Press Conference with Rep. Christopher Smith and Rep. Frank Wolf, Along With Former Cuban Political Prisoners and Human rights Activists - Violations of Human Rights in Cuba and The Recent Visit to Cuba by Seven Members of Congress

Press Conference

Press Conference with Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Along With Former Cuban Political Prisoners and Human Rights Activists. Subject: Violations of Human Rights in Cuba and The Recent Visit to Cuba by Seven Members of Congress.

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REP. SMITH: Good morning. My name is Chris Smith. I'm a member of Congress for the last 29 years, a senior member of the International Relations Committee. And I have brief opening remarks, as does my friend and colleague, Frank Wolf. And then, the people who we're really here to hear would like to say a word, as well.

Good morning and thank you for coming here today. I'm here with Mr. Wolf and several political prisoners -- and some are still en route -- and human rights activists, to talk about serious violations of human rights in Cuba.

Although we've been denied twice before, Congressman Frank Wolf and I are again today requesting visas from the Cuban government to visit. Earlier this week, seven members of the U.S. House of Representatives traveled to Cuba and met with either Raul Castro or Fidel Castro, or both. They left Cuba gushing with praise for the Castros and their regime. One member said, "During my visit to Cuba I experienced freedom of travel, religion, and freedom of speech."

Though another member of Congress mentioned the suffering of political prisoners -- which sounded good at first -- unfortunately, he was talking about five convicted Cuban spies serving sentences in American prisons.

Yet another member of Congress assured us that Raul said everything was on the table, in a move towards establishing diplomatic relations in the U.S.

Are they kidding? Are basic human rights for Cubans in Cuba on the table? And did they do anything at all to put them on the table? I sincerely hope they did, but sadly, at -- to the best of my knowledge, they did nothing to publicly show any concern for the myriad gross human-rights abuses perpetrated by the Cuban government or the tragic fate of hundreds of Cuban democracy and human-rights activists, that nation's best, brightest and bravest men and women.

Yet they held press conferences at which they heaped and lavished praise and affection for a government the United States Department of State only six weeks ago called totalitarian. The State Department's 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices said at year's end there were at least 205 political prisoners and detainees. As many as 5,000 citizens served sentences for, quote, "dangerousness," without being charged with any specific crimes.

The following human-rights problems were reported in the State report: beatings and abuse of detainees and prisoners, including human-rights activists, carried out with impunity, the State Department says; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, including denial of medical care, harassment, beatings and threats against political opponents by government-recruited mobs, mob police and state security officials; arbitrary arrest and detention of human- rights advocates and members of the independent professional organizations; denial of fair -- of a fair trial; interference with privacy, including pervasive monitoring of private communications.

There are also severe limitations on freedom of speech and press; denial of peaceful assembly and association; restrictions on freedom of movement, including selected denial of exit permits to citizens and forcible removal of persons from Havana to their hometowns; restrictions on religious freedom; and refusal to recognize domestic human-rights groups or to permit them to function legally.

Over the past 50 years, the Castros and their secret police have been directly responsible for killing thousands of nonviolent, courageous, pro-democracy activists and for jailing and torturing tens of thousands of others. And they continue to this day to perpetrate their brutal crimes, as the State Department report and numerous human-rights NGOs recount in frightening detail.

Before the Obama administration even thinks about permitting further travel to Cuba or altering the trade embargo on Cuba, both the White House and Congress have a moral obligation, a duty, to ensure that the Cuban dictatorship releases all prisoners of conscience; makes substantial progress in respecting freedom of religion, speech and press, and assembly; and holds free and fair elections.

I and many are profoundly disappointed that members of Congress have again traveled to a totalitarian country and failed to visit prisoners of conscience, all of whom are systematically abused, tortured, starved and degraded. They failed to visit their harassed families. They failed to visit the courageous human rights advocates on the island, who risk all on a daily basis, including Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, Atunez, who has been on a hunger strike since mid- February. His sister Berta, a former political prisoner, is here and will speak shortly to us.

The lawmakers failed to even attempt to visit with Dr. Oscar Biscet, a medical doctor and human rights reformer, who was detained 26 times in eight -- in the 18 months before he got a new, totally unjust 25-year prison sentence in 2003.

Dr. Biscet has been treated with such wanton cruelty, including months in solitary confinement, that many of us fear that he may not survive the torture imposed on him by the Castro brothers.

When the tragic plight of political prisoners is ignored, suppressed, devalued or trivialized by visiting politicians, the bullies in the gulags are given a free pass to inflict additional pain.

We have to be clear about this. Silence on human rights, especially prisoners of conscience, is the price the Cuban government wants to extract from members of Congress who seek to travel to Cuba. The Cuban government routinely denies lawmakers who have criticized its human rights record any access to the country itself, but for members of Congress who signal that they will be docile, it rolls out the red carpet.

Again, on two previous occasions, the Cuban government has refused to issue visas to Representative Wolf and me -- in 2003 and again in February of this year.

Yet when Russia was under a communist dictatorship, the Soviet government issued visas to both of us many times. In the 1980s, the Soviet government allowed Frank Wolf and I to visit Perm Camp 35, the infamous gulag in the Ural Mountains where political prisoners, including the great Natan Sharansky, suffered.

In like manner, the Chinese government permitted us to visit China, many visits. And shortly after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, we visited Beijing Prison Number One, where approximately 40 Tiananmen Square activists were unjustly prisoned.

Today, Mr. Wolf and I make a third official request for a visa to visit Cuba. Of course, I will say up front, if we are granted a visa, we will raise questions of human rights and we will try to visit political prisoners.

We ask you, the media, to carry this message to Cuba's political prisoners by wire story and broadcast and word of mouth, that you are not forgotten. Millions of people in the United States and around the world and many in the U.S. Congress know that you are there, and we deeply admire, respect and honor your tremendous courage. We will never cease striving to effectuate your release and the matriculation of Cuba from dictatorship to democracy.

Long ago I learned when the U.S. government embraces and coddles dictators and turns its back on political prisoners, the jailers taunt the prisoners with this. They tell them, "You are forgotten. No one knows you are here. No one is trying to help you," and the beatings actually increase.

"You are forgotten and abandoned," is a terrible thing to hear, to be taunted with, when you are in the Combinado del Este prison, eating worm-infested rice in a cell the size of a closet, standing in open sewage, trying to keep up your spirits to survive yet another day of punches and beatings. But I am afraid prisoners are hearing just that after the congressional visit that ended this week.

We must do everything we can to send a different message, that the American people and Congress stand in solidarity with every Cuban man, woman and child who yearns to be free, including and especially the prisoners of conscience. And to the Cuban government, free the political prisoners, respect fundamental human rights, and don't be so afraid to issue Mr. Wolf and I a -- visas.

I'd like to introduce Congressman Frank Wolf.

REP. WOLF: Thank you very much. I appreciate you being here.

The words in a State Department human rights commission report, they said totalitarian -- the same report outlines in grim details the reality of life in a country where the government continues to deny the citizens the most basic right.

At year's end there were 205 political prisoners and over 5,000 citizens who were serving for being called -- what they called dangerous.

And this is Cuba today according not to anybody in Congress or -- it's according to the State Department human rights report. The Internet access is regulated and blocked. Cuba law punishes unauthorized assembly of three or more people. The government denies human rights activists the ability to leave the country. Noted dissident Jorge Luis Perez Garcia was refused permission to travel abroad for medical treatment -- for medical treatment -- because of conditions of his lengthy service in a jail. The State Department report also found that at year's end, dissident Radimir Alejo Marando (ph) had been jailed since February 2007 without even charges being filed. And I'm not going to go on. There's so much more that I could say.

Chris and I have found out, in history, and Sharansky will say it, when the dissidents who are in prison are not advocated for, they then begin to wonder does anyone care.

This is a government that's refused to speak out with regard to the genocide in Darfur and has been siding with the Khartoum government and siding with those. This is a government that has political prisoners, and every time -- it's interesting -- every time any member who wants to go down there to meet with the families, to go into the prisons to meet with the dissidents, we're denied. Anyone who favors trade gets to go and has their great meeting.

I mean, the press, don't you ever think about this? Why don't you ever raise why can't people that want to speak out and advocate on behalf of the dissidents ever, ever get there? Trade missions go. Members of both political parties go. But anyone that wants to go into the prisons and advocate for -- and let me tell you, this administration ought to be very, very careful. They ought not list sanctions unless the prisoners are released. It will be a moral issue if they do.

And quite frankly, I see -- you remember when the Clinton administration lifted and gave MFN to China to China. Since that time, the conditions in China are worse today than they were then. The Catholic Church bishops in jail, Protestant pastors in jail. They plunder Tibet. And the same thing will happen here. So no sanctions ought to be lifted at all until the prisoners are allowed to be released. Once they're released, we can begin to talk about things like that.

And lastly, why is it that members of Congress who want to go visit the dissidents and go into the prisons, as we've done in the past, cannot get in, and yet those who want increased trade, to lift the sanctions, get to go whenever they want to?

The last few times we applied, we were denied again.

And I challenge the State Department: Advocate! I challenge Secretary Clinton, advocate for the members of Congress that want to go that will speak out for human rights and religious freedom.

Anyway, I appreciate your coming here. But imagine how you would feel today if you were a dissident rotting away in a jail and all of a sudden no one comes there to speak out for you. You'd be discouraged.

REP. SMITH: I'd like to now introduce -- and we're deeply honored to have at this press conference two political prisoners who suffered the indignities and the horror of being in the gulags in Cuba. We'll begin with Felix Cifuentes (sp), who served nine years in those gulags.

MR. CIFUENTES (SP): (Off mike.) (Through interpreter.) Okay, my name is Felix Cifuentes (sp). I speak English, but the things that are painful I'd rather say in Spanish, so you can understand me better. As a child, they brainwashed me, essentially, in Cuba -- the communists, principally people like Fidel Castro and all of his comrades -- trying to tell us that in our country there was racial discrimination.

Due to the sense that -- due to my sense of patriotism, I fought against the 2506 Brigade in the Bay of Pigs, so against the U.S. I was only -- I was only 14 years old at the time. After all those experiences and after actually having gone abroad once, and after I saw that in my country everything that they would say is not what was happening but quite the contrary, I became an opponent of the system and I resigned from the armed forces.

I was persecuted for a long time, until they -- without being able to prove anything, in a roundup of opposition, they rounded me up and took me to prison and condemned me without a sentence, from everything from, you know, sedition to betrayal to everything that could be unjust.

But in comparison to these folks that went now to Cuba only to speak to the Castro brothers, at that time, in 1968, Anthony Bryant Brown (sp), from the Black Panthers -- (in English) -- the United States -- (through interpreter) -- went to Cuba, and he hijacked a plane. He actually ended up in prison with him -- (inaudible). And Anthony Bryant Brown (sp) saw in Cuba, as a Black Panther, and -- who ended up in prison in Cuba, what these people that went now, this delegation, did not see, because actually he saw the reality. What this delegation went to see was Raul's eyes, the criminal that has the bloodiest hands on the island.

Right here in the United States we have names, dates and times of when people that were executed -- men of whom this delegation did not ask about.

Basically I want to keep my words short, because I get very emotional, but anything -- any help that is given and any assistance that is given to the Cuban government is given solely to repress the Cuban people.

And actually today what should be sent is a great -- the greatest message of all. In this country, in the United States, President Obama became president to a message of change. Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet ended up in prison, serving a 25-year prison sentence, because of a message of change. That's the difference.

REP./MR. : Thank you.

REP. SMITH: Thank you, Felix. And now we'll hear from Zaro Miranda (sp), who served six years in the gulag.

LAZARO MIRANDA (sp): (Through interpreter.) My name is Lazaro Miranda (sp). I was one of the first Afro-Cuban prisoners in 1960, not because of my color but because of my ideas, because I'm a Roman Catholic. And they prohibited me from practicing my religion in Cuba.

I was condemned to 10 years in prison. Of those 10 years, I spent three years in forced labor because of a -- because of a box of cigarettes that I didn't even smoke.

Basically, then I -- after that, I ended up spending three years working, basically finding a way to make a living. My wife spent 10 years before being able to, and they never let her go to see me, to go see her family there. She was here in the United States, and she was -- she spent 10 years trying to go see them, but they did not let her in the island to see her family, because she was Cuban.

I hope that this delegation sees the realities in Cuba, because behind all of this there's workings and there's dealings that unfortunately are not being talked about. Dr. Biscet was originally condemned to three years. They released him, and in a few days, they rearrested him and condemned him to 25 years. I ask myself, how is it that this delegation goes to Cuba and doesn't even ask about the well- being and health of Dr. Biscet, Roque and other dissident -- (inaudible word) -- in Cuba.

I'm of the one -- I was one of those that when Anastas Mikoyan originally went to Cuba with the hammer and the sickle.

When they grabbed me and they put me in prison, the first thing they told me is like, they said, "Black man, why are you against the revolution?" And he said, "Because the revolution has never done anything for black people."

There's not a minister. There's not a senior official. They only wanted us to have us as soldiers to go to Africa and elsewhere to fight their wars. And is that the privilege of the revolution?

Thank you.

REP. WOLF: Lazaro, thank you so very much. And again, Dr. Biscet, an Ob/Gyn, got a 25-year prison sentence, after he'd previously been sentenced to three years, in a massive crackdown that occurred during the Easter season six years ago. And as I indicated in my opening comments, he has been put in solitary. His teeth -- he's lost many, if not all of his teeth. He has been very, very sick. And many of us care deeply that he may die as a result of the horrific abuse imposed upon him. And he is not unique.

I'd like to now ask Frank Calzon from the Center for a Free Cuba if he'd like to speak.

MR. FRANK CALZON (Executive Director, Center for a Free Cuba): Thank you, Congressman Wolf and Congressman Smith, for what you have done, not only about Cuba, but about many other places around the world where there's tyranny.

I would like simply to speak to you for a minute. I'd like to recognize Rudy Mayor, who is the president of the Students for a Free Cuba at George Washington University. They're a group of students who have petitioned the Cuban government here to release political prisoners, and they continue to work. So even in American universities, there's solidarity by young students with the political prisoners in Cuba.

I would like simply to take this opportunity to call your attention to the Amnesty International release of March 30th, in which Amnesty International calls on the world to petition General Raul Castro to stop the mistreatment of several dissidents in Cuba.

And the first of them is Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, also known as Antunez, that has been mentioned before. Just let me read the names, just for the record. Idi Stamara Perez (sp), Carlos Morales Rodriguez (sp), Diocidi Santana Perez (sp) and Ernesto Mederos a Rosarena (sp). I hope that everybody who hears their names will call on the Cuban government to stop harassing them. I also would like to ask the American people to pray for the release of all Cuban political prisoners, and for you in the media to insist that all independent journalists who are in prison in Cuba are released.

Beyond that, we do hope that with the support of the Congress from here and the American people, the president will be true to his commitment, often repeated: President Obama has said that the word, the operational word in regard to Cuba is freedom. And he has said in more than one occasion that before lifting the embargo, all Cuban political prisoners must be released. I think the people in Cuba and all of us here believe that the president means what he says. And we pray that he will be successful in getting the prisoners out of Castro's jails.

Thank you very much.

REP. WOLF: And finally we will hear from Mauricio Claver-Carone from the Cuban Democracy Advocates. And again, I thank him for flying up to be with us today.

MR. CLAVER-CARONE: Just real short, because I think everything's been said.

In regards to the Congressional Black Caucus, I want to say, you know, first and foremost, the delegation that went down isn't representative of all the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. As a matter of fact, there's actually a lot of members of the Congressional Black Caucus that are great allies for freedom and great allies and advocates of current Cuban political prisoners.

In an individual capacity, the fact remains that Cuba is a majority island. It's about 60 to 70 percent Afro-Cuban or of mixed race. And unfortunately, the members that went down in this delegation chose to ignore the Afro-Cuban political prisoners, those in the civil society -- which form the majority of the civil society and the political prisoners -- and yet instead decided to go sit down with perhaps one of the most racist regimes in the world today, of which less than 10 percent of the population is actually Afro-Cuban or mixed race -- in the senior leadership of -- the politburo of the Communist Party and of the armed forces.

They also decided to spend the weekend in Varadero Beach. They went to Varadero Beach Resort, which is actually a resort in which Afro-Cubans that go normally are actually harassed by the Cuban authorities unless they're accompanied by a (septuagenarian ?) European tourist.

So that's an unfortunate almost sponsorship of segregation and harassment.

What I wanted to just basically say in the last message is, you know, an opportunity was lost here, but there's an opportunity in the future. Dr. Biscet, 25 years in prison, that's the modern-day Nelson Mandela, the 21st century Nelson Mandela. Jorge Luis Garcia Antunez, who everyone's talked about, has been on a hunger strike since February 17th, practicing civil disobedience. That's a 21st century Dr. Martin Luther King in our hemisphere. And it would be a disservice not to recognize them, and it was a disservice to go down there and sit down with a handful of their repressors, because those are the future leaders, as we've seen in Eastern Europe, as we've seen in South Africa. And in the future, people will be sitting down with them, and they will be sitting down with them as leaders.

Thank you.

REP. SMITH: Are there any questions from the press?

Yes.

Q Actually, I have two questions. One is about the lifting of this travel -- leaving aside the trade embargo -- (off mike) -- travel to Cuba. What do you say to the argument that, you know, if we allow more Americans to go -- (off mike) -- that it would help open up the regime? For example, Americans were allowed to go to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. I mean, that's the first question.

And my second question --

REP. SMITH: Let me answer that one first. Well, if that were true, the unfettered right to travel that the Canadians and Europeans have had -- and others -- to Cuba would have led to an opening. We wouldn't have Dr. Oscar Biscet and so many others being cruelly mistreated in the Cuban gulags if a mere matter of travel would mitigate these kinds of abuses.

We have seen in places like the People's Republic of China where Americans do travel and frequently that the secret police act with total impunity. And Frank Wolf and I were in China many times, but in China just recently right before the Olympics when there was a massive crackdown and all the world traveled to Beijing for the Olympics, and the dissidents found that their torture, their incarcerations were enhanced rather than mitigated.

So travel has not proven in any country of the world to in any way mitigate human rights abuses. If anything, it leads to a further isolation, a further apartheid in Cuba where there is a separation. And so that has not proven historically, and past is prologue.

Q Okay. Thank you. The other question is Senator Lugar is arguing for a change in policy, saying this one has failed, including it's failed to promote democracy and human rights. And one thing that he suggests is that the Obama administration consider lifting its opposition to discussing whether Cuba should be let back into the OAS, the Organization of American States. What do you think about that idea?

REP. SMITH: Well, I think, whether it's said by Senator Lugar or anybody else, there needs to be preconditions. And those preconditions are, if you want to be treated with respect horizontally in the world, the Cubans need to treat its own people with respect and honor, rather than incarcerating the dissidents.

And as I said before, the best and the bravest and the brightest, who languish in these prison camps and are tortured, are bullied, are beaten -- I don't know how many of you have read Armando Valladares' book "Against All Hope," but I've read it twice. I've actually traveled with Armando Valladares, who spent close to two decades in the prison camps in Cuba, when he successfully got the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to finally look at and send a delegation to inspect the prisons. They were guaranteed that there would be no retaliation. And virtually everyone who spoke was retaliated against, and the U.N. just backed off, regrettably.

If you read his book, "Against All Hope," it talks about the systematic humiliation, the degrading, the torture, things that really are almost unmentionable that are done to political prisoners, which have been suffered with great courage by the two gentlemen behind me and so many others in those gulags. Very often, they don't even want to talk about it, it is so horrific.

So if we are to lift a travel ban or to lessen its usage, there needs to be a total release of political prisoners, at least. That needs to be done immediately. I've offered that as an amendment on the floor: Lift the travel ban; respect human rights; and release the political prisoners. Otherwise, we repeat the mistakes we have made with other dictatorships around the world, where we gave all kinds of economic and other benefits, political and diplomatic, and the hard- liners only got harder and repressed even further.

Wei Jingsheng was the one, right here and at a hearing that I held on Chinese human rights some years ago, who spent 18 years in the Chinese gulags, who said -- and it's been repeated, as Frank said, by Natan Sharansky and so many others -- that when you coddle dictatorships, when you kowtow, when you act in an enfeebled way, they beat the prisoners more.

That is what I am so concerned about, among other things, about the recent trip of the seven to Cuba; that the dissidents are likely to be further severely dealt with, and then they are being told, even as we meet here, nobody remembers you.

Seven members of Congress came here and lavished praise upon the Castro brothers rather than holding them to account. We need honesty. We need to look -- and that's another thing Wei Jingsheng said, that when you look a dictator in the eye and speak truth to power, they beat them less.

REP. WOLF: Many people in the Bush administration went to the Olympics in China, (complete ?) travel. Conditions in China are worse today than they were 10 years ago. Everyone that we were scheduled to meet with but one got arrested when we were there in July, and the one person that made it to the meeting got arrested the next day and Secretary Rice never said a word.

Do we forget, this is a group of people -- I remember being in Ethiopia during the famine, and what propped up the Mengistu government were the Cuban forces. They allowed people to die! They allowed people to die. They were allied with people like Mengistu and people like that.

And Sharansky will always tell you, if you don't -- you know, Ronald Reagan had it right. Ronald Reagan always advocated for the dissidents. During the Reagan administration, any member of Congress, any secretary of State, anyone in the Reagan administration who went, they always met with the families of the dissidents. They sometimes would invite them into the embassy, but sometimes they would go into their apartments and meet with them, to stand with them. Many of them -- I believe Secretary Shultz used to wear a band of a name of a dissident. That's the way to break down the -- (inaudible).

And lastly, the media, why doesn't the media ever say, "Well, how come you got in and the members of Congress who want to go visit the prisons and the dissidents" -- we want good relationship, but we also want all the political prisoners released.

And I worry -- I have watched -- I have watched this Obama administration on human rights and religious freedom. And you know, when Secretary Rice went to China, she never advocated for the people in prison, the dissidents. Keep in mind there are Catholic bishops in jail, the plunder of Tibet, and right after her trip, you saw a greater crackdown than before she even went.

So, travel is not the answer. The president of the United States went to the Cuban (sic) Olympics, and conditions got worse.

Q What about the Organization of American States? Does Cuba -- (off mike)?

REP. WOLF: Release -- release -- release the prisoners and allow them to be reunited with their families first.

Q (Off mike.)

MR. CIFUENTES (sp): (Through interpreter.) They don't release political prisoners.

They don't allow any type of freedom. And they don't let Cubans on the island, you know, travel in and out as -- and if they don't let Cubans from the island travel in and out as they see -- please, then you know, what's the situation? What are we actually giving to them?

Basically, Fidel is just -- is making time for Raul. He's just winning time for Raul, entertaining and creating a smokescreen. Fidel has never won anything good for Cuba. Because if he wanted something good for Cuba, he would have already provided certain liberalization and democratic reforms.

MR. CLAVER-CARONE: If I could address the OAS question, I think, particularly now, with the upcoming Summit of the Americas taking place -- oh, I'm sorry.

In regards to the OAS question and inclusion of Cuba, particularly with the Summit of the Americas taking place next week that President Obama's traveling to, in 2001 there was an Inter- American Democratic Charter signed by 34 out of 35 countries in the hemisphere. And basically it said that representative democracy was the first and foremost principle of intra-American relations.

Our biggest fear is that -- is today -- basically, to engage commercially or politically with the Cuban government, there's basically three conditions in U.S. law that was codified in 1999: Release political prisoners, recognize fundamental human, civil and political rights and legalize the opposition. If we unilaterally change the law -- unconditionally change the law, the message we're sending to the rest of the hemisphere is that we don't care about one, two or all three of those conditions. That's a very dangerous message to send, particularly when we have a democratic hemisphere.

Imagine -- remember in the '60s, '70s and '80s when we had dictatorships of the left and of the right. There's a lot of authoritarian tendencies by a lot of leaders, some of which have been democratically elected in Latin America, that would love to take that next step and become dictators. And if the United States turns a blind eye to that one last anomaly in this hemisphere by including it and pretty much disregarding that Inter-American Democratic Charter, we're opening up the gates to dictatorships and authoritarianism of all types throughout Latin America once again.

Q Congressman, it seems rather imminent that the Obama administration will make a change regarding the travel policy for Cuban-Americans. It's said that it will happen before the Summit of Americas. Do you think that -- (inaudible) -- I -- and I would like --

REP. SMITH: Well, that -- I get your point. Then this is an appeal to the Obama administration to insist that Dr. Biscet and all of the political prisoners are released before he does that. Not to do so, I think, would be absconding (sic) in his duty, our duty, collectively, to care for those who are being so mistreated.

And I would hope he would take the time -- and the secretary of State -- to actually read the State Department's report on human rights practices, which was released in February. It is a chilling reminder of what the Castro brothers impose upon innocent, courageous and, I believe -- you know, the people who are the future of Cuba, the Lech Walesas, the Vaclav Havels, who someday will usher in a free and democratic Cuba, rather than spending time being tortured, the way he is.

I would hope that President Obama, like President Bush, who honored Dr. Biscet with the Medal of Freedom and had his family there, some of his family there -- and I was there for that, and were some -- as were some of the members of -- who are here today. It was a moving experience.

We need to put our arms around those who are fighting for fundamental human rights and for freedom. Unilaterally, doing it without any preconditions, would be a great mistake.

Q Congressman --

REP. SMITH: Yes, sir?

Q -- in advocating for change in U.S-Cuban relations, President Obama has said that the current policy is part of the failed policy of the last eight years. Do you believe that the policy of the last eight years has been effective in ameliorating Cuba's human rights -- (inaudible)?

REP. SMITH: Well, it's been consistent. It has been noble. The Bush administration tried to say that human rights matter and matter significantly in our relationship with -- that we stand in solidarity with the Cuban people, we stand with the oppressed and not with the oppressor.

The fact that many of our European friends and Canada and other countries have failed to support us in this have enabled -- perhaps unwittingly, but enabled -- this dictatorship to flourish.

So our hope is that they will join us. I was one of those back in the 1980s, as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee -- I was the only Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee to support the sanctions towards South Africa because of apartheid.

There were those who argued, oh, you're making life harder for the black Africans in South Africa by imposing sanctions. But that egregious human rights abuse of racism could not go unchallenged.

Well, now we have a situation where human rights defenders are being cruelly mistreated, tortured. And we're going to do business as usual? I don't think so. I think we have to stand up and stand again with people like Dr. Biscet and with the two gentlemen who spoke previously and all those who believe in human rights.

So to do a changed policy -- you know, change -- sometimes human rights take a long time. But we've got to stay with it, otherwise the cruelty against them knows no bounds.

Yes, ma'am?

Q Congressman, do you support top-level discussions and negotiations with the Cubans?

REP. SMITH: Oh, I believe talk is always good. I've met with General Bashir in Khartoum, myself, for close to two hours, arguing with him about the carnage that has been imposed upon the people of Darfur. Frank Wolf was one of the first ones in the entire Congress, if not the first, to be in Darfur, and spoke to government officials as well as people in refugee camps. We believe in talk, but it has to be principled talk; not going in there caving and capitulating and saying, "I give and I surrender, whatever you want," and then gushing with praise.

I, frankly, believe that the Castro brothers and those who have committed these atrocities need to be held to account at The Hague for crimes against humanity. I mean, what is the difference between Slobodan Milosevic and many other dictators, and the Castro brothers, other than the enabling of those who look the other way or look askance and fail to bring up the reality of what happens every day in Cuba?

REP. WOLF: I believe talks between the leadership is very, very positive. I visited Syria last year and met with President Assad. But when you meet with them -- when you meet with them, it's important to be the same way it was during the Reagan administration, and before that even the Carter administration: to advocate for -- on behalf of those in prison; to meet with them to lay clearly what our position is.

So I think the more that people are talking with one another is fine. But go in and talk and advocate the position of the dissidents, human rights, religious freedom and democracy. And so you have to, as President Reagan said, trust but verify. President Reagan always advocated -- if you recall, when he went to the Soviet Union and went to the Danilov Monastery he spoke out for this. And yet, when he died, Gorbachev came to his funeral. They respected him because he was tough and consistent and advocated for these people.

So talks are great, but come in with the position that you will always advocate for those who are oppressed, for those who are imprisoned, those who are being persecuted.

They will respect you, and there's a greater likelihood that we'll be successful. Look with -- just look at the history with regard to China. It's all gone the wrong way, all gone the wrong way.

MR. CALZON: Yeah, just let me add that those who say that there needs to be a dialogue ignore the fact that the Congressmen want to go to Cuba and have a dialogue. They want to go to Cuba and talk to -- not only to the dissidents but to the Cuban government.

But in order to have a dialogue, the Cuban government must allow people who disagree, members of Congress, also -- go to Cuba. And the most important discussion that must take place is not between foreigners, not between the Black Caucus and the Cuban leadership; it's in Cuba, for the Cuban people to be able to get together and talk and speak and look for answers to their own problems.

The Cuban people are not looking up to the Black Caucus to resolve their problems. But the Castros do not allow the Cuban people the opportunity to meet among themselves and to search for answers.

REP. SMITH: Let me just add, today, Frank Wolf and I are asking again for a visa from the Cuban government to go to Cuba. We want to meet with the Castro brothers, look them in the eye and raise these human-rights issues.

And I would go a step further. I would hope that Fidel Castro and his brother would join us in going to the prisons and meeting men like Dr. Oscar Biscet. That's -- we believe in that kind of dialogue, not the enabling dialogue that brushes aside these egregious human- rights abuses and puts them as an asterisk somewhere on page four of talking points. This has to be front and center.

Frank Wolf and I met with Li Peng in China and raised a whole series of human-rights concerns, including -- Frank had a list of imprisoned religious believers, all faiths and denominations, including Falun Gong, Catholic bishops underground, Protestants. And we went -- he went to hand it to Li Peng, he went like this -- as if he couldn't touch a list of prisoners that his government was abusing.

We would hope that Fidel Castro would greet us in Havana -- and his brother -- and then go with us to meet the prisoners.

MR. CLAVER-CARONE: Could I just mention one thing in regards to President Obama and the policy of the last eight years? I think that we've had the right policy the last eight years. We've just had the wrong messenger.

President Obama embodies the hopes and aspirations of all Cuban people for three things, basically. He won on a campaign of change, which is what the Cuban people who are actually out there -- I mean, you've had a whole "Cambio" movement. Young people who are wearing these white wristbands that say "Cambio" on them have been beaten and put in prison for wearing a white wristband saying "Cambio," change. There's a campaign of change.

There was a bottom-up approach. He won on a bottom-up approach, from a grassroots approach.

That's completely opposite of what this delegation did, trying to change Cuba from the two, three guys on the top down. You know, he wanted a bottoms-up grassroots approach, which is what the Cuban people want.

And third, he embodies -- he is the face of Cubans, you know? He's of mixed race, as are most Cubans, as are 70 percent of Cubans. So he has a unique opportunity to really tell Cubans and be on their side, but he has to prioritize the pro-democracy movement. He has to prioritize civil society.

And the problem with the Cuban-American travel, and if I can say it as a Cuban-American, that you have mentioned about Cuban-American travel -- Lazaro, that's the best example there of some of the unintentional repercussions if there's not some limits to it, because his family, his wife spent 10 years trying to go see him in Cuba but they would not let her in, because what we basically do is we (take our ?) limitations, but the Cuban regime decides who can come in and who cannot.

So if you're an opponent of the regime or you speak out against the regime, they will not let you in to see your family, and they basically hold your family hostage. That's blackmail. That's hostage taking. And we don't want to extend that Cuban dictatorship abroad to make people afraid of what they're going to say not only inside of Cuba but outside of Cuba.

REP. SMITH: I want to thank you all for coming, and deeply appreciate it. And I want to especially thank our two political prisoners for being here. Thank you.

END.

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