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87–335PDF 2014

U.S. DISENGAGEMENT FROM LATIN AMERICA:

COMPROMISED SECURITY AND

ECONOMIC INTERESTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 25, 2014

Serial No. 113–136

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

MATT SALMON, Arizona, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Otto J. Reich, president, Otto Reich Associates, LLC ................ 7

Mr. Ilan I. Berman, vice president, American Foreign Policy Council ............... 23

Mr. Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director, Cuba Democracy Advocates ... 35

Mr. Michael Shifter, president, Inter-American Dialogue ................................... 44

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Otto J. Reich: Prepared statement ............................................... 10

Mr. Ilan I. Berman: Prepared statement ............................................................... 26

Mr. Mauricio Claver-Carone: Prepared statement ................................................ 38

Mr. Michael Shifter: Prepared statement .............................................................. 46

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 68

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 69

(1)

U.S. DISENGAGEMENT FROM LATIN AMERICA: 

COMPROMISED SECURITY AND 

ECONOMIC INTERESTS 

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:10 p.m., in room 

2255 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Matt Salmon (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SALMON. We have kept everybody waiting for quite some 

time and so without objection, with unanimous consent, a quorum 

being present, the subcommittee will come to order, and I am going 

to start by recognizing myself, since I am the only one here, and 

then I believe the ranking member will be coming as well. 

We just had a series of votes on the floor and it is that time of 

year. But without objection, the members of the subcommittee can 

submit their opening remarks for the record and I am going to 

yield myself as much time as I may consume to present an opening 

statement. 

Good afternoon and welcome to this hearing where we will have 

the opportunity to discuss the United States’ disengagement from 

Latin America, and what the long and short term implications are 

of that disengagement. 

Just 2 weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry testified before 

the full Foreign Affairs Committee on the State Department’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget where he failed to even mention the Western 

Hemisphere, our hemisphere, in his opening remarks. 

The point that I made to the Secretary was that the administration needs to come up with a coherent strategy for the region, one 

that considers our national security and commercial interests, and 

one that celebrates and supports the aspirations of individuals 

seeking liberty and the respect of democratic principles. 

The Secretary’s failure to even mention our own hemisphere is 

particularly disconcerting when we consider everything that is 

going on in the region—the fact that Cuba continues to repress its 

people and and has been caught violating U.N. sanctions and shipping weapons to North Korea through the Panama Canal, that 

Venezuelan President Maduro has been violently crushing legitimate democratic protests, the wave of antagonism to us and our interests emanating from Ecuador, Bolivia and elsewhere that our 

2

strategic adversaries such as Russia, Iran and China have taken 

of note—taken note of our absence in the region and are establishing footholds right here in our neighborhood. 

Instead of addressing this strategic failure, the administration is 

focused on climate change initiatives, funding solar panel projects 

in the highlands regions of Guatemala and elsewhere on the taxpayer’s dime. 

Sadly, when I mentioned these concerns to Secretary Kerry, he 

spent his entire time pontificating about the environment in the 

Pacific Islands and a typhoon in the Philippines, further making 

my point that we are taking our eye off the ball on the Western 

Hemisphere and focusing on other things and, clearly, showing a 

lack of strategy for the Western Hemisphere. 

Not one word in his response to me about the Western Hemisphere. So I have convened today’s hearing because I am deeply 

concerned about the administration’s neglect affecting our commercial interests in that region and undermining our ability to defend 

liberty and economic freedom for those in Cuba, Venezuela and 

elsewhere where basic democratic rights have been taken away in 

exchange for statism and authoritarianism. 

I am also concerned that our disengagement has invited the likes 

of Russia to increase foreign military sales while establishing strategic bases in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. It has allowed Iran 

to build its diplomatic and cultural presence in an effort to skirt 

sanctions and establish a presence close to our borders. 

These realities should be the foremost on our minds of our foreign policy makers at the State Department, more so, I dare say, 

than the prospect of climate change. 

And I don’t say that to denigrate the concern for proper stewardship of our environment. I think we all care about that. It is about 

priorities. It is a major policy failure, I believe, of this administration to prioritize climate change projects over our strategic and diplomatic posture in the Western Hemisphere, and it is shameful for 

us to stand by and watch the violations of basic human rights and 

democratic values seen in Venezuela because of the naive belief by 

this administration that the OAS or other multilateral organizations can be counted on even one time to defend freedom where it 

is being threatened. 

Secretary Kerry showcased this naivete when he announced the 

end of Monroe Doctrine before the OAS late last year, subjugating 

U.S. vital interests in the region to the whims of an organization 

that has long been hijacked by the anti-democratic populace of the 

hemisphere. 

I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today. Ambassador Reich, I deeply respect you and I appreciate your service 

as our Ambassador to Venezuela. I believe you understand better 

than most the corroding effect on democratic values that the 

Bolivarian Revolution has had on the region. 

Mr. Ilan Berman, who will testify to the presence of external actors establishing a presence in our hemisphere, and Mr. ClaverCarone, who has studied what has been best described to me as 

Cuban cancer that metastasized around the region, creating antidemocratic environments in certain parts of Latin America where 

3

freedom of expression and basic democratic values are systematically being violated. 

I focus most of my attention as chairman of this subcommittee 

on the positive developments coming out of the hemisphere—the 

Pacific Alliance, growing trade and investment opportunities in 

Mexico, Peru and elsewhere, and the real and important prospect 

of energy security and independence in North America. 

However, we will squander those opportunities if we continue to 

neglect the region through lack of sound, strategic policy, policy 

that reflects this country’s commitment to the defense of liberty 

and economic freedom, and our willingness to defend those values 

and our vital national interests. 

As I said to Secretary Kerry when he was up on the Hill 2 weeks 

ago, around the world and, indeed, even in our own hemisphere, 

liberty and economic freedom are being threatened by tyrants. 

People yearning for freedom are looking to the U.S. for our leadership in defense of liberty, but instead, this administration is offering solar panels through costly USAID projects. 

This is an affront to the U.S. taxpayer and an insult to those 

seeking freedom. We can and we must do much better. I am eager 

to hear how the lack of U.S. strategy and leadership in the Western Hemisphere has affected our ability to defend these values, 

while protecting our interests and the interests of our neighbors. 

In the coming weeks, this subcommittee will have the opportunity to question the administration more directly about Western 

Hemisphere policy or lack thereof during a budget oversight hearing. 

What we glean from your testimony today, Ambassador Reich, 

Mr. Berman, Mr. Claver-Carone and Mr. Shifter, will be instrumental in our ability to challenge the administration’s lack of strategic vision and offer a new way forward. 

I don’t typically get negative in these kinds of hearings but I am 

really disgusted, I am, by the lack of any kind of clear vision or 

policy in the Western Hemisphere. And while I talk about this 

whole movement in the Western Hemisphere toward more climate 

change issues, I am not against talking about environmental policies at work. 

I think that is prudent and smart. But on the scale of priorities, 

when we are looking at people being killed in the streets in Venezuela, when we look at arms being smuggled by Cuba to North 

Korea, on the relative scale of what is important are we really focusing our attention on the things that really matter? That is why 

we are holding this hearing today. 

It is not just to cast aspersions, but to actually try to find a way 

that we can engage together to try to focus on our own neighborhood and make things better for all concerned, and I yield to the 

ranking member. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Good afternoon, and thank you to the witnesses for being here. 

Thank you for your patience with our vote. 

I believe it is fair to acknowledge that the number, nature and 

complexity of foreign policy challenges facing the United States 

today is the greatest it has been since 9/11. 

4

For the past 13 years our foreign policy mostly focused on crises 

outside our hemisphere. This is perhaps no less true today where 

in Eastern Europe we have Russia acting as if the Cold War had 

never ended. 

As foreign challenges have evolved, so too have our diplomatic, 

economic, and when necessary, our military means to respond. 

Nonetheless, this focus elsewhere, however understatable, has 

come at the detriment of our policy toward the Americas and the 

hemisphere as a whole. 

As a consequence, we have not paid appropriate attention to an 

area that is next door in our hemisphere. Human rights abuses, intimidation, threats to democracy or loss of life are no less relevant 

and just as wrong whether they occur in Syria, North Korea, 90 

miles south in Havana or in Venezuela. 

Some experts view U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America as 

adrift and far too narrow in scope. I agree that our problems have 

risen. Our responses have been reactive rather than proactive. 

As bearer of democracy, liberty and economic freedom we have 

failed when our foreign policy is dictated by yesterday’s news headlines. On one hand, today all nations in the hemisphere, with the 

exception of Cuba, are elected democracies. 

On the other, we have witnessed a proliferation of electoral 

authoritism where democratic institutions exist but are severely 

abused by the executive. 

We see this specifically in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. We have also witnessed a unique period of political stability and economic vibrancy that has translated to greater regional autonomy with a diverse economic and diplomatic portfolio. Foreign actors such as China, India and Europe have now become significant trading partners for some of Latin America’s largest economies. 

There are new regional associations such as ALBA, the 

Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade 

Treaty, and CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, that not only exclude the United States but have 

mostly been utilized as mediums to espouse and advocate antiAmericanism. 

Russia has dubiously increased military exercises in the region 

and Iran continues to expand its influence. While such an agreement should never have come to light, President Kirchner’s decision to undo the so-called joint truth commission with Iran is a 

step in the right direction. 

I am adamant the U.S. must maintain pressure on Cuba’s authoritative regime, expose its continued human rights and press 

freedom violations, blatant disregard for U.N. arms sanctions and 

press for the release of Alan Gross. 

In regards to Venezuela, I have joined my colleagues in calling 

for an end to violence in supporting the people of Venezuela’s right 

to express their frustration to the deteriorating economy, public 

safety and political conditions in their country. 

Rather than allow the space and freedom for peaceful demonstration, President Maduro has instead utilized oppressive Cuban tactics in silencing the media, detaining anti-government demonstrators and opposing leaders. 

5

Mr. Maduro and the Government of Venezuela need to address 

the grievances of its people through dialogue, and respect freedom 

of expression and assembly as the basic human rights and principles of a democratic society. 

It is unacceptable that various member states of the OAS who 

champion their respects of human and civil rights have chosen to 

ignore the abuses occurring in Venezuela and have prevented the 

OAS from taking any meaningful action against the Government of 

Venezuela. 

These nations value Venezuela’s cheap oil and petrol dollars 

more than human rights and the unfortunate loss of life that has 

occurred. To the leaders of these nations, I say that the world is 

watching, and that the U.S. and this Congress, in particular, will 

not forget. 

I call on the administration to utilize and exhaust all diplomatic 

and economic tools at its disposal to act accordingly against those 

individuals responsible for the unnecessary and unwarranted acts 

of violence against the Venezuelan people. 

U.S. inaction will speak louder than any anti-America rhetoric 

espoused by blind nations on the wrong side of history. Thank you. 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you. Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Just real briefly, first off I will say that I share the 

chairman’s opinion that this is Venezuela’s 1776 moment where 

you have a people that are urging and really yearning to be free 

and have more self-governance. 

But when we witnessed, just recently, President Maduro encouraging Venezuelan citizens to begin Carnival early while thousands 

stood in line for the basic subsistence which they would have trouble finding on the grocery shelves, this likened sort of to Marie 

Antoinette’s ‘‘let them eat cake’’ statement. 

It shows how out of touch Maduro is with just the basic needs 

of the Venezuelans. So maybe history will show that this is 

Maduro’s ‘‘let them eat cake’’ moment and hopefully we as Americans can support the folks that want to be free, and want to govern 

themselves and Venezuela. 

So I thank the gentlemen for being here. I know this isn’t just 

focused on Venezuela but that is what is on my mind today. I yield 

back. 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you. Mr. Meeks. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me just say that 

this is a timely discussion and I want to thank the witnesses that 

are here and look forward to having a dialogue with you, doing the 

questions and answers and hearing your testimony. 

I got elected to Congress in 1998, and from 1998 until today I 

have long said that we have not engaged Latin America, South 

America, the Caribbean, and Central America in the methods that 

we should. 

Oftentimes we looked at our friends, our neighbors to the south 

in the manner that we were looking through the prism of when we 

were in the Cold War, that we had not changed many of our policies toward them, that we had not moved forward and we were not 

engaged with them and that we needed to focus on our neighbors 

to the south because they are our neighbors. 

6

We share this hemisphere. They are very important, and if we 

didn’t do it then others would come and they would try to invest 

and influence and be involved in their matters because we are leaving a vacuum, and that the nations in Central and South America 

were looking for different types of relationships, not a master-servant relationship but a relationship where they were recognized for 

growing and moving and trying to move toward democracy and 

making sure that all people within those communities and within 

those countries will have an opportunity to have their voices heard, 

not just someone to be utilized by us when we thought that it 

would be to our strategic interest. 

We still need to be sure that we are engaging with our colleagues 

and our friends and our neighbors who share this hemisphere with 

us. It is absolutely important and we must talk to them, not at 

them, so that we can begin to figure out how we can work collectively together to make this hemisphere better. 

Otherwise, others will take advantage. Others will try to divide 

the hemisphere. It can then cause us to have some national security interests. 

So I was pleased when we have had conferences that I have attended and seen the nations come and we have had various groups 

going to talk and to try to figure out how do we do this thing. 

How do we work in a manner of bringing folks together, of understanding to some degree some different ethnicities, some different histories, so that we can work together to make our hemisphere stronger. 

So I say that is why I think that if we are going to have a real 

dialogue, and I probably differ than many when I see, I believe, a 

failed policy with reference to one of the Caribbean countries for 

over 50 years, I want that regime to change. But I want something 

that works because it hasn’t. I think the time for that conversation 

is to be had. 

How do we make effective change and how do we work together 

to get it done? So I look forward to hearing the testimony. I look 

forward to working with my colleagues who all, I believe, have good 

intentions and want to make sure that we have a good relationship 

with many of the countries in the hemisphere so that we can make 

a difference. I think the time has finally come. 

The time is right for us to do it and I look forward to working 

collectively to get it done, and I yield back. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you. 

I recognize the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Ileana RosLehtinen. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

And I, like so many of our colleagues here, I am extremely worried about our lack of attention to the many threats to democracy 

in our own hemisphere. 

In Venezuela, the death toll is at 34, and continues to climb with 

nearly 60 reported cases of torture, over 1,500 people unjustly detained, hundreds more injured, and the nexus between Cuba and 

Venezuela continues to threaten regional stability. It frightens freedom-loving people who are risking their lives for liberty, for democracy, and for justice. 

7

The Castro brothers continue to aid and abet the Maduro regime 

just as they have aided and abetted the FARC guerillas in Colombia, and now they are pulling off this farce of peace negotiations 

in Cuba and have been carrying out systematic human rights 

abuses, and incarcerating opposition leaders, and that same coalition has had a stranglehold, lamentably so, on the OAS—the Organization for American States. 

They have bullied member states into acquiescence. On Friday, 

as you know, Mr. Chairman, the OAS, led by the ALBA group, silenced a Venezuelan legislator and one of the leading opposition 

leaders, Marı ́a Corina Machado, prevented her from speaking the 

truth. 

Marı ́a Corina sought to denounce the human rights abuses occurring in Venezuela but this broken institution, led by a cowardly 

Secretary General, chose to side with Maduro instead and yet just 

2 weeks ago Secretary Kerry testified in front of our full committee 

that we need to work closely with the OAS in support of democracy 

in Venezuela, and the OAS was capitulating to Maduro and the 

Castros on Friday and throughout the years, this ordinary session 

silencing the truth of what is happening in Venezuela just a few 

blocks from the White House, and the administration continued to 

say that the OAS believes in what we believe in. 

And I believe, Mr. Chairman, the inmates are, clearly, running 

the asylum in the OAS. We are talking about a Maduro regime 

that is incarcerating opposition leaders, that is killing young people 

in the streets. Marı ́a Corina may very well, because her immunity 

has been voided, she could be arrested. 

She could be imprisoned under false pretenses, tried for treason 

for daring to try to speak at the OAS, and on Cuba the State Department has been trying so hard to approve more visas for Castro 

lackeys and finding new ways to inject money in the coffers of the 

Castro brothers that it has not observed the sad reality that the 

Cuban people are suffering day in and day out. 

The OAS has failed to be a venue for the people of Venezuela, 

for the people of Cuba, the people of the hemisphere to express 

their concerns about the lack of democracy and the violations of 

human rights occurring in our hemisphere every day. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SALMON. In the interests of time, if it is all right with you 

we will just dispense with introductions. Pursuant to Committee 

Rule 7, the members of the subcommittee will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the official hearing record, 

and without objection the hearing record will remain open for 7 

days to allow opening statements, questions and extraneous materials for the record subject to the length of limitation in the rules. 

I am going to start with you, Ambassador Reich. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE OTTO J. REICH, PRESIDENT, 

OTTO REICH ASSOCIATES, LLC 

Ambassador REICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the 

subcommittee, Chairman Emeritus Ros-Lehtinen. It is good to be 

here. I appreciate the opportunity to address this very important 

issue. I will not be following my written testimony but will summarize it for you. 

8

That we have neglected the hemisphere is not in question. All 

one has to do is travel in the region and we will be asked why the 

U.S. doesn’t care about Latin America or the Caribbean. 

That disengagement carries real cost for the United States in political, economic, security and commercial terms, especially when it 

is accompanied by misguided policies that have confused our 

friends and emboldened our enemies. 

Believing that just by sitting down to talk with our antagonists 

they will stop their hostility is not diplomacy. It is self-delusion. As 

relations with Russia, North Korea, Syria and Iran prove, wishful 

thinking does not make an effective foreign policy. 

The same goes for the Americas. At its outset, the Obama administration unilaterally lifted travel and financial sanctions on Cuba 

and offered a diplomatic reset to Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and 

other anti-American governments. 

For example, the administration inexplicably joined Castro, 

Cha ́vez, Ortega and the OAS in trying to reinstate Honduras’ radical and corrupt President, Manuel Zelaya, to the presidency even 

after Zelaya had been legally dismissed by the Supreme Court of 

Honduras and their Parliament for violating the constitution. 

What was the reaction from our adversaries? Castro, Cha ́vez, 

Maduro, Correa, Morales, Ortega and even Argentina’s Kirchner 

variously at times have intensified their ties with Russia, Belarus, 

Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, purchased Russian weapons, expelled American officials, put independent news organizations out of business 

and generally undermined liberties at home. 

Castro responded to the lifting of sanctions by increasing internal 

repression and jailing a U.S. citizen on trumped-up charges. Cuba 

was later caught helping North Korea to violate U.N. sanctions on 

weapons transfers. 

Further confusing our friends, the administration delayed for 3 

years the ratification of free trade agreements with Colombia and 

Panama while slowing the implementation of the Merida Initiative, 

an anti-narcotics program with Mexico. 

Our disengagement is evident at the Organization of American 

States where this month alone a majority of the members voted to 

support Maduro’s violent repression. One economic consequence of 

U.S. policy is an uneven playing field where U.S. firms cannot win 

some major contracts in Latin America because their competitors 

are bribing foreign decision makers. 

This is one result of our Government not implementing our own 

visa sanctions against corrupt officials coming to the U.S., opening 

bank accounts and owning property here. 

We must pay special attention to Cuba and Venezuela since 

these two countries have provided most of the muscle and money 

for the anti-American subversion of the past 15 years. Cuba is a 

totalitarian military dictatorship controlled by the Communist 

Party of Cuba. 

It is on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism 

and is run by an organized crime family whose head, Fidel Castro, 

has made so much money he was listed on Forbes register of the 

world’s richest people. 

The Castros have been involved in illicit businesses such as narcotics trafficking, kidnapping, bank robbery and money laundering. 

9

With the help of Hugo Cha ́vez and later Nicola ́s Maduro, Castro 

has remade Venezuela in his image. 

This is not just my opinion. Listen to what Cha ́vez’s one-time 

ideological mentor and main cabinet minister, Luis Miquilena, said 

recently:

‘‘Venezuela today is a country that is practically occupied by 

the henchmen of two international criminals—Cuba’s Castro 

brothers. They have introduced in Venezuela a true army of occupation. The Cubans run the maritime ports, airports, communications, the most essential issues in Venezuela. We are in 

the hands of a foreign country.’’

By Cuba, Venezuela has become an organized crime state. Politicians and military officers have been implicated in drug trafficking, 

support of terrorism and other illicit activities. Corruption runs 

rampant with huge fortunes illegally acquired by government officials and the so-called oligarchy. 

The U.S. Treasury Department has designated a dozen senior 

Venezuelan officials as ‘‘significant foreign narcotics trafficker’’ 

under the Drug Kingpin Act. They stand accused of ‘‘materially assisting the narcotics trafficking activities’’ of the revolutionary 

armed forces of Colombia, the FARC, designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department and European counterparts. 

Under the influence of the Cuba-Venezuela alliance, ALBA, 

which has been mentioned here along with other anti-American 

governments are repressing their populations, eliminating free enterprise, destroying press freedoms and other liberties and supporting terrorists and racketeers. 

Moreover, they are now bringing their illicit activities to the 

United States. To prevent what Mr. Miquilena correctly calls criminals, from consolidating their dictatorships or exporting violence, 

we must actively defend our interests and our security. 

This does not entail military force. One of our most effective tools 

and one that the U.S. is finally using against the Russian oligarchs 

as a result of the Crimea annexation are targeted visa and financial sanctions aimed at those government officials who repress 

their people and of the business accomplices who help keep the dictatorships in power and who profit from its corruption. 

Also, instead of constantly putting out fires in our neighborhood, 

we should put the arsonists out of business. The chief arsonist in 

this hemisphere for the past half century has been a Castro. We 

know where he lives and where he hides his money. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Reich follows:]

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Mr. SALMON. Thank you. 

Mr. Berman. 

STATEMENT OF MR. ILAN I. BERMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, 

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the 

opportunity to appear here today. Let me begin simply by making 

two general and rather uncomfortable observations. 

The first is that Latin America does not rank on any given day 

very high on the list of the United States foreign policy priorities 

and that that is especially true today when you see international 

attention being rivetted to the Middle East, to Ukraine, to Crimea, 

and to the Indian Ocean. 

But by virtue of its geography, by virtue of its strategic position 

and its proximity to the U.S. homeland, Latin America is important. Indeed, it is vital to the United States on both economic and 

security grounds. 

This is, I think, a general observation that everybody understands but I don’t think it can be stressed enough. 

The second observation, which we are beginning to learn at our 

great detriment, is the fact that nature really does abhor a vacuum 

and a retraction of interest, a retraction of presence on the part of 

the United States, will inevitably be filled by others, and that is 

precisely what is happening today. 

Even as the U.S. has disengaged systematically from the region, 

other actors have stepped in and done so in ways that are deeply 

detrimental to American security. Let me start by explaining what 

Russia is doing. 

Russia recently announced plans and made considerable news by 

doing so at the end of February to establish overseas military bases 

in eight countries including three Latin American ones—Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. 

This represents a rather substantial expansion of Russian policy 

in the region. Over the last several years, Moscow has devoted, I 

would say, significant political equities to building diplomatic ties, 

to building economic ties and even a strategic foothold of a sort in 

the Americas. 

Notably, in keeping with its ideology, the regimes that the Kremlin has focused on in this outreach are those that share a broad expansionist and anti-American outlook. 

Moscow’s attention is focused primarily, although not exclusively, 

on Nicaragua, on Venezuela and on Cuba, and through official visits, arms sales and military cooperation Russia has succeeded in 

creating what can be called legitimately a strategic beachhead in 

Latin America. 

And this is a policy that is being driven by a number of things, 

some of them practical and some of them less so. The Kremlin has 

recently focused on counternarcotics, and pursuant to a 2013 plan 

that was unveiled by the Kremlin, it is in the process of expanding 

counternarcotics cooperation with a number of Latin American 

states. Nicaragua being chief among them, this has already begun 

to net dividends including a bust of more than $1 million that was 

carried out jointly by Russia and Nicaragua last year. 

24

The Russians have also built a fairly significant arms trade relationship with the region, focusing in large part on Venezuela, 

which now makes up more than three quarters of the arms that 

Russia sells in the region to the tune of—in excess of $14 billion 

so far. 

But above all, and I think it is useful to point out here, Russia’s 

activities are both strategic and opportunistic. Latin America is by 

any measure very far outside Moscow’s core areas of interest, 

which are the post-Soviet spaces of Central Asia and the Caucuses, 

the Arctic, Eastern Europe, what have you. 

Latin America is very far afield. But precisely because it sees the 

United States withdrawing, it sees the United States, or at least 

perceives the United States, to be disinterested, Moscow is taking 

full advantage of what it now sees as an empty region. 

There is a Russian adage that says that a sacred space will not 

remain empty for long and I think that is very much applicable not 

only to Latin America, but also to Latin America in terms of how 

Russia is approaching it. 

And I would add parenthetically here that what you are seeing 

over the last several weeks has been a rather worrying evolution 

of how Russia thinks about Latin America because in the announcement that was made at the end of February by the Russian 

defense minister about the possibility of bases in Latin America, it 

was made clear that the negotiations that are now underway are 

to allow for aerial refuelling, for long-range reconnaissance aircraft. 

This is very much a throwback to the type of activities that the 

Russians, at that time the Soviets, used Latin America for. 

The second actor I think worth noting is Iran. We in the United 

States, and particularly in the Washington Beltway, have focused 

on Iran relatively recently. Only since the botched attempt to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards back in October 2011 has there really been sustained attention to this presence. 

But the presence actually extends far further back in history, at 

least a decade with regard to the modern contemporary outreach 

that you see the Iranians carrying out, and this outreach essentially focuses along three main lines. 

First, Iran sees Latin America as an arena for political and economic outreach because of the presence of sympathetic regimes in 

Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and elsewhere. 

Second, Iran seeks to acquire strategic resources in the Americas 

including, but definitely not limited to, the acquisition of uranium 

ore for its nuclear program. 

Finally, Iran has made Latin America an arena of asymmetric 

activity through its contacts with regional radical groups, and also 

by building infrastructure in the region such as the Regional Defense School for the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas that Iran 

partially funded, which is located outside of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. 

Iran’s presence in Latin America tends to be minimized by some 

because its level of activity is comparatively low, and because a 

majority of the economic promises that it has made to regional 

states so far haven’t materialized. 

But it is useful to remember that Iran’s contemporary outreach 

is new. It is less than a decade old and Iran is in a much, much 

25

better position strategically in Latin America than it was 10 years 

ago, and this is in part because the U.S. Government still does not 

have an implemented strategy to compete, contest, and/or dilute 

Iranian influence in the Americas despite the fact that it clearly 

constitutes an incipient threat to American interests. 

Finally, let me say a couple of words about China. Unlike Iran 

and Russia, China’s presence in the Americas is mostly economic 

in nature but it is significant nonetheless because China’s legitimate economic outreach, and it is very significant, has been mirrored by more questionable activities including cooperation with 

Argentina on nuclear issues, the launch of reconnaissance satellites 

for Venezuela and for Bolivia, and its much discussed plan to build 

an alternative to the Panama Canal in Nicaragua, which is by all 

accounts a very costly boondoggle but also one that will provide regional regimes with the ability to skirt U.S. oversight for containers if it is concluded. 

There is a commonality here between China on the one hand and 

Iran and Russia on the other. Beijing, like Moscow and Tehran, is 

seeking to take advantage of America’s disengagement for the region for its own purposes, be they economic or strategic, which gets 

us to where we are. 

As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, last fall Secretary of State 

Kerry announced that the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over, effectively, in the region. By doing that, he effectively served notice to 

regional regimes that they are allowed to curry favor with external 

actors and served notice to external actors that America will no 

longer contest and compete with those external actors when they 

reach into the region. 

Moscow and Tehran and Beijing were doubtless listening when 

the Secretary spoke and what they likely heard was an invitation 

to further deepen the involvement that they are already pursuing 

in the region. 

If history is any judge, if the last decade is any judge, that deepened involvement is going to come in ways that are going to have 

profound security and economic implications for the United States. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berman follows:]

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Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Berman. 

Mr. Claver-Carone. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MAURICIO CLAVER–CARONE, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, CUBA DEMOCRACY ADVOCATES 

Mr. CLAVER-CARONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the subcommittee. 

It is really a privilege to be here today to discuss this important 

and consequential issue regarding Latin America which directly affects the national interest of the United States. 

My testimony can be summarized as follows: The Cuban dictatorship is working systematically against democratic institutions in 

Latin America. Autocracies like Cuba’s work systematically using 

subterfuge, coercion, censorship, and state-sponsored violence including lethal force and terrorism. 

Thus, the regions democracies, led by the United States, must 

also work systematically to protect and promote its democratic institutions, and democracies work systematically by holding human 

rights violators accountable, giving voice, legal assistance and protection to the victims, economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure 

and by promoting successful evidence-based aid programs to break 

the cycle of poverty and instability, and obviously that is an issue 

for another hearing. 

Allow me to elaborate a bit on this. In the 1980s, it was commonly stated that the road to freedom in Havana runs through Managua, alluding to a cause-effect from an end to the Cuban-backed 

Sandinista dictatorship of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. In the last 

decade, this statement has morphed into the road to freedom in 

Havana runs through Caracas, referring to the Cuban-backed 

Bolivarian Governments of the late Hugo Cha ́vez and Nicola ́s 

Maduro in Venezuela. 

Undoubtedly, both roads represent noble and important goals albeit temporary short-term solutions, the reason being that the Sandinista Government of the 1980s and the Bolivarian Government 

of today are symptoms, not remedies, of a greater illness. 

The fact remains that no nation in Latin America will enjoy the 

long-term benefits of freedom, democracy and security so long as 

the dictatorship of the Castro brothers remains in power in Havana. 

As such, a more accurate statement would be the road to longterm freedom, democracy and security in Latin America runs 

through Havana. The Castro regime remains as resolute today to 

subvert democratic institutions, to direct and sponsor violent agitators and support autocrats throughout the region and the world 

as it did in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. 

Granted, its tactics and scope have been diminished, mostly due 

to the economic realities stemming from the end of massive Soviet 

subsidies through 1991, but its antagonistic aims are unwavering. 

No wishful thinking or accommodation policy, which I believe are 

interchangeable, will make this go away. Moreover, to underestimate the skill, diligence and effectiveness of Cuba’s intelligence 

and security forces is a grave mistake, the proportions of which we 

are witnessing today in Venezuela. 

36

After all, the erosion of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and 

its government’s repressive practices are the result of a protracted 

systematic effort spanning over a decade of penetration and control 

by the Cuban dictatorship, and Ambassador Reich mentioned what 

Luis Miquilena, a former mentor to Hugo Cha ́vez, said. 

Thus, it should be a priority for all democracies in Latin America, led by the United States, to support the democratic forces in 

Cuba working to end the dictatorship of the Castro brothers. That 

is the remedy. 

Unfortunately, that has not been the case and last month Latin 

America’s democratically-elected leaders paraded through Havana 

for a summit of the CELAC, which is an anti-U.S. concoction of 

Hugo Cha ́vez. 

Currently, the organization’s rotating presidency is, ironically, 

held by General Raul Castro. Similarly, these elected leaders were 

not interested nor concerned that Cuba’s regime had threatened, 

beaten and arrested hundreds of the island’s democracy advocates 

who had tried to plan and hold a parallel summit to discuss the 

lack of freedom and human rights in Cuba. 

This trend is reversible, but the leadership of the United States 

is vital. Undoubtedly, the democracies of Latin America need to 

step up to their own responsibilities, but in the cost benefit analysis that all political leaders make, they need to be left with no 

doubt that the benefits of standing up for freedom and democracy 

in Cuba outweigh the cost. 

Whether we like it or not, only the United States can tip that 

balance, hence, the title of today’s hearing. To be clear, United 

States is not the cause of Latin America’s problems. 

To the contrary, it represents the solution. U.S. leadership in the 

region should be public, unquestionable and unwavering, particularly in regards to shared values of freedom, democracy and security. 

Our democratic allies in the region should know and anticipate 

the benefits derived from embracing and promoting democratic 

practices, and likewise, autocrats should know and anticipate the 

consequences of undemocratic practices and illegal acts. 

Unfortunately, currently neither is the case. We are witnessing 

the first with Venezuela. The silence of Latin America’s leaders 

amid the violent suppression of dissent by the government of 

Nicola ́s Maduro is scandalous. The reasons for their silence amid 

the arrest, torture and murder of Venezuelan students is similar 

to the rationale for embracing the Castro dictatorship by the 

CELAC summit in Havana—how instead of leading and encouraging the region’s democrats and holding Maduro’s government accountable, the United States is unwittingly, and I don’t think it is 

purposefully, contributing to their silence. 

For example, this past Friday the Panamanian Government 

ceded its seat at the Organization of American States to Venezuelan legislator Marı ́a Corina Machado, a leading opposition figure, to renounce the human rights abuses of the Maduro government. 

I remind you in 1988–89 Venezuela’s democratic government had 

supported Panama’s democratic opposition and did the same for 

them, thus Panama’s democrats remain grateful. 

37

The U.S. should have applauded this gesture by Panama and it 

did so after the fact but, unfortunately, the United States initially 

sought to dissuade the Panamanian Government from accrediting 

Marı ́a Corina Machado to speak at the OAS. That is a lamentable 

fact and I would urge the subcommittee to ask the State Department for its rationale. 

In the interest of time, the U.S. should also be making the benefits of supporting Venezuela’s democratic institutions absolutely 

clear and not muddying the message. 

In the same vein, the consequences for undemocratic practices 

and illegal acts should be absolutely clear and there is no better 

opportunity to do so than regarding the Castro regime’s recent 

smuggling of weapons to North Korea in blatant violation of international law. 

As you know, in July 2013 the North Korean flag vessel, Chong 

Chon Gang, was intercepted with weaponry hidden under 200,000 

bags of sugar. This month, the U.N.’s panel of experts released its 

official report on North Korea’s illegal trafficking of weapons in 

conjunction with Castro’s regime. 

The panel concluded that both the shipment in itself and the 

transaction between Cuba and North Korea were international 

sanctions violations. Let me emphasize this shipment constituted 

the largest amount of arms and related material interdicted to or 

from North Korea since the adoption of the U.N. Security Council’s 

resolution, and as for Cuba, it is the first time a nation in the 

Western Hemisphere was found in violation of U.N. sanctions. 

The report noted similar patterns by other North Korean ships. 

Thus, similar ships have simply gotten away, and such egregious 

practices should not be inconsequential. Thus far, it would send a 

demoralizing message to Panama, which put up its resources and 

reputation, and but moreover, it would show that inaction breeds 

impunity. 

And as my time is over, I would just finally state a third factor, 

it is essential that the United States lead, and once again it all 

goes back to leadership, of the region’s defense, promotion and application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. 

Otherwise, it will become irrelevant and no other nation in the 

hemisphere will do that. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Claver-Carone follows:]

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Mr. SALMON. Thank you. 

Mr. Shifter. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL SHIFTER, PRESIDENT, INTERAMERICAN DIALOGUE 

Mr. SHIFTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Sires, other members of the subcommittee. I appreciate 

this opportunity to appear before you today to talk about U.S. policy toward Latin America. 

The U.S. relationship with Latin America has changed in fundamental ways in recent years and has become more distant, more 

so in South America than in Mexico and Central America. 

The reasons for this are deep and many and cannot be traced to 

any single administration or policy. The main explanation is, ironically, Latin America’s economic, social, even political progress over 

the last decade. 

The region is more politically confident and independent on the 

world stage. It continues to expand its global ties. The United 

States too has changed over the same period. The 2008 financial 

crisis hit hard. 

We have endured two draining wars. Our highest-level officials 

have been distracted elsewhere. The presence of non-hemispheric 

actors in Latin America has grown. In the era of globalization, this 

is natural. 

China is involved through trade, financing and, to a lesser extent, investment. Of greater concern are the roles of Russia and 

Iran. Over the past dozen years, Russia has sold arms to the region 

at an estimated $14.5 billion—it has been said over three-quarters 

of that to Venezuela. 

The recent statement by Russia’s defense minister about intentions to increase their presence in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba 

was probably mostly posturing for domestic political consumption, 

but especially given what is happening today in Ukraine they need 

to be followed very closely and very carefully. 

Iran’s activities too should be carefully monitored. There is ample 

information about money laundering operations. But so far, there 

has been no credible proof of threats posed by Iran-linked groups. 

The Obama administration, in my judgment, has been vigilant 

about these questions and needs to marshal resources to follow 

what is happening as closely as possible in the region. At the same 

time, there is little indication today that such actors pose a serious 

danger or threat to U.S. interests. 

There is great concern about Venezuela as well there should be. 

Even minimal human rights and democratic safeguards have eroded. The government’s repression of protestors, persecution of political opponents and restrictions on press freedom are even worse 

than during the Cha ́vez era. 

In such a polarized country, anything can happen. Venezuela 

shows how difficult it is for the United States to exercise leadership 

in the current environment. During the Cha ́vez years, Venezuela 

gained allies through lavish spending. The intent was to curtail the 

influence of the United States in this hemisphere. 

Fortunately, ALBA, the anti-U.S. group that Cha ́vez created and 

led, has become weaker even before Cha ́vez’s death in March of 

45

last year. The deep economic and continuing crisis in Venezuela 

has hurt ALBA’s capacity to act throughout the region. 

Unfortunately, however, at a regional level where there is so 

much polarization and fragmentation, there has not been much will 

to act regarding Venezuela. The OAS has all the instruments at its 

disposal to apply pressure but unfortunately the will isn’t there for 

both economic and for political reasons. 

The Venezuelan crisis shows how critical it is for the United 

States to become more engaged than it has been in regional affairs. 

It can do this in several ways. 

The United States cannot, unfortunately, act alone. It needs to 

act in concert with others. I do believe that the United States 

should be more involved in the OAS, not just saying what the OAS 

needs to do but actually coming up with ideas, proposals and reforms and mobilizing support and allies around those proposals. 

The U.S. efforts on strengthening human rights have been commendable but there has been no energy and no hard work, as far 

as I can tell, on the political side. The U.S. has been withdrawn 

and disengaged. The effort has not been made. 

The second way is to deepen our relationship with Brazil. This 

is very difficult in the short term—we all realize that. But U.S. policy will be limited in this hemisphere, in this region, unless there 

is sustained focus on relations with the region’s preeminent economic power. 

Third, strengthen relations with Mexico, Colombia, Peru and 

Chile. The administration is doing this, to its credit, but especially 

with Mexico it is hard to make progress without immigration reform and progress on other items on the domestic agenda in the 

United States. 

The failure to do this hurts our efforts to reengage with Mexico 

and also with other countries in Latin America. And finally, we 

cannot reduce our engagement and cooperation on Latin American 

security issues. 

These need to be sustained not only in Central America and 

Mexico but even in Colombia, which has been a success story for 

U.S. policy in this hemisphere that we should not forget. But we 

need to continue to invest with a strategic ally that reflects our 

commitment to the region. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shifter follows:]

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Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Shifter. 

I am going to yield myself 5 minutes to ask questions and then 

I will yield time to the ranking member. 

Ambassador Reich, I would like to start with you. As Assistant 

Secretary for WHA in the early 2000s, what was your approach to 

developing strategy and policy to deal with countries in Latin 

America that were antagonistic to our interests and to democratic 

principles? 

And if you were back in the chair today or at the NSC, what 

would be your top priorities in support of our interests in the region? And then finally, how would you instruct your diplomats on 

the ground to deal with the threats of expulsion we have seen in 

places like Ecuador and Bolivia? 

Ambassador REICH. Yes, sir. I had a slightly different approach 

than the current administration. In fact, I had the advantage that 

I think the entire administration did. We did not preemptively give 

the other side anything they wanted. 

In fact, quite the opposite. I will give you an example. The Cuban 

Government refused a visa for the person we had selected as the 

head of our interests section in Havana. They didn’t give a reason. 

They just didn’t like him and they weren’t going to allow him in. 

Instead of trying to reason with them, since I know, unfortunately, from personal experience a little bit about that government, 

I simply asked where the head of their interests section was. At the 

time, I was told that he was in Cuba on vacation and I said just 

simply tell them that he is not coming back. Forty-eight hours later 

we had the visa for our man in Havana. 

Diplomacy is not just sitting down and talking to people. You can 

talk to your friends. We did talk to our friends. We had very good 

relations with our people. 

Mr. Shifter correctly says—with our friends, I should say—that 

Colombia is an example of U.S. success, and it is bipartisan, by the 

way. I would like to say that it wasn’t just the Republican administration behind Colombia that enabled Colombia to survive a Communist-supported, including Cuban-supported, insurgency over 

many years was made possible by both Democratic and the Republican administrations in the late ’90s and in the 2000s. 

We should deal with countries in the way that they deal with us. 

I mean, we have seen recently in Ukraine the error of trusting people who have other agendas than we think they have or even what 

they say. 

The same thing applies in this hemisphere and there are many 

other examples that I can give you. What I would do today is I 

would support, for example, the resolutions in the House and Senate that would revoke the visas and freeze the accounts of those 

people responsible for the violence in Venezuela, and not only the 

government officials, but what the NSC spokesman said, the 

oligarchs in the case of Ukraine and Russia. 

There are a lot of private-sector people in Venezuela and other 

countries in the region that have become billionaires, with a B, as 

a result of corruption from these left-wing anti-American populist 

governments that are in office. 

They are investing their money in the United States. There are 

some of those people who have huge assets in the United States. 

52

They come and they spend the weekends here. I don’t understand 

why we allow that when their actions are undermining our national interests. 

Mr. SALMON. One other question. I get really, really frustrated 

with the toothlessness of the OAS and I have heard testimony from 

the entire panel, and anybody that wants to address it, I would be 

interested in your thoughts as far as how do we motivate them to 

do the right thing. 

I know we are paying about 40 percent of the funding for the 

OAS and we get little return, if any, and I don’t know how we continue to justify this to the taxpayers. It looks just like we are 

throwing money down a rathole. They don’t accomplish anything 

for us, and I would be interested in your thoughts. 

Ambassador REICH. Again, my experience from having been in 

the U.S. Government for 15 years, including at international fora, 

although I prefer the bilateral rather than the multilateral relationship, is that we don’t—we tend to treat governments who do 

things to us like we just had done—and I say we in this case, those 

governments that support democracy in the region—and I should 

say that in the case of not allowing Marı ́a Corina Machado to 

speak at the OAS, if I am not mistaken—now, correct me if I am 

wrong—the United States, Canada and Chile and Panama—sorry, 

there were 11 countries—11 countries that supported Ms. Machado 

being able to speak, and there was precedent for this, I think we 

should support those countries. 

The other 14, the countries of the English-speaking Caribbean 

with the exception of Barbados which abstained, which I personally 

don’t think abstention is a very honorable course in this case but 

much more honorable than voting with the Government of Venezuela to shut up an elected representative of the people of Venezuela who represented the peaceful dissident movement, and the 

other countries—Brazil, Argentina and the others that sided with 

Venezuela—I think that we should not just deal with them on the 

multilateral forum. 

Our Ambassador to the OAS should not be the only one that 

would express discontent with what they did. I think that there 

should be a cost to relations with the United States overall—economic relations. We are the most powerful economic nation in the 

world. There is a reason for that. 

Our economy is based on freedom—individual freedom, free markets, individual initiative. That freedom is being destroyed by Venezuela, has been destroyed by Cuba, is being destroyed in other 

countries in the region—Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, et cetera. 

I think we need to side with the countries that support freedom. 

We need to actively oppose the countries that destroy freedom, and 

whether they vote one way or another in a forum we should pay 

attention to that. 

Mr. SALMON. Our fault. Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Chairman, is an amen out of order there? 

Mr. SALMON. I recognize Mr. Sires. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, the State Department’s budget was cut. Now, in turn, 

we have a cut in the Western Hemisphere about 21 percent. How 

detrimental is that in dealing with the Western Hemisphere as we 

53

reduce money to be able to work with some of these countries? Anybody? Mr. Shifter. 

Mr. SHIFTER. Thank you. I think it is, clearly, not helpful and it 

does undermine our ability and our capacity to act effectively. 

There is no—and it is hard to put a number on it exactly to—

but, certainly, and of course more than anything I think the 

amount of money it sends a message. Latin Americans see this. 

They see that we are cutting, we are trimming, we are pulling 

back and I think that is not a reassuring message for our friends 

who want to see—who think that there is a lot at stake for the 

United States, the relationship deepen. 

So I think it is a negative message and signal that is being sent. 

I understand why we need to cut budgets up here but that, I think, 

is a consequence and a reality that we need to deal with. 

Mr. SIRES. Mr. Berman, what do you think some of the consequences will be? 

Mr. BERMAN. It is a good question, sir, and I would like to, if I 

may, broaden the question beyond simply the State Department because I would note, and I noted in my written statement, that 

there has been what amounts to a substantial budgetary draw 

down on, for example, the operating budget and, as a result, the 

horizons of combatant commands like Southern Command. 

Southern Command, the posture statements over the last several 

years, reflect a clear trend in which the acting commander at the 

time has said we are no longer in the business—and, obviously, I 

am paraphrasing—we are no longer in the business of competing 

and contesting the activities of actors such as Iran, for example, 

and South America. 

We have essentially retracted northward and now sit in Central 

America and our concerns are mostly with arms trade and with 

narcotics trafficking. This is a preemptive, I may say, ceding of the 

battlefield if the understanding is that what Iran is doing, what 

Russia is doing—these are countries of particular concern, certainly, to this hearing—what they are doing in the region can be 

contested, can be diluted in its effectiveness if the United States is 

down there both in an economic sense but also in a military 

sense—in a concrete military sense. 

And I think it is worth pointing out that this is a trend line that 

consumes not only the State Department but it is also one that is 

affecting the Defense Department as well with long-term effects for 

both our ability to see what is happening in the region but also to 

counteract it if we choose to do so. 

Ambassador REICH. Mr. Sires, it is an important question. I hate 

to keep going back to my experience but I will take the opportunity 

since the question was asked by the chairman about what did I do. 

I happened to be the first Assistant Secretary for the Western 

Hemisphere after 9/11 and we had a serious reduction in our resources as a result of the fact that we had to move a lot of—we, 

the United States Government, moved people and money to where 

there was a war, logically, and I defended that publicly. 

Resources are extremely important to the State Department, to 

our foreign policy establishment, but they are not everything. What 

I think is very important is to have the support of other parts of 

the government, to have the support of the President, the National 

54

Security Council and again, understand the fact that we represent 

in those positions not just a department of the United States Government but we represent the entire United States and we should 

think of our resources in a more comprehensive way than just the 

limited budget that we have. 

Mr. SIRES. Can somebody talk a little bit about what is the major 

obstacle preventing the OAS from being an effective organization? 

Mr. SHIFTER. I will try. First of all, it is important to have some 

perspective. I think the OAS has always had more than its share 

of problems. 

Mr. SIRES. They don’t do anything. 

Mr. SHIFTER. What? 

Mr. SIRES. They don’t seem to——

Mr. SHIFTER. But if you go back those are the criticisms, you 

know, 15 or 20 years ago about being irrelevant, not credible, marginal. Some of those same terms were used a long time ago. 

I think the main obstacle, to answer your question directly, is 

that politically the hemisphere has changed a lot in the last 10 

years. It is much more fragmented. It is much more polarized. 

The OAS operates by consensus and it is very hard, and there 

was a consensus in the early 1990s at the end of the Cold War. The 

governments went from military governments to civilian governments. There was a move there when people came together supporting democracy and markets, and then things started to unravel. Cha ́vez came in 1998. 

He was a polarizing figure, and it is very hard for an organization that deals with that kind of politics unless you really get in 

there and fight and make deals, and I think the United States 

hasn’t done as good a job as it should. 

So, now, you could try to say the Secretary General could do a 

better job and you could point to other factors, and I am not denying that. But I think the main obstacle is just a very complicated 

landscape. 

Just to finish, I spoke to the previous Secretary General in Colombia who was the President of Colombia, Cesar Gaviria, and 

asked him what he thought about the OAS. He said, you know, I 

was glad that I was in the OAS in the 1990s and not now because 

I think I would have a much harder time. He realizes the politics 

are much, much more difficult. 

Mr. SIRES. So is it obsolete? 

Mr. SHIFTER. I don’t think it is obsolete. I think the United 

States has a role to play and I think the other countries have to 

step up. 

But I think there has been a lack of political commitment and 

political engagement in doing the hard work of really making an 

effective organization. We have to understand we went through a 

big period with the Cha ́vez thing. 

Now I think we are entering a somewhat, even though we have 

this crisis in Venezuela we are entering, a different period. There 

aren’t going to be these sort of super populist leaders. Maduro 

doesn’t have the money that Cha ́vez had. He can’t do what Cha ́vez 

did during that period. 

Things have become more complicated. I think there’s another 

opportunity. I think it is a mistake to give up on it. The United 

55

States is not involved in any other multilateral organization in this 

hemisphere except the Summit of the Americas. As it has been 

mentioned, the United States is not a member of CELAC and 

MERCOSUR. I think we need to be part of these organizations and 

do the hard work to make them more effective. 

Mr. SIRES. Can somebody talk to me a little bit about why it 

seems that Cuba has its tentacles everywhere and yet people are 

sceptical of the meaning behind these efforts that Cuba is making 

in all these countries? Can somebody talk a little bit about that? 

Mr. CLAVER-CARONE. I can take that. In particular, because I 

think we have an opportunity right now and we are concerned 

about thinking forward. We are concerned about Russia. 

We are concerned about Iran and we talk about all these things 

but there are current events and I think we can’t underestimate 

enough what we are currently seeing in regards to, because I think 

it is a perfect example, the concern of inaction breeding impunity, 

and it is the shipment of weapons to North Korea. 

This isn’t just a small shipment of weapons to North Korea. As 

I mentioned, it is the largest amount of arms that has ever been 

interdicted to North Korea since the Security Council’s resolution, 

the first time a nation in the Western Hemisphere has violated 

international norms. 

This would have been the biggest shipment of MiGs to North 

Korea since 1999, a sale that Kazakhstan did, and it would have—

these were mint condition RPGs that would have affected our 

forces, U.S. forces in Korea—put our guys in danger in Korea. This 

was the shipment that got caught, but even the U.N. panel of experts shows that things have gotten away. 

If we, the United States, let this pass and essentially not do anything, and I understand that the current rationale of the State Department is that this is a multilateral issue since these are international sanctions, but if we are going to allow essentially the Security Council to have Russia decide what we are going to do in 

this regards. Obviously, China protects North Korea in that regards, nothing is going to happen. 

And therefore, all of our concerns that we think about and anticipate in regards to Venezuela and Ecuador with Iran and with 

Syria, et cetera, Russia, et cetera, then the message right there 

that is sent, if United States doesn’t say that this is unacceptable, 

something so egregious, the message that is going to be sent is at 

the end of the day we are always going to be protected from doing 

so and we are going to green light those activities in regards to our 

future concerns. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this 

hearing. 

Ambassador Reich, your comments were spot on and I appreciated the last exchange. But how do we export freedom? And that 

is rhetorical, I know, but I think about Colombia, and when the 

gentleman from New Jersey and I were there back in the spring 

of 2012 at the Summit of the Americas we met with some members 

of the Colombian congress and I remember them saying, and I can’t 

56

remember verbatim, but we talked about the economic prosperity 

that Colombia was experiencing. 

And one thing they said were low taxes, limited government, free 

markets. And I said, wait a minute, that is the foundation of what 

this country was founded on, and they were getting it. They were 

actually saying just enough government to support the free market. 

I thought that was amazing to hear that from a leader in another 

country telling me the principles that actually made America great. 

And so I would ask just take a minute. What should we or could 

we do to export the things you talked about earlier? What can we 

do? 

Ambassador REICH. Well, for example, I would say, first of all. 

But even that is not enough. Going back a few years I think we 

made a mistake, I am going to make a personal judgment call, on 

doing away with the U.S. Information Agency. 

There was a separate U.S. Information Agency. Yes, it probably 

wasn’t as effective as it could have been. But rather than making 

it more effective, what was done was it was incorporated into the 

State Department with positions called public diplomacy positions. 

As a result we don’t have an open and overt information agency 

in the U.S. Government that talks about all the things that the 

United States does for the rest of the world. 

One of the things that I think we should do besides setting an 

example for the fact that this economy works and free economies 

work and unfree economies do not work is we need to repeat that. 

It becomes very obvious. 

People should know. They should look at Cuba. They should look 

at Venezuela. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. 

Venezuela should be one of the most prosperous countries in the 

world. 

Today, the Venezuelan people are standing in line and housewives are literally fighting, fighting in supermarkets over a loaf of 

bread. Why? Because they are run by people who still believe in 

Marxism. After nearly 100 years of failures of systems based on 

Marxism you still have these people in Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, 

Bolivia, Nicaragua and other places trying to make it work. 

It is not going to work. But we need to reinforce that. I think we 

have a responsibility as the leader of the free world to promote 

freedom much more actively. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, it works for those that are in power and——

Ambassador REICH. Oh, absolutely. 

Mr. DUNCAN [continuing]. They just continue pushing those policies because it supports their positions and their economic benefit. 

Mr. Berman, last summer the State Department delivered a report to the U.S. Congress that essentially said that Iran’s influence 

in Latin America is waning and it was a result of a piece of legislation that I passed. 

However, in your testimony you suggest that in fact that is not 

the case, citing the warm and personal relationship that was 

formed between former President Cha ́vez and Ahmadinejad. 

Now that they are both exited from the stage, do you expect this 

close relationship to continue under Maduro and Rohani and if not 

what do you expect will be the net effect on Iran’s long-term plans 

in Latin America? 

57

I would just love to kind of start a dialogue about Iran. Is it still 

a threat here and can you speak of that? 

Mr. BERMAN. I can, sir, and I would say speaking for myself I 

think it is absolutely still a threat and the dialogue over Iran with 

regard to its presence in the Americas is quite misleading because 

people tend to look at Iran’s deliverables with regard to the region 

rather than Iranian intentions, and Iran has signed over 500 trade 

and cooperation pacts with the various countries of the region since 

it entrenched itself back in 2005 or began to entrench itself in 

2005. 

Most of those trade agreements and cooperation agreements save 

for the ones that it signed with Venezuela have been undelivered 

and they really remain unrealized, and as a result, people have 

taken to thinking that what Iran is doing is essentially simply a 

dalliance in the Americas. 

And I would make the point that if you look at long-term Iranian 

strategy to use various regions including Latin America as a way 

to circumvent sanctions, which was very important to them up 

until last fall when they started the Geneva process, but I would 

argue it is still important to them now. 

And looking at Latin America as an area where they can marshal support for a revisionist radical world view and garner the 

support of regional regimes and lessen their isolation that way, I 

think what you are seeing is an Iranian presence that is qualitatively and quantitatively far more significant than it was a decade ago and it is one that will continue as you look forward into 

the future because there are a number of strategic opportunities 

that Iran is likely to seize upon in coming years. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I would say two decades ago, if you go back to the 

AMIA bombings in Buenos Aires. And so we have established the 

fact that you and I agree that Iran is a threat in this hemisphere 

so let me ask you this. What should the U.S. strategy be? 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, sir, I think a good start would be to actually 

implement legislation that was passed and in this particular case 

I refer to the act that you sponsored, with regard to recognizing 

that there is a problem. 

And as you know, where the U.S. discourse is with regard to Iran 

and Latin America is essentially frozen as of last summer. Last 

summer, I had the privilege of testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on this precise issue, on where Iran’s footprint in the region is, and I am sorry to say that we had just come 

off of a disclosure by the State Department of what was objectively, 

I think, a very feeble assessment of the intelligence surrounding 

what Iran has been doing in the region, and nothing has been done 

since because there was the August recess and then there was sequester and what have you. 

And the aggregate result is that U.S. policy toward Latin America, with regard to Iran, is precisely where it was last summer. 

There isn’t a strategy to go down there, to compete and contest and 

dilute in economic terms, in political terms, to rally sympathetic regional governments in sort of constellations like, for example, the 

Pacific Alliance that have the ability to dilute Iranian influence. 

58

Latin America is still an open playing field for Iran and I think 

you are going to see in coming years that Iran is going to take full 

advantage of that playing field. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Well, my time is up. I appreciate that. 

I would love to delve into at future hearings or just in conversations, Mr. Chairman, about whether we need to mimic that piece 

of legislation now with regard to Russia and their involvement in 

this hemisphere. And with that, I will yield back. 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you. 

Mr. Meeks. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I don’t know if I have 

any questions but maybe I will get through my statement because 

I want to make sure the record is clear where I stand. 

Number one, I think the OAS is a very important organization. 

I think that we need to engage with the OAS now more than ever. 

Who is the OAS? It is one of our allies. Everyone is sitting there. 

So if somebody dares say something that we don’t like we are 

going to disassociate ourself with them and say that they don’t 

need to exist anymore? That is part of the problem. Some of us 

would like to, Ambassador Reich, the same policy that we had 30 

years ago and utilized them in South America you want to still use 

the same thing. 

One man said if you believe the same way you believed 30 years 

ago today you have wasted 30 years. Things have changed. This 

world is a much smaller place today than it was 30 years ago. 

There is more democracy—you want to talk about democracy? 

There is more democracy in South America today than there was 

30 years ago. There are more countries that are electing Presidents 

and governments through a democratized process today than there 

were 30 and 40 years ago. 

When we would prop up dictators, we propped them up for the 

benefit of our country, not thinking about others. We forget that 

history. Yes, I have got problems when people are not able to come 

up and stand and protest, as I said, at a recent hearing that took 

place on Venezuela. 

I got problems because I know the history of me and my country. 

Just as I had problems when our Government struck down and 

beat individuals like my colleague, John Lewis, who sits in this 

Congress. 

But if I thought the same way I thought back then 40 and 50 

years ago I would have a big problem sitting here as a Member of 

Congress today. I had to recognize the changes and the differences, 

and so we need to do that also with Latin America. I was there. 

I saw it earlier in 1998 when I got elected. I recognized what I 

saw when Hugo Cha ́vez got elected. There was a bipartisan delegation of individuals who were down there talking, trying to work it 

out with policies, Ambassador Reich, that you could have said we 

don’t like them. 

And there was a coup d’etat clear and simple in Venezuela, and 

half an hour after it we recognized the coup government, not the 

government that was elected democratically. 

Yet we say we love democracy. We have got to understand from 

which we come in this and try to figure out how we can work toVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:35 May 29, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_WH\032514\87335 SHIRL
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gether to make a difference—this administration and the State Department. 

I have yet to hear people talking about what are we doing and 

how we can make a difference. I heard Mr. Shifter say something 

that I thought was significant, that we are now living in a global 

economy and that our economies are connected. 

No one talked about how we got Chile and Mexico and Peru all 

partnered with us in TPP. Nobody talks about how the fact or 

whether or not some of our allies—I heard someone shout down 

Brazil. Well, Brazil is a country that is developing and is great, has 

its own population, have a lot to give with reference to energy. 

We have got to recognize that and not just say we got to—because they don’t agree with us 100 percent we are going to put 

them away. We condemned, and I have problems with some of the 

decisions that President Morales of Bolivia has and the position 

that he has taken there. 

But we never recognized that for the first time the people of Bolivia decided they would elect someone who is indigenous. And the 

people that he represents, the people of Bolivia and what their 

thought pattern was and is and to at least give them some semblance of respect that they democratically elected a President who 

looked like many people who had historically before that never 

been able to get involved and have a voice in their government. 

Those things have to be recognized. 

We have to deal with those realities if in fact we are going to 

have a harmonious relationship here on this hemisphere. To listen 

to what I have been listening to thus far, we blame everything, the 

whole world and everything that is all wrong because of the influence that Cuba has on everything. 

Yet we don’t change anything. Nothing has changed, so that can’t 

mean that it is a success. So we do the same thing over and over 

and over and over again and then complain and complain and complain. We should learn something so that we can get a different result instead of having it going over and over again. 

No one talks about what we have had—well, somebody mentioned our good relationship with Colombia. Go talk to the President of Colombia and ask him what he thinks, since he is our good 

ally. 

Ask him what he thinks we should do and how we should move. 

We can’t do things bilaterally or unilaterally, rather. If we are 

going to resolve certain things we got to do things multilateral and 

that is why the OAS is tremendously important. 

I know I am out of time and I wish I had a question. I had some 

but I want to make sure that I am clear on the record, and I will 

end as I began. 

If we want to be serious about working with our neighbors to the 

south, we have got to do so in a different way, not as my way or 

the highway, not that I don’t consider what you do or anything of 

that nature. 

We have got to do it in a multilateral way in a way that is respectful. I end it with this. I remember President Clinton. He was 

leaving the presidency. I asked him what is the difference between 

what he thought was important when he got elected President and 

60

when he left, and he said that, I don’t care how small the country—

we could use our military might but that won’t change them. 

It is giving some respect and working together. Yes, we have got 

the biggest military in the world and we know how to use it when 

we need to. 

But we have got to talk to folks and we got to figure out how 

we do things in a multilateral way and not just do it unilaterally. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SALMON. I thank the gentleman. 

I recognize the gentlewoman from Florida. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

apologize for my back and forth. We are doing some hallway appointments—democracy in action. 

And coming from an enslaved Communist regime where my family had to flee, and 50 some years later we still don’t have democracy, and the OAS remains as silent as it always has when it 

comes to supporting democracy. I love getting interrupted by our 

democratic process so I never mind scooting in and out of committee rooms. 

Now, some would like to defend the OAS. I see it as a failed institution and I hurt that our money is going to this institution—

40 percent of its budget—and what did the OAS do just on Friday? 

Marı ́a Corina Machado, who has now been stripped of her legislative immunity, is a legislator in the National Congress. She was 

invited by Panama to speak in favor of human rights and democracy. Can you imagine? 

What nerve to speak in favor of democratic principles in the 

OAS, and there is the Secretary General, a buffoon who just continues to silence the opposition, refuses to hear that there are any 

problems—see no evil, hear no evil—and so they do nothing, and 

this wasteful institution is gobbling up our money. 

What an insult. The Obama administration would like us to believe that our region is stable and prosperous but it fails to acknowledge the ongoing threats to our national security, our stability and the challenges that we face in promoting democracy, 

freedom, and the rule of law. 

And, you know, a democracy is more than holding an election, 

even a fraudulent election at that, because we had an election, free 

and fair. Can you say that about the other countries that have had 

elections? Really, Maduro? 

I presented to Secretary Kerry evidence of the electoral fraud in 

Maduro’s case. Nothing has been done, and Ortega, he changes the 

constitution so that he can get reelected. There is no separation of 

powers. But a democracy is more than an election. 

A democracy is ruling in a democratic way. It is making sure 

that the opposition, the minority, has a voice. Maduro’s acts are 

those of a coward and a bully, and if the administration continues 

to allow his actions to go not even talked about then it is only 

going to embolden him. 

Throughout the past 6 weeks we have witnessed this ongoing 

democratic crisis in Venezuela go further and further and all we 

hear from the Obama administration is words and hardly even 

words, hardly even that. 

61

Why? I thank the members of our committee who have co-sponsored a bill that would sanction those individuals who are committing human rights abuses in Venezuela. I am disappointed in the 

action of the OAS on Friday. 

To see democracies like the Dominican Republic, Colombia, other 

democratic nations that are democracies because they govern in a 

democratic way making the mistake of siding with the repressive 

regime in Caracas, not in solidarity with the people who are yearning for democratic change, that hurts me extensively. 

And we know about the ties between the Castro brothers and the 

Maduro regime. We have seen the Cuban troops who are there. 

More Cuban troops are coming every day. Military advisors are 

sent to Caracas to help Maduro oppress his own people. 

I cited how many deaths have occurred. Who has got the arms 

in Venezuela? Is it the students or is it the national guard and all 

of the thugs of Maduro? If these violent acts were occurring in 

other regions, Mr. Chairman, I think that we would act. But we 

choose to do nothing in Latin America. I think these countries are 

hurt by their proximity to the United States. 

Now, the President has correctly issued an executive order to 

sanction those in Russia who have undermined the democratic 

process and threatened the security of Ukraine. I applaud him for 

that. 

But no similar order has been signed for Venezuela. Those officials in Venezuela are killing young people on the streets. There 

have been tortures happening in the prisons. Young people have 

disappeared, and at the beginning of the Ukraine crisis many observers might have missed this interesting footnote, Mr. Chairman—that the Russian defense minister stated that Russia was in 

discussion with eight foreign countries, seeking overseas military 

facilities including three in our own hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela 

and Nicaragua. 

And Russia continues to bolster its military in front of our faces. 

Last month the Russian spy ship—as we know, it was in the 

press—it was spotted allegedly in the Port of Havana. Just 2 years 

ago, a Russian submarine was spotted off Florida waters. 

Russia had sent three navy ships to our region that were docked 

in Venezuela and Nicaragua in 2008, and in the earlier part of this 

decade the Russians withdrew from the Lourdes intelligence facility in Cuba, in my native homeland, but they can always come 

back. 

And what about China? Not only is Russia there, not only is 

Cuba there but China is in Latin America as well. Chinese investors are looking to build a canal in Nicaragua where opponents believe that this tactic is just a way to funnel money to Daniel Ortega 

and his cronies. 

And we see, as Mr. Berman had pointed out, Iran, Hezbollah, 

other foreign terrorist organizations that are using narco trafficking to fundraise with their illicit activities abroad. 

So we can’t properly address these issues if this administration 

does not put more resources and more attention to Latin America. 

We must not turn our back on the people of the Americas because 

this will allow rogue regimes to fill the void that American leadership has left behind. 

62

So I wanted to ask the panelists, if I might, Mr. Chairman, about 

two issues—the North Korean ship from Cuba carrying illicit military equipment that was stopped by the Panamanians in the canal 

and the Colombian peace talks with the FARC that is taking place, 

in a bitter irony, in a state sponsor of terrorism country, Cuba. 

And I am sorry if you had discussed those before while I was in 

and out. 

Mr. CLAVER-CARONE. We did. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. What was the conclusion? 

Mr. CLAVER-CARONE. Very briefly, we keep speculating about all 

these issues that are upcoming whether it is Iran, whether it is 

Russia, et cetera, and we have an opportunity to draw a line, and 

the line that we are going to draw right now in regards to North 

Korea. 

These shipments weren’t, as I said, just a few arms that were 

being sent. It was the largest violation—I am sorry to be repetitive—the largest violation of U.N. sanctions to North Korea ever 

since it was——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. What do you think is going to happen now 

that we know that and they have issued their interim report? 

Mr. CLAVER-CARONE. The U.N. panel of experts took it to, obviously, now to the Security Council. They said that there was obviously a conscious violation of international sanctions and now the 

Security Council there is going to decide and they are going to see 

there are individual entities that should be sanctioned, et cetera. 

Obviously, we know for a fact that the Cuban military’s conglomerate, GAESA, had something to do with it because every single 

transaction that had to do with the shipment involved GAESA 

which, by the way, is headed by General Luis Alberto Rodriguez 

Lopez-Callejas, which is Raul Castro’s son-in-law and runs the entire tourism industry in Cuba as well, which we are also continuing 

to feed into. 

That being said, whether the U.N. Security Council is going to 

in any way sanction GAESA or any of these individuals, I wouldn’t 

hold my breath. At the end of the day, as I mentioned, obviously, 

Russia plays a part in this. 

China, which protects North Korea, plays a part in this. Thus, 

if the United States does not draw a line in the sand in regards 

to these weapons sales, which is extraordinarily egregious with the 

facts that I mentioned in my testimony, we are welcoming the speculation in regards to Russia, I should say. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Yes. And would you say that now I think the 

biggest problem that we might face is a move by some folks to take 

Cuba off the state sponsor of terrorism list? 

They have sort of decided they don’t have the votes because of 

a lot of the hard work that we have done in Congress and so now, 

lamentably, we didn’t put that in Helms-Burton so that is a decision that is made by the executive branch. 

That is why I worry about these Colombia peace talks with the 

FARC taking place in Cuba. If an agreement is reached it would 

be used by saying hey, Cuba is no longer a terrorist country because it was the site of this honeymoon even though they just 

broke international sanctions with North Korea with this illegal 

63

shipment of arms. Do you see the move now to take Cuba off the 

state sponsor of terrorism? 

Mr. CLAVER-CARONE. Obviously, the biggest effort that is being 

made by folks that advocate normalized relations with Cuba is to 

take them off the state sponsor of terrorism list. 

This is what is being pressed mostly because it is a unilateral decision of the President. But there is legislative guidance to it, and 

in the legislative guidance to it essentially what they would need 

to qualify is that there needs to be a commitment from the Cuban 

Government that the United States accepted that they would not 

be involved in any of these acts in the future. 

Now, the fact that they have been caught red-handed and the 

fact that the U.N. panel of experts has shown that they have been 

involved in some of these shipments in the past and there is a lot 

of speculation into because there was a lot of these patterns, well, 

pretty much clearly shows that they cannot be trusted in that regards. 

And in regards to the FARC, I would note that there was just 

recently indictments in Federal court in Virginia against other lowlevel FARC individuals who are now in Cuba as part of this extraordinarily large delegation. 

Now, this delegation keeps getting larger and larger and larger 

with lower and lower-level officials because, you know, guess what, 

they are being indicted here in the United States for terrorism and 

for some egregious acts and now they are going to be in Cuba. 

Are they going to ever come and face justice here? Probably unlikely. The fact as well that Joanne Chesimard was named to the 

top 10 most wanted terrorist list is what also makes it very difficult to justify their removal from that list. A recent BBC documentary on Gaddafi brought about—they refound, rekindled Frank 

Terpil. Who is Frank Terpil, many of you recall, was the rogue CIA 

agent who sold nuclear material, who led Gaddafi’s hit squads and 

they interviewed him once again guess where? In Cuba. 

Frank Terpil is still around and, obviously, we know what he did. 

So all these things adding up makes it, I think, would make it very 

difficult to justify the removal of Cuba from the state sponsor list. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Ambassador Reich. 

Ambassador REICH. You are the chairman of the Western Hemisphere—I mean, sorry, the Middle East Subcommittee so—sorry 

about that, madam. 

I think that, to make a comparison, to have the talks between 

the FARC and the Government of Colombia in Havana would be 

the media equivalent of having talks between Hamas and Israel in 

Tehran. That is about how much sense it makes. 

Let me give you also an anecdote about Colombia that goes to a 

lot of the statements that have been made here, and I am very 

sorry that Mr. Meeks left because I really wanted to engage him 

in a little dialogue about some of the facts that he apparently has 

gotten wrong about what happened in Venezuela because I was Assistant Secretary when some of those things that he claims happened did not happen. 

But on Colombia, in 1991 then President Bush 41 pulled me out 

of retirement, one of my many retirements, and asked me to go to 

64

the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. That was the year 

that the first Gulf War started. 

In fact, it was the day that the first Gulf War started. We were 

trying to get the Latin American Governments, among other 

things—that was my job, several continents including Latin America—to support several human rights declarations. One of them 

was on Cuba. 

The Colombian Ambassador to the Human Rights Commission 

and I became friends. Over a period of weeks I tried to lobby him 

to support a very simple resolution asking for a special rapporteur 

from the U.N. Human Rights Commission to examine the conditions of Cuban jails, which Castro has never allowed examination 

by international bodies. 

And finally, after 4 weeks of lobbying him, he admitted—he lost 

his patience with me and in a very friendly manner said, you know, 

collega—he said, my colleague, he says, you know that Colombia 

could never accompany the United States in this project, as he 

called it, this resolution, he said, because you know what Fidel 

Castro is able to do and has done in my country. And I said what 

is that. 

I knew, but I wanted to hear him say it. He says, he has killed, 

he has kidnapped, he has supported the terrorists. He says, we 

cannot vote against Cuba at the United Nations. 

Now, I reported that. That is in the annals of the State Department somewhere in that huge warehouse where the Raiders of the 

Lost Ark is stored—or the Ark itself, I should say. 

And in the files of the State Department there is that conversation and it is an incredible admission by a strong democratic government that they could not vote against Cuba, as he put it, even 

on a human rights resolution at a multilateral forum, and this is 

why, to go back to Mr. Sires’ question why does the OAS not work? 

Not because it is the OAS but because it is a multilateral forum 

and the countries’ personalities change when they are surrounded 

by other diplomats who get together every afternoon and talk to 

each other day after day and have drinks and reinforce each other’s 

prejudices, one of which is that they don’t like the United States. 

I, frankly, have to say that I am so happy I was never asked, except for that—twice the President asked me to go to Geneva for the 

Human Rights Commission. 

I think multilateral fora are inherently corrupt, intellectually 

corrupt, and so that is why we need to do our effective diplomacy 

at the bilateral level. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. They are afraid of Castro for that reason and 

Maduro they don’t want to vote against him because they like the 

cheap or free gas. 

Ambassador REICH. Again, Madam Chairman, I said in my remarks that Cuba is an organized crime state. It is run like the 

Mafia is run. When Castro doesn’t like somebody, what they’re 

doing to them—like for example, Pinera in Chile. 

Pinera’s problems with the student movement in Chile was not 

coincidental. It was aided and abetted by Castro as a way to keep 

Pinera from moving Chile too far to the center. After 20 years 

under the coalition of the socialists and the Christian Democrats, 

65

finally Sebastian Pin ̃ era, a conservative, was elected, and guess 

what? 

All of a sudden there is all of these problems with the students 

that completely divert President Pin ̃ era’s agenda from doing what 

he wanted to do. If you were to ask the CIA to give you information 

about Cuban involvement in the student movement rebellion, if you 

want to call it that, against Pin ̃ era, unfortunately, I am now out 

of the government so you can’t share it with me but I would urge 

you to do that——

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Ambassador REICH [continuing]. As well as other examples that 

I would be happy to tell you about. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. And thank you, Mr. Ambassador. So sorry I 

ran over time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SALMON. You know what? This has been so important and 

so intriguing and we have got such a wonderful panel. I have not 

used the gavel at all today. I have let everybody go over. 

It was an incredibly important issue that we talked about today. 

I continue to believe that we have woefully neglected this hemisphere and I share with the gentlewoman frustration with some of 

these multilateral organizations and I think, Ambassador Reich, 

you have summed up a lot of my feelings. 

I think that a lot of these multilateral organizations are inherently corrupt in fact, not only do we not get value, it is actually 

counterproductive and it is very, very frustrating to me. 

There is an old axiom that you either act or you are acted upon, 

and I think that right now, and you said it, Mr. Berman, that nature fills a vacuum. Nature abhors that vacuum and fills that vacuum. We have neglected the hemisphere. 

I think foreign policy in general in the entire world has been neglected but here it is in our own neighborhood and it has been woefully neglected and someday we are going to pay the price. 

I don’t think anybody expected a few months ago that Russia 

would do what it did with Ukraine. We didn’t expect that they 

would do what they did with Georgia. 

But it has happened and it is happening, and if we keep falling 

asleep at the switch as we have been for the last several years, not 

just the United States but the world is going to pay a hell of a 

price, and that is why I have let everybody say what they said 

today and thank you and thank the panel. 

And without any other business, this subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:49 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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87335n.eps
69

Æ


87335m.eps