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Cuba

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Written Testimony

Frank Calzon,
Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba

On February 11, 2002 the United States Senate Subcommittee on Treasury and General Government, Committee on Appropriations presided by Senator Byron L. Dorgan held a hearing on the US travel ban to Cuba. At the end of the hearing Sen Dorgan asked Mr. Calzon to submit written testimony. Frank Calzon is the Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba.
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This testimony is presented on behalf of the Center For A Free Cuba, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization promoting human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The Center participates in the national debate on Cuba, but does not take a position either for or against legislation pending before Congress.

I am grateful to Chairman Byron L. Dorgan for this opportunity to present our views about the US ban on travel to Cuba and other aspects of United States policy toward the island. A number of organizations and individuals are urging Congress to lift the ban on travel to Cuba, claiming that the travel restrictions unnecessarily curtail civil liberties and that they can no longer be defended on the grounds of national security. At the same time, some of these advocates assert that lifting US travel restrictions would help the people of Cuba and hasten the end of the 42-year-old Castro dictatorship.

While we beg to differ, we urge the Congress to look beyond the opinions bandied about and to review the facts carefully. It would be ironic if in the name of advancing tourist travel, a leader of anti-American violence around the world, a government on the US Department of State’s list of sponsors of terrorism, and one of the world’s leading violators of human rights were to be bolstered by an infusion of American-tourist dollars. A reappraisal of US Cuba policy by the Administration and Congress must take into account many issues; the travel ban is just one. Among issues requiring urgent review are:

  • The lack of reciprocity in the operations of the US Interests Sections in Havana and Cuba’s Interests Section in Washington;
  • A US District Court’s sentencing in December of Cuban spies charged with trying to penetrate US military bases (two to life in prison, one to 15 years, and others to lesser sentences);
  • The September 2001 arrest of Ana Belen Montes, a veteran Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, charged with spying for Havana. According to press reports Ms. Montes duties included providing the Pentagon information on the military capabilities of the Castro government;
  • The revelation in a book by the former deputy director of the Soviet Union’ s program of biochemical weapons that Soviet officers were convinced “Cuba had an active biological weapons program.” (Ken Alibeck, “Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World, Random House, 2000; pages 273-277);
  • The torturing of American servicemen (some of whom died) by Fidel Castro’s intelligence officers. See Sen. John McCain’s Faith of our Fathers (Random House, 1999), and Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973, published by the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1999; and
  • The statement by Fidel Castro at Teheran University last summer that America was weak, and Iran and Cuba could bring the United States “to its knees.”

Those examples of the Cuban government’s enmity are not, of course, the subject of this hearing. The focus of this hearing is US restrictions on travel to Cuba and, to some extent, the sale of US agricultural products to the island. Allow me to discuss these two issues in the context of advocating a prudent, pro-active policy designed to encourage a transition to a democratic and prosperous Cuba. I believe there are at least three questions that need to be answered:

  • Does the Cuba-travel ban violate the US Constitution?
  • Will subsidized trade with Cuba help the American farmer or hurt the US taxpayer?
  • Would the Cuban people benefit from American tourism?

I. Does the Cuba travel ban violate the US Constitution?

First, it is simply wrong to suggest that Cuban-travel restrictions are inconsistent with the exercise of rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. The United States Supreme Court squarely addressed the issue in Regan v. Wald. The Court noted then that a citizen’s right to travel is infringed when, for example, the government prevents him/her from traveling because of his/her political beliefs. The Court in Regan made clear, however, that the executive branch may prohibit its citizens, irrespective of political conviction, to travel to Cuba or any other nation because of foreign-policy considerations. 468 US at 241-42. In so doing, the Court specifically rejected suggestions that changes in the “geopolitical landscape” would permit the judiciary to second-guess the executive branch’s determinations about what foreign policy justifies a travel ban.

Some apparently feel that only another Cuban missile crisis would make restrictions on travel to Cuba constitutional. They argue that there is no “emergency” at the present time and that the relations between Cuba and the United States are subject to “only the ‘normal’ tensions inherent in contemporary international affairs.” The holding [in prior Supreme Court decisions], however, was not tied to an independent foreign-policy analysis by the Court. Matters relating “to the conduct of foreign relations ... are so exclusively entrusted to the political branches of government as to be largely immune from judicial inquiry or interference.”

This clear statement belies any suggestion that changes in the “geopolitical landscape” make unconstitutional today what was constitutional in 1984. Despite “changing conditions,” since Regan, every court has rejected the invitation to find the executive branch’s policy on the Cuba travel restrictions unconstitutional. e.g., US v. Plummer, 221 F.3d 1298, 1309-10 (11th Cir. 2000); Freedom to Travel v. Newcomb, 82 F. 3d 1431, 1439 (9th Cir. 1996). There simply is no responsible legal basis for the suggestion that the Cuba travel ban violates the Constitution.

Other “legal” arguments advanced for repeal are no more persuasive. It is absurd to suggest that travel restrictions should be lifted because those who violate them don’t know about them. A defendant showing he/she was unaware of a law might reasonably expect a court to consider that before deciding what punishment to impose. It is not grounds for a court to repeal a law that has been violated. A second argument, that people “intent” on visiting Cuba will necessarily violate the law, seems equally illogical. Congress would not repeal anti-drug legislation because drug addicts are “intent” on smoking dope. Even if one assumes bureaucratic failings in the Treasury Department’s Office of Assets Control and Customs, it would not be a basis for repeal. If such reasoning were accepted, the Internal Revenue Code also would be imperiled.

The truth is that there are no “legal” arguments for repeal of the Cuban travel restrictions. Such arguments are “smoke” intended to obscure a policy debate. It is telling that those urging a change of policy feel it necessary to try so hard to obscure their intent.

II. Will subsidized trade with Cuba help the American farmer or hurt the US taxpayer?

  Fidel Castro’s most persistent trait since assuming power in 1959 has been anti-Americanism. Now he says he wants to help American farmers and trade with the United States. By Castro’s reckoning, selling grain and other commodities to Cuba will greatly benefit American farmers.

The American economy today is grappling with the Enron fiasco, which can be attributed to the company’s manipulation of its fiscal data, and the unwillingness of Executive branch regulators and Congressional policy makers to ask tough questions. It is up to Congress today to ask whether profits from trade with Cuba aren’t another mirage. And whether American taxpayers won’t take another hit if Fidel Castro’s campaign to win credits, export insurance and export guarantees succeeds? Will gullible Americans also be swindled by Castro?

Harvard scholar and former US Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that “we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts.” What are the facts? Say what you will about the ineffectiveness of the US embargo, one of the best-kept secrets of the embargo is that it has saved US taxpayers millions. Because of the embargo American banks aren’t part of the consortium of creditors known as “the Paris Club” waiting to be paid what they’re owed by Havana. If they were, you and I both know they would be pressing Congress to find a way for US taxpayers to cover their losses in Cuba.

Since 1986 Castro’s Western creditors (including Canada, France, and Spain) have sought to recover some part of their $10 billion in loans to Cuba. Havana refuses even to repay Moscow’s larger loans, insisting that its debt was to the Soviet Union, “a country that no longer exists.”

American agribusiness believes there are huge profits to be made by trading with Havana. It believes foreign policy considerations should not prevent trade even if strengthening regimes like Libya, Iraq and Cuba might someday put the lives of US servicemen at risk. Providing trade benefits to America’s enemies, especially those in the State Department’s list of terrorist nations makes, as much sense as the sale of US scrap metal and bauxite to Japan in the 1930’s. Some of those materials were used to build up the Japanese military, leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In June 2000, Congress lifted sanctions on sales of agricultural products and medicine to Cuba. For more than a year, there were no sales. In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane in November of 2001, the Bush Administration offered humanitarian assistance to Cuba. Instead of promptly accepting the assistance and thanking the United States, Castro turned the offer into a public-relations stunt, insisting Cuba would buy $30 million in commodities from the United States and initiating a political and public relations campaign to win US credits and export insurance for future “sales.”

The Castro government, however, is broke. It suspended payments on foreign debt in 1986. And although Castro has managed to reschedule some debts, he continues to have difficulty paying his creditors. It is tragic that Castro’ s sales pitch are accepted at face value without checking available economic data, and would be worse if US taxpayers wind up encumbered with the risk of making good on subsidized credits (to Castro) and export insurance (to American corporate interests). As AmCham Cuba, (The American Chamber of Commerce of Cuba in the United States) reports in its February 2002 newsletter:

  • “Cuba’s economic woes continue to mount as a result of being especially hard hit by the world wide economic slow down and the fall-off in international travel after the September 11 attacks.
  • Tourism, Cuba’s most important economic sector has declined sharply. Hotel occupancy is down at least 25 percent in Havana, 40 percent in Varadero… ¨
  • Cuba’s second largest source of foreign exchange, expatriate remittances are down due to the downturn in the US…. ¨
  • Removal of Russian surveillance facilities cost the Cuban economy $200 million in Russian rent.
  • "Vice President Carlos Lage has cited ‘the hard blow’ by a fall in world prices for Cuba’s commodity exports such as sugar and nickel.”

In the 1960s, when Castro expropriated US and Cuban businesses, Washington banned all trade with Cuba. Castro now lures businessmen by telling them that they are “losing business.” But according to a recent US International Trade Commission report, “US sanctions with respect to Cuba [have] had minimal overall historical impact on the US economy” and “even with massive economic assistance from the Soviet Union, Cuba remained a small global market relative to other Latin American countries.”

The commission estimated “that US exports to Cuba in the absence of sanctions, based on average 1996-98 trade data, would have been less than 0.5 percent of total US exports.” And that “estimated US imports from Cuba . . . excluding sugar (US sugar imports are government regulated) would have been approximately $69 million to $146 million annually, or less than 0.5 percent of total US imports.”

The report asserts, “US wheat exports to Cuba could total between $32 million and $52 million annually, about 1 percent of recent US wheat exports.” Economic data about Cuba is difficult to obtain. But consider this: During the year 2000 France withheld a shipment of grain due to Castro ’s inability to pay for earlier transactions and canceled $160 million in new credits to Havana. In early 2001, Chile was attempting to establish “a payment plan” for a $20-million debt for mackerel shipped the previous year. South Africa, according to The Johannesburg Sunday Times was “frustrated” by Havana’s failure to settle a $13-million debt, and Pretoria’s Trade and Industry Ministry refused to approve credit guarantees to Cuba. Last year (2001), Thailand also refused to provide export insurance, resulting in the cancellation of rice sales to the island worth millions of dollars.

According to the commission report, rice exports to Cuba would be worth between $40 million and $59 million, increasing the value of US rice exports by 4 to 6 percent: “US exporters would be highly competitive with current suppliers.” But the report cautions that Castro’s trade decisions are based on politics, not on economics. Castro is unlikely to give the Americans the market share that he provides his ideological allies: China and Vietnam.

Unfortunately, Castro’s trade partners often become apologists for the regime, fearing to say anything that endangers their investments in Cuba. They have found out the hard way what happens when Castro feels insulted by demands to pay. Louisiana rice and Illinois wheat producers should stop assuming that “selling” to Havana is synonymous with getting paid. US taxpayers should be wary.

Castro desperately needs credits and subsidies. Washington is under pressure from agri-business to provide credits and subsidies. If all of us accept estimates that US trade with Cuba might rise to $100 million per year, then five years from now American taxpayers will have guaranteed $500 million in credits and insurance. That’s real money, everywhere.

Before extending credit to Castro, Americans should visit New York City and watch how three-card monte is played on some street corners. The dealer shows three cards, shuffles them, places them face down and invites spectators to bet they can identify one. In this game, the gambler voluntarily takes his chances. Where trade with Castro is concerned, it’s the US taxpayer will be left holding the losing card.  

III. Would the Cuban people benefit from American tourism?

Let us now look at the policy considerations. The stated goal of US policy is to contain the Castro’s communist regime by limiting its access to hard currency and promoting democracy and a rule of law.

How would a change in current travel restrictions in regard to Cuba impact US goals and interests? Would opening Cuba to dollar-spending American tourists subsidize repression and assist Fidel Castro in legitimizing the “tourist apartheid” he has imposed on Cubans?

The Castro government sets aside hotels, beaches, stores, restaurants, even hospitals and clinics for foreigners and prohibits Cubans from staying in those hotels or patronizing those facilities. Do Americans who advocate changes in US travel policy have any moral responsibility to raise the issue of this apartheid? Should the rights of vacationing American tourists supersede the right of people living in Cuba to move freely about their own country? To eat at the same restaurants? Visit the same beaches? Obtain care in the same clinics?

At the beginning of the 21st Century, it no longer suffices to say that what happens 90 miles away is not America’s business. The long history of misguided US policies toward Latin America should raise a cautionary flag when dealing with Cuba. The Cuban people are asking today, and will ask tomorrow: Where are their American friends in time of need? How many business leaders and Congressional visitors have asked President Castro to lift his tourist apartheid? Allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Cuba’s political prisoners? Grant Cubans the same economic rights and privileges enjoyed by foreigners?

And what about the right of US citizens to use international airspace? Six years ago Castro’s warplanes shot down two small civilian aircraft in international airspace over the Florida Straits. Three US citizens died. So did a Cuban citizen who was legally residing in the United States. The Clinton Administration presented indisputable evidence to international organizations that the Castro government deliberately murdered these men. Would it be fair to say that the right to live is just as important as the right to travel? Will America’s civil-rights organizations so concerned about international travel join the families of those who died in seeking an indictment of those who pulled the trigger?

The Cuban regime needs the hard currency of foreign tourists to maintain its repression. As I said earlier Castro’s communist government is bankrupt. Yet the dictator continues to muster and mobilize foreign apologists to press for access to American-funded trade credits and loan guarantees and to American tourist dollars.

The discussion on lifting the sanctions is somewhat schizophrenic: Some argue that lifting the travel ban will save the “achievements” of the Cuban Revolution. Others say that American tourists will ensure collapse of the Castro dictatorship. Both groups cannot be right, but both can be wrong. Many Central European leaders believe that radio broadcasts and solidarity with dissidents were extremely important in helping them win their struggle for freedom, but that Western loans and tourism propped up communist regimes that would have collapsed much earlier.

Professor Jaime Suchlicki, a noted historian at the University of Miami, has written [“American tourists would boost Castro,” The Providence Journal, Jan.10, 2001] that the belief that unilaterally and unconditionally lifting the travel ban “would benefit the Cubans economically and hasten the downfall of communism …is based in several incorrect assumptions.” The first is “that Castro and the rest of the Cuban leadership are naïve and inexperienced and, therefore, would let tourists from the US subvert the revolution and influence internal developments…. The second is that Castro is so interested in close relations with the United States that he is willing to risk what has been uppermost in his mind for 41 years – total control of power and a legacy of opposition to ‘Yankee imperialism’ – in exchange for economic improvements for his people.”

Dr. Suchlicki also writes that lifting the travel ban without securing meaningful changes in Cuba would:

  • Guarantee the continuation of the current totalitarian structures.
  • Strengthen state enterprises because the money would flow into businesses owned by the Cuban government. (Most businesses are owned in Cuba by the state and, in all foreign investments the Cuban government retains a partnership interest.);
  • Lead to greater repression and control since Castro and the rest of the leadership would fear that US influence would subvert the revolution and weaken the Communist Party’s hold on the Cuban people.
  • Delay instead of accelerate a transition to democracy in the island.

Send the wrong message to the enemies of the United States: that a foreign leader can seize US properties without compensation; allow the use of his territory for the introduction of nuclear missiles aimed at the United States; espouse terrorism and anti-U.S. causes throughout the world; and eventually, the United States will “forget and forgive,” and reward him with tourism, investment, and economic aid.

Some argue that tourism and foreign investors would help bring respect for human rights in Cuba. But in the absence of other factors, the statement is simply not supported by the facts. As reported by the AmCham Cuba Newsletter (February 2002), “A Congressional delegation came under fire in Cuba for focusing only on criticism of US sanctions at the expense of discussion on Cuba’s internal human rights. A leading Cuban dissident, Oswaldo Paya of the Christian Liberation Movement, said the only issue the delegation wanted to discuss was the embargo. Paya charged that the visitor should ‘Question whether there exists conditions whereby Cubans can freely participate with dignity in commerce, foreign investments, and cultural exchanges.’”

Despite millions of foreign tourists every year Cuba remains a totalitarian state. Canada has acknowledged that its “policy of engagement” has failed to produce any significant change in the human rights situation on the island. Why should American tourists have an impact different from that of the thousands of Canadians who have been visiting Cuba for years?

Castro wants the benefits of capitalism, without Cuban capitalists. Cuban workers are badly treated. Strikes and nongovernmental labor unions are forbidden. Foreign investors cannot hire workers directly. Sheritt, the Canadian nickel company, pays Castro $9,500 dollars per year per worker; the regime pays the workers the equivalent of $20 dollars a month. Castro has allowed some minimal reforms due to the economic crisis. In a perverse way, those who favor lifting the sanctions on Castro’s terms will discourage any future economic or political reforms. The real embargo responsible for Cuba’s misery is the Marxist, command economy that failed in the Soviet Union and every where else it has been tried.

Castro goes to great lengths to restrict any number of rights of the Cuban people. Cubans are required to obtain “an exit permit” before leaving Cuba. Cuban citizens abroad must obtain a visa from a Cuban consulate before returning home. Cubans emigrating from the island are not allowed to buy plane tickets with pesos; they must have dollars. They are allowed to take with them only “personal property,” some clothes, etc. The government confiscates everything else: cars, furniture, electric appliances, kitchen utensils, etc.

Before Cubans are allowed to leave the island they must pay several hundred dollars to the government in “processing fees.” Because most Cubans do not earn dollars, they depend on someone outside the island to pay the fees and to buy their plane tickets. A Cuban family would have to save all of its earnings for 10 years or more to accumulate the amount required to buy three plane tickets and pay government exit fees.

There are many Cubans who have visas issued by the United States or other governments and who have money from family or friends abroad but are arbitrarily denied exit visas by the Castro government. Here are a few of their stories:

  • Lazara Brito and her children Yanelis, Yamila, and Isaac were granted U.S. visas in 1996, but remain virtual hostages in Havana. Castro will not allow them to join her husband and their father Jose Cohen in the United States. Cohen, once a Cuban intelligence officer, was granted political asylum in the United States in 1994. Despite his appeals to Americans and international organizations who meet with Castro, his family remains in Cuba. They are not charged with any crime. Lazara Brito has written: “neither I nor my three children can have legal representation. My husband, who is abroad, and I here call out for help from all who believe in human rights everywhere.”

Lázara Brito González
Calle 13 No 504 Entre D y E Apto 1. Vedado
Havana, Cuba
Telephone 320803
from outside Cuba: 011-53-320803

  • Blanca A. Reyes Castañón’s son, Miguel Angel Sánchez Reyes, has lived in Miami since 1993. She has seen him only three times in eight years. Twice he came to Cuba, and once she visited him in the United States. Mrs. Reyes wrote: “On 16 November 2000, after waiting for 63 days and having attained a U.S. visa to travel to see him, Cuba’s Inmigration Department refused to grant me the required exit permit. They said they were following Cuba’s laws. I asked, what laws do not allow a mother to visit her son? I have yet to receive an answer.”

Why would the Castro government deny her an exit visa? She is the wife of Raul Rivero, a dissident poet who is also not allowed to travel. Reporters Sans Frontieres, Amnesty International and other organizations have denounced the persecution, harassment and imprisonment of Cuban independent journalists and their families.

“One would have thought,” she says “that the solution is for my son to visit us in Cuba, but I fear for his safety. My brother-in-law who resides in Canada obtained a Cuban visa, but when he arrived he was placed under virtual house arrest. He wasn’t allowed to see his 82-year-old mother or his brother Raul. Is it unreasonable to think that something like that would happen to my son if he returns to Cuba?”

Blanca Reyes Castañón
Peñalver 466 ap.9 entre
Francos y Oquendo
Centro Habana.
C. Habana. Telf.79 5578

  • Iris Gonzalez-Rodiles Ruiz has not seen her son Greco in more than two years. She has yet to meet her first grandson, Rafael Diego, now a year old. Her daughter in law, Daniela, is a Swiss citizen. Cuban authorities denied her the required “exit permit” to visit her family in Bern to help take care of her grandson, who suffers from allergies and asthma and requires special care.

“The authorities refused to tell me the reason I am not allowed to travel abroad,” she says. “They claim they do not have to tell me why.” She is an independent journalist.

Iria González-Rodiles Ruíz
Goicuría No.68 esquina a Luis Estévez
Santos Suárez. 10 de Octubre
Ciudad Habana.

  • Ohalys Victores Iribarren is also an independent journalist. The authorities will not allow him to travel abroad because he writes for “media not under the control of the Cuban government.” He says he does not wish to leave Cuba, “but due to political reasons I am being forced to leave.” He has a U.S. visa. His family already lives in the United States.

Ohalys Víctores Iribarren
La Sola No.264
entre Milagros y Johnson
Santos Suárez.
10 de Octubre, Ciudad Habana
Teléfono 411898

  • For more than 10 years Oswaldo de Cespedes Feliu has challenged the Cuban government working four of those years as an independent journalist. Fidel Castro has referred to him on Cuban TV, mentioning his name. As a result Oswaldo says he and his family are “very fearful.” On March 15, 2001, at the International Airport Jose Marti in Havana the Cuban authorities blocked his departure for the United States. On April 25 his children and wife were allowed to leave, but the Castro regime continues to deny him the right to emigrate. He has been interrogated by State Security, and “The authorities have turned a deaf ear to my petition to allow me rejoin my family in the United States.”

Dr. Oswaldo de Céspedes
Feliú Espadero
No.119. Víbora.
10 de Octubre, Ciudad Habana.
 Teléfono 406976

In conclusion, let us not pretend that Americans have an absolute right to vacation in Cuba. U.S. policy toward travel to Cuba is correct when it takes into account Castro’s denial of civil liberties in Cuba, his 42 years of allying Cuba with the world’s rogue regimes and sponsoring anti-American violence, and continuing efforts to manipulate American institutions and public opinion. Again, in 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on travel to Cuba “are justified by weighty concerns of foreign policy.” That is true today as well. Defense of civil liberties in this country neither requires nor warrants spending American dollars to subsidize repression in Cuba.

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