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Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify at this important hearing on behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID.) As you know, Assistant Administrator Adolfo Franco wishes he could be here today. These are historic times, when many millions of people in another part of the world -- long subject to dictatorship -- have begun to taste the fruits of freedom.

However, the Cuban people are not yet free. The latest Castro regime atrocities against the Cuban people -- the mass arrests and summary executions -- have awakened the consciousness of free people everywhere. One hundred peaceful Cuban citizens with courageous conviction that freedom of thought and expression are fundamental human rights have been charged as a threat to the regime. Seventy-five now face extended prison terms, while three others who sought a better life elsewhere were executed by a firing squad at dawn. The Castro regime defended these barbaric measures as necessary to protect national security.

President George Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, the U.S. Chief of Mission in Havana, Jim Cason, and scores of U.S. political luminaries have all denounced, in the strongest terms, these outrageous actions.

The European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, international labor unions, Nobel Prize laureates, and newspapers around the world have joined their voices in collective denunciation.

But denunciations are not enough. As President Bush has said, we must greatly increase our efforts to promote a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), through its Cuba Program, pledges increased effort and support to these vital voices of freedom.

Authorized by Section 109 of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, USAID has funded action programs -- by U.S. universities and non-governmental organizations -- to build solidarity with Cuba's human rights activists, give voice to Cuba's independent journalists, help develop Cuba's independent libraries, defend the rights of Cuban workers, and provide direct outreach to the Cuban people. These programs are overt and transparent, as witnessed by our presence here today.

Since our first grant to Freedom House in the summer of 1996, USAID has taken seriously the charge to promote a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba, by increasing the flow of accurate information on democracy, human rights, and free enterprise to, from, and within the island. These programs give voice and strength to the repressed and provide moral support to the courageous.

On May 20th of last year, President Bush announced his Initiative for a New Cuba. The president said, "Our plan is to accelerate freedom's progress in Cuba in every way possible, just as the United States and our democratic friends and allies did successfully in places like Poland, or in South Africa ...." The president also said: "Our government will offer scholarships in the United States for Cuban students and professionals who try to build independent civil institutions in Cuba, and scholarships for family members of political prisoners ...."

USAID is proud to be part of this effort. Just as we did in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Chile, Nicaragua and elsewhere -- we will strengthen our current efforts in support of Cuba's human rights activists, independent journalists, independent librarians, [and] independent labor unions, and to bring hope and information to the Cuban people. We also have designed a scholarship program to make real the president's vision for providing an educational leg-up for Cubans, as articulated in his Initiative for a New Cuba. We will be announcing that program in the coming weeks.

Over the past seven years, Cuba's human rights activists have developed national and international-level networks to press the Cuban regime for democratic change. The Castro regime's latest crackdown, imprisoning scores of these activists, sought to silence the growing call for change. But the regime cannot silence the Cuban people, because thousands of new voices throughout the island now call for democratic change, and their numbers are increasing every day.

USAID pledges to redouble our effort to build solidarity with Cuba's human rights activists -- responding with alacrity to their requests for books, videos, short-wave radios, and other means of information and communication. Since 1997, USAID grantees have worked with solidarity committees around the world to call for international support for Cuba's peaceful activists. USAID has also provided more than 120,000 pounds of food and medicine to the families of political prisoners and other victims of repression inside Cuba. We will strive to increase this support. For accepting this humanitarian assistance (food and medicine), people deprived of jobs, income and medical care are called by the Cuban government "the paid agents of imperialism." Contrary to the Cuban government's allegations, USAID is not providing cash payments to any activists, persons or organizations within Cuba.

The Castro regime last month imprisoned dozens of independent journalists. But many will still find ways to send to the outside world their reports of deteriorating economic conditions, human rights violations and the conditions inside Cuba's prisons, and many others will report from elsewhere on that imprisoned island. No one believes that imprisonment will silence the voices of Raul Rivero and other brave Cuban independent journalists. Over the past several years, USAID grantees have published via the Internet more than 18,000 articles by Cuba's independent journalists. We will increase our efforts to publish their reports, and to distribute them in hard copy on the island. And we will continue to provide Cuba's independent journalists with the books, videos, training materials, and other information they request.

The Castro regime has imprisoned many independent librarians for the alleged "crime" of lending books to their neighbors. Books by Martin Luther King, Vaclev Havel, Jose Marti, and other alleged "subversives" are the evidence. USAID has provided Cuba's independent libraries and the Cuban people directly with more than 1.7 million books, brochures, newsletters and other informational materials. We will increase this flow of information to the growing numbers of independent libraries throughout Cuba, and we will especially increase the circulation inside the island by independent Cuban writers.

The Castro regime has also imprisoned independent Cuban labor leaders. USAID will continue to work with free unions world-wide to put pressure on the Cuban government to respect workers' rights and to allow the development of independent unions inside Cuba.

The Castro regime has confiscated books, newsletters, videocassettes, video recorders, laptop computers, short-wave radios and other materials the Cuban people need to obtain independent information. However, this will not deter courageous Cubans from expressing independent points of view, nor will it dissuade USAID from increasing its outreach efforts to the Cuban people. On the contrary, USAID will increase its programs of outreach to the Cuban people, to provide them with more books, videos, and short-wave radios with which they can listen to international radio broadcasts from around the world, including Voice of America, Radio Marti, the BBC, and Radio Netherlands. USAID has already provided the Cuban people with more than 7,000 short-wave radios. The Cuban government has denounced this as a "violation of Cuban national sovereignty" and as "introduction of contraband." Why is the regime afraid of a short-wave radio? What does it want to hide from the Cuban people?

The actions of the Castro regime this past month, as well as over the past decade, show they are desperate and afraid, and choose to resort to practices and punishments unacceptable to civilized people in this century. But the Castro regime is gradually losing its grip on the Cuban people. Some day soon, this regime will end. It will end because the Cuban people will, with a united voice, demand democratic change.

We pledge to increase our efforts to promote that change, as rapidly and as peacefully as the future permits. Thank you for this opportunity, and I know that news of the support of this Congress will somehow penetrate Castro's prison walls and reach those who deserve it most.

Mr. Chairman, with that I conclude my testimony and am pleased to answer any questions that you and other committee members may have this afternoon.

Thank you.
[End]