1966, 1,500 Cubans went to Key West, and I had the privilege of proclaiming that declaration.

We signed it, and we have been living up to those principles as we have lived up to them before, and when Cuba is free, and our children and the children of our children are living in that country, we want them to go by these principles, that are like the same principles of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

You have the Constitution. You have the laws of the States, but not one of those laws can be against the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and we foresee in the future that the future constitution of our country, the future laws in our country can never go against that declaration. It has been placed nine times in the Congressional Record of the United States. We have had the honor with the chairman, Mr. Fascell, who has put the text of the declaration in the Record several times, and right now that declaration is included in a joint resolution introduced in the 90th Congress by Representative Claude Pepper of Florida, H.J. Res. 294.

Our mind is the mind of a lawyer, and we want our country to be healthy and free, in accordance with the principles of that declaration.

CONDITION OF CUBAN PEOPLE UNDER CASTRO

Mr. FASCELL. Thank you, Dr. Reyes. I want to ask you one more question. It has been alleged by several people that notwithstanding the difficulties which the Castro government has experienced, and notwithstanding the fact that there is no freedom of the press or political freedom or economic freedom in Cuba today, that Castro has eliminated the abuses of the previous regimes in Cuba. What is your opin

ion of that?

Mr. REYES. That he has eliminated the previous abuses?

Mr. FASCELL. The abuses that existed under previous governments in Cuba.

Mr. REYES. I can summarize my answer by saying that the worst tyranny that Cuba has had since it was discovered, and furthermore the worst tyranny that the Western Hemisphere has had up to now, since 1492, is the Fidel Castro regime.

Mr. FASCELL. You don't believe that the Cuban people are better off or happier under Castro?

Mr. REYES. Never. They are worse than ever. I interviewed one farmer recently, and I asked him, a farmer from inside the island, if the Cuban people were with the Castro regime. Do you know what the answer was of the farmer? He said: "Mr. Reyes, if they put a bridge between Havana and Key West, Cuba would be empty. Don't put the bridge, just the water to our neck and we will come to the United States walking."

This is the rejection of the Cuban people. More so, there is a vivid example of how the Cuban people rejected, including the youngsters, because many people can believe well, the Castro regime has indoctrinated the youngsters. That is not so. There is an example with the pilot who defected in a MIG plane and came to the United States. That young boy, according to the information I got, was 27 years of age when he came here. When Castro took power, he was 16. He was not of the former regime or the Castro regime. He had 11 years to in

doctrinate that boy. He was put in the top echelon as a lieutenant in the air force. He was sent, according to the information I have, to Russia. He was absolutely under the pressure and brain washing of the Communist system. He came to Cuba. He was in the new class of the Castro regime. He got a car, he got the things that the Cuban people regularly do not have. He was the head of a squad in Santa Clara Province. Nevertheless, he took the MIG plane, defected, and came to the United States.

This is a proven fact that the Castro regime has not penetrated not only the Cuban people but the youngsters. In fact, the youngsters, through the schools, through the colleges, through the university level, you should see the walls painted against the Castro regime. We have definite proof that the Cuban people are against the Castro regime, because he has violated all the human rights of the people, and they realize it. Right now we have more than 30,000 Cubans executed in 111⁄2 years. We have more than 75,000 political prisoners. We have almost 1 million people in exile, 600,000 in the United States, but what about Spain, what about France, what about Venezuela, what about Mexico? We have 7 million people in our island, yearning, wanting freedom. It is the worst tyranny that the Western Hemisphere has contemplated.

SUPPRESSION OF RELIGION IN CUBA

Mr. FASCELL. How about religion in Cuba today, especially the condition of the Catholic Church?

Mr. REYES. I can say, Mr. Chairman, you are asking about the Catholic faith-the Catholic faith and all faiths have been persecuted in Cuba. On the Catholic angle, as you mentioned before, in 1961 there were about 780 priests. Between priests and nuns there were 1,500 to 2,000. Right now there are about 120 to 125, because they have decreased, most of the churches have been taken and converted to sugar warehouses. Even though they said they have freedom of religion, and the few priests that are there, or the reverends that are there can have their services, they are limited inside the church. They cannot go out and try to get people for the church. They cannot go out and preach the word of God, because they are persecuted, and the youngsters who go to the churches or to the temples, as soon as they come out they are taken by the militia and they are taken to the fields. Actually it is a mockery of freedom of religion. One of the rights of freedom of religion, as you well know, is to select your schools. There are no parochial schools in Cuba. There are no private schools in Cuba, so the parents have to send children to the schools designated by the government, and only the old people go to the churches. Sometimes during the holy services, either holy week or any other services, the militiamen are outside, and the militia women, chanting and trying to stop the ceremony, not by entering indoors, for they have done this in the past, but they do that on the outside.

For example, they put on the weekly play committee, in which they closed one block, and then they give balls, bicycles and toys to the kids, Saturdays and Sundays, and that block is right in front of the church. That is what they do to them. That is the way to little by little drain the youngsters out of the church, and the priests and the reverends and all the clergymen who are there are really confined to the temple. If

sometimes they preach in the temple certain kinds of ceremonies, the militia are waiting outside for them, and they are taken to prison, so there is no freedom of religion in my country.

Mr. FASCELL. Any other comments?

ATTITUDE OF CUBAN MILITARY

Mr. ROYBAL. Mr. Chairman, just one. If all this resentment of Castro is indeed a fact, and if the military are also fed up with him, why has it been impossible for the people of Cuba themselves to get rid of Castro?

Mr. REYES. Your honor, let me try for a minute to put myself, as a military man, on the other side. If you analyze in Cuba, inside the island with a uniform what Castro has done, without law, without trials, executing and killing people, and if I were there, and I analyzed the Cuban situation, and I see the Bay of Pigs, and I see that I didn't have, let's say, the go ahead against the Castro regime, and if I analyzed the missile crisis, which I think was a victory for democracy, but it was a failure for the Cubans because Castro remains in power, if as time goes by I see Hungary and Czechoslovakia, that specter in my mind, and I see the Russian tanks in Cuba, and I see the Soviets pouring into my country, and I have only one life, what kind of guarantee do I have to revolt against the Castro regime, that is supported by the Soviet Union?

The Cubans have the moral support of the free world, but with the moral support you cannot go far. You also need the material support to balance the forces, and it is difficult for them to arise openly. There will be a time, and I think it is very close to that, that desperation will take the people into the middle of the streets, and one battalion will be backing these people, or will arise in Oriente or Pinar del Rio or in Matanzas and say, "Well, you will kill me but I prefer to be killed than live under these conditions."

Mr. ROYBAL. Hasn't the time come for the military people to actually come to that conclusion?

Mr. REYES. That is right, sir. This is the time. We are approaching that time, and we are desperate because we feel that a Hungary or a Czechoslovak'a can be produced in the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. ROYBAL. It seems to me that living under the conditions that you have described, is so intolerable that even death is preferable, and if all of this is the gospel truth, and I don't doubt that it is, then it seems to me that the time is ripe now for some action. What you are telling me is that you agree, but that the arms, the ammunition and the things that are necessary for revolting are not made available to the Cuban people. Is this what you are telling me?

Mr. REYES. In some ways, yes. Words can never describe the ordeal of my Cuban compatriots. Words will never describe it. I just paint it as a denunciation and as a warning as to what is going on because I know that this is going to spark at any time, and especially after the failure of the sugar crop, and what will happen if they go into the middle of the street with rocks, stones, and wooden sticks? What will happen in front of the Russian tanks or Castro's soldiers?

Mr. ROYBAL. But you said a little while ago that the military were also fed up.

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Mr. REYES. Right. The military are fed up, but they are in the echelon of Castro, and they need some kind of guarantee right now. If they don't have the guarantee, they will arise too

Mr. ROYBAL. Yes, but the military have access to guns and ammunition.

Mr. REYES. Some of them, yes.

Mr. FASCELL. The truth is, of course, that the Castro government has some 600,000 men under arms, and that his is the second largest military force in the Western Hemisphere. So while you may have some dissidents, even among the military, it is going to take a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of "guarantees," in my judgment, before any largescale uprising takes place among the military or among the populat.on of Cuba.

Mr. ROYBAL. But the testimony, Mr. Chairman, was that the military were fed up.

Mr. FASCELL. I believe Mr. Reyes meant some military, not all of them. Am I right, Mr. Reyes?

Mr. REYES. Yes, sir.

Mr. FASCELL. In other words, there are some dissidents in the military. I don't believe Mr. Reyes wants the record to imply that the entire Cuban military establishment is ready to rebel.

Mr. REYES. No. We know of several of them.

Mr. ROYBAL. I was under the impression from your testimony that the military in general were fed up, and that this was complemented by the same feeling on the part of the Cuban people.

Mr. FASCELL. AS I understood his testimony, if I may interject, he said they had evidence of some dissatisfaction, even rebellion, underground rebellion so to speak, among high echelon elements of the Cuban military, but no general revolt. Am I correct?

Mr. REYES. You are correct. In the top echelon there are several of them, and in the lower echelon many of them are fed up, and these many are curtailed by the weapons that they have. They receive 40 bullets for a period of 4 to 6 hours, and if they shoot one bullet they have to bring a dead man, a wounded man, or make a very good explanation as to how they shot that bullet, because they can get 2 to 5 years, and if they lose the weapon, don't come back. Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Morse?

Mr. MORSE. No, thank you, sir.

Mr. FASCELL. Mr. Reyes, once again let me thank you very much for presenting your statement, for answering our questions and for presenting very vividly information which will be of value to this subcommittee. Thank you very much.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned.)

CUBA AND THE CARIBBEAN

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1970

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTER-AMERICAN AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C.

The Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs met at 10 a.m., in room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dante B. Fascell (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Mr. FASCELL. The subcommittee will come to order.

We meet this morning to hear testimony from the private sector on issues relating to Cuba and the Caribbean.

Our witness today is Dr. Horacio Aguirre, a resident of Florida, and a distinguished journalist with extensive background and knowledge of Latin American affairs. He is the editor and manager of Diario las Americas, one of the most widely circulated Spanish-language newspapers in the United States, and the only Spanish daily. Is that correct, Dr. Aguirre?

Mr. AGUIRRE. It is not in the United States the only Spanish daily, unless you consider the Inter-American field. There are other dailies in New York and Los Angeles.

Mr. FASCELL. I see, it would be then the one daily within the InterAmerican context.

We welcome you here, Dr. Aguirre. I know that you are eminently qualified to give us views and opinions with respect to the problems which this subcommittee has been examining for some time now, which are issues of vital importance not only to the United States but to the whole Western Hemisphere.

I know you have a prepared statement. Will you go right ahead with your prepared testimony?

(A biographical sketch of Horacio Aguirre follows:)

HORACIO AGUIRRE, EDITOR, DIARIO LAS AMERICAS, MIAMI, FLA.

Horacio Aguirre, a native of Nicaragua, was born in 1925. He was educated at the School of the Christian Brothers of La Salle in Managua, and at the Nicaraguan Military Academy, graduating in March 1946 as an Officer in the Infantry. He received his law degree from the University of Panama in 1950. From 1948 to 1953 he was an editorial writer for El Panama-America in Panama, and in 1953 became Editor of Diario las Americas in Miami, Florida. Among the organizations to which he belongs is the Inter-American Press Association, serving as a member of the Board of Directors, and also as Vice President and Secretary of the Freedom of the Press Committee of that association; the Panamanian Academy of International Law; the Latin American Advisory Committee of the City of Miami, and the International Foundation Eloy Alfaro (Ecuador). He is the recipient of decorations from the Governments of Panama, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, and of the "Man of the Year Award" from Alianza Interamericana, Miami (1970), Dr. Aguirre and his family reside in Miami Shores, Florida.

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