22 U.S.C. § 6001: Findings

The government of Fidel Castro has demonstrated consistent disregard for internationally accepted standards of human rights and for democratic values. It restricts the Cuban people’s exercise of freedom of speech, press, assembly, and other rights recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948 . It has refused to admit into Cuba the representative of the United Nations Human Rights Commission appointed to investigate human rights violations on the island. The Cuban people have demonstrated their yearning for freedom and their increasing opposition to the Castro government by risking their lives in organizing independent, democratic activities on the island and by undertaking hazardous flights for freedom to the United States and other countries. The Castro government maintains a military-dominated economy that has decreased the well-being of the Cuban people in order to enable the government to engage in military interventions and subversive activities throughout the world and, especially, in the Western Hemisphere. These have included involvement in narcotics trafficking and support for the FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador. There is no sign that the Castro regime is prepared to make any significant concessions to democracy or to undertake any form of democratic opening. Efforts to suppress dissent through intimidation, imprisonment, and exile have accelerated since the political changes that have occurred in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Events in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have dramatically reduced Cuba’s external support and threaten Cuba’s food and oil supplies. The fall of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the now universal recognition in Latin America and the Caribbean that Cuba provides a failed model of government and development, and the evident inability of Cuba’s economy to survive current trends, provide the United States and the international democratic community with an unprecedented opportunity to promote a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. However, Castro’s intransigence increases the likelihood that there could be a collapse of the Cuban economy, social upheaval, or widespread suffering. The recently concluded Cuban Communist Party Congress has underscored Castro’s unwillingness to respond positively to increasing pressures for reform either from within the party or without. The United States cooperated with its European and other allies to assist the difficult transitions from Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. Therefore, it is appropriate for those allies to cooperate with United States policy to promote a peaceful transition in Cuba.