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On the Helms-Burton Bill Dr. Emilio-Adolfo Rivero June 12, 1995. TO THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE FOR THE RECORD (Hearings before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and Peace Corps Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. One hundred Fourth Congress, First Session. May 22 and June 14, 1995. Pages 208-209) As a naturalized American, Cuban-born, Attorney (Doctor of Law, 1951) and Journalist (Professional Journalist, 1951), Knight of Malta (1993), who militantly opposed the coup d'etat led by General Fulgencio Batista in 1952 and conspired against the despotic regime of Fidel Castro, which led to my being imprisoned for 18 and a half years (April 23, 1961 - October 13, 1979); and on the occasion of Bill S-381, introduced by the Honorable Senator Jesse Helms, being considered by the Senate, I come to present this statement for your consideration: FIRST: It's a travesty of reason and justice to accept the oppressor s a representative of the oppressed. Fidel Castro has been in power in Cuba for more than three and a half decades without the Cuban people deciding at the polls, in free and supervised elections, who their representatives should be. Fidel Castro represents only himself and his heavily armed and subservient henchmen. To acknowledge him as if he represented Cuba, aside from being a mockery, ignores the Cubans' national sovereignity and dignity. SECOND: The Cuban people has opposed, and oppose, their oppressor. Thousands of Cubans have died before firing squads. Tens of thousands went through the mental and physical ordeal of being political prisoners under totalitarian communism. Many were killed in prison, others died in hunger strikes, many lost their sanity. Thousands of us lived in the prisons of Isle of Pines, where tons of TNT were placed in the basements of the buildings where we were kept under threat of being blown up in case of upheaval or foreign intervention. Thousands have died in the Florida straits while trying to flee from state terrorism. More than a million Cubans have left their native land in the last thirty five years. THIRD: Presently, in Cuba, in these very days, Gustavo Arcos Bergnes and Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, to name only some who are internationally known, are among those who, against overwhelming odds, have formed dissident groups in defiance of being imprisoned, of aggression against themselves and their relatives, and who reject offers and pressures to leave Cuba. We are comrades in arms. They continue the fight we started. We will not suffer in silence to see them ignored and abandoned as we were for so many years. I call your attention to the fact that all internal dissidents deserve and need your public recognition, support and help. This is a matter of the utmost urgency. May I add that most dissidents back the American embargo and S.381 as a painful but necessary step in getting rid of Castro. FOURTH: It is not for the US to negotiate with Fidel Castro so that he ease the yoke on the Cuban people. For just a fraction of what the Cuban tyrant has done, international public opinion is demanding that present leaders of what was Yugoslavia be indicted and submitted to trial on account of war crimes. FIDEL CASTRO IS AN INTERNATIONAL OUTLAW. HIS CRIMES AGAINST THE CUBANS, AGAINST HUMANITY, DEMAND THAT HE BE INDICTED, APPREHENDED AND SUBMITTED TO TRIAL. Let's consider the facts, that have been amply documented throughout the years. FIFTH: Starting in the first months of his coming to power in 1959, and throughout 1988 and 1989, when he started to lose Soviet subsidies, Fidel Castro engaged in a continued, unrelenting effort to overthrow governments throughout Latin America. He created international organizations that publicly endorsed his aims. Not a single country was spared, the most notorious instances being those of Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In the latter he reached his goals, and a Marxist government came to power for a number of years. Billions of dollars and thousands of lives were lost throughout Latin America in the fight against Castro's efforts at subversion. SIXTH: Members of terrorist organizations of the most diverse ilks and nationalities, who have been trained in Cuba throughout three decades, have been active in violent endeavors throughout the world. Americans who appeared as major opponents of the Vietnam War publicly travelled to Cuba and had direct relations with Fidel Castro. Americans trained in Cuba, among them members of the Venceremos Brigade, were participants in public disorders that took place in the US during the years of the Vietnam war. Castro's agents questioned and tortured American prisoners of war in Vietnam. With the double purpose of financing international subversion and terrorism while demoralizing and weakening American youth, Castro and his agents have engaged in drug trafficking within and without the US. Cuban authorities, still in office, have been indicted for or named in connection with drug trafficking in criminal courts in the State of Florida. A few years ago, in order to try to obscure his direct responsability in drug trafficking and profiteering, Fidel Castro arrested and sent to prison or executed several high ranking army and security officers, among them General Arnaldo Ochoa, who died not because of his alleged drug trafficking, but because he was the most popular general in the Army, and Castro perceived him as a potential enemy and rival for power. SEVENTH: For years, Cuban troops, by the thousands, participated in internecine wars in Africa, mainly in Angola and Ethiopia, or served as backbones of repressive regimes throughout the continent. Fidel Castro's political life has left a bloody trail encompassing three continents. All this he did to attack and damage the interests of the US and its allies throughout the world, serving the geopolitical aims of the Communist Bloc, thus enhancing his position with the Soviet Union and justifying the economic aid he was receiving from them. In spite of the Soviet aid, these efforts bled and proved disastrous for the Cuban economy. It was the sum of all of Castro's international adventures, plus his corrupt and inefficient administration - not the American embargo - that led Cuba to its present economic chaos. EIGHTH: The anxiety of many Cubans to leave the island is being used by Fidel Castro as a lever against the United States, as Castro cynically argues that Cubans leave their country because of economic difficulties brought about by the US embargo. Never does he recognize that billions and billions of dollars have been squandered in his campaigns of international subversion and through his inefficient and corrupt administration. Fidel Castro has also expressed the not so veiled threat that if the embargo is kept up, and S.381 is approved, he will not be able to control a massive illegal exodus of Cubans, trying to escape from economic duress. Here I would like to insist on something I have been mentioning for years: COME WHAT MAY, THE US SHOULD NOT INVADE CUBA, UNILATERALLY OR WITH OR THROUGH ALLIES. THAT WOULD BE A POLITICAL DISASTER OF THE HIGHEST MAGNITUDE. BUT OTHER MILITARY OPTIONS NEED NOT BE EXCLUDED. SHOULD CASTRO TRY TO IMPOSE ON THE US A NEW MASSIVE WAVE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, DUE CONSIDERATION SHOULD BE GIVEN TO ALTERNATIVE RESPONSES, AMONG THEM NEUTRALIZING ONE OR MORE OF THE FACILITIES WHICH INTERFERE WITH FOREIGN RADIO AND TV SIGNALS, AND ONE OR SEVERAL MILITARY INSTALLATIONS. THE INTELLIGENCE GATHERING FACILITY AT LOURDES IS A GOOD TARGET; ONE OF SEVERAL THAT CAN BE CONSIDERED. THERE ARE STILL MORE OPTIONS THAT COME TO MIND IN THIS AND OTHER INSTANCES OF CASTRO'S HOSTILITY AGAINST THE U.S. NINTH: I fully support the American embargo and S.381. Respectfully yours, |
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