2 Agosto, 2010

El general Raúl Castro clausuró este domingo la sesión ordinaria de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular con un discurso del que estuvo ausente el anuncio de los cambios esperados por los cubanos en materia económica.
El general presidente anunció, eso sí, la reducción de la plantilla laboral donde según dijo sobran un millón de trabajadores, y que comenzará de inmediato.
La medida fue aprobada por Consejo de Ministros en una reunión efectuada el 16 y 17 de julio, y busca “borrar para siempre la noción de que Cuba es el único país del mundo en que se puede vivir sin trabajar”, afirmó Raúl.
La otra medida tiene que ver con la ampliación del trabajo por cuenta propia, como alternativa para los que queden desempleados. En ese sentido, señaló que se eliminarán “varias prohibiciones vigentes para el otorgamiento de nuevas licencias y la comercialización de algunas producciones, flexibilizando la contratación de fuerza de trabajo”.
Raúl se refirió a ¨los reclusos contrarrevolucionarios¨ que están siendo excarcelados y dijo que no resulta ocioso reiterar que no habrá impunidad para los enemigos de la Patria, para quienes intenten poner en peligro nuestra independencia”,.
“Nadie se llame a engaño. La defensa de nuestras sagradas conquistas, de nuestras calles y plazas, seguirá siendo el primer deber de los revolucionarios a quienes no podemos privar de ese derecho”, concluyó.

Ambassador Everett Ellis Briggs

Much has been made of the agreement brokered by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, with Spain’s pro-Castro Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos playing a supporting role, to secure the release 52 Cuban prisoners of conscience. You’d almost think the Castro brothers finally had seen the light and were ready to play by the rules of the civilized world.

You’d be wrong. These prisoners, mostly independent journalists who never should have been arrested, are a fraction of the estimated 2,000 victims of the Castro regime languishing in Cuba’s notorious lockups for such crimes as “dangerousness.” The lucky 52 are to be released in small numbers over an indeterminate period. The first seven arrived in Spain this month.

The agreement came only months after the hunger-strike death of a fellow prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and in the midst of a second hunger strike, by Guillermo Farinas, that seemed destined for the same tragic outcome. They were protesting the inhumane conditions of Cuba’s prisons. The outcry of many, especially in Europe, over the callousness of the regime’s response to Zapata’s death may have been the catalyst for the agreement sought by the cardinal and his Spanish partner. In any case, the released prisoners have credited Zapata with having sacrificed his life for their freedom.

Their release is being hailed by advocates of a policy of accommodation with the Castro regime in the United States and the European Union as signaling a dramatic improvement within the Cuban government. Mora- tinos has declared now is the time for the EU to lift its restrictions on business with Cuba, and to respect Cuba’s insistence the EU cease all contacts with Cuba’s dissidents.

In this country, big business is renewing its push for Congress to lift restrictions on credit sales of agricultural goods to Cuba (now amounting to 80 percent of Cuba’s imports, but only on a cash basis) and on tourism, even though both would benefit the regime economically and in the case of credit sales, shift a huge financial risk to U.S. taxpayers.

A few cautionary voices have been raised, but our media have all but ignored them. Most dramatic are what the released prisoners are saying: On top of having been subjected to eight years of unspeakable treatment merely for advocating democracy and engaging in nonviolent opposition to the regime, they have been forced against their will into foreign exile. This, they point out, is another gross violation of internationally agreed basic human rights. So far, nine not yet released have gone so far as to say they’d rather stay in prison than be forced to leave Cuba.

According to Yale professor Carlos Eire, the former prisoners now in Spain are being subjected to heavy-handed treatment by the authorities. Kept in virtual isolation in a remote section of Madrid (Vallecas), they soon will be dispersed to interior towns despite their wish to remain together. The government says it will attend to their basic needs for 24 months. After that, in a country with 20 percent unemployment, they will be on their own.

To those who want to reward the Cuban government for what amounts to a cruel follow-up to eight years of abusive treatment of innocent people, with no sign Raul or Fidel are ready to allow any meaningful reforms of a system that depends exclusively on their warped whims, the basic question is: Why? What is it that would be accomplished?

Much has been claimed about the potentially positive political impact of U.S. tourists flocking to Cuba’s pristine reserved-for-foreigners beaches and other tourist attractions. That millions of non-American tourists have had no discernible effect on Cuba, other than to provide needed foreign currency to the regime and its military/security apparatus, simply is ignored.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking that obscures the obvious: The Cuban government is not about to lift its iron-fisted control that keeps tabs on visitors and ensures they do not infect its citizens with notions the Castro brothers find troublesome. Remember the hapless American Alan Gross, still in jail after seven months, accused of giving a laptop to a Cuban friend?

The Gross case is but one of a very long list of legitimate U.S. grievances that logic and good diplomacy would dictate need to be addressed before any talk of accom- modation (or “normalization”) takes place.

Just a sampling: Cuba provides refuge to a wanted New Jersey cop-killer. It has bestowed medals on the murderers of U.S. citizens whose unarmed aircraft were shot down in cold blood in the Florida Straits in the early 1990s. It owes U.S. citizens billions of dollars of stolen property. Its espionage activities in the United States are a matter of record.

Let us by all means celebrate the release of any Cuban victims of the Castro brothers’ tyranny, but let us also keep in mind the continuing reality of a Cuban regime that merits no rewards, only condemnation.

The Castros, ancient, infirm and unbending, may be able to hold on a bit longer, but surely their days are numbered. Patience remains the watchword until real change comes to Cuba. That’ll be the time to reach out to agents for democratic change in the island.

Everett Ellis Briggs is a Cuban-born retired diplomat who served as a special national-security adviser to President George H.W. Bush.

Julio 28, 2010

El dictador Fidel Castro reveló que ha solicitado una reunión extraordinaria de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder
Popular para informar a los diputados cubanos y a todo el pueblo del inminente peligro de una conflagración nuclear con características de hecatombe apocalíptica.
Castro hizo el anuncio el pasado lunes ante un grupo de intelectuales y artistas cubanos, según reveló un video difundido ayer por la televisión cubana.
El ex mandatario cubano, que en las dos últimas semanas ha aparecido en público media docena de veces, tras cuatro años de reclusión por problemas de salud, aseguró además que podía informarle a los familiares de los espías cubanos encarcelados en Estados Unidos que, estos serían puestos en libertad antes de que termine este año.
¨No tengo la menor duda de que van a ser liberados, asumo la responsabilidad de informarlo así¨, subrayó Castro sin ofrecer mayores detalles.

July 23, 2010

BY FRANK CALZON

Learning about BP’s efforts to free the Libyan terrorist serving a prison sentence for his part in the 1988 bombing of the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, I came to appreciate the Bible’s verse that says “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Three of them were American citizens, and one was a legal resident of the United States.

Read more
or
Read this article in the Miami Herald

Viernes, 23 de Julio

El régimen castrista negó el permiso a la periodista y bloguera cubana Yoani Sánchez para viajar a Brasil y acudir a la proyección de un documental que denuncia la censura en Cuba, según contó ella misma en su perfil de la red social Twitter.
Sánchez había sido invitada a la ciudad de Jequié, a 360 kilómetros de Salvador, la capital del estado de Bahía (nordeste), donde mañana se estrenará el documental “Conexión Cuba Honduras” del activista brasileño Dado Galvao, que retrata la historia de varios blogueros cubanos y hondureños perseguidos por la censura en sus países.

”Pocas esperanzas de que pueda llegar a tiempo al festival de documentales en Bahía, Brasil”, reconoció Sánchez en esa plataforma, en la que durante las últimas semanas ha relatado el proceso para conseguir su permiso.
Tras recibir una carta de invitación de las autoridades bahianas para acudir a la proyección del documental, la periodista inició los trámites burocráticos necesarios para salir de la isla.
”Una estrategia para evitar que los inconformes viajemos, es demorar ‘ad infinitum’ la carta de invitación hecha en consulados cubanos”, escribió Sánchez en su Twitter.
La periodista señaló que, a pesar de disponer de una carta de invitación de las autoridades brasileñas, de tener su pasaporte en regla y de no tener antecedentes criminales, el Departamento de Inmigración y Extranjería (DIE) no aceptó su solicitud.

Jueves, 22 de Julio 2010

Estados Unidos ofreció a los presos políticos cubanos y sus familias acogerse a su plan de refugio, como parte del proceso de liberación gradual de 52 disidentes.
Esposas y otros parientes de varios de los prisioneros que no aceptaron emigrar a España o a otro país están siendo entrevistados individualmente o en pequeños grupos por funcionarios consulares de la Sección de Intereses de Washington en La Habana.
“Nos explicaron que todos los que quieran acogerse al programa de refugiados pueden hacerlo. Es una buena opción porque algunos no desean viajar a España”, dijo una de las líderes de las Damas de Blanco, Bertha Soler, esposa del preso Angel Moya, de 45 años y condenado a 20 años.
Los funcionarios estadounidenses que el programa de refugiados sólo aplica a los prisioneros y familiares que están en Cuba y no aplica a quienes viajen a otros países en calidad de emigrantes.

Delia Sava

Read this article in the Arlington Connection

Asked when he left Cuba to come to the United States, Frank Calzon smiled and said, “I never left Cuba, everywhere I go Cuba goes with me.” The executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, Calzon, 66, is not being glib. He has devoted his life’s work to the country he left more than 50 years ago.
”Frank is the most dedicated person I’ve ever met — his whole life has been dedicated to Cuba,” said James Cason, president of the board of directors for the Arlington-based nonprofit. Cason, a career diplomat, served as the Chief of the United States Interests Section in Havana, Cuba from September 2002 to September 2005.
Because of the long- standing embargo against Cuba, the Interests Section is maintained in lieu of an embassy.
During his tenure in Cuba, Cason worked closely with Calzon and gives him high marks: “The Center was the group that was the most responsive.”
The now retired Cason, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay from 2006 to 2008, brings considerable expertise on Cuba and Latin America to the work at the Center. Founded in 1997, the Center is an independent, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to promote human rights and a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The majority of the funding comes from private donations; the Center maintains a modest fund for humanitarian assistance to help families of political prisoners and other victims of repression in Cuba.
SINCE 1959 when Fidel Castro came to power by overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban government, a one-party socialist republic has had a strained relationship with the U.S.
After the Bay of Pigs, a failed attempt by U.S. trained Cuban exiles to overthrow the government in April of 1961, Castro formed an alliance with the Soviet Union.
In 1962 the United States imposed the embargo against Cuba because the government took control of U.S. corporations’ property. Many Cubans fled the country as Castro imposed more restrictions on civil liberties.
Calzon’s family sent him to live with his godparents in the States after an incident with a policeman who came to their apartment to conduct a search. When the teenaged Calzon objected to the unwarranted search by citing reasons “according to the law,” the policeman responded by pushing him out of the way. He arrived in Miami the day after President Kennedy was elected in November of 1960. Calzon who was just 16, made his way to New York City and eventually to White Plains where he was helped “by wonderful people who took pity on me” and gave him work as a busboy and a room in a boarding house. On Christmas Eve of 1961, Calzon took a bus (the ticket was purchased with money collected from his fellow busboys) for Miami to reunite with his parents and two sisters, who had managed to leave Cuba.
[cid:image005.gif@01CB25B7.3AD65900]”In early October of 1962, I signed up for the U.S. Army,” said Calzon. After his military service, Calzon would go on to receive a bachelor’s degree in political science from Rutgers University and a master’s in government from Georgetown University. His interest in what was happening in Cuba never waned; he organized Cuban student groups while he was a student. Then for many years he worked at Freedom House, the D.C.- based independent watchdog organization that advocates for democracy and human rights.

THE COLLAPSE of the USSR in 1990 created even greater economic hardship for Cuba, which had relied heavily on Soviet aid. Cason explained that the Center provides critically needed items, like non-perishable food and medicine “to people who have nothing.” He added, “Families of imprisoned dissidents really suffer … they don’t let them work and they make their lives miserable.”

When Castro became ill in July of 2006, he turned over the presidency, temporarily, then permanently to his younger brother, Raul, 79. The elder Castro maintains his position as the First Secretary of the Communist Party. The government continues with an extensive censorship system and according to Human Rights Watch, the human rights abuses, include torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extra judicial executions.

Calzon noted with pride that according to the University of Toronto, the Center’s Web site is one of 10 sites blocked by the Cuban government. “That shows a measure of our effectiveness,” he said.

In addition to the information outreach to the Cuban people, the Center also publishes and prepares reports about Cuba for the international community, members of Congress, the media and human rights organizations, like Amnesty International. Publicizing the plight of political prisoners is one of the strategies employed by Calzon “because that helps to protect their lives.”

Basilio Guzman knows all too well the importance of the work of the organization: he spent 22 years in different Cuban prisons. The Arlington resident who owns a home remodeling business is with Calzon in the Center’s offices on a Saturday morning, doing volunteer work. “I’ve been helping Frank since he has the knowledge and the political contacts to publicize what’s happening in Cuba.”

Calzon and Cason are currently calling on the international community to pressure the Cuban regime to release Alan Gross, an American imprisoned in December of 2009 for giving a laptop and a cell phone to Cubans.

Endorsements from former Polish President Lech Walesa and the former Czech President Vaclav Havel give Calzon hope that Cuba’s story will have a similar outcome. Office walls at the Center are lined with photographs of Calzon with U.S. presidents, members of Congress and world leaders; photographs of faces not recognized are political prisoners and their families.

”No children, no ex-wives,” joked Calzon when asked about his marital status. He works six days a week and is currently not receiving a salary. Promoting worldwide solidarity with the Cuban people seems more of a calling for Calzon than a job.

”He’s a pit-bull for Cuba,” said Cason, describing Calzon’s commitment, adding, with a smile, “He puts his teeth in and never lets go.”

[Thursday, July 15, 2010]

New York, July 14, 2010—Two more imprisoned Cuban journalists were freed and flown to Madrid today, a day after the arrival there of six colleagues, as part of an extensive release of imprisoned dissidents by the Cuban government.

Omar Rodríguez Saludes and Normando Hernández González, Cuban journalists jailed in March 2003, arrived with their families around 1.30 p.m. local time on an Iberia flight, news reports said. Both reporters were driven to a hotel in the neighborhood of Vallecas, in Madrid, where they joined six colleagues who had been freed and exiled to Spain on Tuesday, the news agency Europa Press said.

In a telephone interview with CPJ, Hernández said he was still shocked by his release and exile to Spain. “There are no words to fairly describe how amazed and excited I was when I saw myself free and next to my wife and daughter again,” said Hernández, whose health had severely deteriorated amid inhumane prison conditions.

Rodríguez told CPJ that he was very happy, but still deeply affected by his seven years in jail. Both reporters expressed great sadness at leaving their country. “Although I feel very happy for having the possibility to stay with my family again, I am very sad at the same time because I had to leave Cuba,” Rodríguez said.

Before being arrested, Rodríguez was director of the Havana-based independent news agency Nueva Prensa Cubana, while Hernández was director of the news agency Colegio de Periodistas Independientes in the province of Camagüey.

With Hernández’s and Rodríguez’s arrival, a total of eight Cuban imprisoned journalists have been released and brought to Spain as part of an agreement between the government of President Raúl Castro and the Catholic Church in Cuba.

In a statement issued last week, the church announced that the Cuban government had agreed to free a total of 52 political detainees. Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos, who also participated in the negotiations over the release, appeared to go further on Tuesday, telling a congressional committee in Madrid that all of Cuba’s political prisoners would be freed, the Spanish news agency EFE reported. Cuban human rights defenders say there are more than 150 political prisoners in all.

Prior to this week’s releases, CPJ research had identified 21 journalists in Cuban prisons for their independent reporting and commentary. All but one of the journalists had been detained in March 2003, in the massive government crackdown on political dissent and independent journalism that came to be known as the Black Spring.

By clicking here, you can access CPJ capsule reports on the journalists who arrived in Spain today after their release. The capsule reports are from CPJ’s annual census of jailed journalists, conducted in December 2009.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom around the world.

By James Cason

July 16, 2010

In 2003, Fidel Castro sentenced to long prison terms 75 dissidents Amnesty International said had not advocated any kind of violence. At the time, I was the chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba, and the regime charged that all of them were mercenaries of the United States. Now, Raul Castro says they are political prisoners, and has begun to release the 52 still remaining behind bars.

Unfortunately, a measure some construed as the first step in the much-awaited thaw in the regime’s relations with its own people turns out to be an effort to consolidate its power at home and abroad. The regime wants to force them into exile, and the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who defends the regime, says the release will ensure that the European Union ends its common position predicated on substantial government reforms, and Europe’s dialogue with the opposition.

Seven years ago, analysts said their sentencing to long prison terms would end Cuba’s democratic opposition. Instead, the opposition continued to grow. Tragically, hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail, and neither the Cuban nor the Spanish governments nor the Catholic Church have said anything about their possible release.

Those freed owe their release to the sustained international pressure on Havana, and the steadfastness of the political opposition, which has endured all kinds of abuse.

Without the internal opposition, the engagement by the church or by foreign governments achieves nothing. Aggressive niceness has never moved dictators to make concessions; they only respond when pressured.

What is the price Cuba’s freedom fighters have to pay for the release of some of their own? Will they be forced into exile? Will European diplomats snub Oswaldo Paya, Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, Rene Gomez Manzano and others? Will foreign aid flow into Havana’s coffers when Havana is bankrupt and Spanish companies cannot withdraw their money from Cuban banks? Will Cuba be allowed into the Cotonou tariff agreement, without having to fulfill the human rights conditions required from all others that apply for special access to European markets?

While Raul Castro talks with the Spanish and the Vatican, he refuses to engage in the most important conversation: with his own citizens and internal opponents. By leaving the opposition out, the general hopes to delegitimize them and deny them their rightful voice.

Castro apologists say Cuba is reforming and there is no need for outside pressure. It’s just the opposite; we should stay the course until all prisoners are released and Cuba begins serious reforms. That is the right approach, not acquiescing to the forced exile of the opposition, and certainly not rewarding the regime with millions of American tourist dollars for releasing innocent people who should not have been in prison to begin with.

Ambassador James Cason, a retired career foreign service officer, served as chief of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana from 2002 to 2005.

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) spoke on the floor today in strong opposition of lifting tourism travel restrictions to Cuba:

Mr. President, I have come to the floor many times to speak out about Cuba, and today I come to the floor once again — this time in strong opposition to any attempt in this Chamber to pass any bill that in any way lifts or lessens the travel ban on Cuba — any bill that eases regulations on the sale of U.S. products to the island.

I want to make it absolutely clear that I will oppose – and filibuster if need be — any effort to ease regulations that stand to enrich a regime that denies its own people basic human rights.

Mr. President, I do not wish to obstruct the business of this Chamber, but I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are well aware of how deeply I feel about freeing the people of Cuba from the repressive regime under which they have suffered for too long.

The fact is the big corporate interests behind this misguided attempt to weaken the travel ban could not care less whether the Cuban people are free. They care only about opening a new market and increasing their bottom line.

This is about the color of money, not the desire for freedom.

The very fact that a travel bill has moved through the House Agriculture Committee makes one wonder why American agricultural interests would even care about travel to Cuba.

One can only assume it’s about generating increased tourism dollars for the Castro regime to buy more agricultural products.

That will serve only to enrich the regime and do absolutely nothing to bring democracy to the island.

Let’s be clear, those who believe that increasing travel will magically breed democracy in Cuba are simply dead wrong.

For years, the world has been traveling to Cuba and nothing has changed.

Millions of tourists from democratic nations have visited Havana and the Castro regime has not loosened its iron grip on its people…

…it has not ended its repressive policies…

…and it has not stopped imprisoning and brutally abusing pro-democracy forces.

Those who lament our dependence on foreign oil because it enriches regimes in terrorist states like Iran, should not have a double standard when it comes to enriching a brutal dictatorship like Cuba right here in our own backyard.

Prisoner Release in Context

How coincidental that suddenly, now that Congress is considering lifting a travel ban, the Castro regime is hoping the world will believe that it will release 52 prisoners of conscience.

Let’s set the record straight.

Many people are wrongly under the impression – reading and watching media reports – that the 52 prisoners have already been released and are free in Cuba.

The fact is only 7 have been released and forcibly deported from their country – another human rights violation – instead of allowing them to stay and peacefully advocate for change.

The remaining 47 prisoners are set to be released but not now, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, but sometime during the next 3 to 4 months – or so the regime says.

According to reports in The Miami Herald, 9 of them have said they will refuse to leave for Spain if released, and the 7 who arrived in Madrid have vowed to continue their activism in exile.

They have told reporters they feel the shock of being forced to leave their country.

Omar Rodriguez Saludes told a reporter he feels “like I was still in prison. I left behind part of my family. I still feel like I have the cuffs on my hands.”

The released men said conditions in the prison were horrendous. They shared their cells with rats.

Diseases infested the prison, they said – and told of inmates trying to kill themselves or do themselves harm because of the squalid prison conditions they were forced to endure.

Julion Cesar Galvez, one of the dissidents told reporters: “the hygiene and health conditions in prisons in Cuba are not terrible – they’re worse than terrible. We had to live with rats and cockroaches and excrement. It’s not a lie.”

Galvez, a 66 year old journalist who was sentenced to 15 years in these horrible prisons said: “There were outbreaks of dengue fever and tuberculosis.”

He said there were more than 1,500 prisoners in the prison in Villa Clara – 40 prisoners to a cell measuring 32 square feet.

Another prisoner, Norman Hernandez said, “The prisoners are tired of demanding their rights…” They lose all hope. They lose their desire to live and the try to hurt themselves so they will get attended to.

These men were lucky to be released, but they will not give up. They will tell their stories and they will continue to fight for freedom for all Cubans.

Mr. President, it took the regime only one night in March to arrest these 52 people. So we might ask ourselves: Why will it take 4 months to release all of them?

It’s not a coincidence that during the next 3 or 4 months there will be members of this Chamber and members in the other body who will be looking to provide the Castro regime with billions of dollars of added tourism revenue.

It’s not a coincidence that in September the EU will once again deliberate the wisdom of its remaining sanctions.

The nagging question that lingers in my mind is: Will the 47 ever see the light of day or will they be forcibly deported from their country and another 52 arrested overnight to take their place?

It’s possible the regime will never release them, because they don’t want the world to see them because of the torture they’ve been subjected to.

Last month, a man named Ariel Sigler was released from a Cuban prison on the verge of death — a 100 pound paraplegic who was arrested in 2003 as a 250 pound amateur boxer.

Also last month, the regime – once again – refused to let the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Torture visit the island which, in my view, speaks volumes about the condition of the thousands of Cubans who have been imprisoned for “dangerousness” and other trumped-up political charges.

If that is what’s happening to the 200 internationally recognized and known political prisoners, then how much worse must it be for the thousands of anonymous political prisoners who have not been reported?

According to the State Department, “the total number of detainees is unknown because the government does not disclose such information and keeps its prisons off-limits to human rights organizations and international human rights monitors.”

According to the State Department, “One human rights organization lists more than 200 political prisoners currently detained in Cuba in addition to as many as 5,000 people sentenced for ‘dangerousness.’”

Yet, in the face of this repression, some Members want to provide with its number one source of income – tourism.

Mr. President, this is not about travel.

This is about rewarding a repressive regime.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans travel to Cuba for family, educational, or humanitarian reasons.

Tourism to Cuba is a natural resource, akin to providing refined petroleum products to Iran.

It’s reported that 2.5 million tourists visit Cuba – 1.5 million from North America… 1 million Canadians… More than 170,000 from England… More than 400,000 from Spain, Italy, Germany, and France combined – All bringing in $1.9 billion in revenue to the Castro regime – that’s 765 convertible pesos per tourist.

And yet nothing has changed in Cuba except the amount of tourism dollars the regime has at its disposal…

…and while the money still comes in, he still rations food keeping Cubans waiting in long lines for a subsistence meal.

That’s an irreversible concession to a regime that, this week, arrested a Cuban-American for providing laser printers and ink cartridges to a rural woman’s opposition movement in Santiago.

He was interrogated, the head of the movement’s home raided by a dozen state security agents, the printer and cartridges confiscated.

He was subsequently released and put on a plane back.

Meanwhile an American remains imprisoned for helping the island’s Jewish community connect to the Internet – after six months in jail — still no trial or charges.

They were looking to help the Cuban people, but the regime doesn’t want anyone helping. They want tourists to provide only one thing – hard currency.

Ladies in White – Zapata – Farinas

Visiting the beaches of Varadero and sipping a Cuba Libre – an oxymoron – provides money to continue repression but won’t let the Cuban people sip the sweetness of freedom.

It won’t change the plight of the Ladies in White – mothers and sisters who – every week – march for freedom carrying white gladiolas who are beaten and repressed.

It won’t change their fate of being imprisoned by the regime, released – only to be re-arrested over and over again.

It won’t change the tragic fate of Orlando Zapata Tamayo– deemed a prisoner of conscience Amnesty International — who died in February after being on a hunger strike for 85 days protesting horrific prison conditions.

It won’t end the desire for freedom or change conditions in Cuba for men like Guillermo Farinas who began his hunger strike after the death of Zapata, ending it after he heard of the prisoner release, but vowing that he and other courageous Cubans would join together in yet another hunger strike if the 52 prisoners are not released and back in their own homes by November 7th.

Lifting the travel ban, allowing tourist dollars to flow to the regime will not end any of it. It will not free the people of Cuba.

It will not change the fate of the Women in White or the desire for freedom of Guillermo Farinas.

It will only enrich the regime.

Reports this week have pointed out the economic impact opening travel to Cuba will cause to the Gulf states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and our democratic neighbors in the Caribbean.

The dollars that will be transferred from those tourism economies should be for the benefit of a democratic government in a free Cuba – not to bailout the brutal Cuban regime.

The Castros don’t deserve it and the U.S. Gulf states and our Caribbean friends can’t afford it.

According to the Jamaica Daily Gleaner – “The results of various studies of the likely impact on the Caribbean of the lifting of the US travel ban suggest that Cuba’s tourism arrival would surge to full capacity at the expense of other Caribbean destinations…

“…Apart from Puerto Rico and The U.S. Virgin Islands, the most heavily dependent Caribbean destinations on the U.S. and the most vulnerable should the legislation to lift the travel pass include The Bahamas, The Cayman Islands, Cancun, Bermuda, Jamaica, and Belize.”

It seems to me, Mr. President, we should be promoting tourism to the beaches along the Gulf Coast — not to the apartheid beaches of Castro’s Cuba.

Conclusion – Against All Hope

Allowing the regime to benefit from increased tourism will not change a thing in Cuba.

It will not bring democracy to Cuba.

It will not make conditions for the Cuban people any better or change the history of brutality of the Castro regime – a brutality that continues to this day.

We would do well to recall the words of Armando Valladeres, who wrote the prize-winning book Against All Hope.

He was imprisoned in the infamous Isla de Pinos in 1960 for his opposition to communism.

He lived through the hell of Castro’s jail, suffering violence, forced labor, and solitary confinement.

His writings were smuggled out, read throughout the world, and he was finally released after intense international pressure, twenty-two years after he was taken prisoner.

Here are some of his memories of captivity at the hands of Castro:

“I recalled the two sergeants, Porfirio and Matanzas, plunging their bayonets into Ernesto Diaz Madruga’s body….Boitel, denied water, after more than fifty days on a hunger strike, because Castro wanted him dead; Clara, Boitel’s poor mother, beaten by Lieutenant Abad in a Political Police station just because she wanted to find out where her son was buried….
Officers… threatened family members if they cried at a funeral.

“I remember Estebita and Piri dying in blackout cells, the victims of biological experimentation… So many others murdered in the forced-labor fields, quarries and camps. A legion of specters, naked, crippled, hobbling and crawling through my mind, and the hundreds of men mutilated in the horrifying searches.

“Eduardo Capote’s fingers chopped off by a machete. Concentration camps, tortures, women beaten…

And in the midst of that apocalyptic vision of the most dreadful and horrifying moments in my life, in the midst of the gray, ashy dust and the orgy of beatings and blood, prisoners beaten to the ground, a man emerged…

“…the skeletal figure of a man wasted by hunger with white hair, blazing blue eyes, and a heart overflowing with love, raising his arms to the invisible heaven and pleading for mercy for his executioners.

“‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.’ And a burst of machine-gun fire ripping open his chest.”

Let us remember these memories of Armando Valladeres before we think about rewarding the Cuban regime in any way.

Their sins are too great and they are not a thing of the past. The brutality and repression have been going on since 1959…

…It has never stopped. It has never gotten better. It has never changed, and it never will until Cuba is free.

When I hear my colleagues come to the floor and talk about lifting the travel ban, I’m compelled to ask: why is there such an obvious double standard when it comes to Cuba?

Why are the gulags of Cuba so different from the gulags of the old Soviet Union?

Why are we willing to tighten sanctions against Iran but loosen them when it comes to an equally repressive regime in Cuba – in effect rewarding them?

When it comes to Cuba, why are we so willing to throw up our hands and say: it’s time to forget?

Mr. President, it is not time to forget. We can never forget those who have suffered and died at the hands of dictators – whether in Iran, Cuba, or anywhere.

It is clear the repression in Cuba continues unabated, notwithstanding the embargo, notwithstanding calls by those who want us to ease travel restrictions, ease sanctions – notwithstanding calls to step back and – in affect – let bygones be bygones.…

In good conscience, I cannot do that. I cannot and will not step back.

As I said at the outset, I will come to this floor and oppose any attempt in this Chamber to pass any bill that in any way lifts or lessens the travel ban on Cuba — any bill that eases regulations on the sale of U.S. agricultural products to the island.

As long as I have a voice I will speak out in opposition to any such legislation.

As long as I have a voice I will speak out against the Castro regime until Cuba is free.

Thank you, Mr. President, and with that I yield.