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US GOVERNMENTS REPORTS |
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02 October 2003
Castro's Repression
Sparks International Opposition to Regime
U.S. will continue efforts to accelerate democratic transition in Cuba
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's most recent acts of repression have given rise
to a growing international consensus on the need for a democratic transition
in Cuba, says Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs
Roger Noriega.
In an October 2 statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Noriega said that the Cuban government's March 2003 arrest and imprisonment
of 75 dissidents has "opened the eyes" of leaders around the world to the
true nature of the Castro regime.
"For many it was a revelation, and one that has helped us all -- Americans,
and our allies around the world -- to recognize that we all agree that the
Cuban regime has betrayed its people politically and the failed them
economically," Noriega said. "We recognize that the Cuban people will be
best served by an end to the dictatorship, followed by a full transition to
democracy characterized by open markets and the respect for human rights."
Noriega noted that many who previously stood by Castro have now begun to
speak out against the abuses of his regime. He cited, among others, Nobel
Prize-wining Portuguese novelist and communist Jose Saramago. "This is as
far as I go ... to dissent is a right," Saramago said in response to
Castro's persecution of pro-democracy advocates.
In addition to quoting Saramago, Noriega pointed out that "there has been an
unrelenting drumbeat of criticism and demands for justice since Castro's
brutal acts took place." He listed the European Union and the United Nations
among the many organizations that have expressed their concerns over
Castro's crackdown.
The assistant secretary said the growing international consensus and
insistence on real reform in Cuba "is the single most important new factor
in the quest to encourage democratic development in Cuba."
To further bolster this consensus, Noriega indicated that he would work to
encourage greater involvement by Latin American governments in supporting
the quest for democracy and development in Cuba.
The White House "will not wait for Fidel Castro to show that he is
interested in [democratic] change, because sadly for him and for Cuba, we
don't believe that day will come," Noriega said. He described Castro as "an
implacable foe of democracy, reform, and economic progress" and explained
that the Bush Administration will focus on actions designed to accelerate
the changes sought by Cubans.
These actions include: maintaining and augmenting support for Cuba's growing
civil society; increasing efforts to break Castro's information blockade;
working to make clear the international community's demand for change;
maintaining pressure on human rights issues; and increasingly transmitting
the U.S. message of support for the Cuban people.
Noriega said that growing international opposition as well as growing
internal opposition to the Castro regime is encouraging, and provides "a
glimmer of real hope on the horizon."
Following is the text of Noriega's statement, as prepared for delivery:
(begin text)
Statement by
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger F. Noriega
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
October 2, 2003
Thank you for inviting me to discuss United States policy toward Cuba. I'm
delighted to have this opportunity to address this important topic. One
point I'd like to make from the start, which relates directly to the
challenges to achieving a transition: recent events in Cuba have opened the
eyes of many around the world to the true nature of the Castro regime.
That Castro runs a dictatorship which denies Cubans their basic rights was
not a surprise to us. But for many, it was a revelation, and one that has
helped us all -- Americans, and our allies around the world -- to recognize
that we all agree that the Cuban regime has betrayed its people politically
and failed them economically. We recognize that the Cuban people will be
best served by an end to the dictatorship, followed by a full transition to
democracy characterized by open markets and the respect for human rights.
Our commitment to helping Cubans achieve genuine democracy is an important
unifying concept, drawing us together on an issue more often marked by
disagreements.
The Western Hemisphere Today
While the rest of the hemisphere continues to work on its future by building
representative democracy, expanding economic development and increasing
regional cooperation, the Castro regime remains a dictatorial anachronism,
stuck in a bankrupt Marxist past, suffocating in its own rhetoric.
I recall when working on Latin America in the late 1980s, the State
Department produced a map which showed the continent in 1979 versus 1989,
with countries ruled by dictatorships marked in red, democracies in blue.
Literally dozens of countries had gone from authoritarian rule to democratic
governance. Some achieved this feat despite assaults by violent leftist
insurgencies. Despite all the challenges that face our region today, the
incredible achievements of the 1980s cannot be denied.
The same map today continues to reveal the obstinate and destructive
resistance to change by the Cuban regime. The Castro regime has passed up
opportunities to reform, because the Castro brothers hope to retain power
until they die. In the past 18 months, Fidel Castro has engineered a
constitutional amendment declaring "socialism," immutable; indicated his
intention to remain in power until forced from office, including by death,
explicitly denied that Cuba will move to open markets, and staged the most
sweeping crackdown on peaceful advocates of change in the history of Cuba.
Castro is an implacable foe of democracy, reform, and economic progress, and
his continued presence as head of a government in our region is offensive in
our democratic region. Our hemisphere is the first in the world to agree
unanimously that, in the words of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,
"the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy" and that "democracy
is essential for the social, political, and economic development of the
peoples of the Americas." The Charter indicates the "obligation to protect
and defend" democracy.
Our hemisphere will be a safer, happier place when Castro leaves the scene,
whether by natural processes or, as is the goal of U.S. policy, as the
result of the will of the Cuban people and the concerted action of advocates
of peaceful change in Cuba.
Challenges to Multilateral Consensus
The growing international consensus on the nature of the regime and the need
for change plays out in many contexts: many of those who had stood by Castro
in those early days have now begun to speak out publicly against the abuses
of his regime. Even before the regime's ruthless repression of civil society
in March of this year, President Lula of Brazil said in late 2002, "Let's
not confuse the passion that my generation has for the Cuban revolution and
what it represented then with any approval of the Cuban regime today. I
defend religious freedom, freedom for trade unions and political freedom."
Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago, a dedicated Communist
and previously an admirer of the Cuban revolution, put it succinctly
reacting to Castro's crackdown: "This is as far as I go ... to dissent is a
right."
Noted Chilean author and long-time Castro supporter Carlos Franz announced
last July that he was turning down the Jose Marti Journalism Prize, which
the regime sought to award him, as a way of protesting the March crackdown
of civil society. He said he could not accept a journalism award purported
to support freedom of expression because among the dissidents imprisoned in
Cuba, there were a number of authors and some 20 newsmen.
The critical factor in the coalescence of this unprecedented multilateral
consensus on Cuba was that egregious act of repression. Rather than detail
the injustices of the Cuban regime's repression here, I would direct the
Committee to the superb Amnesty International report, "Essential Measures?
Human Rights Crackdown in the Name of Security," which is an extremely
complete and credible depiction of the mechanism of Castro's brutality. It
is important to note that the Cuban regime's actions were not a sign of
strength, but of fear -- fear of its own people and fear that it will not
survive Castro's demise. As the noted exiled Cuban academic Juan Antonio
Blanco recently pointed out, the regime convicted people to lengthy jail
sentences for owning a decrepit typewriter to send a simple message: it will
treat Cubans who seek their fundamental freedoms peacefully "with same
implacable rigor with which it smashed earlier armed opposition to the
revolution." The regime knows that it is in a fight for its life.
This is a fight that the regime will lose. In their superb analysis and call
for action published in the Washington Post on September 21, former eastern
European Presidents Vaclav Havel, Arpad Goncz And Lech Walesa, each a
product of his own country's progress from repression to democracy, said
that, even in the wake of the repression, "the voices of free-thinking
Cubans are growing louder, and that is precisely what Castro and his
government must be worried about."
That repression provoked our European and some Latin American allies to
denounce the regime in some of the most dramatic and compelling terms ever.
Latin American nations led the effort at 2003 Human Rights Commission to win
approval for a resolution on Cuba.
There has been an unrelenting drumbeat of criticism and demands for justice
since Castro's brutal acts took place. In March, the European Union (EU)
condemned the arrests of the 75. On April 30, the European Commission
decided to postpone indefinitely Cuba's bid to join the Cotonou agreement, a
preferential trade pact. On June 5 the EU announced its decision to
implement the following actions: limit bilateral high-level governmental
visits, reduce the profile of member states' participation in cultural
events, and invite Cuban dissidents to national-day celebrations.
In April, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated its profound
concern about violations of Cubans' rights by the regime, and in May, 17 OAS
member states, including 14 of Cuba's Latin American neighbors, issued a
declaration citing the arrest and severe sentencing of 75 Cuban citizens who
were exercising their fundamental rights. In April, the UNCHR resolution on
Cuba passed, calling for a visit to Cuba by a personal representative of the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Cuban government refused to
allow a visit. Both the Chilean House and Senate passed resolutions opposing
the crackdown, as did the Central American Parliament.
There are challenges to the multilateral insistence on change. Predictably,
in the wake of the crackdown, the regime tried, but failed, to excuse its
repression as a justifiable reaction to the pro-democracy activities of the
chief of the U.S. Interests Section, Jim Cason. Mr. Cason has done a superb
job to support democratic development and civil society in Cuba. That is our
policy in Cuba, and, in fact around the hemisphere. Jim was implementing
bipartisan U.S. policy, and we all have every reason to be very proud of his
work there.
Cuba failed miserably in its efforts to blame us, or by extension to "blame
the victims" by implying that the opposition got what it deserved for having
met with the Interests Section staff. (Indeed, part of the laughable
"evidence" against the poet Raul Rivero, condemned to 20 years in Castro's
gulag, is that he owned two plastic chairs in which U.S. diplomats had once
taken a seat.) Another charge against one of the convicted dissidents was
that he met with a U.S. congressman.
There are other challenges. European countries are the biggest foreign
investors in Cuba, and even though Castro has of late denounced European
leaders, especially Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar and Italian President
Silvio Berlusconi, in the most insulting of terms, we know that some
mistakenly argue that the policy of insisting on justice for the 75
prisoners of conscience somehow puts Europe "too much on the side of the
United States." Such individuals assert that Europe is most effective in
pressing for change by following a distinct policy from the United States, a
paradoxical position, since the essence of our policy is to promote
democratic change. In any event, we believe that while the coalition within
the EU for justice for the 75 will remain intact, commercial interests and
this desire to be distinct from us will continue to serve as motivation for
some to seek a return to the previous engagement policy.
Challenges to a multilateral approach in Latin America are complex. Again
speaking with total frankness, it would have been extremely gratifying to
see more Latin American governments speak up forthrightly for change in Cuba
and against the repression. As the Secretary said so eloquently in Santiago
in June, after the OAS General Assembly: "How could we, as a community of
democracies which has seen what we have been able to achieve in this
hemisphere over the last fifteen or twenty years, fail to speak out with
respect to what Castro is doing to his people?"
It is my profound desire, and I take as a personal mission, to encourage
greater involvement by Latin American governments in the quest for democracy
and development in Cuba, consistent with our shared commitment as
articulated in the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
For the first time in 20 years, the world is not obsessed with the U.S.
embargo, but rather the dictatorship that is the object of our policy. There
is virtual unanimity in the United States that the Cuban people will be
better off the day the Castro regime slips into history. While we do not all
agree on the tactics to hasten that day, I think it is logical to reserve
any further concessions to be used to motivate a transitional government to
remove the vestiges of the corrupt old dictatorship and commit to the most
profound economic and political reforms. We advance none of our goals by
making unilateral concessions to a decrepit dictatorship. Moreover, despite
some differences of opinion, I hope that we can use our common energies to
promote shared objectives, such as finding more creative, more effective
ways to help the Cuban people prepare for a happier future without Castro.
U.S. Programs to Promote Democracy and Human Rights
It is clear that with Castro there can be no reform in Cuba. President
Bush's Initiative for a New Cuba challenged the Castro government to
undertake political and economic reforms. The President made clear that his
response to such concrete reforms would be to work with the U.S. Congress to
ease the restrictions on trade and travel between the United States and
Cuba. For the first time since the Castro regime came to power, the United
States offered to match steps toward freedom and more open markets by the
Government of Cuba with steps to ease the embargo and travel restrictions.
Not surprisingly, the Castro regime rejected this opportunity to help move
his country toward a soft landing.
The Administration will not wait for Fidel Castro to show that he is
interested in change, because sadly for him and for Cuba, we don't believe
that day will come. What we will continue to do is focus on actions designed
to accelerate and shape the democratic changes the Cuban people seek. Toward
that end, we are:
-- Maintaining and augmenting our support for Cuba's growing civil society.
Much has been done; we need to redouble our efforts in this climate of
increased repression, bringing in new Cuban and international actors.
-- Increasing efforts to break the information blockade Castro has on the
Cuban people. Steps have already been taken to improve the effectiveness of
the Martis through innovative new technical measures.
-- Maintaining multilateral and international momentum against the regime's
abuses and for fundamental change which will increase pressure on the regime
itself. The international consensus which Castro created by revealing the
true, oppressive nature of his government is the single most important new
factor in the quest to encourage democratic development in Cuba. We will
work with foreign governments, with regional parliaments, with political
party internationals, and in all available international organizations to
make clear the international community's insistence on real reform.
-- Maintaining our pressure on human rights issues generally, including by
working with like-minded governments to achieve a UN Human Rights Commission
resolution on Cuba which reflects the international consensus on Cuba today.
-- Raising our profile in the public diplomacy and public affairs arenas,
particularly to transmit our message of support for the Cuban people for
rapid and effective change in Cuba.
-- I believe it is critical to augment our outreach to Congress on
developments in Cuba and with respect to our policy, and I'm committed to
regular discussions with the relevant committees to accomplish this.
-- We will continue to work to make sure that travel by Americans to Cuba is
consistently supportive of our policy goals. We have begun this process by
eliminating and refining license categories. Working with Treasury's OFAC
and other involved agencies, we will also seek enforcement actions against
those who travel in violation of the law.
-- We have taken a number of actions to confront the challenges of Cuban
espionage against the United States by insisting that Cuba's representatives
here are authentic diplomats and not spies.
-- We continue to demand reciprocal treatment for Cuban Interests Section
staff, compared to treatment by Cuba of our diplomats in Havana.
-- The Administration remains committed to taking concrete steps, using the
legal tools available to us, to confront trafficking by foreign corporations
in properties confiscated by the regime from Americans.
Conclusion
We are in the end game of the Cuban people's long travail with dictatorship.
When Pope John Paul II made his triumphant 1996 journey back to a free
Nicaragua, he called that country's decade of oppression by a small and
unrepresentative clique a "long dark night." Cuba's night has been longer
and darker -- but we believe we have an opportunity to help the Cuban people
bring it to an end and the right policy in place to help them do so.
There is a glimmer of real hope on the horizon. Our allies, especially in
Europe are insisting with us on a systematic and unprecedented way for real
change. Even more encouraging is that Cubans of conscience and with a
commitment to democracy and reform are working day by day for change. The
crackdown did not crush the opposition, but rather has imbued remaining
activists with a new sense of urgency and mission. Oswaldo Paya has said
that he is reconstructing his network of civil society activists, and
stories of regime abuses of ill political prisoners like Raul Rivero and
Marta Beatriz Roque provide additional motivation for these Cubans of
conscience. To quote again from Havel, Walesa, and Goncz, "the internal
opposition is getting stronger, it has not been brought to its knees by the
police round-up last March, times are changing, the revolution is getting
old and the regime is getting nervous." I couldn't agree more.
Since we are in the end game, there is nothing more important than for us to
stay the course. Now is not the time to experiment with perhaps
well-meaning, but fundamentally misguided new tactics in Cuba which we
believe would strengthen the regime, not move forward the day of fundamental
reform. Instead, we need to continue building on the multilateral coalition
for change, and to reach out our hand to the courageous men and women in
Cuba who will one day see their efforts come to fruition.
Thank you.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) |
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