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“THREATS TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY FROM CUBAN DICTATORSHIP” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1692-H1698 on March 27, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THREATS TO U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY FROM CUBAN DICTATORSHIP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
(Mr. DIAZ-BALART asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Tribute to Honorable Steven Schiff
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, the Speaker of the House of Representatives just a few hours ago had the sad duty to report to us the death of one of our colleagues, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Schiff). So I would like to begin my remarks this evening expressing my sincere condolences to the Schiff family and letting them know that my prayers go out to them in this very difficult moment.
We will miss in this House Steve Schiff. He was a great man. But I would say that he was really a great man, above all else, because he was a good man. He was a man of extraordinary integrity as well as great intelligence. He possessed a brilliant legal mind that he put to use serving not only this House but our country.
And so, I will certainly miss my friend and colleague Steve Schiff. I will always recall with much affection how, based on the fact that he was of such discipline of mind, he was, for example, teaching himself Spanish and he would enjoy conversing in Spanish; and it was remarkable that just literally months after beginning his Spanish classes he had achieved a great fluency.
Anyway, we will miss, I will certainly miss my friend Steve Schiff.
Mr. Speaker, in just a few days, and I think it is important for the American people to realize it, the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, is scheduled to make public a report, an assessment, of the security risks, the danger to the national security of the United States posed by the Cuban dictatorship just 90 miles from our shores.
A number of us here in Congress have received preliminary reports with regard to that assessment that will be made public in just a few days by the Department of Defense, disturbing reports, because we are of the understanding, we have been led to believe that the Pentagon is about to say that there is, in essence, no threat from the Cuban dictatorship. That is a grave mistake if, in fact, that is the assessment that is made of the threat.
It is a grave mistake and it is really unfortunate. Because the only way in which the conclusion can be reached that there is no threat from the Cuban dictatorship 90 miles from our shores is based on a political decision, an imposition by the White House upon the Department of Defense with regard to the report, its threat assessment, of just a few days.
So if it is the case then, the preliminary reports that we have received, that in effect the Pentagon will say in a few days that there is no threat coming from the Cuban dictatorship, if that is the case, we, those of us in Congress who had received these preliminary reports are of the belief that a political decision is motivating that report.
Just a few days ago, a number of us wrote to the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State with regard to this very issue. And if I could, I would like, Mr. Speaker, to be able to read this letter:
``Dear Mr. Secretary,
``We are writing to express our concern about the ongoing national security threat from the Cuban dictatorship. Specifically, we are convinced that the Castro dictatorship is a major enemy of our efforts to shield America's frontiers from the drug threats, and we are additionally concerned about Castro's ability to develop biological and chemical weapons. Castro is technically capable of many of the same types of things we know Saddam Hussein is doing, and the Castro dictatorship is the only rogue regime that is 90 miles from our shores.
``We are appalled about current attempts to downplay the Castro threat and are deeply disappointed that the Department of Defense refuses to acknowledge Castro's ongoing threats to the United States. We have received extremely disturbing reports that the Department of Defense plans to officially minimize the threat assessment of Castro's Cuba and that this may be utilized to subsequently remove Castro from the State Department's terrorist list. Despite Cuba's economic situation, Castro remains a dangerous and unstable dictator, with the intentions and the capability to hurt U.S. interests.
``Thirty-five years ago, during the Cuban missile crisis, Castro urged a nuclear first strike by the Soviet Union against the United States. Ten years ago, Cuban General Rafael del Pino disclosed that Cuban combat pilots trained for air strikes against military targets in south Florida. Five years ago a Cuban air force defector in a MiG-29 fighter aircraft, flying undetected until just outside Key West, Florida, confirmed that he had received training to attack the Turkey Point nuclear power facility in south Florida.
Two years ago, Castro ordered Cuban MiG-29 fighter aircraft to attack and kill unarmed American civilians flying in international air space just miles from the United States.
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There is a pathologically unstable tyrant in the final years of his dictatorship just 90 miles from our shores. His four-decade record of brutality, rabid hostility toward the Cuban exile community, anti-
Americanism, support for international terrorism, and proximity to the United States is an ominous combination.
When considering the potential threat from Castro, the following must be noted.
Despite the end of the Cold War, Castro continues to espouse a hard line, using apocalyptic rhetoric, proclaiming socialism or death, ranting about a final reckoning with the United States, and punishing any Cuban who advocates genuine political or economic reform.
Castro maintains one of Latin America's largest militaries with capabilities completely inconsistent with Cuba's economic reality and security needs.
Despite Cuba's economic failure, Castro has the capability to finance special projects through his network of criminal enterprises and billions of dollars of hard currency reserves he maintains in hidden foreign accounts. Forbes magazine has calculated a minimum of $1.5 billion that Castro has in such foreign accounts. Castro has a proven capability to penetrate U.S. airspace with military aircraft and to conduct aggressive shootdown operations in international airspace just outside the United States.
Castro is training elite special forces units in Vietnam who are prepared to attack United States military targets during a final confrontation, according to Janes Defense Weekly.
Castro actively maintains political and scientific exchanges with each of the countries on the Department of State's list of terrorist nations. Castro continues to provide logistical support for international terrorism and pro-Castro guerrilla groups, and Cuban-
trained international terrorists are still active around the world, most ominously these days in Colombia.
Castro continues to coordinate and facilitate the flow of illicit drugs through Cuba into the United States. We will talk more about that later. Castro continues to offer Cuba as a haven for drug smugglers, criminals and international terrorists, including more than 90 felony fugitives wanted by the Department of Justice.
The Lourdes electronic espionage facility is used to spy against U.S. military and economic targets, including the intercept of highly classified Persian Gulf battle plans in 1990-1991. Castro is working with Russia, which recently extended a $350 million line of credit for priority installations in Cuba, and anyone else willing to offer assistance to complete the nuclear reactor at Juragua.
Castro has access to all the chemical and biological agents necessary to develop germ and chemical weapons. Despite Cuba's failed economy, Castro has constructed a secretive network of sophisticated biotechnology labs, fully capable of developing chemical and biological weapons. These labs are operated by the Military and Interior Ministry, are highly secure and off-limits to foreigners and visiting scientists. Under the guise of genetic, biological and pharmaceutical research, Castro is developing a serious germ and chemical warfare capability. Castro has the ability to deliver biological and chemical weapons with military aircraft, various unconventional techniques and perhaps even missile systems increasingly available in the international black market.
Tyrants are most dangerous when they are wounded and dying. Given Cuba's proximity to the United States and Castro's proven instability, it would seem to be an unacceptable and potentially tragic mistake to underestimate his capabilities. We request that Castro be kept on the State Department's list of terrorist nations and that a realistic threat assessment be made, which includes an examination of Cuba's biotechnical capabilities, as the Castro dictatorship moves towards its final stage.
This letter was sent by nine Members of Congress just a few days ago as I stated, Mr. Speaker, to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. The evidence with regard not only to what we mentioned in that letter but specifically with regard to narcotrafficking is extensive. The really sad aspect of this, in addition to the fact that it takes place, is that there is an undeniable pattern on the part of the Clinton administration to cover up and deny every single piece of evidence existing linking Castro and his regime to narcotrafficking into the United States. A number of colleagues and I sent a letter back in November of 1996 to General McCaffrey, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the White House. We stated, after some introductory paragraphs, ``There is no doubt,'' we told General McCaffrey, ``that the Castro dictatorship allows Cuba to be used as a transshipment point for drugs. We were deeply disappointed when DEA Administrator Tom Constantine testifying before the House International Relations Committee in June said that `there is no evidence that the government of Cuba is complicit in drug smuggling ventures.' On the contrary, there is no doubt that the Castro dictatorship is in the drug business.''
We continue in our letter to General McCaffrey: ``Your appearance before the committee that day was also very disappointing on this critical issue. Castro and his top aides have worked as accomplices for the Colombian drug cartels and Cuba is a key transshipment point. In fact, just this year sources in the Drug Enforcement Agency's Miami field office stated to the media that more than 50 percent of the drug trafficking detected by the U.S. in the Caribbean proceeds from or through Cuba. Since the 1980s, substantial evidence in the public domain has mounted showing that the Castro dictatorship is aggressively involved in narcotrafficking. In 1982, four senior aides to Castro were indicted by a Florida grand jury for drug smuggling into the United States. They were Aldo Santamaria, Fernando Ravelo, Gonzalo Bassols and Rene Rodriguez-Cruz. In 1987 the U.S. Attorney in Miami won convictions of 17 south Florida drug smugglers who used Cuban military bases to smuggle at least 2,000 pounds of Colombian cocaine into Florida with the direct logistical assistance of the Cuban armed forces. Evidence in this case was developed by an undercover government agent who flew a drug-smuggling flight into Cuba with a MiG fighter escort. In 1988, federal law enforcement authorities captured an 8,800-pound load of cocaine imported into the United States through Cuba. In 1989, U.S. authorities captured 1,060 pounds of cocaine sent through Cuba to the United States.''
``Prior administrations,'' we wrote to General McCaffrey, ``have correctly identified the Castro regime as an enemy in the interdiction battle. As early as March 1982, Tom Andrews, then Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, stated before the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism of the Senate Judiciary Committee that `we now have also detailed and reliable information linking Cuba to trafficking narcotics as well as arms.' On April 30, 1983 James Michel, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, testified before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, his remarks validated prior findings. `The United States has developed new evidence from a variety of independent sources confirming that Cuban officials have facilitated narcotics trafficking through the Caribbean. They have done so by developing a relationship with key Colombian drug runners who on Cuba's behalf purchased arms and smuggled them to Cuban-backed insurgent groups in Colombia. In return the traffickers received safe passage of ships carrying cocaine, marijuana and methaqualone through Cuban waters to the United States.'
July 1989. ``Ambassador Melvin Levitsky, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, testified that, `there is no doubt that Cuba is a transit point in the illegal drug flow. We have made a major commitment to interdicting this traffic. Although it is difficult to gauge the amount of trafficking that takes place in Cuba, we note a marked increase in reported drug trafficking incidents in Cuban territory during the first half of 1989.'
``We are sure,'' we continued in our letter to General McCaffrey,
``that while in Panama as Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, you
(General McCaffrey) became aware of General Noriega's close relationship with Castro and of Castro's intimate relationship with the Colombian drug cartels.
``Because past administrations identified Cuba as a major transshipment point for narcotics traffic, it was integrated into the larger interdiction effort. By contrast, under the existing strategy, no aggressive efforts have been made to cut off this pipeline despite the growing awareness of its existence.
``In April 1993, the Miami Herald reported that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida had drafted and prepared an indictment charging the Cuban government as a racketeering enterprise and Cuban Defense Minister Raul Castro as the chief of a 10-year conspiracy to send tons of Colombia cocaine through Cuba to the United States. Fifteen Cuban officials were named as co-conspirators and the Defense and Interior Ministries cited as criminal organizations.''
We continued in our letter to General McCaffrey, In the last few months, the prosecution of Jorge Cabrera, a convicted drug dealer, has brought to light additional information regarding narcotrafficking by the Castro dictatorship. Cabrera was convicted of transporting almost 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States, sentenced to 19 years in prison, and fined $1.5 million. Cabrera made repeated specific claims confirming cooperation between Cuban officials and the Colombian cartels. His defense counsel has publicly stated that Cabrera offered to arrange a trip under Coast Guard surveillance that would proactively implicate the Cuban government.
``Overwhelming evidence points to ongoing involvement of the Castro dictatorship in narcotrafficking. The Congress remains gravely concerned about this issue and we are deeply disappointed that the administration continues to publicly ignore this critical matter.''
We ended our letter to General McCaffrey stating, ``We appreciate the opportunity to share these concerns with you and can assure you that further administration inaction on this matter will be met by serious congressional concern as well as investigation as to its cause.''
Administration inaction has continued for the over 1 year after this letter. The letter in reply that we received was a form letter, totally unacceptable. Even more unacceptable has been the continued cover-up of the administration of this evidence and much more that exists directly connecting the Castro regime to the narcotrafficking of cocaine and other deadly substances into the United States. This is a situation that the American people have got to become aware of. The Clinton administration is covering up the connection, covering up the reality of the Cuban dictatorship's cooperation with the drug traffickers, conspiracy with the drug traffickers to import narcotics into the United States. There is a cover-up of this issue by the Clinton administration. Every time that we hear the President and the drug czar and other leaders of this administration talking about this issue, the cover-up continues, the cover-up is intensified, the cover-up is magnified. There is absolute silence with regard to this evidence.
But there is more. There is a spy center, an espionage center in the outskirts of Havana that picks up every single telephone conversation in the eastern United States. The Clinton administration systematically ignores the existence of that espionage center and is doing absolutely nothing about it. It is a Russian espionage center that has remained from before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Russians maintain it. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed, that espionage center continues to pose a threat to the national interests of the United States.
It is the Lourdes espionage center. It was built in Cuba, according to a secret agreement between former Soviet and Cuban special services, in the early 1960s. The station is controlled and operated by the GRU, the Russian Military Strategic Intelligence Agency, and establishes a radio and electronic intelligence field over the southeast United States and the Atlantic region, collecting intelligence cyberdata in close cooperation with Russian intelligence stations and field offices, military spy satellites, Navy reconnaissance and Air Force reconnaissance. This information came from a high ranking Russian defector who recently came to the United States.
The main mission of the Lourdes espionage station is registration and penetration through coded and ciphered radio, radio-technical/
electronic, micro-waves and cellular signals in the eastern part of the United States, disclosing American nuclear missile submarines' combat patrol routes throughout the Atlantic. The station routinely provides to Moscow's military-political leadership extremely important strategic military and economic, commercial and private information about the U.S. and other countries in the Atlantic Basin.
The station is capable of compromising the United States Government's secrets, commercial and private communications, monitoring all American military movements throughout the Atlantic region. This is something that was just confirmed. During Desert Storm, in that extraordinary effort led by President Bush and the United States of America in 1990-
1991, when this Nation's military demonstrated to the world not only its technological prowess but the genuine superpower status of the United States of America and liberated Kuwait, during Desert Storm in 1991, in the Lourdes espionage center in Cuba, Russian specialists obtained and disclosed to the Iraqis the U.S. military plans of the battle against Iraq, thus directly compromising American and allied troops in Saudi Arabia and in Iraq.
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That has been confirmed by a Russian defector. The plant that Castro is running in cooperation with the Russians not only was able to obtain in Desert Storm all of our military plans, but made it available to Saddam Hussein. The same thing without any doubt is happening now with regard to the plans that we have in case we have to go back into Iraq.
And what are we hearing from the Clinton administration with regard to the Russian espionage center in Havana? Nothing.
I see my friend from California here.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would just like to commend my colleague for not only this speech, but the diligence that he has shown over the years in alerting us and the American people to what Fidel Castro is all about. I do not know why, but there seems to be a romance with this bearded fascist down there in Havana, and people do not want to admit the horror that he has brought to the people of freedom all over the world. He has been one of the strongest enemies of freedom anywhere in the planet in the last 40 years, and his dirty deeds; you, know I could see back in the 1960s when people were idealist, they would overlook the fact that when he came to power he just cleared jails out and went out and shot people, you know, just summarily executed people; said those were Batista-ites or something. But as time went on, it seems that the liberal left in this country seems to bend over backwards never to acknowledge the wrongdoing of Fidel Castro.
You mentioned, for example, his drug dealings. We know about his drug dealings. I mean, it is clear that this man and his cohorts down there have been involved up to their necks in drug dealings for decades. Robert Vesco, who we know as probably the fellow who went down and organized the modern drug movement in Latin America, where was his headquarters all of these years? It was in Cuba. Yet when we try to confront our administration with facts about who or where, you know, where are the drugs coming from and who are the kingpins, you never hear Fidel Castro mentioned.
And some of the things you are bringing up tonight about what he has done, and even a few years ago in Desert Storm, that threaten our national security, put the lives of our young men and women in the military at risk; why is it that Lincoln Diaz-Balart has to be the one talking to an empty Chamber here and trying to gain the attention of the people of the United States? Where is our administration? Where are the people who are supposed to be watching out for our security? Well, they are making overtures to try to think, well, now is the time we should loosen these restrictions on Castro.
It is beyond me.
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Rohrabacher, it is worse than that. Not only are we not hearing anything from our administration, from the Commander in Chief whose responsibility under the Constitution is to protect the security of the American people, not only are we not hearing anything, but in a few days we are going to hear something officially coming from the Pentagon, politically ordered, saying in effect that there is no threat coming from Castro's Cuba.
And what is really sad is that you and I and most of the men and women in this Congress are extraordinary admirers of our men in uniform and our women in uniform, and they are great professionals. But the reality of the matter is that there are sometimes, sometimes examples of undue influence of political decisions made in the White House that are imposed upon the agencies of the executive branch, including the Pentagon.
So I urge, and a number of us have sent in writing our concerns to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State with regard to this upcoming whitewash. This will simply be unacceptable to publicly say that a drug trafficker who maintains that Russian espionage center, and we have not gotten into the nuclear power plants yet, the Soviet-
designed nuclear power plants that Castro is doing everything in his power, and he just received a $350 million line of credit from the Russians to complete less than 200 miles from the United States these Soviet-designed nuclear reactors. Defectors that worked in the initial stages of their construction have sworn here under oath in congressional committees and have stated to our intelligence community that, even beyond the inherent dangers of those nuclear plants, all of which, by the way, of that design have been closed in the former Soviet Union and in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe. Each of those former Communist countries, now liberated, has shut down those, they are called DD-440 Soviet nuclear power plants, because of their inherent dangers. But over and above the inherent dangers, defectors have stated that there were so many mistakes made in the initial stages in their construction that they are literally ticking time bombs. And we are hearing absolutely nothing from our administration with regard to those nuclear plants.
I think it is indispensable. I think it is the constitutional duty of the President of the United States to say those plants are not going to become operational, period. Because that madman, that tyrant, if he is able to blackmail the President of the United States with refugees, imagine with Soviet-designed nuclear power plants. We are not only talking about a Chernobyl-type accident possibility, and I have the records in my files that within 72 hours as far north as Washington, D.C. would receive the radiation, the disaster would be without parallel, without precedent in this country. Not only an accident, but an incident manufactured or threatened by the Cuban tyrant with those nuclear power plants. Simply unacceptable. We are not only talking about the Cuban people being wiped out in the case of a Chernobyl, it is less than 200 miles from the United States. We are not talking about Chernobyl in the Ukraine. We are talking about Soviet-designed power plants less than 200 miles from the United States of America.
And where is the administration?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, this administration, if the gentleman will yield, is a horrible record. This is totally consistent with what the administration did the last time we were out on vacation. What did they do? They moved to eliminate the final impediments to any type of trade with Vietnam. This administration which, by the way, has of course been involved in a scandal dealing with campaign donations that may have come from Red China, has done more to eliminate those people, the efforts by people to confront the Red Chinese on their human rights abuses.
So, should we be surprised that in this vicious dictatorship in Cuba that they overlook all of the evil that is so apparent to anyone who gives an honest look at the situation?
You know, I used to think these people were, you know, they just briefed in peace and they were so blinded by some desire for peace, but this is not a desire of peace. This is something pathological that when Communist countries and enemies of the United States are doing these type of things that you have outlined today, that we in some ways should try to befriend them and in some way that the threat to us is going to be less because we are befriending this type of monstrous regime.
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. The gentleman is correct in his analysis. The reality of the matter is that just a few days ago, March 20, a Fox News Service release which was distributed, I do not know how many newspapers in the United States picked it up, but nevertheless there was a release, a news release specifying this new commitment by the Russians of a $350 million line of credit to Castro for the completion of the nuclear power plants. This was in the news wires. And reading from that news wire, the scenario could not be more dire.
A nuclear disaster in Cuba that would send a plume of radioactive fallout across Florida and as far as Texas, the likes of which have not been seen since the 1986 accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. And it also could not be more plausible, say some Cuba experts now, that Cuba and Russia have announced plans to resume work on two long-stalled nuclear reactors located in the island Nation's western province of Cienfuegos, 180 miles from the United States.
The announcement came in the wake of Russia's decision just a few weeks ago to free up $350 million in credits offered to Cuba last year.
Quote, ``This is a Chernobyl-like disaster just waiting to happen right off of our shores,'' end quote, said Roger Robinson, former senior director of international economic affairs at the National Security Council. Quote, ``Anything could happen given such horrendous deficiencies in design and safety,'' end quote.
``So concerned is the U.S. Department of Defense,'' here is the reaction of the administration, ``So concerned is the U.S. Department of Defense over the plant's safety that it plans to build a radiation detection facility in Florida that would alert residents'' in the United States along the entire Gulf of Mexico and as far north as Washington, D.C. ``of leaks from the two reactors.''
The 1998 defense budget approved by Congress provides $3 million for the early warning system. That is not the solution. It is too late. If this warning, if this detection facility ever picks up radiation coming from those Chernobyl-style plants, it is too late. They cannot be permitted to come on line.
I would ask the gentleman from California, knowing of his leadership and his interest in the national security of our country to join me in forming a coup de grace caucus in this Congress to educate our colleagues with regard to these nuclear reactors, the first one that is scheduled to come on line being at Hidalgo that Castro was so desperate to complete. We have to educate our colleagues and the American people with regard to the fact that those nuclear power plants are being systematically ignored by the Clinton administration and that we in Congress, since the administration is not doing anything about it, we cannot let them come on line.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would gladly join with my colleague from Florida, and let me just say that if we are committed to protecting our people from this nuclear catastrophe that could happen, we have the means to prevent this from happening. We have the leverage on the former Soviet Union now. They must deal with this issue if we put it on the top of our list in dealing with Russia. And they have no money in Russia. We have the ability, even right now with just a concerted economic commitment, to tell the Russians they will not do this or we will bring them down, and we could do that even with our economic power. And for us to sit by and let them just transfer this
$300 million nuclear plant is unconscionable.
And again it is commendable that you, like Paul Revere, are riding through the dark, warning of the coming danger, and the American people have got to wake up. They cannot be lulled to sleep by the images of an old man with a gray beard meeting with the Pope. This is not an old man with a gray beard meeting with the Pope. This is the Pope, unfortunately, meeting with Satan.
I mean, Fidel Castro has committed every evil that we can imagine on this planet, and the fact that he is willing to put nuclear reactors that are unsafe for his own people and put them on his island threatening the existence of every man, woman, and child on his island shows you the evil that is still in his heart.
There is nothing that motivates Fidel Castro except the hatred of the United States of America, and he is willing to sacrifice even the lives of every man, woman, and child on his island.
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Mr. DIAZ-BALART. I thank the gentleman from California, and we will work very intensely in the coming months on this caucus in the Congress to educate our colleagues and the American people with regard to simply the unacceptable reality of the construction of those plants and that they cannot be completed.
With regard to the point made by the gentleman from California with regard to Castro's hatred of the United States, just the day before yesterday, a dear friend of mine, a former Cuban political prisoner, spoke by phone with one of the most respected and leading dissidents inside of Cuba.
There is an extraordinary story going on unreported in Cuba. I have a list of 500 activists in my office, in the streets of Cuba, in all the provinces who are disarmed, and they are seeking, they are fighting for democracy day in and day out peacefully, in the midst of that totalitarian system and suffering extraordinary repression.
Of course, there are thousands in prison. But just the day before yesterday, perhaps one of the most respected of those dissidents, a young lawyer, 33 years old, who we in this Congress nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize when he was in prison last year, and the gentleman from California joined in that petition to the Nobel Peace Prize Commission, because that young man certainly deserved it, and we hoped to see if we could help him in his physical integrity and protection while he was a political prisoner last year. He has now been released.
He was able to speak to a former political prisoner and very good friend of mine the day before yesterday. I would like to read the remarks and answers in his reply to the questions posed by this gentleman who is now in exile, because one of the points he makes is precisely about Castro's hatred for the United States.
But if I may, Mr. Speaker, the question was, what is Leonel Morejon Almagro, this renowned and respected dissident, what is he doing presently for his country?
``We are working,'' he answered. ``Working and asking God to end this nightmare. We continue working on the plebiscite; we have a good number of signatures.'' Under the Cuban Castro constitution, theoretically, you can put something on the ballot if you have 10,000 signatures. Of course, they never recognize those signatures. He is working on that. He is thrown in jail on that, but nevertheless, he is working on it, trying to find unity, a consensus of the people to achieve something important in this country.
In everything else, trying to grow each day in the people, which is what is vital, to be able to perform a civic action that has real repercussions and can create a movement with the strength of the people, to make the government sit down and talk to us. Or to change the political map of the country, That or any other project that can bring about a consensus among the opposition, and in the end mobilize the masses of the people, the opposition, the dissidents with a common goal. That is the solution. I believe that revitalizing the Cuban Council at this point is important.
What are the changes that Castro has made?
Castro has made absolutely no change. Please, let us not make mistakes, let us not get happy, let us not have futile fantasies, nor celebrations in vain. Because Castro was very clear in his last speech. In his love to talk and talk, he said the following: ``If they lift the embargo, those who are saying that if they lift the embargo we are going to change, we tell them,'' Castro said that if they lift the embargo,
``we will create true socialism.''
Please, Castro has not changed in the least. Castro has played a political hand, gentlemen. A pardon, to forgive some people. We are happy because here are our brothers such as Alonso Romero, Omar del Pozo, et cetera. They have not left Cuba, but they are supposed to, they are being held in Villa Marista. Each time a political prisoner is freed, we are happy, but that is not the solution. What do we gain if one political prisoner is released when tomorrow 20 others are arrested? The punishment is still there.
I am threatened with a 20-year prison sentence. They have told me this to my face, that if I continue working for democracy, they will put me away for 20 years. They do not let me speak, they shut me up. How can I possibly believe in a change in Fidel. Do not believe that, because if Castro fools you, then you are really dumb.
Question: How do you see the U.S. capitalist sectors who wish to invest in Cuba?
Until now, the United States has, more or less, been able to hold back Americans from investing in Cuba. I think that if they allow this to happen, this would be a great lack of respect toward the Cuban people. Not only do they want to invest in Cuba, they want to come here for the ``mulatta,'' to be with the ``Caribbean mulatta'' or the tanned boy. The investors who are already in Cuba are paying trifles. We are like the Indians. They are buying us with necklaces, with glass beads. That is immoral. It is indignant.
If they are able to achieve their wishes of investing, where does that leave us; where does that leave the Cuban people who have been kicked around for years, insulted; where does that leave the people who have suffered beatings, the disrespect, the intolerance? Where does that leave us?
I believe in democratic capitalism, in the one that helps man. If they come here to invest, it is going to be a disaster, because the Cuban people are not ready at this time, under these circumstances. Because the Cuban people are a slave people. The Cuban people are slaves.
And under those conditions we cannot win, because nobody who respects himself, for a little bag at the end of the month and for $148 a year is going to work in this country, nobody is going to do it. And those who do it are unhappy doing it.
For this country to take off economically, there needs to be economic freedom. Cubans have to be able to invest. The people need to live. The people need to prosper, the people need to be able to buy a car when they want to, save money whenever they want to, and Castro is not going to allow that, because that is the way to losing power. Because for Castro to remain in power, he needs the CDR, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, militants among the youth, among the party. He needs to have the people hungry and the people under control.
Everyone knows that I am in favor of the Helms-Burton law.
We are talking about a brave man, talking by telephone to the United States. Everyone knows that. He says that he is in favor of the Helms-
Burton law.
What I want is for Castro and the Cuban Government to give my people rights, to me, to my daughter, to my wife, and everyone.
The embargo is not a Cuban problem. I remember when I was in high school, in 12th grade. During that time, petroleum was being thrown away. Petroleum and gasoline were wasted, were used for no reason. Because 13 million tons were received each year. There was too much for an island such as this. To the point that oil was sold to Nicaragua, to Africa, and the Caribbean.
At that time, Fidel Castro didn't even remember the embargo. My God, it is not a blockade problem. Fidel Castro uses it as a shield, but when Castro does not have an embargo, he is going to have a conflict with the United States to say, well, the gringos lifted the embargo, but now we cannot leave our one party, nor can we abandon socialism.
And then he will say to those who come to invest that they have to be very careful, because they are our eternal enemies. The speech will then be that it is a strategy to threaten him, Castro. It is a strategy so that we open up and lose power. And then he will ask more than ever not to lay down arms. They will celebrate the lifting of the embargo as a political victory, and everything will remain the same.
Question: What policy should be followed?
Until there is a real opening in democratic Cuba, until we have the possibility of publicly debating the country's problems, until there is the possibility for real change, there can be no softening of the sanctioning of the government, with regard to the pressure on the government, acting as though it were a normal government. If the embargo is lifted, we are lost. It will be a great defeat for the country.
Question: In Europe they say that if the embargo is lifted, Castro will be forced to make changes.
No, not true. The economic avalanche will not have any effect because, in Cuba, there is no will for change. There is no entrepreneurial spirit in the regime. The economic avalanche, whatever it may be, is going to be calculated, controlled by the government. Precisely to avoid change. Because the Cuban people are under a strong economic, political and social control.
The world may open up for Castro, but Castro is not going to open up for the world. Because Castro is only going to open up to his interests or for the benefit of the Communist Party's interests.
Tomorrow the blockade or embargo can be lifted, and the Europeans want to invest in Cuba. But to invest in Cuba, they need to go through the government's commercial filters, because in Cuba there is no commercial freedom, it does not exist in an external or internal sense.
In Cuba, every internal investment needs to go through a commission which decides what is going to be done. Foreign investors cannot meet with Cuban partners.
What do you think motivates those who wish to save Castro? The underlying envy of Europe and the rest of the Americas towards the United States. Castro has utilized that very well. They see Castro as the symbol of anti-Americanism, the anti-yankee, and they want to save him. They want to save his legend.
But Castro has used that legend to hurt the Cuban people, to hurt you, and to hurt me. I cannot have a normal life. What I want most is to enjoy my life. I do not want to be president or even a councilman from Marianao.
What I want is democracy in Cuba. Then after that, I want to write poetry, study piano, I want to travel, I want to study ecology, dedicate myself to my wife and to my daughter. I want to dream. I want to write a book. I want to live, damn it. And that is impossible in Cuba, just impossible.
I am not a politician. What I am is an idealist. And, in Cuba, one cannot live. It is impossible. Because, in Cuba, one cannot live under this system. In Cuba, our dreams have been castrated, there is a castration of the Cuban youth.
What do you recommend be done at this time?
It is necessary to help the opposition. The opposition needs real and concrete help, not just in heart and soul, it is needed in every sense. Much can be done, but there are too few resources for everything. There is nothing here. There is not even a Crayola to paint.
The Cuban Council is hope. And what people do is flee, leave the country. That takes away from us. It takes away from us and we leave the solution in the hands of that man, of this man who is a monster, who is delirious, who is paranoid, a lunatic, whatever he is. Who has ruined our lives, who has ruined my life.
Are you scared of anything?
Yes, I am. I do not want to walk alone at night. I am worried because my wife is very nervous, due to threats I have received. I do not want a bus to mysteriously run over me. I am 33 years old, I do not want to be crucified. I aspire to live the happiest moment of my life, the moment of meeting again with you, with the good that you are, not the bad. The good that can be found in Cuba, to meet again and breathe, breathe in a free country. I want that. That will be the happiest moment of our lives.
I have a 6-year-old daughter. I sleep in one room with my wife and my daughter. She is growing. And I would like to offer her a better life. I am an attorney, I did well in my career, the time that I was working. I lost my career, I lost the possibility of practicing because I thought, and I think, that it was my duty as a man to tell the truth in court and not remain quiet before injustice. I have lost, not lost, but gained years lived in prison, because they have given me the honor of being able to tell my daughter and my grandchildren tomorrow that I suffered in prison for opposing Castro.
I do not want to lose my life, but if I have to lose it, I'd do it happily to destroy a hateful dictatorship in my country. But truly I want to live. I want to live. I want to be able to live. Look, in Cuba, one does not live, people leave Cuba because you cannot live here.
In Cuba, there is no future. Cuba is a country condemned to a totally indecent present. A hateful present. And somebody has to do it. It is my place to speak in the name of those Cubans who are afraid, very afraid, who have many responsibilities, what they cannot say.
Is there hope?
In Cuba, there are thousands of people who are waiting for the opportunity. We can really destroy this in a matter of months, but we need to see the formula. What the people need to understand is that the solution is within us. Let us see how we get there. I have been trying to figure out how to do it. But we have on top of us the entire intelligence apparatus. We are a people controlled by the yoke.
What is the future of the Cuban opposition?
I can guarantee you something. Perhaps tomorrow we cannot call upon a million people to show strength among the people, but I can tell you that no matter what they do to us, they will not be able to get rid of us, to eliminate us. The Cuban opposition was born, grew, and here to stay. Fall who may, and do what they do, we will be here.
What would you say to those who wish to invest while Castro is still in power?
We have to tell them not to get desperate to invest in Cuba because they will lose more investing today than waiting for tomorrow. They should invest in a country with full economic rights and guarantees.
That is the message that we have to give the Americans who are dying to invest in Cuba. We have to tell them to remain calm. They will have opportunities to invest in a country that really has economic potential, with security, and peace. Because Cuba right now is a time bomb, because a people such as this, is not going to, even if it is dormant, even if it is in a long lethargy difficult to wake from, it is not going to resign itself to live as slaves. Because Cuba, at this time, is a country of people who are tired and sodomized. Castro has simply sodomized the Cuban people.
And we must tell those investors not to get desperate, help more by pressuring the government, more so that it opens up, more to make a safe society, a pluralistic society, a society with all its social dynamics, its freedom, and its capabilities open so that they may prosper.
Leonel Morejon Almagro, from Cuba, the national coordinator of the umbrella of 140 dissident and independent press and professional and workers organizations. This is the Cuban people speaking.
In addition to that, you know that the three Cuban American Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats speak like this man speaks, because we know what the Cuban people feel.
Our friends in Congress here, who are all of you, coincidentally, who are here this evening, from both parties, the friends of the Cuban people respect the Cuban people and want free elections for the Cuban people, and they listen to the Cuban people's representatives like Leonel Morejon Almagro. I thank the representatives.
On behalf of Leonel Morejon Almagro and the Cuban people, I thank the representatives of the American people and the American people for standing on the side of Cuba's right to be free.
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think that it is vital that we understand that if we do what is right now, and we have the courage, as this man suggested in the reading, that we discipline ourselves and not rush in to try to invest in Cuba before Castro is gone.
Castro will some day be gone, whether it is natural causes or otherwise, and the Cuban people will have a chance to be free. But I fear that American businessmen, as they are doing in China and as they are doing in other dictatorships, are rushing not to try to have a positive influence, but instead, are looking at the quick buck and are establishing economic ties with these totalitarian regimes which will give life to those regimes.
In other words, I believe that once American businessmen invest in Cuba, we will find that Communist Cuba has a whole new group of advocates in the United States, as we have seen in China, as we have seen people who are supposed to be talking about democracy in China because they are Americans and they are investing in China and up spending all of their time trying to do what? Trying to lobby us not to be tough on China because of the abuses of human rights there. This same thing could happen in Cuba.
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, at the very least, even though we have not been able to prevent what I personally consider an immoral policy with regard to the Chinese Government, because the real matter is that the Chinese Government uses slave labor and the multinational corporations are investing in that market and benefiting from the slave labor of the Chinese people. We have not been able to stop that because it is a billion people and it is too strong for us to have stopped it.
But at the very least we can say in this hemisphere, this is a hemisphere of democracy and this is a hemisphere of freedom and the Cuban people are not the only people that should be condemned to live in tyranny in this hemisphere; no, they deserve to be free.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), the gentleman from New Jersey
(Mr. Pallone), my colleagues that are here. They are representative of the overwhelming majority of the Congress of the United States in both parties who stand with the right of the Cuban people to be free.
We are, in the next few days, going to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the resolution passed by this Congress that said Cuba is and it ought to be free and independent, as we told the Spanish colonialists, who invented the concentration camp under General Wahler. By the way, interestingly enough, Castro's father was sent to Cuba to fight the Cuban insurrection as a Spanish soldier under General Wahler and General Wahler invented the concentration camp, and he put entire segments of the Cuban population in concentration camps to defeat the insurrection.
Mr. Speaker, it was the American people, and the American people alone, that stood with the Cuban people, and Cuba was free and independent. The United States withdrew from Cuba after helping the Cuban people defeat Spanish colonialism in 1888 and the United States withdrew in 1902.
The relationship between Cuba and the United States has always been friendly, except for this madman who represents the anti-Cuba and who will soon be gone from the face of the Earth and will be in the dust bin of history.
I thank the Congress of the United States; I thank the leaders who are here who represent the majority opinion of the Congress and of the American people, and I thank the American people for time after time after time standing with freedom, standing with democracy, two times in this century, saving the world from tyranny. This is a noble people, and what an honor to be able to stand in this Congress of this great Nation of the United States of America.
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