National Public Radio "All Things Considered" Interview With Rep. Emanuel Cleaver

Interview

Subject: Normalizing U.S.-Cuba Relations Interviewer: Melissa Block

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MS. BLOCK: Six members of Congress met yesterday with Cuba's President Raul Castro. It was the first time Castro has met with U.S. leaders since he replaced his brother Fidel as president last year. And the meeting comes as President Obama prepares to ease restrictions on travel to Cuba.

Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri was part of that Congressional Black Caucus delegation who met with President Castro. He joins us from Havana.

And Congressman Cleaver, this was -- I understand -- a more than four-hour meeting. What was your message to President Castro and what was his message back to you?

REP. CLEAVER: Well, the meeting lasted actually four-and-a-half hours, and would have lasted longer, but a couple of the ministers that he had with him at the dinner -- it was actually a dinner -- one of them began to nod off and he said to us, my brother has a reputation for six or seven-hour meetings. And he said, I'm going to let you go so that you won't say that the little brother talks more than the big brother.

MS. BLOCK: (Laughs.) I see. So that was one message. What about on the diplomatic front?

REP. CLEAVER: On the diplomatic front he was very clear. The Cubans are ready for the relationship between the United States to be thawed. They viewed the blockade as having had little impact in terms of the U.S.'s desire to isolate Cuba.

And frankly, we agree with him, because we are the one who has been isolated. Every nation in the Western Hemisphere has diplomatic relations with Cuba. We are the only ones who do not. President Castro is clear that it has not worked and that it is still not working.

He is very much interested in normalizing relations, but he does not want any preconditions for that dialogue to begin.

MS. BLOCK: Well, Congressman, you well know that supporters of the current Cuba policy -- supporters of the embargo -- say if you lift sanctions, you are going to just aid and justify a repressive regime. You are going to kill any hope of democracy. That regime will just use more resources to become more repressive than it already is.

REP. CLEAVER: Well, the world operates at its best when there is diversity. Every nation does not need to be like the United States. And frankly, we already have ties to repressive nations.

And frankly, if there is repression in Cuba, we didn't see it. We mingled with Cuban people. I preached at an Episcopal Church Sunday where we were told that there was no freedom of religion, which is not true.

MS. BLOCK: You did not, though -- as I understand it -- during your five days in Cuba, you did not meet with any Cuban dissidents.

Do you think there's a case to be made that you were presented with a sanitized, distorted view? If you had met with dissidents, you would have heard a very different story.

REP. CLEAVER: Well, this trip was aimed at, first of all, creating communication and hopefully opening the door for some dialogue between our government and the government of Cuba. It's not going to be helpful for us to throw our fingers in the face of the Cuban leadership while we're saying to them, "We believe that dialogue is possible."

We talk to our enemies all around the globe. The president has already said he wants to have some open and candid dialogue with Ahmadinejad in Iran. So we're saying the same thing should be true with our neighbor 90 miles away from the Florida coast.

So we did not meet with dissidents. And be certain of this: That issue most definitely will come up when official discussions take place between the U.S. and Cuba.

MS. BLOCK: Well, Congressman Cleaver, thank you very much.

REP. CLEAVER: All right. Good to talk with you.

END.

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