[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27106]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 27106]]

      ``CUBA PROGRAM,'' TORTURING OF AMERICAN POWs BY CUBAN AGENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, the Geneva Convention prohibits 
violence to life and person, in particular murders of all kinds,
mutilation, cruel treatment and torture and outrages upon personal
dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. That is
an exact quote.

  However, all of those barbaric acts are exactly what took place in
a prison camp in North Vietnam known as the Zoo, seen here in a 
declassified photo. North Vietnamese POW prison called the Zoo, site
of tortures of American POWs by Castro agent. During this period of
August 1967 to August 1968, 19 of our courageous servicemen were
physically and psychologically tortured by Cuban agents working under
orders from Hanoi and Havana.
  Assessed to be a psychological experiment to test interrogation 
methods, the Cuba Program, as the torture project was labeled by our 
Defense Department and intelligence agencies, was aimed at obtaining 
absolute compliance and submission to captor demands. It was aimed at 
converting or turning the POWs and to be used as propaganda by the 
international Communist effort. It was inhumane. It was incessant. It 
was barbaric.
  Air Force Major James Kasler, who is pictured here in one of the 
posters, 19 of the U.S. POWs in the Cuban program, Major Kasler said 
that during one period in June 1968 he was tortured incessantly by a 
man known as Fernando Vecino Alegret who had been identified as Fidel, 
the Cuban agent in charge of this exercise in brutality. In a Time 
magazine report entitled ``At Last the Story Can Be Told,'' after one 
beating, Kasler's buttocks, lower back and legs hung in shreds. The 
skin had been entirely whipped away and the area was a bluish, 
purplish, greenish mass of bloody raw meat. The person he has 
identified as the possible torturer is this man who is the current 
Minister of Education in Cuba. He could be one of the agents
identified by our POWs as Fidel.
  Colonel Jack Bomar, another victim of the Cuba Program, pictured
here, has described the beating of a fellow prisoner and Readers
Digest printed this eyewitness account for an article they wrote on
POWs. It says, The sight of the prisoner stunned Bomar. He stood
transfixed trying to make himself believe that human beings could
batter one another. The man could barely walk. He was bleeding
everywhere. His body was ripped and torn. Fidel, Fernando Vecino
Alegret perhaps, smashed a fist into the man's face, driving him against
the wall. Then he was brought to the center of the room and made to go
down on his knees. Screaming in rage, Fidel took a length of rubber
hose from a guard and lashed it as hard as he could into the man's
face. The prisoner did not react. He did not cry out or even blink an
eye. Again and again a dozen times Fidel smashed the man's face with
the hose. He was never released.
  This man who stood firm in the face of such brutality, who would not 
surrender himself to the wishes of his torturer was Air Force pilot 
Earl Cobeil. Earl Cobeil died in captivity, and he is pictured here.
 As a result of being tortured by a Castro agent, Earl passed away.
  These accounts are but a microcosm of the terrible acts committed 
against American POWs in Vietnam by Castro agents, acts which are in 
direct violation of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war. To 
violate the provisions enshrined in this document run against the grain 
of civilized society and undermine the integrity of the international 
community as a whole. Humanity is one. When one suffers, we all suffer. 
Thus, violations of this protocol are not just crimes against one 
individual but against all of humanity.
  The Cuba Program was part of a difficult period in our Nation's 
history, one which many would like to forget. However, we cannot allow 
the suffering of those brave soldiers to have been in vain. Thus, the 
unconscionable acts which they were subjected to cannot and must not go 
unnoticed and they must not go unpunished.
  Substantiated by declassified DOD and CIA documents, survivors have 
been eager to identify and trace the Cuban agents who systematically 
interrogated them and tortured their fellow Americans. Yet despite 
their best efforts, a successful resolution of this matter has still 
not been achieved.
  For them and to ensure that the facts about the program are fully 
uncovered, the Committee on International Relations will be holding a 
hearing on this issue next week. We thank the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Gilman) for his leadership in order to get leads that could get us 
closer to identification of the Cuban torturers and have the Department 
of Defense continue their investigation into this new evidence. We hope 
that this hearing will serve to honor all of those POWs who sacrificed 
themselves for us.

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