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Castro's Cuba: What's the Proper United States Response to

Ongoing Human Rights Violations?

**Statement by Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director**

**House Committee on Government Reform,**

**Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness**

**October 16, 2003**

Mr. Chairman:

Thank you for your invitation to address the human rights situation in
Cuba and to discuss U.S. policy towards that country.

Human Rights Watch has been monitoring human rights conditions in Cuba
for more than 15 years. Severe political repression has been constant
throughout this time. Cuba has long been a one-party state. It has long
restricted nearly all avenues of political dissent. It has long denied
its people basic rights to fair trial, free expression, association,
assembly, movement and the press. It has frequently sought to silence
its critics by using short term detentions, house arrests, travel
restrictions, threats, surveillance, politically motivated dismissals
from employment, and other harassment.

But this year\'s crackdown on political dissent in Cuba, in its scale
and intensity, is the worst we\'ve seen in a decade or more.

The crackdown was a reaction to the flowering of civil society in Cuba
over the last several years, and to the growing activism and ambitions
of its dissident community. It followed the success of the Varela
Project, led by dissident Oswaldo Paya, in gathering signatures from
Cuban citizens on a petition calling for political reform. The crackdown
began on March 18. In just a few days, state security agents arrested
dozens of people, launching an all-out offensive against nonviolent
dissidents, independent journalists, human rights defenders, independent
librarians, and others brave enough to challenge the government\'s
monopoly on truth. In due process terms, their trials were a sham. And
in the end, 75 defendants received sentences ranging from 6 to 28 years,
with an average sentence of 19 years. Cuban courts have not imposed such
draconian sentences on such large numbers of people in more than two
decades.

What do these troubling developments mean for U.S. policy towards Cuba?
What approach offers the greatest likelihood of effecting change?

The first thing I hope we can all agree on is that no one should have
any illusions about the character of the Cuban government. No one should
romanticize any aspect of this cruel system, or make any excuses for
Fidel Castro\'s abuses. The crackdown on dissent in Cuba is not the
fault of the United States, or the fault of the U.S. embargo, or the
fault of the Cuban-American community. The responsibility lies with
Fidel Castro, period.

We should also agree that this is no time to reward Fidel Castro; this
is a time for maximizing effective pressure on the Cuban government to
change its policies. But we also need to be tough-minded and strategic
in assessing whether the all-out embargo currently in place is the best
available tool for achieving our goals. Is it likely to move the Cuban
government? Do Cuba\'s cynical rulers even see it as punitive? I believe
the answer to those questions is no, and that a middle ground approach
would serve the cause of Cuba\'s brave dissidents far better.

I say that as someone who is often supportive of economic sanctions,
even unilateral economic sanctions, against governments that
systematically violate human rights. My organization believes that
sanctions, when carefully targeted and deployed as part of a larger
diplomatic strategy, can be effective in promoting human rights and in
expressing where the United States stands on human rights. This year,
for example, we applauded the Congress and members of this Committee for
supporting additional U.S. sanctions against the government of Burma. We
are generally skeptical of arguments that trade with the United States
or exposure to American values and practices can somehow convince
repressive governments to be kinder and gentler to their people.

But it seems to us that any American policy designed to promote human
rights in another country has to meet two basic tests to be worthy of
continuation. First, is the policy more likely to be effective than the
alternatives? Second, does it advance the interests and speak to the
needs of those struggling to defend human rights in the country
concerned? After 40 years, it\'s clear that the all-out embargo against
Cuba fails both tests.

Many of the dissidents struggling for change inside Cuba want to see the
embargo eased, including the writer Raul Rivero and the activist Hector
Palacios Ruiz, who were sentenced, respectively, to 20 and 25 years in
prison in April, as well as Oswaldo Paya, the leader of the Varela
Project. Refusing to heed those who risk everything for freedom in Cuba
is senseless. It would be as if the United States had taken steps to
defend liberty in the old Soviet empire that were categorically opposed
by Andrei Sakharov, Lech Walesa, and Vaclav Havel.

Leading Cuban dissidents understand that the embargo helps Fidel
Castro\'s cause, not theirs. Because it is indiscriminate, rather than
targeted, it enables the Cuban government to shift blame to the United
States for the Cuban people\'s suffering. Because it isolates the Cuban
people from the world, it makes it easier for the Cuban government to
control what they hear, see and know. Because it is bitterly opposed by
most nations, it enables the Cuban government to divide the
international community, leading, ironically, to less international
pressure on Fidel Castro, not more.

For these reasons, I fear that President Bush's announcement last week
that he was tightening enforcement of the travel ban on Cuba will make
matters worse, not better. This is not because tourism is in and of
itself a force for freedom in Cuba -- although the greater the volume of
international travelers the harder it is for the Cuban government to
control the activities of those who travel for the purpose of promoting
change. It is because tightening the screws still further will make it
harder to do what the President's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza
Rice, has said must be done -- namely, to strengthen
[international]{.underline} pressure on the Castro government.

At the same time, a relaxation or end to the embargo would not, by
itself, be an effective strategy for promoting change in Cuba. We need
to be clear-eyed about this, as well: The Cuban government isn\'t going
to stop locking up dissidents just because American tourists have joined
the Canadians sunning themselves on Cuba\'s beaches, or because American
CEO\'s have joined the Europeans signing contracts with Fidel Castro.
There does need to be carefully targeted, multilateral pressure on the
Cuban government, or Cuba\'s dissidents won\'t have the space to fight
for change. We need a middle ground between unquestioning engagement
with the Castro government and an all-or-nothing approach that plays
into Fidel Castro\'s hands.

All sides in the Cuba policy debate need to ask themselves: What does
Castro fear most from the United States? It is not the continuation of
the embargo, or its demise. It is the prospect that the United States
might someday agree with allies in Latin America and Europe on an
effective common strategy for defending the rights of the Cuban people.

For that reason, I would argue that America\'s Cuba policy should not
even be directed at Havana right now. Given the history of this
relationship, there is very little the United States can do bilaterally
to influence the Cuban government. Instead, America\'s Cuba policy
should be directed towards the other nations of Latin America, towards
Europe, towards Canada. It should be aimed at forging a principled,
common strategy for promoting political change in Cuba.

A united international community will have immensely more political and
moral authority with the Cuban government than a divided international
community. Because of the crackdown in Cuba, there is an opportunity now
to forge a more united approach. The European Union has already
toughened its common position on Cuba, for example. Latin American
countries have supported resolutions on human rights in Cuba at the
U.N., which, although far too mild, are a step forward. But much more
can be done.

The United States should be urging Latin democracies to speak forcefully
against political repression in Cuba, and to stop backing Cuban
membership in bodies like the U.N. Commission for Human Rights. It
should press Latin diplomats to meet with Cuban dissidents. It should
urge European countries to impose on the Cuban leadership the same
targeted sanctions, including the denial of visas and the seizure
assets, that they have imposed against other repressive governments,
such as Burma and Zimbabwe.

While easing some trade and investment with Cuba, and ending the
senseless ban on travel to Cuba, the United States should also work with
allies to develop common rules governing economic engagement there.
Foreign investment in new private enterprises has helped limit the power
of the state in countries like China and Vietnam. But in Cuba, workers
in joint ventures with foreign companies are still hired and paid by the
Cuban government, thus remaining at the mercy of the state. European,
Canadian and ultimately American companies should receive licenses for
investment in Cuba only if that policy changes.

The tragedy of the all-out U.S. embargo, and a key argument for easing
it, is that it makes the United States impotent in pressing its allies
for these tougher measures. The Bush administration knows it has
virtually no influence with the rest of the world on Cuba. When Cuba was
up for reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Commission this year, the
administration hardly even tried to convince Latin countries to find an
alternative candidate. In most capitals, Castro has succeeded in making
the embargo a bigger issue than his own repression.

The best alternative to dumb sanctions against Cuba, therefore, is not a
policy of no sanctions. It should be possible to forge a middle path
that isolates the Cuban government, not the Cuban people. But so long as
the United States is unwilling to climb down to a tough, yet sensible
policy, it will not persuade its allies to rise up to such a policy.