House Democrats have wrapped up a three-day trip to Cuba, where they met with Cuban officials and predicted “strong bipartisan support” to fully lift the decades-old trade embargo and pledged not to “point fingers” at the country for its faults, including human rights abuses.
Human rights issues were not the main emphasis of the meeting, despite the country’s record of abusive treatment of its citizens.
Instead, it was about strengthening the connection between the United States and Cuba, which Democrats said would ultimately lead to a more democratic society.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., led the delegation, which met in Havana with a number of Cuban officials, including the First Vice President of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel.
“We engaged in a constructive dialogue about the future of our two countries and discussed how we could work together on agriculture, biotechnology and small business to our mutual benefit,” Pelosi said. “All of the participants in the meeting agreed that a critical step towards normalization is the establishment of formal diplomatic relations.”
Pelosi was accompanied by eight House Democrats, including Rep. Jim McGovern, of Massachusetts, who is co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
At a press conference in Havana, reporters asked whether the Democratic delegations broached human rights issues with Cuban government officials.
McGovern said the delegation “raised the issue of human rights on a number of occasions,” but it wasn’t the focus of the dialogue.
“We obviously all care deeply about the human rights issue,” McGovern said. “But I think it is our view that the best way to promote human rights is to accelerate this new process, to establish a formal embassy in Havana and to establish a formal Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C., and have our embassy officials talk directly with the Cuban government and same thing in Washington.
“Rather than doing press conferences and pointing fingers and making accusations,” McGovern added, “we ought to have a more mature relationship where we actually talk about some of these issues. We’re not going to agree on everything but I think that we can probably accomplish a lot more if we have a relationship based on mutual respect and appreciation from where each side is coming from.”
Cuba’s poor record regarding human rights abuses are at the heart of bipartisan opposition to President Obama’s Dec. 17 announcement restoring U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Cuban government has improved the way it treats its citizens.
But government officials, the organization said, “continues to repress individuals and groups who criticize the government or call for basic human rights,” with a range of tactics, including “beatings, public acts of shaming, termination of employment and threats of long-term imprisonment.”
Sens. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., are among the lawmakers who oppose normalizing relations with Cuba and establishing an embassy there in part because the deal does not require the Cuban government to stop repressing its citizens.
In a recent Senate floor speech, Menendez said the Cuban government has done little in the past 50 years to improve its human rights record.
“We must remind ourselves everyday of the continued oppression and human suffering that is happening not only halfway around the world, but 90 miles from our own shores,” Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, said. “The ongoing oppressive behavior of the Cuban regime we saw for the last half of the 20th century still haunts our hemisphere today.”
Pelosi said in a statement about the Cuban trip that the delegation, “underscored the importance of respect for human rights.”
The California Democrat said Díaz-Canel, the Cuban vice president, called for Cuba to be removed from the State Sponsors or Terrorism list and for the lifting of the embargo.
“Overall, the members of our delegation viewed the meeting as positive, respectful, and hopeful for our two nations,” Pelosi said.
