Barbara Lee

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) for yielding me this time, and thank the gentleman for this amendment. It is very important to this bill. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) for accepting the amendment. The empowerment of women is critical in developing an AIDS strategy that is effective. In many parts of the developing world, women are still treated as second-class citizens. They lack basic protections of civil rights laws in their own country, and oftentimes are left at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing resources, owning land and in their general relationships to men. The Crowley amendment would fix this by encouraging men to develop a healthy relationship that treats women with respect. That is so important as we address this pandemic. In addition, it supports the development of specific strategies to increase women's access to employment, land and financial resources like microfinance programs that, in many instances, have encouraged women to set up their own small businesses and avoid having to turn to a life of prostitution in order to make ends meet. I urge Members to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) for his wisdom in moving forward with this amendment. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) for accepting this very important amendment.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman. Let me first thank our ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for those very kind and generous remarks, and let me thank the gentleman for his leadership in helping to ensure that our Democrats really saw the goal and understood our mission and helped to work to make sure that this was a bipartisan bill. I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde) for his leadership, and for, again, I think, setting an example that on issues of common concern and where the survival of the human family is at stake, we all can come together and agree that we should work together. I also want to thank our staffs, especially Christos on my staff, and Pearl Alice, Peter and the entire committee staff, for their very diligent, competent and dedicated work. Mr. Chairman, today we really do stand at the crossroads in this global battle gains HIV/AIDS. With an estimated 42 million individuals infected worldwide, the disease has already devastated the African continent, where 30 million people, 30 million, are currently living with AIDS and over 11 million children have been orphaned by this pandemic. Throughout Africa, AIDS has had a devastating impact, not only on health, but on education, agriculture, the economy, the military, on governments, as people at all levels of society have struggled to cope with this disease. Even now, the ongoing famine in Sub-Saharan Africa has been aggravated by the AIDS crisis. Food Insecurity and malnutrition have contributed to the spread of the virus, and both have sped up the onset of AIDS in HIV-infected individuals. The Caribbean, which is ranked as the second most affected region behind Africa, is also facing a devastating situation because of AIDS. In Haiti, where over 90 percent of all AIDS cases in the Caribbean are, Haiti has the unfortunate distinction of being the only country outside of Africa with an adult prevalence rate of over 6.5 percent. Despite the devastation that HIV and AIDS has caused within Africa and the Caribbean, the disease is truly a global killer. Even here at home, in my own district in Alameda County, we have been forced to declare a state of emergency to deal with the AIDS crisis. Now the disease is poised to run rampant through India, China and Russia, where a lack of information is contributing to the spread of the disease among poor and rural populations. So without a truly global effort to halt the spread of this disease, to provide care and treatment to those who are infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, we will all face a humanitarian disaster, the likes of which the world has never seen before. But there is hope. We have the know-how to stop the spread of HIV, and we have the drugs to prolong the lives of those infected with AIDS. The challenge is how we translate this know-how and these resources to people living in the developing world. Yet even in a country as poor as Haiti, there are already programs on the ground that are making a difference with minimal resources, like the Zanmi Lasante Clinic, run by Dr. Paul Farmer and the dedicated people at Partners in Health. And we also know from the indication of Uganda that when a country unites in the battle against AIDS, through the leadership, through its president, members of the government and civil society, and when everyone really engages in open dialogue about sex and AIDS, the need for abstinence, faithfulness and safe sex through the use of condoms, the HIV/AIDS rate can be reversed. In this case, it came down from 15 percent in 1991 to 5 percent 10 years later. But it took all three strategies. No preference is given to one over the other. This bill we have before us today really recognizes these possibilities. But, more importantly, it sends a message to the world that the United States will not sit idly by and allow AIDS to wreak havoc on the human family. By committing $3 billion a year to fighting global HIV/AIDS and the two largest opportunistic infections that feed off of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, we will virtually double our global AIDS budget in the next year. Several years ago when we won a $40 million increase in global AIDS spending in 2000 under the leadership of our distinguished minority leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), we felt that that was a major victory and a major accomplishment. This legislation now puts those living with AIDS and those at greatest risk of getting infected ahead of ideological and political differences, and that is why the Pitts amendment does such a disservice to the bill and to those who desperately need our help. This bill attempts to create a comprehensive strategy to deal with the AIDS pandemic. Comprehensive. Finally, let me just say how important it is that this be new money. The President said that this was new money. We must make sure that this is new money. We face many challenges as this bill moves forward, but we hope that the President will receive the bill on his desk intact and sign it before Memorial Day, as he said he wanted to do. Mr. Chairman I want to thank again the chairman of our committee and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for their leadership, and once again hope that we can pass this bill intact, as it moved out of committee.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) for yielding me this time and for his leadership. Also I want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) for this amendment, and with the cautions which our ranking member laid out, I rise in support of this amendment. I would like to just briefly mention the history and our debate here in Congress with regard to the background of this Global Fund. The idea for the Global Fund really started back somewhere around 1998 and 1999, when my friend and former colleague, Congressman Ron Dellums, had the vision and the foresight for an AIDS Marshall Plan in Africa. Refined under the leadership of our good friend, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), who was then Chair of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, we introduced the World Bank AIDS Trust Fund, and this fund became the basis for the Global Fund. This fund was signed into law in, I believe it was August of 2000, under the Global AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000, signed by President Bill Clinton. I cite this history because I think it is important for us to remember how important this fund is and that we fully debated this fund, and on a bipartisan basis voted it out and it was signed into law. So I think this amendment really strengthens the fund and its accountability. The United Nations, in I believe it was June 2001, picked up the idea of the fund, and Secretary General Kofi Annan made an impassioned plea for the creation of a Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB, and malaria, which again moved forward the World Bank AIDS Trust Fund, in terms of the foundation, the parameters and the guidelines. So this fund was established in 2002 and really has made significant strides in over just a year of operation. Not only has it created a novel approach to grant-making and approval-processing, but it has also made really a very determined commitment to maintain as lean an operation as possible in order to focus its activities on getting money out to those in need. The current system that the fund has set up provides several layers of accountability. On a country level, the proposals are gathered and voted upon by an advisory body that represent government, civil society, the private sector, faith-based groups, and nongovernmental organizations. Proposals that are submitted to the Global Fund then undergo a technical review from an independent body composed of leading global health experts. And now our own Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson is leading this effort. So I believe this amendment will help further strengthen the Global Fund system of accountability, and I encourage Members to vote for its inclusion. And also, with regard to the comments of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), I hope we can move forward, as he has so eloquently outlined, and fix what he thinks needs to be fixed in it.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for yielding me this time. I rise in strong and very vigorous opposition to this amendment offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde). Again, we see attempts to unravel the delicate compromise established by our negotiations on this bill. We have already dealt with this issue in another forum in the Committee on International Relations when the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) pushed for the prioritization of abstinence over condom use in the ABC model of prevention. Abstinence, fidelity, and the use of condoms should all be placed on equal footing; and that is what we agreed to in committee. So I hope that we similarly defeat this amendment. Even the Washington Times, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) points out, agrees that a balanced approach should be implemented and should be part of this bill. The Uganda model is based upon the ABC approach, which is prevention, abstinence, and condoms. In fact, the former director of the largest organization in Uganda dealing with HIV and AIDS treatment says that that is what has worked and that it is wrong for those who want only one approach to pull out one element of a bigger picture. And she said this is a very small percentage of the whole picture. What works is what worked in Uganda, and that is abstinence, be faithful, condoms; and that is the only strategy that makes sense.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I thank the gentleman for his comments, but let me just say that the language that was negotiated that is in the base bill, in the bill before us today, takes care of all of the issues that we care about in terms of allowing for a multifaceted, multisectoral approach to addressing this pandemic. What we do not want to do, and what I believe will happen with the gentleman's amendment, is that organizations now will be allowed to say ``do not use one method versus the other.'' We crafted the language in a way that would allow organizations, if for whatever reasons decided that they were not going to promote abstinence, to be faithful, or condom use, that they would not necessarily have to promote it. But what I believe the gentleman's amendment will do will be to allow organizations to tell individuals that one approach is not going to work, or there is danger in an approach that allows for the distribution of condoms. I think that is downright wrong. The ABC approach is the approach that works. Organizations can choose whichever approach they want to address.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. As our chairman indicated, we did defeat this amendment in committee. Several days ago at the White House, the President illustrated quite well the cost of delaying these funds to those who are so desperately in need. As President Bush said, time is not on our side. Since the State of the Union address, he said that an estimated 760,000 people have died from AIDS, 1.2 million people have become infected and more than 175,000 babies have been born with the virus. Imagine how many more will die and become infected if we accept this amendment and deny the $1 billion in funding this year to those who desperately need this help? Clearly we cannot wait. There are programs out there that can use our funding immediately. Even the executive director of UNAIDS, Dr. Piot, has said Africa could absorb $6.57 billion in AIDS funding without any improvements toward infrastructure. Therefore, I urge all my colleagues to vote against this bill and to maintain the compromise that we worked so hard to negotiate with the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde).

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment offered by my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). Early on in the drafting of this bill, we decided really not to let ideology drive the process and drive the contents of this bill. I believe, as our ranking member said, that the language we worked on and negotiated in committee addresses the issues and concerns raised in this amendment, and it addresses it quite well. Now, it seems to me, quite frankly, that social conservatives are looking at a way to carve out a specific exemption. All of us support faith-based organizations, but it looks like one group of individuals in this country wants to carve out for religious organizations a specific exemption. The amendment looks tame on its face, but I really think there is another motive behind this amendment. I do not believe that we should subject this very important piece of legislation to the ideological whims of either side. The compromise that we negotiated in the bill was specifically intended to avoid this. Both sides made some major concessions with an understanding that the needs of those who are living and dying with AIDS would trump our political differences. It appears now that this amendment would give an organization the ability to affirmatively tell those suffering and dying of AIDS not to use one method over another. This could be deadly. Now, there were several amendments that I would have offered to shape the bill more to my liking, more to many of my colleagues' liking on our side; but we refrained from doing this because we felt quite strongly that the delicate balance established in the bill should not be upset. So I would encourage Members to oppose this amendment. The language in the bill is very clear with regard to faith-based organizations, and I ask the gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my colleague, the gentleman from Florida, for yielding me this time and for his leadership and his assistance and guidance throughout this entire process. Since I have been here in Congress and since 1998, we began to introduce and bring forward to this Congress the notion, really, of an AIDS Marshall Plan, which former Congressman Ron Dellums, my predecessor, conceived, brought to us, and indicated why the Congress should begin to go on record to take the lead in the world to fight this global pandemic. I would like to thank our chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), and our ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for their leadership and for making sure that this continues to be a bipartisan effort. This is not really a political issue. Both gentlemen have made sure that throughout this overall process that the people and their needs and the issues with regard to this pandemic stayed foremost in our mind and would not allow us to break down into our partisan squabbles that oftentimes we break down into. So I thank them both for their leadership. I would like to now talk just a little bit about the Uganda model of success, which is, of course, the model the President has cited as the model he is looking to to address this pandemic in this bill, and also why I believe the 33 percent set-aside offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) is an amendment that goes counter to what the President's intentions and stated reasons for moving forward in the Uganda fashion. First of all, each country, each village, each organization knows what strategies work best in terms of how they address this pandemic. This pandemic is killing so many people, there are so many orphans, there is so much disaster on the continent of Africa, that we have to marshal each and every effective way to stop it. So we should not in any way constrain this bill to a 33 percent set-aside that places for the most part abstinence as a priority. Again, this flies in the face of what our agreement was in committee, and that is the ABC approach, which is the Uganda approach: abstinence, be faithful, use a condom. The three-pronged approach should be balanced, is balanced, and should be the approach we use in this bill. I do not know why this requirement now, after our committee debate and committee discussion, would be put into the bill when we know the President has called for all three approaches. In fact, the Washington Times today indicated its support for the three-pronged approach and not for us prioritizing one versus the others. And let me just read what the Uganda model really is. I do not think we should be misled or misinformed about what Uganda is doing. Sophia Monico, who was the director of TASO, which is Uganda's premier HIV/ AIDS group, said, and this is quoted in The New York Times article, she said: ``It is so unfair to pull out one element of a bigger picture, a very small percentage of the whole picture, and say `this is what works.' '' She goes on to say that ``Uganda is indeed a model for nations fighting AIDS, but it is not quite the model the religious right would like to believe. Ugandans are responding to a campaign known as ABC, which says: Abstain. If you can't abstain, be faithful. If you can't be faithful, use a condom. Contrary to the assertions,'' the article goes on to say, ``of Mr. Pitts and others, there is really nothing unusual about this slogan.'' The WHO has sanctioned this. This is the standard public health approach to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. And so, Mr. Speaker, today, as we debate this bill, I hope Members of Congress will understand that setting aside 33 percent for abstinence only flies in the face of ABC. It flies in the face of the Uganda model. It does us a disservice as we put forward this very good bill to now take a step backwards and put a requirement on our organizations that makes no sense, that will not work, and, quite frankly, that was defeated in committee. So I want to see this move forward in a way I know the President wants to see it move forward, and that is the ABC approach, the standard multifaceted approach that gives all three approaches equal weight.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, we are turning the heat up on this. We have been nice and we have played many, many roles in trying to let Haiti live. And we are going to become even more aggressive on this because I think after what we have heard tonight, I think the people in our country are going to begin to question our policies and why we are holding up $146 million. What that means in light of the fact that we are, yes, we should be doing this, building a universal health care system in Iraq and providing quality public education for people in Iraq. And yet, here in a country right next door and in our own country we cannot find the resources to help people of African decent. And that is a very important point, I think, that I want to leave tonight with in this body.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for his statement and for providing this information with regard to another piece of legislation that we know will let Haiti live, and, hopefully, we will be able to build co-sponsorship and support for your legislation so we can have a hearing and move the bill to the floor and to the Senate and then to the White House. Let me, in closing, just reiterate some of the facts we heard tonight and why members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other Members of Congress want to see Haiti live and want to see Haiti move forward into the 21st Century as a new democracy who we can support in a way that we know we should. First of all, Haiti is the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti accounts for 90 percent of all HIV/AIDS cases in the Caribbean. HIV and AIDS infections have approached epidemic proportions. Over 300,000 infected people have been identified and deaths from HIV and AIDS have left 200,000 children orphaned. It is estimated that over 12,000 people in Haiti are living with HIV/AIDS. Between 150,000 to 350,000 children are AIDS orphans. Haiti's infant mortality rate is staggering. It is 93 deaths per 1,000 live births. For every doctor in Haiti, there are 10,000 people. Tuberculosis remains a major cause of adult mortality. Cases of TB in Haiti are more than 10 times as high as those in other Latin American countries. Only 40 percent of Haitians have access to clean water, drinking water. The life expectancy rate which we heard earlier, I believe from the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), is 49 years of age. More than 75 percent of the population lives in abject poverty. The unemployment rate is approximately 60 percent. The literacy rate is approximately 45 percent. And half of the population of Haiti earns $60 or less, that is $60 or less per year, not per day but per year. The total expenditure on health per person is about $54 compared to about $4,400 in the United States and $483 in Mexico. So with those kind of statistics, there is no way that our country can morally do what it is doing in terms of blocking the release of the $146 million. There is no way with these kinds of numbers and this kind of data, this kind of human misery and tragedy right next to us, that our efforts should be about blocking the release of loans that had been negotiated 3 years ago. That is outrageous. I do not even understand how we can believe that could even be half way right to do. I think I have a couple more minutes, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my colleague from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) who has an additional statement he would like to make in the short time we have left.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) for her very passionate and very clear statement, and also for making sure that on all of our HIV/AIDS initiatives, that the Caribbean is part of that effort. And it is because of the gentlewoman that now we hear the President and others talk about sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean and other parts of the world as being in need in terms of our resources and our assistance. So I thank her again. And, yes, we have done something, just our small efforts. We are going to move forward. Hopefully we can do more. And I believe tonight with her help and with all of those here, with the CBC and other Members of Congress, sooner or later the administration is going to wake up and realize that this is a political fight that they really do not need to have. Haitian-Americans care about this. All Americans care about this and we have got to get those loans released. Now, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Detroit, our dean and the chair of the Haitian task force, one who has provided leadership on so many issues and who has beat the drum for so many years on Haiti and our very cruel policy towards that country, the gentleman from Detroit, Michigan (Mr. Conyers). (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. LEE. I would say that $146 million is a mere drop in the bucket and would save many, many lives. It would get the country of Haiti back on track in terms of its development. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), a leader on many, many issues; a woman who is a physician who chairs our Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust, and who is leading the charge for universal health care.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland once again for his leadership, but also for laying out the facts in terms of why we are here tonight. I thank the gentleman for putting his all into making sure that we understand that this is an emergency, that we should do the right thing, and that our policies are really resulting in the dire humanitarian crisis that we are seeing in Haiti. I thank the gentleman again for his leadership. I appreciate his being here this evening.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her comprehensive statement, for her clarity on our government's policy as it relates to Haiti, and for bringing forth the facts of some very recent revelations with regard to the Attorney General which hopefully we will get some answers to. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Baltimore, Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus who has demonstrated for many, many years prior to coming to Congress, and now here in the United States Congress, his leadership on a myriad of issues. I thank the gentleman for pulling this Special Order together and for ensuring that the Congressional Black Caucus is central to all of the policy debates that we engage in here in the United States House.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) for his very eloquent statement and his kind remarks, and also for reminding us of the history in terms of the connection to our own country and the fact that we do have many Haitian Americans here in our own country who are concerned about their country and have such representatives as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) who so ably represents a diverse population of people. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from Southern California (Ms. Watson), who has a wealth of experience as an ambassador, as a Chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee in the State of California, and one whose wisdom and counsel we all look to on so many issues.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman for his very kind and generous and very humbling remarks, and also for his real leadership, and his real and honest commitment to those in need, whether here or abroad. I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let me now yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) whose leadership on the Committee on International Relations and on the Committee on Financial Services is making quite a difference in terms of the reordering of our domestic and our foreign policies.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida for his leadership and for participating tonight in highlighting the very discriminatory policies and the very inconsistent policies in terms of our immigration policies as they relate to Haiti, and also for his leadership on each and every issue that he is providing to this Congress during his first 2 years. I thank the gentleman for participating with us. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my good friend the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballance). The gentleman serves as a member of the Committee on Small Business and a member of the Committee on Agriculture and has been involved in many, many issues since he has been in Congress. He is a new Member who has hit the ground running.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, tonight is another opportunity to once again highlight the on-going humanitarian crisis in Haiti and the urgent need for action. Many of us together have worked to send a message to this administration that it is time to revisit the United States policy toward Haiti. We have become increasingly aware of the humanitarian crisis which is brewing in Haiti. Much of this crisis can be directly pinned to the fact that the United States' eight financial institutions which we are part of are blocking social sector resources from reaching that small island nation. In fact, the United States representative to the Interamerican Development Bank directed the bank's president to block disbursal of four social sector loans to Haiti. These loans had already been approved by the bank's board of directors and were ratified by the Haitian parliament over 3 years ago. Now, considering Haiti's current crisis, this action is inexcusable. While our government levies our political weight with the international financial institutions and the Organization of American States, Haitians continue to suffer. Further, this delayed delivery of international humanitarian aid to Haiti is fostering instability and anarchy in their struggling democracy. Haiti's miserable poverty is indisputable. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand on this issue. Without strong leadership, the crisis will continue to spiral out of control. Already, the national rate of persons infected with HIV and AIDS in Haiti has risen to 300,000, or 4 percent of the entire population, leaving 163,000 children orphaned. Haiti makes up 90 percent of all HIV-AIDS cases in the Caribbean. And Haiti's health problems go well beyond HIV and AIDS. The infant mortality rate has increased to 74 deaths out of every 1,000 babies born, and now five mothers will die out of the same 1,000 babies born. We must remember that many diseases know no boundaries, so it is in our strategic interest to help Haiti heal itself. The doctor-to-patient ratio has fallen to 1 to 11,000, leaving very little chance that sick persons in the rural areas will ever get even the basic health care. 125 Haitians die daily of illnesses. While most of the western world has eradicated diseases like polio, health officials report that many Haitians do not have the resources to pay for life-saving vaccinations for their children. This is just morally unacceptable. Together, we must urge the President to do the right thing in Haiti. Jared Johnson, the IDB branch director for Haiti, said you cannot run a country through non- governmental organizations. What does this mean? It means we cannot continue to funnel money into USAID and then blame the government of Haiti for lack of resources and poor social services. Our government and the international financial institutions should not continue to raise the political bar in order for Haiti to receive basic humanitarian assistance. It is unacceptable to simply stand by and watch a season of misery inflict pain, suffering and death on human beings right here in our own neighborhood. We must address this injustice. We must release the IDB funds to Haiti and direct the international financial institutions to reengage and reengage now. It is our moral imperative, and it is our commitment. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) a member of the Committee on Armed Services, a Member of the Haitian Task Force, and one who has led our efforts in terms of immigration issues and other issues that he so passionately cares for.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to submit the following interesting and insightful article for the Congressional Record. Why the Crackdown in Cuba? (By Wayne S. Smith) Various newspaper articles reporting the deplorable crackdown on dissidents in Cuba have correctly noted that the situation there earlier had seemed to be inching toward somewhat greater tolerance. During his trip to Cuba in May of last year, for example, President Carter met with Cuban dissidents and in his televised speech to the nation spoke of the Varela Project, an initiative of theirs calling for greater political freedoms. And both before and after Carter's visit, many other Americans, myself included, regularly and openly met with the dissidents as part of a broad effort to expand dialogue and improve relations between our two countries. Oswaldo Paya, the principal architect of the Varela Project, was even recently allowed to come to the United States to receive the W. Averell Harriman award from the National Democratic Institute in Washington, and from there he went on to Europe. The Cuban government may not have liked what he had to say while abroad, but he wasn't punished for it when he returned home. It did indeed seem that things might slowly be moving toward somewhat greater tolerance of dissent on the island. Why then the recent arrest of dissidents? Is it, as some in the United States quickly posited, that Castro was simply hoping the rest of the world was so distracted by the war in Iraq, that no one would notice or react to the detention of a few dissidents in Cuba? No, that explanation simply doesn't hold up. First of all, no one in his right mind (and whatever else he is, Castro is that) would have expected the arrest of over 80 dissidents, many of them well-known international figures, to go unremarked. The Cubans expected a firestorm, and they got it. Second, the timing could hardly be worse from Castro's standpoint. The UN Human Rights Commission has just begun its annual deliberations to decide, among other things, whether to condemn Cuba for violations of human rights. Given the greater tolerance discussed above, there had seemed a good chance that Cuba would not be condemned this year. The crackdown, coming just now, makes that far less likely. Given all that, why the crackdown and why now? To answer those questions, we must first note that the greater leeway for dissent noted above came in response to the overtures of groups in the American Congress and the American public, not to any easing of the hard line on the part of the Bush Administration. Quite the contrary, its policies and rhetoric remained as hostile and as threatening as ever. It ignored all Cuban offers to begin a dialogue and instead held to an objective of regime change. As Mr. James Cason, the Chief of the U.S. Interests Section has stated publicly, one of his tasks was to promote ``transition to a participatory form of government.'' Now, we would all like to see a more open society in Cuba; that indeed, is what we are all working toward. But it is not up to the United States to orchestrate it. In fact, it is not up to the United States to decide what form of government Cuba should have. Cuba is, after all, a sovereign country. To the Cubans, for the chief U.S. diplomat in Cuba to seem to be telling them what kind of government they should have seemed a return to the days of the Platt Amendment. The Bush Administration was uncomfortable with signs of greater tolerance on Castro's part, for that simply encouraged those in the United States who wanted to ease travel controls and begin dismantling the embargo. New initiatives along those lines were expected in the Congress this spring. What to do to head them oft? What the Administration did is clear enough. It ordered the Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to begin a series of high-profile and provocative meetings with dissidents, even holding seminars in his own residence and passing out equipment of various kinds to them. He even held press conferences after some of the meetings. The Administration knew that such ``bull-in-the-china-shop'' tactics would provoke a Cuban reaction--hopefully an overreaction. And given that the purpose was ``regime change'', the Cubans came to see them as ``subversive'' in nature and as increasingly provocative. Those arrested were not charged with expressing themselves against the state, but with ``plotting with American diplomats.'' The circumstances are different, but to understand Cuban sensitivities in this case, let us imagine the reaction of the U.S. Government if Cuban diplomats here were meeting with members of the Puerto Rican Independence Party to help them promote Puerto Rico's transition from commonwealth to independence. Perhaps the Attorney General would not arrest everyone involved, but I wouldn't take any bets on it. And the beginning of the war in Iraq did play a role in the crackdown. The Cubans saw it as a signal that the United States was determined to throw its weight around and to blow away anyone it doesn't like through the unilateral use of force. As one Cuban official put it to me recently: ``This new preemptive-strike policy of yours puts us in a new ball game, and in that new game, we must make it clear that we can't be pushed around.'' It was this kind of mind set that led to the crackdown and that turned the latter into a massive overreaction. The Cubans did exactly what the Bush Administration had hoped they would do. Virtually the whole active dissident community has now not only been arrested but put on trial (or notified that they soon will be) and given extremely heavy sentences. Tragic. This is a blot that will not be easily erased and that will impede any significant progress in U.S.-Cuban relations until there is some amelioration of conditions in Cuba. The Bush Administration meanwhile will certainly continue the pressures, and the provocations, so as to prevent any such amelioration. It has been argued that Castro simply saw this as a propitious moment to halt dissent in Cuba, and there are doubtless some elements of truth to that argument. Castro has never liked to be criticized. Still, over the past few years, he had tolerated criticism of the system. All things being equal, he might have continued to do so. But the situation has changed, not just between the U.S. and Cuba, but internationally, in ways that the U.S. public is just beginning to understand. In the dark days that lie ahead, people of good will in the United States who want to see a more normal relationship between our two countries, and to see a more open society in Cuba, should hold to the demonstrable truth that the best way to bring about both is through the reduction of tensions, the beginning of a meaningful dialogue and increased contacts. As Elizardo Sanchez, Cuba's leading human rights activist, has often put it, ``the more American citizens in the streets of Cuban cities, the better for the cause of a more open society; so why do you maintain travel controls?'' The policies followed by one administration after another over the past 44 years have accomplished nothing positive. True to form, the policy followed by the Bush Administration, and the clumsy tactics of the U.S. Interests Section, have produced only a crackdown. Exactly what we should not want! Wayne S. Smith, now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, was Third Secretary of Embassy at the American Embassy in Havana from 1958 until the U.S. broke relations in January of 1961, and was Chief of the U.S. Interests Section there from 1979 until 1982.