[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 9 (Tuesday, January 20, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S251]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                                  CUBA

  Mr. DURBIN. On a separate topic, late last night I returned from 
Havana, Cuba, with Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Stabenow, Senator 
Whitehouse, Congressman Van Hollen, and Congressman Welch of Vermont. 
It was a whirlwind trip.
  In a matter of 2 days we had a number of visits with a variety of 
different people in Havana. They included government officials. Bruno 
Rodriguez, who is the Foreign Minister of the Cuban Government; we had 
a lengthy meeting with him yesterday.
  We had a meeting with about 10 different Ambassadors to Cuba from 
foreign countries. We met as well with a dozen reformers or dissidents, 
opponents of the current Castro regime in Cuba, and had individual 
meetings with ministries. This was a productive and important 
delegation trip, important because starting tomorrow we are going to 
have face-to-face negotiations in Havana between the United States and 
Cuba pursuant to President Obama's December 17 announcement. We are 
setting out to change the foreign policy of the United States as it 
regards Cuba. It is time for change.
  For over 50 years we have been committed to a policy of exclusion, 
believing if we had embargoes and blockades we could force internal 
change in Cuba. The policy failed. The Castro brothers still reign, and 
life in Cuba is not what we want to see.
  What the President has said is let's engage them at a different 
level, a constructive level where we try to find ways to open the Cuban 
economy and Cuban society. That, to me, is the best course. It isn't 
just a theory that is the best course, it has been proven.
  When the Soviet Empire came to an end, what happened to the Warsaw 
Pact nations allied with the Soviet Union? They opened their doors to 
the West, they saw what they could anticipate to be part of their life 
in the future, and they made the conscious choice to move toward 
democracy, to move toward a free market economy. I think the same can 
happen in Cuba.
  One young man came to speak to us. He had gotten in trouble because 
he challenged the Cuban Government. They put him back on a pig farm to 
work, but he was still determined to aspire to a better place in Cuba 
in the future. He said to us: What President Obama's announcement has 
done is to pull the blanket off the caged bird in Cuba. Those of us who 
live in Cuba are still in the cage of communism, but we can see out now 
about opportunities and a future. That, I believe, is part of what the 
President's new policy is all about.
  When we were discussing our current blockade with Cuba with their 
leadership, we learned that powdered milk comes to Cuban citizens from 
New Zealand--halfway around the world--when there is an ample supply in 
the United States. What we are trying to do is to not only open the 
Cuban economy to powdered milk but to the power of ideas, the exchange 
of values, the belief that if the Cuban people see a better model for 
their future, they will gravitate toward that model.
  This negotiation which opens this week is the beginning of this 
conversation. The President is moving in areas of trade and travel, as 
we hope he will do, to expand these opportunities, but we have to do 
our part in Congress. As contentious and spirited as the debate may be 
about changing our policy in Cuba, it wasn't that long ago that we 
stood on the floor of the Senate and considered establishing diplomatic 
relations with Vietnam. There were some with fresh memories of all we 
had lost, over 40,000 American lives in Vietnam, who said we shouldn't 
have a normal relationship with what is a repressive regime in a 
country we just concluded a war with. Others with cooler minds 
prevailed, and we established diplomatic relations and I think to the 
betterment of both nations.
  Let us move forward, not forsaking our principles, not turning our 
back on our belief that the Cuban society should be more open, fair, 
and legitimized by the voters at the polls but believing we can work 
with this country as we have with others around the world, even when we 
disagree with their form of government and their practices, to try to 
strive to reach that democratic ideal.

                          ____________________