[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Human Rights in Cuba: Beyond the Veneer of Reform
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, CIVILIAN SECURITY, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
July 11, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-54
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-013PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
Jason Steinbaum, Democrat Staff Director
Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
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Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security, and Trade
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey, Chairman
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida,
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas Ranking Member
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota TED S. YOHO, Florida
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan JOHN CURTIS, Utah
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas KEN BUCK, Colorado
JUAN VARGAS, California MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
Sadaf Khan, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Hon. Albio Sires, Chairman of the subcommittee................... 3
WITNESSES
Quesada, Carlos, Executive Director, International Institute on
Race, Equality, and Human Rights............................... 9
Martinez De La Serna, Carlos, Program Director, Committee to
Protect Journalists............................................ 22
Suarez, John, Executive Director, Center for a Free Cuba......... 34
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 56
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 57
Hearing Attendance............................................... 58
HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBA: BEYOND THE VENEER OF REFORM
Thursday, July 11, 2019
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere,
Civilian Security, and Trade
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Washington, DC
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Albio Sires
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Sires. Good morning, everyone. This hearing will come
to order. This hearing titled, ``Human Rights in Cuba: Beyond
the Veneer of Reform,'' will highlight the human rights
situation in Cuba, prospects for democratic reform, and options
for United States policies. Without objection, all members may
have 5 days to submit statements, questions, and extraneous
materials for the record, subject to the length limitations in
the rules.
I now will make an opening statement and then turn it over
to the ranking member for his opening statement.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you all to our witnesses for
being here today to discuss the human rights situation in Cuba.
As my colleagues know, this subject is deeply personal to me. I
left Cuba and came to the United States when I was 11 years
old. I am forever grateful that this country took me in. I work
hard every day to represent each member of my district
including the many first-generation immigrants who, like me,
were forced to leave their home countries in search of a better
life.
For this reason, it is especially painful for me that
despite great progress over the last six decades to improve
quality of life around the world, the Cuban regime remains
stuck in the Dark Ages. This is a government that continues to
lock up those who speak out against it. It is a government that
criminalizes the core freedoms that are the foundation of any
democracy. It is a government that for sixty years has denied
the Cuban people their rights to choose their own leaders.
Some observers have hoped that economic openings, like the
growing number of small businesses on the island, will pave the
way for political reform as well. Unfortunately, the Cuban
state has shown an ability to withstand those changes while
remaining among the most repressive governments in the world.
The Economist Intelligence Unit classifies Cuba as an
authoritarian regime and Freedom House rates Cuba as ``not
free''. This year, Cuba ranked 169th of 180 countries in global
press freedom, according to the Reporters Without Borders.
The Communist Party has accepted and even encouraged some
cosmetic changes to give the impression that life on the island
is improving. But the underlying reality of one-party rule
remains intact. Even as internet access has expanded, those
Cubans who can afford to go online have their every move
tracked by the State and are prohibited from accessing dozens
of blocked websites.
Cuban citizens with the means to travel are increasingly
allowed to do so, but only on the condition that they respect
the long arm of the Cuban police state. For instance, activists
seeking to travel into international forums to offer testimony
about Cuba's human rights record are often prevented from
leaving the island. Despite the laws prohibiting discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation, a group of Cuban LGBT
rights activists were arrested and beaten by plainclothes
security officers on May 11th when they organized a peaceful
demonstration that the government had refused to authorize.
It seems that the Cuban regime is always devising new
strategies aimed at improving its international image without
actually changing its system of one-party dominance. I know
that we may not all agree about the best direction for U.S.
policy toward Cuba, but I hope that we can agree that the
status quo in which 11 million people are denied their basic
rights by Cuba's authoritarian regime is an injustice.
It was in this spirit that earlier this year I introduced a
resolution condemning conditions of forced labor that Cuban
doctors are subjected to. The resolution contends that Cuba's
foreign medical missions constitute human trafficking, given
that the Cuban Government forces doctors to participate in the
program against their will and garnishes as much as 75 percent
of their wages.
In Venezuela, Cuban doctors were forced to withhold
lifesaving medical treatment from individuals who have not
proven their political loyalties to the repressive Maduro
regime. In this hearing we will take a closer look at the human
rights situation in Cuba and explore ways for the U.S. Congress
to support the Cuban people in their quest for freedom.
Thank you, and I now turn to the Ranking Member Rooney for
his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sires follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Rooney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this
important hearing and for your great leadership of our
committee. For almost 50 years, Fidel Castro ruled Cuba by
repression which denied the Cuban people their most basic human
rights and violently crushed political dissent. Today, this
system of intimidation and violence against those who speak out
against the regime continues under Miguel Diaz-Canel, and the
guiding hand of Raul Castro is behind that anyway.
Under Fidel Castro, the Cuban regime spread its Communist
ideology throughout Latin America and in Southern Africa. The
Cuban regime continues to be the standard for repression in the
Western Hemisphere. Today, we see its blueprint for tyranny in
Venezuela and Nicaragua as it attempts to spread its repressive
tactics to other States in the region.
Under this regime, the Cuban people are deprived of their
freedom of assembly, association, religion, and speech as the
government maximizes State control over all aspects of society.
Like the old Soviet Union, this system of repression and
control seeks to instill fear among the population and
undermine the ideals of freedom and democracy. Until 2013,
Cubans were required to obtain an exit visa and a letter of
invitation to travel abroad, creating an island prison for
millions of Cubans. Today, the regime restricts travel for many
Cuban dissidents.
Opposing the Cuban regime nearly guarantees government
backlash and detention. In June 2018, the Cuban so-called
Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation
released a public list of 120 political prisoners, including 96
non-violent opponents of the regime. However, this number is
probably a lot higher, because it is impossible to determine
the exact number of political prisoners in Cuba.
The regime refuses to allow access to prisons and detention
centers and to international organizations or the U.N. The
regime also engages in short-term detentions to intimidate and
silence dissidents. In 2018, 2,873 short-term detentions were
recorded. And in 2016, an all-time high of detentions was
reached of 9,940.
The island's human rights defenders, religious groups, and
organized dissident groups are constantly harassed by the Cuban
Government and labeled as mercenaries. Their leaders are in
constant danger of being detained. These groups include Las
Damas de Blanco that was formed by the wives and relatives of a
group of 75 dissidents arrested in 2003, and the Patriotic
Union of Cuba which was established in 2011 by another group of
dissidents who peacefully sought to establish civil liberties
and human rights.
Many of their members such as Hamel Santiago Maz Hernandez
have died in prison after being detained for arbitrary crimes
such as desacato or lack of respect for the government. Dr.
Eduardo Cardet, who was in prison for two and a half years for
publicly criticizing Fidel Castro, while he was released in
2019, the release is conditional and his right to move and
assembly are restricted, keeping him as prisoners of
conscience.
The Cuban regime censors dissent through its control of the
media. Private media in Cuba is illegal and the government uses
arbitrary detention, threats, harassment, and censorship
against journalists who criticize the regime. In 2018, two
human rights organizations affiliated with OAS reported that
Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere in which
there are zero guarantees of freedom of expression.
To complement its repression at home, the Castro regime has
exported thousands of its agents to Venezuela to prop up the
illegitimate, authoritarian Maduro regime in Venezuela and to
struggle to maintain its own authoritarian grip on power. These
Cuban agents have assisted in extrajudicial detention, torture,
and intimidation of opponents of the Chavez and, now, Maduro
regimes. They run the so-called escuadron azul, the death squad
of Maduro.
The United States must exert maximum pressure on the Cuban
regime to reform its government and stop the systematic human
rights abuses against the Cuban people. The Obama
Administration's efforts to re-engage the Cuban regime, while
noble, have failed to assure quantifiable improvements in human
rights conditions and the rule of law. We must continue to
support Cuba's human rights defenders and demand that the Cuban
regime make substantive reforms that will allow for freedom.
Access to information is absolutely critical and support
for independent news and information must continue to engage
the Cuban people. I support the administration in no longer
rewarding the Castro regime for its human rights abuses and for
calling on the government to end its repression of innocent
Cubans. I look forward to the hearing, the testimonies today,
and once again I appreciate Chairman Sires for his leadership
and for his personal interest and background story pertaining
to the abuses of Cuba.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Sires. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Rooney.
I will now introduce our witnesses. Let me introduce,
first, Mr. Carlos Quesada, Executive Director of the
International Institute on Race, Equality, and Human Rights. He
has 25 years of experience working before the Organization of
American States in its different bodies and is a trained
journalist and a lawyer. Welcome.
We will then hear from Mr. Carlos Martinez de la Serna,
Program Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Mr.
Martinez worked as a reporter and a digital journalist in the
United States, Spain, and Japan, covering current affairs and
is the former director of digital innovations at Univision
News. Welcome.
Finally, we will hear from Mr. John Suarez, Executive
Director of the Center for a Free Cuba. Previously, Mr. Suarez
was a program officer for Latin American Programs at Freedom
House and a human rights activist, and he is a member of the
Cuban Democratic Directorate.
Thank you all for being here. I ask the witness to please
limit your testimony to 5 minutes and, without objection, your
prepared, written statements will be made part of the record.
Thank you so much for being here today.
And, Mr. Quesada, I turn to you for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF CARLOS QUESADA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTE ON RACE, EQUALITY, AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Quesada. Chairman Sires, Ranking Member Rooney, and
members of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Civil
Security, and Trade, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today to share critical information regarding the
human rights in Cuba, prospects for democratic reform, and
options for U.S. policy. I commend the committee for holding
this important and timely hearing.
Given our extensive work with civil society, with
independent Cuban civil society, my testimony today will focus
on threats and challenges to human rights defenders in Cuba and
the methods employed by the Cuban Government to criminalize or
otherwise restrict the work of civil society organizations and
activists. This criminalization has resulted in a population of
political prisoners totaling 100, and disproportionately
impacts historically marginalized populations.
The human rights situation in Cuba is dire and can be
characterized as a war of attrition between the government and
independent civil society activists. State authorities
routinely violate the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights by harassing,
threatening, detaining, and interrogating activists and their
families.
The principal threats and challenges to human rights
defenders in Cuba include the new constitution and restrictions
on fundamental rights. Furthermore, the arbitrary manner in
which the Cuban justice system operates, the principal method
by which activists are criminalized, is a threat in and of
itself.
The contrived approval of the new constitution in the
February 24th referendum ushered in a new era with regard to
legal guarantees for human rights in Cuba. In a calculated move
to create a loophole through which it can avoid complying with
international human rights treaty obligations, the Cuban
Government altered the text of the new constitution to grant it
supremacy over international law.
Freedom of expression and opinion is nonexistent in Cuba.
Independent civil society organizations are not permitted to
legally register, in violation of their right to freedom of
association. Activists and their family members face constant
psychological torture. And we just found out that private
companies such as Western Union may collaborate with government
authorities to criminalize human rights activists, in clear
violation of those activists' rights to privacy. Finally,
arbitrary detentions and further violations of due process
guarantees are commonplace.
The principal methods employed by the Cuban Government to
criminalize or otherwise restrict the work of civil society
organizations and activists include the misuse of the justice
system and travel restrictions. Police and investigating
authorities have broad and unchecked powers to detain and
investigate individuals for up to 7 days without the right to
counsel or judicial review. Crimes in the Cuban Penal Code are
so vaguely defined that they can be used to criminalize almost
any behavior. Sham trials involving false witnesses are used to
convict activists.
For the past 2 years, we have documented cases of political
prisoners and the crimes for which they are convicted. Let me
be clear. Although the vast majority of these individuals are
charged with common crimes, they are political prisoners
criminalized because of their activism of their way of
thinking. In the coming weeks, we will be publishing a report
exposing the intricacies of the administration of justice in
Cuba.
Independent civil society activists are frequently
prohibited from leaving Cuba to participate in regional and
international advocacy spaces as a tactic to prevent the world
from knowing the reality of the human rights situation in Cuba.
Most recently, five activists that we, my organization, had
planned to bring to the Organization of American States General
Assembly in Medellin, Colombia, were prevented from leaving the
country. The only justification ever offered is ``national
security interests.''
It is worth noting that activists who are women, Afro-
descendants, and members of the LGBTI community
disproportionately suffer human rights violations in Cuba.
Their intersectional characteristics make them particularly
vulnerable to multiple forms of discrimination. Female
activists, for example, routinely confront physical and
psychological violence against which they have no recourse,
given Cuba's lack of legislation prohibiting gender-based
violence.
Racial slurs are commonly employed against Afro-descendant
activists who, the saying goes, should be grateful because the
Revolution made black people human. And members of the LGBTI
community are facing a new reality after the violent crackdown
they experienced during the independently organized Pride March
on May 11th of this year.
Chairman Sires, Ranking Member Rooney, and members of the
subcommittee, human rights in Cuba should remain a priority
area of focus for the U.S. Government. The fundamental rights
of activists, whose work is the country's best prospect for
democratic reform, are systemically violated. As such, I would
like to offer the following recommendations:
Continue to monitor and expose the human rights situation
in Cuba. Request the Cuban Government immediately release all
political prisoners. Offer public support for independent civil
society activists and journalists. Expand the U.S. diplomatic
presence in order to have more direct contact with independent
civil society organizations on the island. Encourage the Cuban
Government to engage in a dialog with independent civil society
regarding human rights issues. And request from Western Union
information about how it operates in Cuba and how government
officials can have access to information about activists
receiving money from abroad.
Thank you very much and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Quesada follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. Mr. Martinez, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF CARLOS MARTINEZ DE LA SERNA, PROGRAM DIRECTOR,
COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Chair Sires, Ranking Member
Rooney, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on press freedom in
Cuba. My name is Carlos Martinez de la Serna and I am the
program director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ
is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press
freedom worldwide and defends the rights of journalists to
report news safely and without fear of reprisal.
In this testimony I will highlight some of the most urgent
press freedom issues in Cuba. I will also provide
recommendations on how to support Cuba's journalists and to
help improve conditions for independent media in Cuba.
Even as Cuba has seen some points of tight State control
over media and freedom of expression loosen over the last
decade, the country continues to be one of the Western
Hemisphere's most difficult environments for the press.
Independent and critical Cuban journalists constantly face the
possibility of detention, having their homes or devices
searched, their reporting equipment confiscated, and even
criminal prosecution on anti-State charges. The slowly
expanding influence of the internet has opened up new avenues
for expression and journalistic work, but has also expanded the
set of tools at Cuban officials' disposal to monitor, surveil
and censor journalists, media workers, and private citizens.
Over the last decade, in the midst of this established
repressive infrastructure, a lively blogosphere and a number of
new, ambitious websites and media outlets has sprung up on the
island. This new media expansion began in earnest in 2011, when
then-President Raul Castro introduced market-style reforms,
opening up economic space for the creation of a number of
outlets that began as what were essentially personal blogs, and
then grew into independent sites.
With the restoration of diplomatic relations between the
United States and Cuba in 2014, the process accelerated and the
number of blogs, magazines, and independent media proliferated
to cover a variety of issues. However, despite these efforts,
the energized press alone could not overturn the country's
restrictive legal framework.
Life in Cuba for many reporters and activists is
characterized by arbitrary privacy violations. Short-term
arrests are still one of the most common tools used by Cuban
authorities to intimidate and control the press. The State
maintains bans on the import of informational materials, a
strict control of all forms of media, and restrictions on the
internet. Changes in top leadership in the Cuban Government
have not translated to any meaningful alteration in legislation
governing media freedom or freedom of expression.
There is a long way to go in Cuba. In order to improve its
record on free expression, Cuba must take the following steps:
Ratify and implement international human rights agreements to
guarantee freedom of expression and information; end the use of
detention, surveillance, and smear campaigns against
independent journalists and bloggers; remove legal barriers to
individual internet access and extend affordable access to the
population at large; and dismantle a legal framework that
punishes independent journalism.
We also urge members of Congress to speak publicly about
the journalists and outlets who are subject to detention,
travel prohibitions, and other State-sponsored harassment;
support initiatives to expand affordable internet access in
Cuba and access to platforms and tools that will allow Cubans
to exercise their right to free expression online, without
enforced surveillance or censorship; and urge the
administration to stand up for Cuba's journalists both publicly
and privately as well. In addition, the U.S. Government should
consider Cuban journalists' work as a basis for a well-founded
fear of persecution if and when they apply for asylum or
refugee status.
While there are still many hurdles on the path to U.S.-
Cuban normalization, the effect of greater communication
between both countries could be positive for freedom of
expression on the island. As a result, journalists will
hopefully be able to do their jobs without the constant threat
of violence or imprisonment solely for reporting and expressing
critical opinions, and with the prospect of internet access
without filters, obstructions, or prohibitive costs.
Thank you for providing CPJ with the opportunity to address
you about this important matter.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Martinez de la Serna
follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Mr. Suarez.
STATEMENT OF JOHN SUAREZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR A FREE
CUBA
Mr. Suarez. Chairman Sires, Ranking Member Rooney, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for this privilege to
provide testimony on human rights in Cuba. My name is John
Suarez. I am the executive director of the Center for a Free
Cuba, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to the
promotion of human rights in Cuba.
To understand the human rights situation in Cuba, one must
understand what came before. Cuba had regular competitive
elections and between 1944 and 1952 presidents who respected
human rights and civil liberties. This was reflected in the
role Cuban diplomats played in 1948 in pushing for regional and
international human rights covenants.
All of this came crashing down with Fulgencio Batista's
military coup in 1952. The Castro brothers promised to restore
democracy while imposing a Communist dictatorship in 1959. In
May 1961, they confiscated private schools and most seminaries
to eliminate religion. In September 1961, the Castro regime, at
gunpoint, collected 131 priests, brothers, and a bishop and
placed them on board the Spanish ship Covadonga and deported
them from Cuba. Today, the Office of Religious Affairs, an arm
of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, still
oversees religious affairs in Cuba and exists to monitor,
hinder, and restrict religious activities.
Sixty years later, Fidel Castro is gone, but his brother
Raul remains along with the Communist regime. What is called
reform in Cuba has been a fraud for the dynastic succession of
the Castro family. Raul Castro remains in control of the
government as head of the Communist Party. His son, Alejandro
Castro Espin, a colonel in the Ministry of the Interior,
presided over the Cuban side in the negotiations to normalize
relations during the previous administration.
In 2018, Raul Castro presided over the revision of the
current constitution that was subjected to a referendum on
February 24th, 2019. On February 24th, Cubans were called to
the polls to ratify a new constitution that despite cosmetic
changes enshrines the principles of the existing one-party
political system. Basic conditions for free and fair elections
were not fulfilled, independent observers were not allowed, and
numerous voting irregularities were reported.
This is the third time during the Communist era that the
constitution was changed. The Communist Party remains the only
legal political party. The maximum authority in the regime
resides with the head of the Cuban Communist Party. The late
dissident leader, Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, called this fraudulent
change. There have been no improvements at all to the nature of
the Cuban regime. It is a one-party, Communist dictatorship run
by the Castros.
Opposition groups in Cuba are not legally recognized and
independent civil society is actively discouraged. Independent
human rights organizations in Cuba are illegal. There is no
space for free expression in Cuba. The Cuban Government
attempted to create a fake space for debate on the
constitutional referendum, but when independent actors
attempted to speak in them freely, the response was swift and
brutal.
Over the past 16 months, two decrees have further
undermined and restricted human rights. Decree 349, signed by
President Diaz-Canel in 2018, further restricts and controls
artistic expression in Cuba. This provoked protests by
independent artists, many were arbitrarily detained, and at
least two have been jailed for a prolonged period. Article 68
of Decree-Law 370/2018, issued on July 4th, 2019, prohibits
Cuban citizens from running websites hosted outside of the
country.
Cubans continue to defy the dictatorship and demand their
rights and freedoms, often paying a terrible cost. With us
today is Sirley Avila Leon. Sirley was a delegate to the
Municipal Assembly of People's Power in Cuba for 7 years when
the regime eliminated her district. She had fought to open a
school in her district, but had been ignored by official
channels and had reached out to international media. Her son,
Yoerlis Pena Avila, who had an 18-year distinguished career in
the Cuban military was forced out when he refused to declare
his mother insane and have her committed.
Sirley joined the dissident movement and repression against
her increased. On May 24th, 2015 she was the victim of a
machete attack carried out by Osmany Carrion that led to the
loss of her left hand, right upper arm nearly severed, and
knees slashed into. Following the attack, she did not receive
adequate care and was told quietly by medical doctors that if
she wanted to get better, she would need to leave Cuba.
This is not new. Cubans sought freedom by fleeing the
island. While others have protested for their rights over
decades, the response has often been brutal. Twenty-five years
ago, on July 13th, 1994, regime agents killed 37 Cubans when
they tried to flee to freedom aboard the ``13 de marzo''
tugboat. Less than a month later, August 5th, 1994, the streets
of Havana erupted when thousands of protesters chanting
``libertad'' were repressed.
Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya on March 30th, 2012 warned
about the Cuban Government's effort to perpetuate itself in
power. He also knew what real change would look like and argued
that the gradual approach only makes sense if there are
transparent prospects of freedom and rights. Oswaldo also
reminded many who have forgotten that ``We Cubans have a right
to our rights.'' Human rights and the Cuban struggle for
freedom are not an afterthought, but the central issue in the
dispute between Cubans and the dictatorship.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Suarez follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Sires. Thank you very much, Mr. Suarez.
Now we will go to questions. I will start with the
questioning. The New York Times reported that Cuban doctors in
Venezuela were being forced to withhold lifesaving medical
assistance in order to coerce desperate individuals into voting
for the Maduro regime. I introduced a resolution to classify
the medical missions that these doctors were part of as human
trafficking.
Can you speak about how the Cuban regime has profited from
its medical missions and whether the U.S. Congress should take
steps to assist the victims of these medical missions? Can
anyone speak to that?
Mr. Suarez. Yes. The issue of human----
Mr. Sires. Turn your mic on.
Mr. Suarez. The issue of human trafficking is something
that, fortunately, has been in the latest report on trafficking
reflects that Cuba is in the black list for that issue. And we
are talking about healthcare professionals in this case and
they do have a duty to put the Revolution first and their
medical duties second, and that is something that you mentioned
that is reflected in what is taking place in Venezuela and in
other places.
The regime is profiting to the tunes of billions of dollars
a year in this export of doctors. There are tens of thousands
of doctors across the world, not only in Venezuela but also in
Mexico, across Africa, and areas of the Middle East, and they
are the chief source of revenue for the Castro regime. I think
that a return to a policy that protects those doctors and
provides them with refuge would be a welcome step forward.
Thank you.
Mr. Sires. Thank you. I was disturbed to hear about Cuban
LGBT activists being arrested and beaten up for participating
in a peaceful demonstration in May. What have you been hearing
from the LGBT activists and organizations on the island and if
they are concerned that the overall situation for LGBT rights
defenders is worsening in Cuba?
Mr. Quesada.
Mr. Quesada. Yes, we have been working with LGBT activists
for more than 7 years and independent LGBT activists. The main
problem, I think, before the May 11th march was the
cancellation of the typical conga by the CENESEX, you know, and
the CENESEX, Center for Sexual Education, run by Mariela
Castro, Raul Castro's daughter.
So independent civil society, LGBT activists decided that
they would like to have like an independent march. Four of our
partners were actually detained before the march took place and
CENESEX actually decided to organize a party the same day on
May 11th at the same time of the march. A lot of people were
not allowed to actually go to the march, like the main LGBTI
activists. We know that they were interrogated up to for 24
hours. They were told that they had two options, either leave
the country or face jail time. Some of them actually have left
the country already.
And, in general, I would say regarding the human rights
situation of LGBT people there are two main problems. One is
kind of the monopoly of the State in terms of LGBT rights, and
the lack of participation by independent LGBT activists to even
LGBTI activities outside of Cuba. That is all I would say.
Mr. Sires. Anybody else want to add to that?
You know, the Chinese company, Huawei, has worked closely
with the Cubans telecommunications monopoly to develop the
country's telecommunication infrastructure. Given this
company's close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, are you
concerned about this in Cuba?
Mr. Martinez, anybody?
Mr. Suarez. Yes, we are very concerned. The Chinese have a
record of developing a very sophisticated system of control,
not only censorship but also monitoring and locating
dissidents, in the past they did it with the help of companies
such as Yahoo in China. And activists were imprisoned, some
were tortured and killed, and we are very fearful. And I think
considering the new decree that came out on July 4th, the
prospects that they will be targeting cyberactivists has
increased dramatically in Cuba. And with Huawei's help,
unfortunately, they will be able to be quite effective in
targeting these activists.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Ranking Member Rooney.
Mr. Rooney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to ask Mr. Suarez, since you mentioned
about websites and internet, the Wall Street Journal had a
picture this week of a bunch of Cuban kids sitting on a curb,
all on their phones just like any other kid would be right
here, talking about the extension of 3G in Cuba and the
protests that the young people are having now over the price of
it. I wonder if that gives us an opportunity and how you feel
about the opportunities that technology might present that
might chink at the armor there.
Mr. Suarez. Well, I think that the Castro regime has had a
series of strategies of control. Initially, they just did not
provide access to internet to anyone on the island. It was
dramatically restricted. Cuba had some of the lowest levels of
internet connectivity in the Hemisphere. Between 2002 and 2008,
the Castro regime outlawed the purchase of computers in Cuba.
Now they have shifted and they have allowed more access. They
have allowed 3G recently.
But what they are doing hand-in-hand with it is this new
Decree 68 from July 4th, which is now going to be going after
those cyberactivists that have set up platforms outside of the
island where the regime has less control, and they are pushing
to have those shut down. And they are going to be becoming more
restrictive internally with their Chinese friends with the
golden shield which has been very effective in mainland China.
I believe they are going to be applying those tactics inside of
Cuba.
So it is going to be a very long, hard road for independent
journalists that until now have been able to get their work out
of the island and then back in.
Mr. Rooney. No Romanian imminent? No Ceausescu moment
imminent yet.
Mr. Suarez. No.
Mr. Rooney. But an opportunity.
The other thing I would like to ask any of you that would
like to answer is about religious freedom in Cuba. When I was
there, the Spanish priests that we talked to said that the
government pre-clears their sermons. They will let them have
Mass, but the government is there and they are pretty
restrictive about it. I know Cardinal Ortega personally and I
know he has been very controversial. Half the people think he
is too much close to Castro, half the people think he is doing
all he can.
So any comments that you all might have on what
opportunities we may have to deal with some of the challenges
to religious freedom in Cuba?
Mr. Suarez. Well, I think that one thing that the U.S. can
do that would be of great assistance would be to push for the
Cuban Government to shut down the Office of Religious Affairs.
I think it is an outrage that the Central Committee of the
Communist Party oversees religious life in Cuba. And Pope John
Paul II during his visit in 1998 requested that that be closed
down. It has not been. And I think it is an area where if a lot
of light is brought on it and a lot of international
attention--it is an embarrassment for the Castro regime--and I
think it could be something that would be a positive step
forward for religious freedom if that office is gotten rid of.
Mr. Rooney. Anyone else want to comment?
Please, Dr. Quesada.
Mr. Quesada. I would like to, actually, to add the fact
that, you know, how the government manipulates, so to speak,
the freedom of religion in Cuba, and I would like to use the
example of Article 68 in the proposed constitution that
guarantees gay marriage in Cuba.
So the article was literally taken out of the proposed
constitution according to the government because the religious
groups were not happy about it. And, actually, the religious
groups in Cuba were very active against that article and the
government allowed those fundamentalists, if I can use the
word, to actually take Article 68 out of the proposed
constitution. So what I am saying here is that sometimes, you
know, it is, you know, they allow the religious freedom for
their own purpose and sometimes they just restrict the freedom
of religion.
Mr. Rooney. I have one more question for whoever would like
to answer it. You know, Lenin said the capitalists will sell us
the rope we will use to hang them with, and I wonder if there
is a role for international business in the United States to
push international business, to push companies that are working
there, which there are many, to not deal through GAESA and
break that link between employers and their employees and the
clever way the Cubans are keeping capitalism out of the system
down there.
Mr. Suarez. Well, I think you brought up a very important
matter. GAESA, which is run by Raul Castro's son-in-law,
controls close to 60 percent of the Cuban economy and has--the
bulk of the tourist industry is run under GAESA which is an arm
of the Cuban military establishment. I think that it would be
very positive if international business followed the path that
was followed in South Africa with the Sullivan principles.
There is a case a few years back that came with something
called the Arcos principles, named after another prominent
Cuban human rights defender, that would have principled
investment inside of Cuba.
I also think it is important to point out that perhaps we
should highlight the numerous business people from Western
democracies that have been locked up in Cuba, and their crime
has been that the Cuban Government has not been able to pay the
bill that it owes them. So then the response is they lock them
up and then loot them completely.
Mr. Rooney. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Sires. Congressman Levin.
Mr. Levin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Quesada, I was interested in the comment you just made.
It sounds like there are troubling parallels between the Cuban
Government and our own in terms of their kowtowing to religious
groups and limiting the freedom of LGBTQ people in our--in both
of these countries. So I hope we can make progress on that. You
mention in your recommendations that you think the U.S. should
expand its diplomatic presence in Cuba in order to have more
direct contact with independent civil society groups.
Can you--what is the history of our diplomatic presence
over the last 10 years and where is it today?
Mr. Quesada. I think the main problem today is the lack of
staff that the embassy has right now. When we had an interest
office, so to speak, it was also limited, but when we had an
embassy, when we became an embassy there, there were more
personnel. People were, you know, the different political, or
civil servants on the island were able to reach out to
activists. And right now, because of the limited staff that the
embassy has, basically, I mean even our partners on the ground
have been telling us as that they do not even have access now
to the embassy as they used to have it before. So that is why I
was recommending to have a more diplomatic presence, so to
speak.
And the other thing is that what we find out is that to
visit political prisoners or former political prisoners is very
important for them.
Mr. Levin. So we re-established diplomatic relations in
December 2015 or thereabouts and we built up our diplomatic
presence and now we have many fewer staff there.
Mr. Quesada. Correct.
Mr. Levin. So it is hard for us to interact with these
groups on the ground, support political prisoners, and other
things to advance the human rights cause without sufficient
staff.
Mr. Quesada. Correct.
Mr. Martinez, I am curious about whether the--how you see
the ability of journalists and organizations that support
journalists like yourself to interact with their counterparts
in Cuba like American journalists based on, you know,
restrictions of travel and what not. Is it better to have more
free travel of American journalists to Cuba and others who
would support them or less free interaction? Which would be
better to support human rights in Cuba and specifically the
rights of journalists to do their work? Do you understand the
question?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Well, I am not sure what you want
me to answer, yes.
Mr. Levin. So we are going toward, you know, in basically
2014 and 2015 we moved toward an idea that we should have more
engagement with Cuba----
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Yes.
Mr. Levin [continuing]. Rather than less. Now we are moving
the other direction.
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Yes.
Mr. Levin. Restricting travel, restricting interaction,
keeping Americans from going to Cuba, is that helpful for the
human rights of, you know, and the freedom of journalists to
work in Cuba, to restrict Americans' access?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Generally speaking, generally
speaking, I do not think so. We need always more eyes on the
ground and more interaction to understand the problems and also
to support journalists on the ground.
Mr. Levin. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I feel we are going in the
wrong direction. I yield back.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Congressman.
Congressman Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this important hearing. Thank you to our witnesses.
You know, in the 1980's I traveled with Armando Valladares
to the U.N. Human Rights Council, then called the Commission.
He was able to get an important resolution passed as head of
the U.S. delegation. As we all know, he spent close to 20 years
in the gulags of Fidel Castro, was tortured horribly, and when
he wrote ``Against All Hope,'' his memoir, he pointed out how
systematic the brutality was by the Castro regime.
There was commitments made to the U.N. personnel and to the
families that came forward, there will be no retaliation.
Almost to a person, there was retaliation. There was concern
just expressed that we do not have enough people working in the
embassy, but let's not forget why those people were ordered
home. Between November 2016 and May 2018, there were a number
of unexplained injuries, cognitive loss, hearing loss; we do
not know the full reason why, but it was very, very suspicious.
So out of an abundance of caution and concern for our
embassy personnel and their families, many were returned to the
United States. And let me just say, after the rapprochement
with Fidel Castro, I went and met along with Piero Tozzi, our
general counsel on the Human Rights Committee--I was chairman
of it, held many hearings on Cuba--and met with Cabanas, asked
him for a visa; I still have not gotten it. He told me they
will tell me certain people I can talk to and not talk to.
So I asked him, ``Do other congressional delegations when
they go to Cuba agree to those preconditions?'' And he said
yes.
And I would just admonish and encourage my fellow Members
that when you go there should be an unfettered ability to talk
to dissidents and get into the prisons. And I would ask the
panel whether or not the ICRC has had access--the International
Committee for the Red Cross--to the prisons, and again do they
have concerns about these parameters that are put on Members
who then willingly accept them, apparently, when they go?
Let me also bring out the issue of trafficking. President
Obama had falsely and, I think, artificially upgraded Cuba. I
am the author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, so I
take very seriously all things related to trafficking. Frank
Calzon, I remember, when we were in Geneva one time at a Human
Rights Commission a van pulled over, because he was bringing up
child sex trafficking in Cuba, and was punched by Cuban thugs
who did not like what he was doing in town.
But I am glad that this Administration, Pompeo, has now
downgraded Cuba to tier 3 and in a narrative make it very clear
as to why that is the case including these medical missions and
the coercion that is used. But it was artificially upgraded.
All these give-and-no-take from the previous administration, I
thought was ill-advised at best. I mean human rights should
always be at the core of what we do and we need to see
progress.
There was no linkage to this opening of the embassy, and
then what happens to our embassy personnel--they get sick. And
again, we think there may have been some very--so my question,
ICRC access to prisons, whether or not when Members of Congress
go there, or other lawmakers, is it your knowledge that they
agree to these preconditions?
I would love to go to Cuba. I have tried for 25 years to
get into the prisons; only to have the door slammed by Fidel
Castro who once called me a provocateur for wanting to go the
prisons. You know, I go to prisons all over the world. I have
been in prisons in Indonesia, China, Beijing Prison Number 1
where Tiananmen Square activists were, the Perm camp 35, the
infamous prison where Natan Sharansky was in the 1980's; I
cannot get into a prison in Cuba.
So your thoughts on that and again, and also on this
trafficking upgrade--downgrade, I should say--to tier 3. Cuba
is now with North Korea, China, Syria, Venezuela as an
egregious violator of human trafficking, whether or not you
agree with that.
Mr. Suarez. The International Committee of the Red Cross,
the last time they were able to visit a Cuban prison was in
1989. They had a small period between 1988 and 1989 that they
were able to conduct some visits. Before that it had been 1959.
So we are talking 30 years since the last visit and then
another 30 years before that, before that first visit, that
first range of visits. And I think that is an area where there
needs to be focus placed by the international community and
calling on the Cuban Government to allow the International
Committee of the Red Cross, which is a nonpartisan entity, to
have access to those prisons to see what the conditions are, to
see how the prisoners are being treated.
With regards to tier 3, I think that it is important to
recall that when Cuba was redesignated tier 2, experts in the
antislavery movement came out and denounced it at the time as a
politicization of the process. So I think returning Cuba to
tier 3 is the correct thing to do because it reflects the
accurate situation on the ground. Thank you.
Mr. Quesada. If I can add a little bit on the human rights
situations in prisons, I mean, in general, the situation is
very horrible, but it is particularly horrible for political
prisoners. And I would like to mention the case of Mr. Eduardo
Cardet who was brutally beaten when he was detained. During
prison he was attacked. He did not have access to medical
attention for a long time. I mean we have documented his whole
case and it shows the level of violence that political
prisoners face in a Cuban prison, and this has been denounced
by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United
Nations.
And I would just like to tell you that last year Cuba was
reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review and some countries
actually make recommendations about improving the situation of
prisoners in Cuba.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Quesada.
Congressman Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman.
With the Obama Administration a few years back now, I
believe started to try to normalize relations with Cuba, first
diplomatically, because folks believed that after the Castro
era was over that there would be an opening for the United
States to have a better, legitimately have a better
relationship with Cuba, that Cuba would perhaps become
democratic, that it would fundamentally change, And we wanted
to establish that relationship before other countries like
China or Russia or Venezuela, or others solidified their hold
on Cuba for another 30 or 40 or 50 years.
So I guess my question to you all is, how has governance
changed, if at all, since the Castro regime, and who is in
charge now? What is the state of governance in Cuba?
Mr. Quesada. I would like to talk about it from the human
rights perspective and, unfortunately, the human rights
situation has not changed. And the situation right now as it
was in the previous administration or other administrations, I
mean if you are a person who thinks differently in Cuba, you
face the consequences, basically. And we have not, in terms of
human rights and the situation of human rights, we have not
seen any change.
What we have seen is the consistency of the government to
commit human rights violations. And this has been said by the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and U.N. treaty
bodies.
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. If I can add on freedom of
expression, there has not been any reform on the legal system
supporting all the repression on independent journalism and
there is no sign we see that that is going to happen under the
current government.
Mr. Castro. In your estimation, has there been any move
closer to democracy, real democracy?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. No.
Mr. Suarez. With regards to who is running Cuba, Raul
Castro. Under the Cuban system, the maximum authority is the
head of the Communist Party and that is the title that he
holds. He also was the individual who oversaw the
constitutional reform process in 2018. Second----
Mr. Castro. So you are saying that you still believe that
he is strongly in control.
Mr. Suarez. He is strongly in place, but also for the
negotiations for normalizing relations between 2013 and 2014 it
was Alejandro Castro Espin, Raul Castro's son, who was the
person that the U.S. was negotiating with. So the Castro family
is still very much----
Mr. Castro. Now bear in mind, he is what, 80, late 80's at
this point?
Mr. Suarez. Raul Castro in his late 80's. Alejandro Castro
is 53, and he is a colonel in the Ministry of the Interior who
has a very hostile view toward the United States.
I think it is also important to recall that when the U.S.
diplomats went to Havana to begin the process of normalizing
relations and opening up the embassy, that Russian spy ships
were in----
Mr. Castro. Right.
Mr. Suarez [continuing]. Havana Harbor to send a very clear
message. And I think also if we look at that period when the
negotiations were taking place in 2013, Cuba was caught
smuggling tons of weapons to North Korea. Cuba was caught a few
months later involved in a shipment of ammunition to Colombia.
So they are very much an outlaw State in terms of their
behavior. And I think also talking about the diplomats,
American diplomats have been harmed since November 2016, which
has led to this pullback at the U.S. embassy. But it is also
important to remember Canadian diplomats have been harmed.
Canada, that has had very good relations with Cuba, has also
had to pull back and they have had to reduce their presence.
So now Cubans cannot get--in the same way that they have to
go to a third country to get visas to be able to visit the
U.S., they are having to do the same with Canada. So it is
definitely a step back.
Mr. Castro. And also I wanted to ask you about access to
information now. For example, if you go to China, you cannot
get on Facebook. Has that improved in Cuba at all?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. I think in that regards, because
there is some slight improvement--there is internet, there is
cell phones, and there is access to Facebook--that is probably
one of the most critical opportunities to promote access to
information, the free flow of information in Cuba, but
providing or helping build an independent internet
infrastructure that cannot easily be controlled, surveilled and
blocked by the government, which is what is happening today.
Mr. Castro. I yield back, Chairman.
Mr. Suarez. I would add one thing that on July 4th they
passed a new decree, Decree-Law 370/2018, which now will
prohibit Cuban citizens from running websites hosted outside of
the country, which was one of the ways they are able to get
uncensored information produced from inside and then reflected
back into the island. So it looks like that opening may be
closing.
Mr. Castro. Thank you.
Mr. Sires. Congressman Ted Yoho.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate you gentlemen being here. Can you describe the
impact or restriction on basic human rights over many
generations has had on the broader Cuban population? That is
No. 1. And--well, go ahead and answer that question first. You
know, for 60 years of repression and suppression, and
suppression of free thought, freedom of speech, what effect has
that had on the Cuban population, on their outlook on freedom
and things like that?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. It is very hard for me having not
been exposed to that situation, right, to assess what that
means, so I do not want to venture into that. It is just 60
years of not having access to independent information to free
debate on public issues and on many other things that is
catastrophic.
Mr. Yoho. It is. It squashes hope and outlook for the
future, right, and so we know that.
Mr. Quesada.
Mr. Quesada. Yes. I would say that since they have access
to internet and Facebook and those kinds of things, we can see
kind of two generations and the younger generation is more
exposed to outside information and what is going on outside and
this has changed the minds of a lot of youth. And I would say,
unfortunately, for--or a negative side of it has been like if
you ask today a young Cuban if they want to stay in Cuba, the
answer will be no. They want to have what they have seen on the
internet.
Mr. Yoho. That is interesting. So one of my questions for
clarification, was there any positive effect that the Cuban
people, secondary to the relaxation of travel and other
restrictions that were lifted by the previous administration,
the Obama administration, was there any positive effects of
that?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Definitely on the journalism side
as----
Mr. Yoho. On the what side?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. On journalism, as journalists
were able to get out of Cuba, come to the U.S., engage with
journalists here and other places, and get back into the
country. So.
Mr. Yoho. But at the same time, there were not more people
going to prison for--the journalists going--there was more
going?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. The repressive tactics have kind
of shifted, so you are not seeing long-term sentences.
Mr. Yoho. Not long term, but----
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Short-term detentions.
Mr. Yoho [continuing]. Short ones, but more people going.
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. That is an intimidation tactic,
yes.
Mr. Yoho. Right. Did these changes give any more freedom to
the Cuban people or was there any increase in abuses by the
authoritarian figures who were acting on their own or directed
by the Cuban Government, anybody?
Mr. Suarez. Well, during this process, as my colleague just
suggested, there was an increase in arbitrary detentions. But
there was also--and we are talking going back to 2011, 2012--
the case of high-profile figures in the opposition who were
extrajudicially executed as the case of Oswaldo Paya and Harold
Cepero. There is also the very suspicious death of the founding
leader of the Ladies in White, Laura Pollan.
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Suarez. Which in both cases I think there should be
serious international investigations. There was also an
increase of violence, of machete attacks. We brought today
Sirley Avila Leon who is a victim of such an attack in May
2015, but there have been others.
Mr. Yoho. Right. Unfortunately, I feel like Mr. Levin in
that I do not see a change coming, which is unfortunate.
When we see these other countries doing trade with Cuba,
what other countries are there helping press the Cuban
Government to improve their human rights and independent press?
Are there any other countries standing up?
Mr. Quesada. Yes. During the Universal Periodic Review of
Cuba last year, a lot of countries, specifically from Western
Europe and the Nordics, were like pushing Cuba or, you know,
like asking for to improve the human rights conditions of
journalists, human rights defenders, activists, et cetera.
Mr. Yoho. But how far are they willing to go, because do
not a lot of those countries operate the hotels and the
resorts, do not they? And I know that money goes to the Cuban
Government, not to the Cuban people, and so I see them
complicit in providing the funding for the Cuban Government.
And yes, they say, well, you need more open press and things
like that, but yet I do not see the actions living up to the
rhetoric they say they want to help.
Mr. Quesada. Congressman, I do not know the level of like
investment of like Sweden in Cuba or something like that, but
yes.
Mr. Yoho. All right, so I guess along those same lines, how
effective do you think the international bodies like the U.N.
or the EU or the OAS are on--I know they document this, but--
invoking a change? And as long as a Castro is there, I do not
think it is going to change. Do you have any other thoughts on
that?
Mr. Suarez. I think, unfortunately, when this drive for
normalization took place with the U.S. it had a negative impact
with regards to the European Union. The European Union in 1996
had set up a common position which conditioned their
relationship with Cuba with improving human rights standards.
And during this normalization process that position was retired
and now they are pursuing this normalize--their relations with
the regime without having that human rights----
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Suarez [continuing]. Element being conditional. And
that is a profound setback.
Mr. Yoho. Thanks for pointing that out.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sires. Congressman Phillips.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to
each of our witnesses. I think it is fair to say that during
the Obama administration we made some steps in opening up trade
and relations with Cuba. I think that door has been
considerably closed since the Trump administration has been in
office. Curious from each of your perspectives, how would you
quickly articulate what our current strategy is relative to
Cuba?
Mr. Suarez. The current strategy is looking at Cuba within
a regional context. Cuba has thousands of soldiers and
intelligence assets in Venezuela that are playing a very
negative role. They are also playing a negative role in
Nicaragua. So the administration has chosen to tighten
sanctions on Cuba in an effort to leverage influence for them
to improve as actors in Venezuela.
Mr. Phillips. OK.
Mr. Martinez?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. I am sorry. That is out of my
scope of expertise.
Mr. Phillips. OK.
Mr. Quesada?
Mr. Quesada. I am working on human rights exclusively, so,
yes.
Mr. Phillips. OK. Do any of you feel that our current
sanctions, and particularly the embargo, have had any effect in
ending Communism or benefiting the people of Cuba?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. That is again out of the scope.
What I can tell is having--and I specifically mentioned that
during my testimony--that having, trying to cultivate
diplomatic relation on specifically freedom of expression,
which is my area of expertise, we believe would be positive for
the development of journalism, independent journalism in Cuba.
Mr. Phillips. OK, any other comments?
Mr. Suarez?
Mr. Suarez. I think that the issues of economic sanctions
has much more to do with containment of Cuba in the region than
it does with, in terms of changing the system inside the
island. I do think that if you are going to be having
investments and relations with Cuba, it needs to be with
everyday Cubans and not with the Cuban military and the
intelligence apparatus. Unfortunately, a good chunk of the
Cuban economy is run by the Cuban military. And we have seen
when the discussion came initially, when the administration was
talking about limiting trade with those military entities,
there were people on this side saying that makes it very
difficult because a good chunk of the economy is run by the
military.
So if you are opening up trade and building up the most
repressive elements of the regime, I do not think that is going
to be a positive long-term. And during the Obama Administration
there was an expansion of military control over sectors of the
economy that had been controlled by less negative actors in the
Cuban system. The Office of the Historian in Havana had most of
the hotels that they had in downtown taken over by the military
during this opening.
Second, I think it is also interesting to note that exports
between the U.S. and Cuba, exports of U.S. products collapsed
during the Obama Administration. The top year of trade
according to the Census Bureau was the last year of the Bush
Administration, which I believe was over $700 million. After
the normalization of relations in December 2014, that dropped
to about a $149 million.
Mr. Phillips. Well, I am glad you bring up trade. That was
one of my questions. Is there a way that we could expand trade
and benefit the Cuban people without enriching those who, you
know, we do not want to see enriched?
Mr. Suarez. I think it would be focusing on individual
Cubans and also pushing for the Cuban Government to make
reforms where business people can directly pay a Cuban employee
and not have to go through a government agency where they take
90 percent and then the employee gets 10 percent.
Mr. Phillips. Is that possible?
Mr. Suarez. To make the demand and to push for it is very
possible. Now whether they will respond positively, I do not
know. It should be an effort that is made and then see what
they do.
Mr. Phillips. OK.
Mr. Quesada or Mr. Martinez?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. I am not an expert on trade. I
would just like to add that internet is a critical piece in the
building of the system of repression and also opening in Cuba
in terms of like it empowers people directly. And in terms of
communications, helping expand its access, expand its being out
of surveillance and controlled by State can be a critical piece
in terms of fostering development of all kinds including
freedom of the press.
Mr. Phillips. OK.
Mr. Quesada. I would just like to mention that as a lawyer,
I mean there has to be a lot of amendments and changes in the
Cuban law in order to have an effective way of trade. And based
on our experience, looking at all the Cuban laws, I mean it
is--I do not think it is possible right now.
Mr. Phillips. OK, thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Sires. Thank you. We are going to go a second round of
questions if you have some time, because I want to get
something clarified in my mind.
You know, we talk about investing in Cuba. People talk
about investing in Cuba. That is how it is going to help the
Cuban people. But if I am a company and I want to open up a
business in Cuba and I need 200 employees, how does that work
with the Cuban Government?
Mr. Quesada. Well, the State is the main employer in Cuba.
So if you want to have--like you can open your own business,
but if you want to have--like in the tourism industry, for
instance, a lot of the people that work there like they are
hired, you know, with a State employer company. So if you, you
know, if you are an activist and you think differently, you are
unemployed basically. You cannot have access to a lot of jobs
there.
Mr. Sires. How does the salary work, Mr. Suarez? Some
people are under the impression that when you open up a
business in Cuba they get the salary and betters the people.
Mr. Suarez. No, you have to pay to a government bureau who,
in turn--you pay in hard currency to a government bureau who
then, in turn, pays the Cuban in Cuban pesos, which is a
fraction of the value.
I think it is also important, talking about business
investments, we looked at the--Google had a recent agreement
with the Cuban Government and they have their servers in Cuba
that is helping to speed up internet. Now that demand to have
the servers in Cuba, which we have seen in places like China,
is so that the Cuban services can have access to those servers
and that creates a number of problems.
And again, they are doing business, but their business is
directly with the Cuban Government and that obviously benefits
the Cuban intelligence service in terms of their ability to
surveill what Cubans are doing on the internet and who they are
communicating with.
Mr. Sires. What is the unemployment rate in Cuba now,
anybody know?
Mr. Suarez. I can find out. I do not know off the top of my
head.
Mr. Sires. OK.
Congressman Rooney.
Mr. Rooney. Listening to Mr. Suarez, again I am thinking of
Lenin and the capitalist quote here, and I think there has got
to be some role to make the American people realize how GAESA
has got a stranglehold on the employees and how it prevents the
spread of true capitalist ideology by breaking that link.
And if you have any more to elaborate on that and on the
cost of internet now that that genie is a little bit out of the
box and they are going to try to ration it through cost, how
you feel that might play out.
Mr. Suarez. I mean the prices have dropped somewhat so
things have improved in terms of access. But I think the
paradox is they are shifting strategies. Their strategy before
was to ration access and now their strategy is to control the
information that they have access to through the internet. And
that is why they have passed this new decree which is going to
make it much more difficult to get information outside.
I do not--I am not terribly optimistic over the long run
for Facebook and other platforms. They have their own domestic
versions that they have created with the help of the Chinese,
and we know that the Chinese have already barred Facebook and
some of the--and YouTube and some of these other platforms in
China. So I would not be surprised to see that also taking
place in Cuba.
But I think it is important to point out that Cuba remains
a Communist regime. It does not respect private property
rights. In addition to Cubans being still expropriated today by
the regime when they do too well, we also find a number of
Western businessmen who, when the government could not pay
their bills the way they solved the problem was to lock them
up--businessmen from Canada, the United Kingdom, from Italy,
Chile, and other places.
Mr. Rooney. Of course they took the risk.
Mr. Suarez. Yes. And they paid a very high price.
Mr. Rooney. And they could have stood up to GAESA and other
people and said we will only come in--the parallel to China
with Google is a little alarming there, but--one more question,
if I might then.
How effective have our important international
organizations like the United Nations, the EU, and our OAS been
in affecting the discussion of human rights in Cuba?
Mr. Suarez. I think it is very important. One of the things
is that I have met with members of the OAS and they constantly
ask, you know, the Cubans tell us that they do not care what we
say in our reports. But we have found is when a precautionary
measure or an urgent action is issued, you see a shift in
behavior by the Cuban regime with those specific victims. And I
think you could see that with the case of Eduardo Cardet and
others that when that precautionary measure, when that light is
focused in on that prisoner, they change their behavior.
Cuba does take the U.N. Human Rights Council very
seriously. They put a lot of resources to put a big dog and
pony show during the Universal Periodic Review. They try to do
everything possible to block activists from addressing it.
There was a meeting recently on a U.N. committee on race where
they blocked the Afro-Cuban activists from attending and at the
same time claimed during that meeting that there was no racism
in Cuba.
So they do try to put on a very strong diplomatic
offensive, and I think it is important for the international
community and for the United States to highlight human rights
at the regional level and at the international level and it
does make a difference.
Mr. Rooney. Thank you. I yield. Thank you.
Mr. Sires. Congressman Smith, do you have another question?
Mr. Smith. I do. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just let me ask you, Mr. Suarez. I think your point about
containment was extremely well taken and I thank you for it.
You know, Europe and Canada traded to their hearts' content, so
if just trade would have led to a Cuban dictatorship
matriculating to a democracy, well, why did not it happen with
that? So containment and the ability to do even worse harm, I
think your point was, like I said, very well taken.
Let me ask you your thought. You know, I will never forget
on December 17th, 2014, the Washington Post did an editorial
and it went like this: ``Obama gives the Castro regime in Cuba
an undeserved bailout.'' And by the way--and this is the
Washington Post; it is not the Washington Times. It is a very
liberal newspaper.
Their editorial board concluded that ``On Wednesday, the
Castro's suddenly obtained a comprehensive bailout--from the
Obama Administration. President Obama granted the regime
everything on its wish list that was within his power to grant.
Full diplomatic relations will be established, Cuba's place on
the list of terrorism sponsors reviewed and restrictions lifted
on U.S. investment and most travel to Cuba.'' And it went on
from there.
You know, in retrospect, many of us believe that there
should have been a linkage to human rights. I said it. I held
hearings on it. And, you know, we got a, just a cold stare from
the administration on all of that. And, like I said, they
falsified the reporting on human trafficking to give them a
passing grade, and I find that absolutely unconscionable. No
matter how you want to deal with a country diplomatically, you
do not falsify their report and their record, I should say, on
human trafficking. And yet, the Obama administration did. Your
thoughts on whether or not the Washington Post got it right.
And, finally, you talked about Google. I held a series of
hearings on Google and their relationship with the Chinese
Government and how they share personally identifiable
information whenever the secret police asks for it. In 2006, I
had a hearing right here, had Google testify, and they
basically said--as did Yahoo, Microsoft, and one other
organization company, under oath--that if they are asked to
give information to the secret police--what would you like? Now
is that what is happening in Cuba too, with Google?
Mr. Suarez. That is what I believe is happening in Cuba for
them to be able to continue operating there.
Mr. Smith. Wow. That is incredible. That means that there
is no privacy whatsoever for any Cuban citizen and Google is
complicit in working with the regime.
But if you could speak to what I thought was a very, very
well-spoken or written, I should say, editorial by the
Washington Post.
Mr. Suarez. The Washington Post got it right. One of the
things that was most shocking at the time was that if you
recall there were Cuban spies, the Cuban Five, that the
remaining three were freed during that agreement. One of them,
Gerardo Hernandez, was serving a double life sentence, one for
his espionage against the United States, but, second, for a
murder conspiracy in the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown where
three U.S. citizens and a U.S. resident were killed on February
24th, 1996.
Gerardo Hernandez was the head of that spy network and was
providing information that led to that shootdown. They were
returned to Cuba as conquering heroes. It was a great
propaganda victory because the regime had for, since the year
1998, 2000, been doing this big campaign, Free the Five. So
that was an immense victory for the dictatorship both
internally and internationally because they had those spies
touring the world basically expressing their defiance.
Now these spies in addition to sabotage and their
involvement with the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, had been
involved in plotting based on instructions from Havana to
engage in terrorist actions on U.S. soil. They were instructed
to send death threats to a retired CIA official and eventually
send him a mail bomb and kill him. And that was in the
diskettes that were recovered by the FBI from the spy network.
So releasing those individuals, I think, was a grave error.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sires. Mr. Yoho.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just think it is ludicrous that anybody thinks they
are going to change habits down there. You know, in 2014 when
they opened up relationships and they talked about, ``Well,
they will get free and expanded internet service,'' yes, there
might be a little bump-up in that for the Cuban people, but
overall it empowers the Cuban Government. And with what China
is doing and their close association with an improved internet
service, they are going to do the same thing that Xi Jinping in
China is doing with facial recognition and the good citizen
scores and they are going to control their population more than
they have ever been controlled before.
Do the people in Cuba, is the broader Cuban population
aware of the human rights abuses and the political prisoners? I
mean you guys do your best to get the information out, but how
aware are they in Cuba, or are they immune to what is going on
and saying, ``Eh, that is just life in Cuba?''
Mr. Quesada. Regarding the situation of political prisoners
within the island, they share information through the internet.
So, you know, like when Eduardo Cardet was released, for
instance, you know, his family sent out some messages and--the
human rights activists. I am talking about the human rights
activists. They were able to know that----
Mr. Yoho. But how much disseminated is that? How well
disseminated is that?
Mr. Quesada. I cannot answer that question.
Mr. Yoho. Overall, I mean people are pretty much, have they
become complacent and say that is life in Cuba, right?
Mr. Martinez de la Serna. Information is pretty much
controlled, yes.
Mr. Yoho. OK. How effective are the broadcasts from Radio
Television Marti out of Miami? I have been there. It is a
phenomenal operation. How effective is that getting freedom
ideas to Cuba?
Mr. Suarez. Well, I think that shortwave radio is a
critical way to bypass government controls. They can do jamming
up to a certain point of shortwave, but it is not as complete
as it can be with the internet where you have seen
dictatorships just turn off the internet in some extreme
examples.
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Suarez. Cuban activist Ricardo Bofill, one of the deans
of human rights in Cuba from the 1970's, 1980's, described that
there was a demarcation point before and after Radio Marti in
terms of the impact it had on the island in terms of people
being able to hear a different point of view, of hearing voices
of other activists broadcast back into the island was something
that had a big impact and still does.
Mr. Yoho. Are any thumb drives getting down there or CDs
or----
Mr. Suarez. Sure.
Mr. Yoho [continuing]. Those kind, are they getting in
there?
Mr. Suarez. They are.
Mr. Yoho. What is a better way for us to help get
information to Cuba for the Cuban people?
Mr. Suarez. I do not think it is an either/or. I think
shortwave that needs to be maintained.
Mr. Yoho. And all of the above?
Mr. Suarez. And all of the above. I think also it is
important to mention that during the Obama Administration, they
lifted restrictions to attempt to get a cable from the U.S. to
Cuba----
Mr. Yoho. Right.
Mr. Suarez [continuing]. And it was Cuba that said they
were not interested and instead ran the cable from Venezuela.
Mr. Yoho. Sure. And it is all going to be controlled by
China, or China is going to have their 5G. China has got, I
think, 60 percent of the 5G network in the world today and this
is just one more area it is going to go. And they are going to
use the despotic things that Xi Jinping has offered to Maduro,
to Putin, to the Iranian ayatollahs and it will be in Castro
and it will be complete control, George Orwellian, of the
people of those nations.
And it is something that we need to wake up as--and I wish
these other countries would wake up that are doing business
because we know if you do business with Cuba, 90 percent of
that money goes to the Cuban Government, pittances go to the
Cuban people and they keep them repressed and suppressed and it
is not going to change unless the people are empowered to
change, and it is what you guys do.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back and thank you for your time.
Mr. Sires. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here today
for this important hearing. Human rights in Cuba continue to be
curtailed by the regime. I will continue working with my
colleagues to shed light on these abuses. I thank the witnesses
and all members for being here today. With that, the committee
is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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