Support changes in U.S. policy
of isolating Cuban people
Support steps to end isolation of Cuba
and improve tense U.S.-Cuban relations
In March, under the leadership of Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate formed a 12-member Cuba Working Group to facilitate collaborative work to ease the unilateral U.S. embargo of Cuba in 2003. Last year, legislators in the House of Representatives established a similar group that now includes 25 Democrats and 25 Republicans. Legislators say their primary legislative initiative this year will address the right to travel to Cuba, an issue that won wide bipartisan majority support in the Republican-controlled House in 2002. They believe that the 42-year policy of isolating Cuba has failed and new approaches are needed.
Later in March and the following month, the Cuban government arrested and sentenced to long prison terms 75 Cuban citizens whom they charged with subversion. Shortly thereafter, three Cubans involved in attempting to hijack a ferry to Florida were executed. The actions by the Cuban government were widely described as one of the most serious crackdowns in years. Cuban officials charged that the dissidents' activities constituted a violation of a 1999 law that prohibits subversive collaboration with a foreign power. UUSC and other human rights groups condemned the arrests, long-term sentences and executions. Groups urged both governments to use existing channels of communication to address their respective grievances.
UUSC expresses concern over crackdown in Cuba
Tense U.S.-Cuban bilateral relations – and recent statements by U.S. executive branch officials about a possible tightening of the U.S. embargo of Cuba as a response to the crackdown – make it difficult to predict policy developments in coming months. UUSC members and supporters can contribute to improved relations between the peoples of our two countries by supporting congressional initiatives to further ease the U.S. embargo and encouraging establishment of normal diplomatic relations. Such steps would create a climate more favorable for governmental and nongovernmental actors alike to discuss, seek to resolve and limit escalation of differences between the two governments. In contrast to practices by U.S. allies including Canada, Mexico, Chile and the European Union, the U.S. policy of isolating Cuba econonomically and politically gives it little leverage with the Cuban government on issues of human rights.
Action
Actions by UUSC members and supporters can support a more humane policy to Cuba, register concern for the crackdown in Cuba and help sustain momentum for votes projected for this summer in the House and Senate on issues such as on the right of Americans to travel to Cuba.
1. Call, write or email your senators to express support for the formation of the new Cuba Working Group in the Senate and encourage your senators to join if they are not already members of this group (see below). Express your concern over the Cuban crackdown on political and human rights activists in Cuba. (Send copies of communications to Kelli Larsen at klarsen@uusc.org, or fax 617 868-7102.)
2. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper with your views on Cuba and U.S.-Cuban relations and send copies to UUSC. Join UUSC's Media Volunteer Network and our efforts to bring media attention to U.S. policy to Cuba and other UUSC international public policy priorities, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mexico. (Contact Dick Campbell at dcampbell@uusc.org or 617 868-6600.)
3. Join more than 9,000 persons who have signed an online petition (www.cubacentral.com) that calls for reconciliation with Cuba and an end to the U.S. embargo.
4. Visit UUSC's Web site (www.uusc.org) for postings about policy developments and legislative initiatives, including possible votes this summer on travel to Cuba, as well as background information on UUSC partners in Cuba and their work on women's issues.
Contact legislators by writing to them care of the U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510; calling the congressional switchboard at 202 224-3121; or consulting by using UUSC's online Legislative Action Center to send an e-mail.
Messages
1. Please convey my congratulations to the six Democrat and six Republican senators who formed the Cuba Working Group. I hope you will seriously consider joining this new bipartisan effort to adapt U.S. policy to Cuba to 21st century realities. I understand that, for you to become a member, a senator of the party different from yours will also need to join, so that an equal number of Republicans and Democrats is maintained.
2. I support lifting the U.S. embargo and normalization of relations between our two governments and peoples. U.S. policy to Cuba is a failed policy and harmful to the Cuban people, especially women and children. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee knows of this problem through its assistance to women's health projects in Cuba.
3. I am deeply concerned about and condemn the recent arrests and long-term sentences affecting political and human rights activists in Cuba, as well as the Cuban government's summary execution of three involved in an attempted hijacking of a Cuban ferry.
4. We need engagement between the U.S. and Cuban governments. Current U.S. policy isolates Cuba and its people. A policy of engagement will better enable both governments to resolve conflicts, and give the U.S. government greater leverage on human rights issues such as free speech and association in Cuba.
The 12 members are Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Jim Talent, R-Mo., Pat Roberts, R-Kan. and Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I..
Background
Background
UUSC welcomes congressional efforts to end U.S. policy of isolation and condemns crackdown in Cuba
UUSC supports an end to U.S. policies that isolate Cuba, judging them to be inhumane and ineffective. UUSC welcomes the new bipartisan majority in Congress that seeks to end a policy crafted for the Cold War era and move toward greater engagement. In July 2002, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., was joined by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., in a 262-167 vote on the floor of the Republican-led House of Representative concerning the need to lift the ban on travel to Cuba. Having seen his majority vote amendments stripped from final bills two years in a row, Flake says he will introduce a bill this year on the right to travel. Legislators and many nongovernmental groups committed to changing the United States' isolationist policies promptly condemned the crackdown in Cuba. The bispartisan Cuba Working Groups in the House and Senate criticized Cuban government actions, as did the House of Representatives in a resolution passed 414-0 on April 8. UUSC joined other nongovernmental organizations in a statement deploring the arrests.
Cuban officials seek to justify crackdown against backdrop of widespread international condemnation
In early April, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were among leading human rights groups to condemn the arrests and heavy sentences. Stating that “there is no justification for executions,” Amnesty described as “an unjustifiable erosion in human rights” the execution of the three men reportedly among the group that sought to hijack the ferry. The execution by firing squad ended a de facto three-year moratorium on executions in Cuba. The attempted hijacking followed several recent successful hijackings of Cuban aircraft that landed in Florida.
According to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (www.lchr.org), “many of those detained and sentenced are Cuban human rights defenders, falling within the ambit of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, which Cuba actively participated in drafting and passing in 1998.” A high-profile role in the past six months by the Bush administration appointee to head the U.S. Interests Section in Havana – distributing fax machines and other equipment, speaking negatively in public about the Cuban government and hosting a journalism workshop in his private residence – was cited by Cuban officials as a shift in policy and a provocation.
Cuban officials in various settings also referred to the new U.S. policy of preemptive military action and U.S. financial support for Cuban dissidents as rationales for government action. U.S. cash grants designed to “promote transition in Cuba” are awarded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to nongovernmental groups, including pro-embargo groups based in the United States which reportedly then channel some funds to dissidents in Cuba. In the context of current U.S. policy goals and guidelines, the issue of U.S. funds that find their way into the hands of dissidents in Cuba remains popular among pro-embargo advocates in the United States, but continues to stir controversy on Capitol Hill and among dissidents in Cuba.
Continuation of U.S. embargo isolates Cuba
Despite trade, tourism and other exchange with China and Vietnam, the United States continues its Cold War policy of isolation and unilateral economic sanctions on Cuba. The direct brunt of this isolationist policy falls on the Cuban people. Strong advocacy by farm state legislators, the American Farm Bureau and nongovernmental groups including UUSC led Congress in 2000 to exempt from the embargo U.S. private sales of food and medicine made on a cash basis. Although this represented the first easing of the embargo in over 40 years, tight restrictions remain, including on travel. (See A Time for Change: Rethinking U.S.-Cuba Policy, at www.wola.org.)
Continuation of U.S. embargo isolates the United States and limits positive policy impact While U.S. policy isolates Cuba, this policy also isolates the U.S. government from those who seek a more balanced approach to Cuba's achievements and problems. In the Western hemisphere, many governments feel compelled to criticize both human rights abuses by the Cuban government and the four-decade-old U.S. embargo, an approach taken by former President Jimmy Carter when he traveled to Cuba in May 2002 (www.cartercenter.org) and by the Pope during his 1998 trip. In comparison with important allies including Canada, Mexico, Chile and the European Union, the U.S. government has little leverage with Cuba concerning its human rights practices.
An early forceful critic of the recent detentions and sentencing in Cuba, Human Rights Watch in April 16 congressional testimony by Americas director, José Miguel Vivanco, stated, “It is time for members of Congress to come to grips with the failures of U.S. policy to Cuba. The current crackdown, rather than eliciting an even more hard-line response, should make the defects of our current approach all the more obvious. Lacking any engagement with Cuba, the United States is almost powerless to influence the current situation.”
Next steps uncertain as reactions by two governments evolve
The escalation in U.S.-Cuban tensions – and the possibility that the U.S. government may cancel direct flights to Cuba and prohibit Cuban-Americans from sending remittances to relatives in Cuba – make it difficult to predict political developments and congressional action in the weeks and months ahead.
Concerned by the embargo's impact on the Cuban people and other negative aspects of U.S. policy, UUSC sees engagement rather than isolation as the most effective approach to seeking resolution of differences between the two governments. This stance prompted UUSC to join Washington Office on Latin America, the Latin America Working Group and other organizations in an April 29 press statement supporting U.S. engagement with Cuba as an appropriate course of action, alongside criticism of the recent crackdown on dissent in Cuba.
