IV

104TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION H. CON. RES. 24

Calling for the United States to propose and seek an international embargo

against the totalitarian government of Cuba.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FEBRUARY 7, 1995

Mr. DIAZ-BALART submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was

referred to the Committee on International Relations

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Calling for the United States to propose and seek an international embargo against the totalitarian government of

Cuba.

Whereas the United States has shown a deep commitment,

and considers it a moral obligation, to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms as expressed in the Charter of the United Nations and in the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

Whereas the Congress has historically and consistently manifested its solidarity and the solidarity of the American

people with the democratic aspirations of the Cuban

people;

Whereas the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 calls upon the

President to encourage the governments of countries that

conduct trade with Cuba to restrict their trade and credit
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relations with Cuba in a manner consistent with the purposes of that Act;

Whereas the 1992 FREEDOM Support Act requires that the

President, in providing economic assistance to Russia and

the emerging Eurasian democracies, take into account

the extent to which they are acting to ‘‘terminate support

for the communist regime in Cuba, including removal of

troops, closing military facilities, and ceasing trade subsidies and economic, nuclear, and other assistance’’;

Whereas the Government of Cuba engages in the illegal international narcotics trade and harbors fugitives from justice in the United States;

Whereas the Castro government threatens international peace

and security by engaging in acts of armed subversion and

terrorism such as the training and supplying of groups

dedicated to international violence;

Whereas the Castro government has utilized from its inception and continues to utilize torture in various forms (including by psychiatry), as well as execution, exile,

confiscation, political imprisonment, and other forms of

terror and repression, as means of retaining power;

Whereas Fidel Castro has defined democratic pluralism as

‘‘pluralistic garbage’’ and continues to make clear that he

has no intention of tolerating the democratization of

Cuban society;

Whereas the Castro government holds innocent Cubans hostage in Cuba by no fault of the hostages themselves solely

because relatives have escaped the country;

Whereas although a signatory state to the 1928 Inter-American Convention on Asylum and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which protects the
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right to leave one’s own country), Cuba nevertheless surrounds embassies in its capital by armed forces to thwart

the right of its citizens to seek asylum and systematically

denies that right to the Cuban people, punishing them by

imprisonment for seeking to leave the country and killing

them for attempting to do so (as demonstrated in the

case of the confirmed murder of over 40 men, women,

and children who were seeking to leave Cuba on July 13,

1994);

Whereas the Castro government continues to utilize blackmail, such as the immigration crisis with which it threatened the United States in the summer of 1994, and other

unacceptable and illegal forms of conduct to influence the

actions of sovereign states in the Western Hemisphere in

violation of the Charter of the Organization of American

States and other international agreements and international law;

Whereas the United Nations Commission on Human Rights

has repeatedly reported on the unacceptable human

rights situation in Cuba and has taken the extraordinary

step of appointing a Special Rapporteur;

Whereas the Government of Cuba has consistently refused access to the Special Rapporteur and formally expressed its

decision not to ‘‘implement so much as one comma’’ of

the United Nations Resolutions appointing the

Rapporteur;

Whereas the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1992/70 on December 4, 1992, Resolution 1993/

48/142 on December 20, 1993, and Resolution 1994/49/

544 on October 19, 1994, referencing the Special

Rapporteur’s reports to the United Nations and con-
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demning ‘‘violations of human rights and fundamental

freedoms’’ in Cuba;

Whereas Article 39 of Chapter VII of the United Nations

Charter provides that the United Nations Security Council ‘‘shall determine the existence of any threat to the

peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall

make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be

taken . . ., to maintain or restore international peace

and security.’’;

Whereas the United Nations has determined that massive

and systematic violations of human rights may constitute

a ‘‘threat to peace’’ under Article 39 and has imposed

sanctions due to such violations of human rights in the

cases of Rhodesia, South Africa, Iraq, and the former

Yugoslavia;

Whereas in the case of Haiti, a neighbor of Cuba not as close

to the United States as Cuba, the United States led an

effort to obtain and did obtain a United Nations Security

Council embargo and blockade against that country due

to the existence of a military dictatorship in power less

than 3 years;

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 940 of

July 31, 1994, subsequently authorized the use of ‘‘all

necessary means’’ to restore the ‘‘democratically elected

government of Haiti’’, and the democratically elected government of Haiti was restored to power on October 15,

1994;

Whereas the totalitarian nature of the Castro regime has deprived the Cuban people of any peaceful recourse to improving their own condition and has led thousands of
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Cuban citizens to risk or lose their lives in attempting to

escape from Cuba to freedom; and

Whereas the Cuban people deserve to be assisted in a decisive

manner to end the tyranny that has oppressed them for

36 years and the continued failure to do so constitutes

ethically improper conduct by the international community: Now, therefore, be it

1 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate

2 concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that—

3 (1) the United States considers the acts of the

4 Castro government, including its massive, system5 atic, and extraordinary violations of human rights, a

6 threat to international peace; and

7 (2) the President should advocate, and should

8 instruct the United States representatives to the

9 United Nations Security Council to propose and to

10 seek, a mandatory international embargo against the

11 totalitarian government of Cuba pursuant to chapter

12 VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

Æ