[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 116 (Monday, July 18, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





  THE CASTRO REGIME'S ONGOING VIOLATIONS OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 18, 2016

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, it has been one year and eight 
months since President Obama announced a major change in our country's 
policy towards Cuba.
   It has been eleven months since Secretary Kerry visited Havana and 
reopened our embassy.
   And it has been nearly four months since our President visited Cuba.
   Clearly, a lot has changed in just over a year and a half.
   But for the people of Cuba, what has changed?
   At a hearing I convened last week, we examined the sorry state of 
civil and political rights in the Castro brothers' Cuba, and how, 
despite all the promises by this administration that an opening to Cuba 
will lead to a greater opening domestically for the Cuban people we 
still see political repression--including, it must be noted, repression 
directed at the Afro-Cuban population.
   This is not the first time this subcommittee has expressed concern 
about the lack of openness to democracy and dissent in Cuba. In fact, 
one of our witnesses, the courageous Dr. Oscar Biscet, offered dramatic 
testimony before this subcommittee in February of 2012, when he 
testified via telephone from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana after 
evading the Cuban police to get there.
   Likewise, on February 5, 2015 we held a hearing entitled ``Human 
Rights in Cuba: An opportunity squandered,'' wherein we asked whether 
the Obama administration had used the considerable leverage that it 
wields to seek to better the condition of the Cuban people, or whether 
it was squandering the opportunity.
   Since then, our fear that the administration has not been pushing 
sufficiently for the release of political prisoners and other human 
rights concerns has only grown, with the focus on Obama's ``legacy'' 
instead of the Cuban people.
   For example, when President Obama made his visit to Cuba, he and 
Raul Castro appeared in a photo op press conference. CNN's Jim Acosta, 
much to his credit, asked the hard question about Cuba's political 
prisoners.
   Raul Castro, much to his discredit, denied that there were ANY 
political prisoners in Cuba. ``Give me a list of the political 
prisoners and I will release them immediately,'' Castro taunted. ``Just 
mention the list.''
   And President Obama just stood there.
   Well, Mr. President, I have a list, of more than fifty political 
prisoners compiled by my good friend and colleague Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
   This is a list that President Obama should have had in breast 
pocket, ready to pull out when Raul Castro dared him to call his bluff.
   When I came to Congress in 1981, with Ronald Reagan, in the days of 
the old Soviet Union, one of the first issues I worked on was the 
plight of Soviet Jews and refusniks who were either imprisoned or not 
allowed to leave the Soviet Union. I recall George Shultz, when he was 
Secretary of State, saying that whenever he met with his Soviet 
counterpart, and from him down to the lowest State Department officer, 
he would bring with him a list of imprisoned dissidents and human 
rights advocates. Front and center of any discussion, whether about 
nuclear arms or tensions in the Middle East, Secretary Shultz would 
bring up dissidents, naming them by name. It was this constant focus on 
human rights that helped move the Soviet government to allow Jews and 
others to leave the Soviet Union, people such as the great Natan 
Sharansky.
   And I have another list of names, that of six members of the Cuban 
National Front of Civic Resistance who have applied for visas to come 
to the United States but for some reason, inexplicably, our State 
Department has refused to allow to visit the United States. These are:
   Orlando Gomez Echavarria
   Jose Alberto Alvarez Bravo
   Yaite Diasnell Cruz Sosa
   Yoel Bravo Lopez
   Lazaro Ricardo Fiallo Lopez
   Ciro Aleixis Casanova Perez
   I call upon Secretary Kerry to allow these brave people entry to the 
United States, so that they can meet with me and my colleagues and 
enlighten us further as to the current state of affairs in Cuba.
   Finally, I note that the administration has failed to secure the 
release of fugitives from justice such as Joanne Chesimard, who is on 
the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list, convicted of killing New Jersey 
State Trooper Werner Foerster. The administration must insist upon the 
unconditional return of Chesimard and all other fugitives from justice, 
as well as demand that the Castro regime respect the civil and 
political rights of the Cuban people, before making any further 
concessions.
   And to underscore the point, unconditional means unconditional--
there should be no ``swap'' whereby we exchange convicted Cuban spies 
Ana Montes or Kendall Meyers for these fugitives as a concession to the 
Castro regime. The effect of that would be to trade Americans who have 
committed crimes in the United States for other Americans who have 
committed crimes in the United States, demoralizing our intelligence 
community further in the process.
   With that, I want to turn to our witnesses, noting as I do that last 
week, on July 13, it was the anniversary of the tugboat massacre of 
1994, when 37 victims, including 11 children, were killed by the 
regime. How little has changed for the Cuban people.

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