[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 21763]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                  DRUG INTERDICTION OR DRUG SMUGGLING?

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 15, 1999

  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend to you the 
attached article from earlier this summer written by Mr. Frank Calzon, 
entitled ``Behind Castro: Money laundering, drug smuggling.'' Mr. 
Calzon is the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba in 
Washington, D.C. and is a tireless fighter for democratic causes. I 
encourage my colleagues to learn from his insightful article.

            Behind Castro: Money Laundering, Drug Smuggling

       State Department and Coast Guard officials last week flew 
     to Havana seeking ``to improve U.S.-Cuban cooperation on drug 
     interdiction.''
       If the Clinton administration would look to history, it 
     would have known that it was a vain mission and would set 
     about probing instead the relationship between Colombia's 
     drug trade and the guerrilla movements over which Fidel 
     Castro exercises inordinate influence.
       Havana complains that it lacks resources to combat drug 
     trafficking. But, even if one accepts this at face value, it 
     is unclear how the United States should respond. Should we 
     provide resources to the Cuban Ministry of the Interior--
     Havana's KGB-Gestapo? Do it while holding in federal custody 
     Cuban spies charged with gathering information about military 
     bases in Florida and linked to the shootdown of the Brothers 
     to the Rescue pilots?
       Havana has managed to purchase state-of-the-art radio-
     jamming equipment and foot the bill for thousands of 
     foreigners to visit the island and condemn the U.S. embargo. 
     Could it be that inadequate funding for drug interdiction is 
     simply the result of Castro's misguided priorities?
       In 1982 a federal grand jury indicted four high-ranking 
     Cuba government officials, including a vice admiral of the 
     Cuban navy and a former Cuban ambassador to Colombia. They 
     were charged with facilitating the smuggling of drugs into 
     the United States.
       In 1983 then-President Ronald Reagan said that there was 
     ``strong evidence'' of drug smuggling by high-level Cuban 
     government officials. And in 1989 Castro executed several 
     Ministry of the Interior officials and Cuba's most decorated 
     army officer, Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, allegedly involved in the 
     drug trade. Castro did so after years of suggesting that U.S. 
     accusations of drug smuggling were lies ``concocted by the 
     CIA.'' He has never explained how widespread Cuba's 
     involvement with narcotrafficking was then or how a military 
     and national hero such as Ochoa, with no oversight over 
     Cuba's harbors or airspace, could have been involved.
       Then there is the mystery of how several hundred million 
     dollars appeared in the coffers of Cuba's National Bank. 
     Castro's American supporters assert that $800 million is sent 
     by the Cuban-American community every year to relatives. 
     However, given the relatively small number of Cuban-
     American households who still have relatives in Cuba, it 
     is mathematically impossible for that community to 
     generate such funds. The amount is approximately 
     equivalent to the income Cubs derived in 1997-98 from its 
     main export: sugar. Money laundering and drug smuggling 
     are the logical sources of this mysterious income.
       It should be noted that, despite major narcotics charges 
     brought against Ochoa and the other Interior Ministry 
     officers, no accounting was ever presented of what should 
     have been multimillion-dollar payoffs.
       Claims of Castro's cooperation with U.S. anti-narcotics 
     efforts are a rerun of the Noriega saga. Panamanian strongman 
     Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega currently is serving a long, 
     federal sentence for his role in the drug trade. He had 
     extensive ties to the Cuban dictator. Evidence was presented 
     at his trial that Castro once mediated a dispute between 
     Noriega and the Medellin drug cartel.
       Nevertheless, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the Clinton 
     administration's drug czar, recently said that there is ``no 
     conclusive evidence to indicate that the Cuban leadership is 
     currently involved in this criminal activity.'' The general 
     seems to be unaware of a report released by his own office in 
     March, titled ``1998 Annual Assessment of Cocaine Movement.'' 
     It states: ``Noncommercial air movements from Colombia to the 
     Bahamas were most prolific in 1998. Most flights fly either 
     east or west of Jamaica, and subsequently fly over Cuban land 
     mass.'' It adds that the cocaine flown over Cuban territory 
     is dropped ``in or near Cuban territorial waters.''
       Given Castro's sensitivity concerning unidentified aircraft 
     flying over Cuba, as evidenced by the Brothers to the Rescue 
     shootdown, it is inexplicable that not one drug-smuggling 
     airplane has ever been shot down over the island.
       There are those who believe that the Cuban leopard has 
     changed his spots. Maybe. But the consequences of taking 
     Castro at his word can be tragic. The impact of the drug 
     epidemic on America's youth is far too important to allow the 
     facts linking Castro to the drug trade to be swept under the 
     rug.

     

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