[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17961-17962]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             TRAVEL TO CUBA

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I just came from a conference about 30 
minutes ago dealing with the issue of travel; that is, the right of the 
American people to travel. We have the right to travel almost anywhere. 
I have been to China, a Communist country; Vietnam, a Communist 
country; I can go to Iran or North Korea.
  The American people have a right to travel almost anywhere in the 
world--except for Cuba. Why? Because with respect to Cuba, we have had 
a 40-year embargo, which not only embargoes trade between this country 
and Cuba but prohibits the American people from traveling in Cuba.
  We have an organization in the Department of Treasury called OFAC, 
Office of Financial Assets Control, I believe it is. OFAC is an agency 
that is supposed to be tracking terrorists at this point. Following 9/
11, we understand there are all kinds of terrorists and others who wish 
this country ill and are willing to murder Americans. We have the FBI, 
the CIA, and a whole range of interests trying to track terrorists. As 
I said, one part of that is a little organization inside the Treasury 
Department called OFAC.
  OFAC is supposed to look at all the money trails to track terrorists. 
But that is not all they do. OFAC, as I speak today, has folks in the 
Treasury Department tracking American citizens who are traveling in 
Cuba.
  I want to give an example of what they are doing. There is a woman 
named Joan Slote. She is a grandmother. She is also a world-class 
senior citizen cyclist. She was a medal winner at the 1993 senior 
olympics. She has bicycled through 21 different countries. She still 
bicycles 100 miles a week. She is in her seventies. This weekend, the 
Washington Post wrote a story about Joan Slote. She went with a group 
of Canadians to take a bicycling trip to Cuba. She believed it was 
legal for Americans to bicycle in Cuba. It was certainly legal for 
Canadians to do so. She openly told the U.S. Customs agents that she 
had been there.
  When she got home, she received from OFAC, this little agency in the 
Treasury Department, a notice that she was being fined $10,000. She did 
not respond to OFAC's missive because her son had a brain tumor and she 
was attending to her sick son, who later died. So OFAC said: Sorry, you 
are fined $10,000. You did not respond, so you know what we are going 
to do? We are going to start taking your Social Security payments.
  Here is a retired grandmother of six attending to her son who dies, 
who went bicycling in Cuba prior to that and now gets fined $10,000 and 
has the Treasury Department saying they are going to take this woman's 
Social Security payments.
  I do not understand it. I guess it is the Forrest Gump film, isn't 
it, that says: Stupid is as stupid does. Life is just a box of 
chocolates. I have no idea.
  What on earth can be happening at the Treasury Department that has 
people in OFAC, who are supposed to be tracking terrorists, tracking 
little old ladies, retired people bicycling in Cuba, and fining them 
$10,000. Or if it is not Joan Slote, perhaps it is a 77-year-old World 
War II veteran who fought for this country many years ago. He posted 
some information on a Web site he created about a licensed meeting of 
United States/Cuba Sister Cities Association in Havana. The OFAC 
organization down in the Treasury Department accused this 77-year-old 
World War II veteran of organizing, arranging, promoting, and otherwise 
facilitating the attendance of persons at the conference in Cuba 
without a license. The fact is, this guy did not even attend. He did 
not go to the conference. It was licensed by OFAC. He did not attend 
the conference, but he put something on his Web site that had to do 
with sister cities, and now OFAC is after him. So this 77-year-old 
World War II veteran has to hire a lawyer. Or perhaps it is the fellow 
from Washington State whose dad was a Cuban. His dad died, and he 
wanted his ashes spread on the soil in Cuba. So this young man took an 
urn with his father's ashes to Cuba. Guess what happened to him. We 
have these vigilant folks down at the Treasury Department--no, not 
tracking terrorists, not protecting this country--tracking a man who 
took the urn with his father's ashes to distribute them in Cuba.
  What on earth can they be thinking about? Yes, it is true, we have a 
law, and the law in this country says: Let's punish Fidel Castro by 
limiting the right of the American people to travel. Some of us think 
that is dumb--d-u-m-b dumb. It does not hurt Fidel Castro to say to the 
American people we are going to limit your travel opportunities. We 
have had debate after debate in this Chamber, and in every circumstance 
we have said the same thing: The way to resolve the issue with 
Communist China is to lead them to a better place on human rights. How 
do we lead them? Through engagement, trade, and travel. We encourage 
trade and travel with China, a Communist country.
  Vietnam: How do we engage Vietnam to lead them toward a better future 
with more rights for their citizens--more civil rights, more human 
rights? Through engagement, through travel, and trade, because we do 
that with Communist countries. Both political parties have said that is 
the right thing to do.
  For 40 years, our country has had an embargo with respect to the 
country of

[[Page 17962]]

Cuba. For 40 years, we have indicated that we will punish Fidel Castro 
by limiting the right of the American people to travel. Forty years of 
failed policy ought to be enough to convince us to change the law.
  I have no interest in Fidel Castro except that he limits the rights 
of the Cuban people. I went to Havana on an official trip. I demanded 
to see an economist named Martha who was imprisoned. I was refused the 
opportunity to do so.
  The fact is, human rights and civil rights in Cuba are not where they 
ought to be. The Cuban people are not free, but we will not, in my 
judgment, advance rights for the Cuban people by deciding to embrace a 
policy that has failed for 40 years. We will and should, it seems to 
me, encourage trade and travel with respect to Cuba because that is the 
quickest way to undermine Fidel Castro. The quickest way to undermine 
this regime is through trade and travel, just as we preach it will do 
in China, in Vietnam, and in other areas of the world.
  In addition to restricting travel, we have had this terribly ill-
considered ban on trade. It is, in my judgment, always immoral to use 
food as a weapon, and yet we have done that with Cuba. It is 
interesting; the law was changed briefly, and as result of the law 
change I helped engineer in the Senate, along with my former colleague 
who is now Attorney General, Senator Ashcroft--I offered with Senator 
Ashcroft, legislation that became law that opens just a bit the ability 
to ship food to Cuba so we can sell food to Cuba. Last year, for the 
first time in 42 years, 22 train carloads of dried peas left North 
Dakota's farms and elevators to be shipped to Cuba.
  Using food as a weapon, as we have done for four decades with Cuba, 
does not hurt Fidel Castro. Does anybody here think he has missed a 
meal in 42 years because we have an embargo on food shipments to Cuba? 
Does anybody think Fidel Castro misses breakfast, dinner, or lunch? 
Absolutely not.
  Using food as a weapon hurts sick people, poor people, and hungry 
people, and it is basically an immoral policy, in my judgment.
  The issue of trade and travel is important. It is not in any way 
supportive of Fidel Castro for us to say a 40-year embargo does not 
work and that the same strategy we use with respect to China and 
Vietnam does work, and that is engagement through trade and travel. It 
undermines the ground on which dictators sit. It undermines their 
capability to govern, and that is what we ought to do.
  This afternoon, we are marking up the Agriculture appropriations 
bill, and I am going to offer an amendment to that bill. We have U.S. 
agricultural experts who have been denied the opportunity to go to Cuba 
to sell American agricultural products. As I said, Senator Ashcroft and 
I opened the door just a bit, and we have been selling some products to 
Cuba. But in order to do that, Cuba has to run the transaction through 
a French bank because it cannot even be run through a U.S. financial 
enterprise. It makes no sense to me, but that is the restriction.
  I am going to offer an amendment that says at least those who are 
moving back and forth to sell and buy agricultural commodities ought to 
be able to travel. Let's at least begin the first step dealing with 
this issue of travel.
  I will end by saying again, it is illogical, in my judgment, to 
attempt to injure Fidel Castro by restricting the right of the American 
people to travel. Does anybody really think that at the Treasury 
Department today we have these folks in gray suits and tiny little 
glasses, and probably green eyeshades, pouring over all this data--what 
are they looking for? Are they looking for financial information to 
track terrorists to put terrorists in jail? No, that is not what they 
are looking for. They are trying to find a grandmother from Illinois 
who answered an ad for a bicycling trip in Cuba so they can fine her 
$10,000 and attach her Social Security checks. Shame on them. Yes, that 
is what the law says. Shame on us. In my judgment, we ought to change 
the law. It does not make any sense.
  My hope is that perhaps with my colleague, Senator Enzi, who just 
left the Chamber, and others--Republicans and Democrats--who believe 
the restricting of the right of the American people to travel makes no 
sense at all, my hope is that Republicans and Democrats can work 
together to change this law and stop OFAC from doing what it is now 
doing. It is hard to find adjectives to describe the basic stupidity of 
our country chasing little old ladies who ride a bicycle in Cuba and 
levying $10,000 fines on them and then saying: If you do not pay it, we 
will attach your Social Security check.
  Why are we doing that? Because we are saying a person cannot travel, 
or we are restricting their right to travel because we want to injure 
Fidel Castro. The way to injure Fidel Castro is the way we have done 
with China and Vietnam, which are Communist countries, and that is 
engagement through trade and travel that undermines the governments of 
those countries. That is what we ought to do with Cuba.
  I yield the floor.

  

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