Introductory Remarks to Panel 2: Who Suffers?

July 15, 2003
U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan

Congressman [Delahunt], thank you very much. It is nice to be here with all of you. I know that we will have an interesting second panel. I heard just the last part of the first panel.

There was a Cherokee Indian Chief who long ago said: "The success of a raindance depends a lot on the timing." A very smart Cherokee Indian Chief I might add. Timing is everything, timing on this issue is also very important. We've made some progress in this issue of trade with Cuba, trade and travel. It is interesting that the piece of legislation that has become law now that allows some limited amount trade with Cuba was authored in the United States Senate by myself, and Senator Ashcroft. (Laughs). Yes, even a stop clock is right twice a day. (don't tell him I said that)

The Ashcroft proposal--the Dorgan-Ashcroft proposal--became law and last year for the first time in 42 years. Twenty train-car loads of dried peas left North Dakota…North Dakota farms to be shipped to Cuba, first time in 42 years. The fact is what's happened in four decades in terms of our treatment in dealing with Cuba has been a colossal failure.

In my judgment, Fidel Castro deserves no sympathy from us. I've been to Cuba. I asked, for example, to meet with the economist Marta [Beatriz Roque], who is now in prison in Cuba. I was denied the opportunity to do that. Cuba in my judgment is a wonderful country with wonderful people. They deserve the fresh air of freedom and the taste of freedom that they do not have. But this country for a long while has said the road to freedom in dealing with countries that are now oppressed is engagement-so trade and travel.

I have been to China, a communist country. We decide that engagement with China is what will move China in the right direction. I have been to Vietnam, a communist country. We have decided that engagement is the way to move Vietnam in the right direction. China, Vietnam you can go to North Korea and if you want to go to Iran this afternoon, that's just fine, part of the axis of evil according to the White House. So the fact is, it's okay to travel to all of these places except Cuba. And in Cuba what we want to do is decide that if American citizens travel to Cuba we are going to punish Fidel Castro by injuring the rights of American citizens. Now I call that dumb. That's not. . .it's just dumb. Injuring Americans citizens right to travel is not the way to punish Fidel Castro and it is not the road to free the Cuban people.

Let me just mention that we have this Byzantine arrangement by which at a time that Al-Qaeda still lives. We still live in the shadow of 9/11. We are still casing terrorists around the world. Osama bin Laden is likely living in a cave somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we can't find him. Saddam Hussein and his sons Uday, and the other one I forgot his name their living somewhere in a hole in Pakistan. We have all of these issues, worrying about ourselves and our security; about terrorism, about trouble in the world. And what do we have the folks at the OFAC office at the Treasury Department doing? OFAC, by the way, that's the group of people that are supposed to be tracking financial information in order to track down terrorists these days. What are they doing? Well, they are chasing--(Audience: "Old Ladies!") (Laughter) Who said little old ladies? Well I wasn't going to say that because one of them is here today.

I held a hearing on this about a year and half ago, and I had (then-)Treasury Secretary O'Neill at that hearing. And I kept asking him, and I peppered him again and again and again. I said, "Mr. Secretary now you tell me, wouldn't you rather have those people down in treasury-all of them, every single one of them-working on tracking terrorists rather than tracking the little old lady in Illinois, the retired woman who answered the bicycle add in a Canadian cycling magazine that went to Cuba. And then got in the mail a $7500 letter of civil fine by the treasury department. Wouldn't this be a safer place if that's the way you used your resources?"

And he wouldn't answer, wouldn't answer and wouldn't answer; I kept at it, and finally he said, "Well of course, I would sooner do that." He got in huge trouble with the White House, for being honest, and they issued a retraction the next day. They issued a retraction the next day.

But you have our panelist, Joan Slote. And Joan has peddled through 21 countries on a cycle, 100 miles a week and you still bicycle. That's great by the way. (Laughter). No it is. I have an 82-year-old uncle that runs the 400 and 800 in the senior Olympics, and he runs 3 miles a day-82-years-old. My aunt thinks he has had a stroke (Laughs), but he is out there running. I always tell people he runs three miles a day, and we haven't seen him for 2 ½ years. (Laughs) But that is another subject.

Joan. Now Joan is a serious cyclist, and Joan was a medal winner in the 1993 senior Olympics. And this weekend I read about her in The Washington Post. She believed a Canadian add that said she could cycle in Cuba. She went cycling in Cuba, and now OFAC has told her that is going to cost her $10,000 and they are going to begin deducting it from her social security checks. And when they notified her, and my understanding is and my sympathies to you because you lost a son, and your son was gravely ill. And you did not receive the notice and was not able to attend to it. And in any event they "tough luck". What we are going to do is attack your social security checks. Now shame on this country for policies that stupid!

Fact is, this law injures the American people, and we ought not have one person in the Treasury Department tracking people that are going to Cuba. We had a guy from the state of Washington whose dad was from Cuba, and he died. And he wanted his ashes taken back to Cuba. And guess what, guess who's after him, the state department. It makes no sense at all for us to be diverting resources to penalize the American people. You give me one justification for any administration to be chasing someone to attack their social security check because they went on a bicycle trip of Cuba. I mean all of the criticism of the government is deserved when you see this sort of goofball policy. And we just need to change it.

There are so many examples. A 77-year-old WWII veteran posted information on his website about a license meeting to the US-Cuba sister-cities association. And so OFAC is after him, and they accuse Mr. Warren of organizing, arranging, promoting and otherwise facilitating the attendance of persons of the conference without a license. Oh my God. And he didn't even attend. He didn't attend, and the treasury department is after him.

This is a country that says in its major papers that Al-Qaeda is alive and well and we need to be worried about them. And OFAC is chasing folks like this. I mean, this makes no sense. So one final point, this afternoon at 2 o'clock we are marking up the agriculture appropriations sub-committee bill and late last evening I was looking over a series of things that I might do to that bill. And one of them I am going to offer this afternoon--and it just takes a small piece. I am a great believer in incrementalism. If you can't get the whole thing immediately, than just take pieces of it. I am going to offer a piece in the agriculture appropriations sub-committee that says if there are Cubans coming here to buy food and if we've got Americans going to Cuba to sell food you can't interrupt their visas (applause). The fact is that we have a right to do that (applause).

So lets see who on the agriculture appropriations committee wants to vote against that. You really believe farmers should have to pay the full cost of an embargo on food, I don't think so. And finally, we have in the United States senate a piece of legislation that will lift the travel ban S-950, I introduced that with my colleagues Senator Enzi and Senator Baucus we will try to attach that as well some point soon.

Look, I have no grief for Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, but I think the Cuban people are wonderful people, and they deserve better. The way it seems to me out of this darkness is through travel and trade and engagement and I am sick and tired of this country of punishing its own citizens as a way to somehow give the backend to Fidel Castro. Espeicially with respect to food and medicine; it is basically immoral for any country to use food and medicine as a weapon. That doesn't hurt Fidel Castro; it hurts hungry people, sick people and poor people. And this country has to stop it. Thank you very much.

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