracy.
There is another topic I touched upon the other day; that is, the
people-to-people travel to Cuba. I kind of went through these
itineraries a couple days ago that show basically what these trips are
all about is nothing more than tourism--just tourism. It is just people
going to Cuba.
The reason why this is problematic is because it gives money to the
Castro government.
Today in the Miami Herald is a very disturbing article. The article
is from Juan Tamayo, who is a reporter who writes for the El Nuevo
Herald and Miami Herald:
Cuban dissidents have sent out photos and videos of a large
police crackdown in the eastern town of Palma Soriano that
left at least five government opponents with head wounds,
black eyes and other injuries.
One photo of the Dec. 2 roundup of 46 dissidents shows
Henry Perales with two wounds on his shaved head that
required nine stitches to close. Another shows AbrahanCQ
Cabrera with one stitch on his forehead.
"That wound bled a lot because it was on a blood vessel,
but it was a kick to the ribs on the right side that made me
fall to the ground. . . . It still hurts,'' Cabrera told El
Nuevo Herald by phone from Palma Soriano.
The images were sent to the newspaper by Luis Enrique
Ferrer Garcia, U.S. representative of the dissident Cuban
Patriotic Union. His brother, former political prisoner Jose
Daniel Ferrer Garcia, heads the Union and was one of the men
arrested in the Palma Soriano crackdown.
Union members and supporters took two weeks to smuggle out
the photos and the videos, via emails, because they had to
work slowly and carefully to avoid police agents who were
trying to find and seize the images, Luis Enrique said.
The Palma Soriano roundup was one of the largest and
harshest police crackdowns on dissidents in recent years. All
were freed hours or days later--one of them 12 days later--
without charges.
Forty-six men had gathered in a Palma Soriano house
starting on Nov. 30 with plans to stage a street protest two
days later to demand the release of all political prisoners
and respect for human rights.
Those sound like pretty reasonable requests to me, release of
political prisoners and respect of human rights. This is what they were
going to protest on behalf of.
Cell phone videos shot inside the house showed many of the
dissidents saying they wanted to show they were not U.S. paid
``mercenaries,'' as the government brands them, but rather
``defenders of human rights.''
The unidentified narrator of some of the videos referred to
the police already deployed outside ``and the repression that
awaits us.''
So these protesters knew what was about to happen. They have seen
this before. This is what happens in Cuba when you speak out in favor
of human rights and against political prisoners. You get your head
cracked open. These guys knew this was going to happen, but yet they
had the bravery to go forward with it.
Police indeed arrested the dissidents as they left the
house in groups of four and five, and a video taken from a
second-story balcony showed them punching some of the
protesters and forcing them onto a U.S.-styled
[[Page S8767]]
yellow school bus parked at the end of the block.
Cabrera said the bus driver, dressed in civilian clothes,
hit him as well as Perales and several other dissidents with
a wrench once inside the bus.
The bus driver hit them with a wrench once they got inside the bus.
Other photos show dissidents Misael Valdes Diaz and Alexis
Yanch OiCQ with black eyes and Emilio Dinza with a large bump
on his forehead. Other dissidents reported black and blues
from police strikes.
Angel Moya, a former political prisoner who was reported
beaten in a police station after his arrest in Palma Soriano
Dec. 2, said police punched him on the way from the house to
the school bus but not afterwards.
How nice of them not to punch him afterwards.
Moya said Friday that he spent 12 days in a police lockup,
in a cell that was smelly and had no water or lights and that
he shared with common criminals.
This is Cuba. I doubt this experience is something these tourists
traveling on U.S. licenses are going to get to see on their next visit
to Cuba.
The other day I talked about one of these visits that the United
States has licensed called Ethics and the Cuban Revolution. How
interesting--Ethics and the Cuban Revolution.
I wonder if part of that ethics course will be a part about schoolbus
drivers dressed as civilians hitting protesters with a wrench. I wonder
if that is part of their itinerary. I wonder if the part about cracking
people's heads open because they are going to peacefully protest in the
street is part of the itinerary in this Ethics and the Cuban
Revolution.
Why do I bring this up again? No. 1, it is outrageous. It should be
denounced, and this is a great forum to do it because the world needs
to know what happens 90 miles from our shores. It is one of the most
repressive regimes in the Western Hemisphere's history. It is still in
place. It is still ongoing. But here is No. 2. Where do they get the
money to pay these people? Don't you think those guys are getting paid,
the civilian busdriver is getting paid to hit people with a wrench or
do you think he is doing it for free? How are they paying these police
officers? How do you get people to do this stuff? You have to pay them.
Where do they get their money to pay them?
Their government is a fiasco. They don't know anything about the
economy. Do you want to know why the Cuban economy is in the tank? It
is because the people who run Cuba are incompetent. They have no idea
about what a modern economy looks like or how to create one, apart from
the fact that they cling to a broken ideology.
So where do they get the money to pay for all these things? Sadly,
where they are getting a lot of the money to pay for these things is
from us. It is from people who live in this country who are curious
about what happens in Cuba, who are curious--and some who outright
sympathize with this idea that somehow Cuba is this socialist
paradise--and they travel there and they leave money there. All these
trips, Cuba gets a huge take, and they use it to fund this repressive
apparatus.
As I said the other day, I understand and I don't have any false
illusions that the President is going to change his travel policy
toward Cuba or this people-to-people program. But at least make sure
these programs are furthering what you say you are trying to further,
which is bringing freedom and democracy to Cuba, instead of being a
source of hard currency and hard revenue.
A few days ago, I denounced two specific itineraries. I didn't
denounce 5 or 10; I pointed out 2 of the most outrageous ones on this
floor in a speech I gave. Then I sent that to the State Department and
said: Would you look at this for me? They responded that they would.
They told me they would send me a letter. In fact, in conversations I
had, they gave me great hope that in fact they too were troubled by
these itineraries and that they would start to look at these more
seriously.
Sadly, as a result of what they told me--because one of the things
that has been going on around here is I had placed a hold on two
nominations in the Western Hemisphere as a result of their inaction on
this issue.
After I spoke to them on the phone, I was hopeful about it and I
lifted those holds. We were going to vote on those today. Then I got
this letter today that, to summarize, basically says: Thank you for
your letter, but we can't talk to you about it.
That is not what I expected to get, and so we are going to hold those
nominations again until we take this seriously.
This is a problem. This is a problem. We have these companies in
America that are advertising tourism to Cuba--tourism that is not just
a source of irritation, it is a source of hard currency. It is the
money this regime is using to crack people's heads, to pay so-called
busdrivers to beat people with wrenches. It is the money they are using
to stick people in jails with common criminals, with no access to food
or water for 12 days, without charges. We are funding a repressive
regime through these practices, and it has to stop. Someone better take
this seriously. When they take this seriously, then we can talk.
I hope where we are headed here in the coming year is that we will
stand not just on the side of the Cuban people's desire for freedom and
democracy--no political prisoners, respect for human rights--but stand
for that in the hemisphere and the world, because our voice still
matters, and I hope this country will always stand firm on those
issues.
Before I left today, I wanted to stand on the floor and talk about
this because it is something very important to me and should be
important to our country. I hope in the coming year we will have the
opportunity in our Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and in this
body and in our conversations with the White House and State Department
to bring these programs into focus. This people-to-people program is a
sham. Maybe they are very well intentioned but some of these trips are
nothing more than tourism that plows millions of dollars into the hands
of one of the most disgusting and grotesque, repressive apparatuses
this hemisphere has ever seen, and it has to stop. Someone has to start
cracking down on these people, someone has to start cracking down on
these agencies, someone has to start cracking down on these trips, and
make sure they do what they are intended to do, and that is real access
to the ways of freedom, to the ways of opportunity, to opening the eyes
of the Cuban people to the fact that the rest of the world does not
live under what they live under--even though most of the Cuban people
already know that.
It is time we start holding these people accountable. If they are
filing these licenses under false pretenses, they need to be
prosecuted, their licenses need to be suspended. They have to be barred
from having these trips. We have to have people actively monitoring
these itineraries that are being sold. We need to match their
applications for these licenses, and we need to stop approving licenses
for these tourist trips.
I hope we will make progress on that in 2012 and I hope that is what
we will focus on in the year to come.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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