[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 21250-21252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     OPPOSITION TO CUBA PROVISIONS

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I express my strong opposition and 
disappointment with the outcome of last night's Agriculture 
appropriations conference report with respect to U.S.-Cuba policy. It 
is rather ironic that those who rail against Fidel Castro's dictatorial 
behavior seem to have adopted some of his tendencies; namely, a 
willingness to abuse the democratic process and go against the will of 
the majority in the Congress.
  The proposed changes in the bill with respect to the sale of food to 
Cuba are modest at best since these exports can only be financed using 
third-country private commercial credit or cash. Such restrictive 
financing terms are a major hurdle for American exporters to overcome 
and are likely to significantly discourage any significant increases in 
such exports.
  With respect to the codification of existing travel restrictions on 
Americans wishing to travel to Cuba, I think this action is shameful 
and irresponsible. I predict the authors of this provision will live to 
regret deeply having taken away this and future administrations' 
discretion to grant licenses on a case-by-case basis in circumstances 
that do not fall into the now codified categories of permissible 
travel.
  I also believe that Cuban Americans who want to keep in touch with 
their family members in Cuba are going to be extremely critical of the 
fact that their ability to visit loved ones is now frozen in statute.
  I say to the authors of this provision that they are only kidding 
themselves if they think this is going to stop Cuban Americans who are 
determined to visit their family members in Cuba several times a year 
from doing so. Sadly, they are going to encourage otherwise law-abiding 
individuals to break the law. I think that is regrettable.
  I am supportive of other provisions of this legislation which will 
dramatically loosen the licensing and financing restrictions on sales 
of food and medicine to other countries that have been designated as 
terrorist states--North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and Libya. I strongly 
believe food and medicine should not be used as a sanctions tool, since 
the impact of denying such sales falls most heavily on innocent men, 
women, and children in these countries.
  This is not to confuse our sincere and deep objections and strong 
opposition to the Governments of North Korea, Iran, Sudan, and Libya. 
But, it is not an American tradition to take food and medicine and make 
them a sanctions tool on a unilateral basis. We have understood in the 
past that you do not blame the innocent civilians of populations for 
the cruel regimes of their dictators and rulers. It is not in the 
American spirit to say to an innocent child--in any one of these 
countries--that if we are able to get food and medicine to you, you 
ought to be denied it as a tool of U.S. foreign policy.
  I find it appalling that Cuba has been singled out, because in this 
bill we now say food and medicine can go to North Korea, Iran, Sudan, 
and Libya, but not to a little country of 11 million people 90 miles 
off our shore. I think that is regrettable. Cuba has been singled out 
for even more restrictive treatment than countries that are far more of 
a potential threat to United States foreign policy and national 
security interests than Cuba has ever been.
  I am sure the average American is extremely puzzled by the decision 
just taken by the Agriculture appropriations conferees. I do not blame 
them for being confused, to put it mildly, and puzzled. Didn't the 
House and Senate go on record in support of less restrictive conditions 
on the sale of food and medicine to Cuba? Seventy Senators--70--voted 
to lift restrictions on the sale of such items; 301 Members out of the 
435 Members of the House did so as well. And, 232 Members of the House 
also are on record in favor of lifting all travel restrictions to Cuba.

[[Page 21251]]

  Yet despite these overwhelming votes by both Chambers--majorities, 
bipartisan majorities--the advocates of ``tightening the screws,'' as 
they like to say, on Castro are always quick to say they hold no ill 
will against the Cuban people. Yet I somehow suspect that the residents 
of Havana or Santiago, Cuba, will not be applauding our recent actions 
in Washington.
  But that isn't what last night's conference decision was about, in 
any event. Very little we do in Washington with respect to Cuba has 
anything to do with winning the hearts and minds of the Cuban people. 
Rather, it is about attempting to win the hearts and votes of the 
residents of some sections of the country--hardly a wise and moral way, 
in my view, to make foreign policy decisions.
  Earlier this year, Senator Leahy and I introduced legislation that 
would take United States policy in a different direction with respect 
to the island of Cuba. A companion bill was introduced in the House by 
Mark Sanford. The bill is entitled the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act of 
2000. It would have lifted the archaic, counterproductive, and ill-
conceived ban on Americans traveling to Cuba.
  We offered this legislation because we believe the existing 
restrictions on travel hinder rather than help our efforts to spread 
democracy as well as unnecessarily abridge the rights of ordinary 
Americans. We were taught in civics class that the United States was 
founded on the principles of liberty and freedom. Yet when it comes to 
Cuba, our Government abridges these rights with no greater rationale 
than political and rhetorical gain.
  It is one thing if Castro does not want to let an American citizen 
in. I understand that. He is a dictator. What I do not understand is a 
democratic government saying to its own people you can't go somewhere. 
Cuba lies just 90 miles from America's shore. Yet those 90 miles of 
water might as well be on a different planet. We have made a land ripe 
for American influence a forbidden territory. In doing so, we have 
enabled the Cuban regime to be a closed system with the Cuban people 
having little contact with their closest neighbors on this Earth.
  I note that in a few weeks the President of the United States is 
going to travel to Vietnam, a Communist government. There are 58,000 
names on a wall just a few blocks from here of Americans who died in 
that conflict. Yet we have found it possible to rebuild diplomatic 
relations, economic relations, and even an America President will 
travel to a nation that only a few years ago we were in hostile 
conflict with and has a government with a political philosophy of which 
today we fundamentally disagree. Yet 90 miles off our shore there is a 
country to which you cannot even go to try to make a difference, and 
enlighten people about what democracy means.
  Surely we do not ban travel to Cuba out of concern for the safety of 
Americans who might visit the island nation. Today Americans are free 
to travel to Iran, to Sudan, to Burma, to Yugoslavia, and to North 
Korea--but not to Cuba. Is there anyone who would come to this Chamber 
and suggest to me it is less dangerous to be in Sudan or Burma or 
Yugoslavia than the island nation that is 90 miles off our shore? I 
doubt it.
  You can fly to Iran. They held hostages, we all recall, back in the 
1979-1980 period, yet I can go to Iran today. I can fly there, if I 
want, without restriction. But I cannot go 90 miles off our shore to 
the island of Cuba. What an inconsistency.
  If the Cubans want to stop Americans, as I said, from visiting their 
country, then that is their business. I disagree with it, but I would 
not be surprised that under a dictatorship they might pass such laws or 
prohibit such travel. But to say to an American citizen that you can 
travel to Iran, where they held American hostages for months on end, to 
North Korea, which has declared us to be an enemy of theirs completely, 
but you cannot travel 90 miles off the shore of this Nation to the 
island of Cuba is more than just a mistake, in my view.
  To this day, some Iranian politicians believe the United States to be 
``the Great Satan.'' That is what they like to call us. We hear it all 
the time. Just two decades ago, Iran occupied our Embassy and took 
innocent American diplomats hostage. To this day, protesters in Tehran 
burn the American flag with the encouragement of some officials in 
their Government. Those few Americans who venture into such 
inhospitable surroundings often find themselves pelted by rocks and 
accosted by the public.
  Similarly, we do not ban travel to the Sudan, a nation we attacked 
with cruise missiles several years ago for its support of terrorism; to 
Burma, a nation with one of the most oppressive regimes in the world 
today; to North Korea, whose soldiers have peered at American 
servicemen through gun sights for decades; or Syria, which has one of 
the most egregious human rights records and is one of the foremost 
sponsors of terrorism.
  I fail to see how isolating the Cuban people from democratic values 
and ideals will foster the transition to democracy in that country. I 
fail to see how isolating the Cuban people from democratic values and 
from the influence of Americans when they go to that country to help 
bring about change we all seek serves our own interest.
  The Cuban people are not currently permitted the freedom to travel 
enjoyed by many peoples around the world. However, because Fidel Castro 
does not permit Cubans to leave Cuba and come to this country is no 
justification for adopting a similar principle in this country--a great 
democracy.
  We need to treasure and respect the fundamental rights we embrace as 
Americans. Travel is one of them. If other countries want to prohibit 
us from going there, that is their business. But for us to say that 
citizens of Connecticut or Alabama cannot go where they would like to 
go is not the kind of restraint we ought to put on our own people.
  Today, every single country in the western hemisphere is a democracy, 
with one exception: Cuba. American influence, through person-to-person 
and cultural exchanges, was one of the prime factors in this evolution 
from a hemisphere ruled predominantly by authoritarian and military 
regimes to one where democracy is the rule.
  Our current policy toward Cuba limits these exchanges and prevents 
the United States from using our most potent weapon, in my view, in our 
effort to combat totalitarianism, and that is our own people--our own 
people. They are some of the best ambassadors we have ever sent 
anywhere. They are the best ambassadors to have.
  Most totalitarian regimes bar Americans from coming into their 
countries for that very reason. These countries are afraid of the 
gospel of freedom that might motivate their citizens to overthrow 
dictators, as they have done in dozens of nations over the last half 
century. Isn't it ironic that when it comes to Cuba, we do the 
dictator's bidding for him in a sense? Cuba does not have to worry 
about America spreading democracy. Our own Government stops us from 
doing so.
  There is no better way, in my view, to communicate America's values, 
our ideals, than by unleashing the average American men and women to 
demonstrate, by daily living, what our great country stands for, and 
the contrasts between what we stand for and what exists in Cuba today.
  I do not believe there was ever a sensible rationale for restricting 
Americans' right to travel to Cuba. With the collapse of the Soviet 
Union and an end to the cold war, I do not think any excuse remains 
today to ban this kind of travel. This argument that dollars and 
tourism will be used to prop up the regime is specious. The regime 
seems to have survived 38 years despite the draconian U.S. embargo 
during that entire period. The notion that allowing Americans to spend 
a few dollars in Cuba is somehow going to give major aid and comfort to 
the Cuban regime is without basis, in my view.
  Political rhetoric is not sufficient reason to abridge the freedoms 
of American citizens. Nor is it sufficient reason to stand by a law 
which counteracts one of the basic premises of

[[Page 21252]]

American foreign policy; namely, the spread of democracy. The time has 
come to allow Americans--average Americans--to travel freely to Cuba 
not make it even more difficult to do so.
  Mr. President, a small number of individuals in the Congress may have 
temporarily succeeded in hijacking the democratic process with respect 
to this issue and in thwarting the will of the majority with respect to 
loosening U.S. restrictions on travel and sales of food and medicine to 
Cuba. But let me assure you that this issue is not settled. Those of us 
who want to see meaningful change in our Cuba policy will be back next 
year raising this matter on the floors of the House and Senate. And I 
predict that when the democratic process is allowed to work, the 
results of last night's conference will be decisively reversed and U.S. 
policy toward Cuba will be finally put on the right track and the 
prospects of a peaceful democratic transition in that country greatly 
enhanced, and the 11 million Cubans will know that the American people 
care about them despite their strong objections to the Government which 
runs that country today.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, it is my understanding that Mr. Domenici, 
and then Mr. McCain, have orders for recognition.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may briefly 
speak now, and that I may also be recognized following the speech by 
Mr. McCain and the speech by Mr. Domenici for not to exceed 45 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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