Sec. 2. Findings

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Congress makes the following findings: In his December 17, 2014, announcement to pursue the normalization of relations with Cuba, President Barack Obama stated, I believe that more resources should be able to reach the Cuban people. So we’re significantly increasing the amount of money that can be sent to Cuba, and removing limits on remittances that support humanitarian projects, the Cuban people, and the emerging Cuban private sector. . In his January 14, 2011, comments on the easing of travel sanctions, President Barack Obama also stated, These measures will increase people-to-people contact; support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people; and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities. .

Article 18 of the 1976 Constitution of Cuba reads, The State directs and controls foreign commerce. . The largest company in Cuba is the Grupo Gaesa (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), founded by General Raul Castro Ruz in the 1990s, controlled and operated by the Cuban military, which oversees all investments, and run by General Raul Castro’s son-in-law, General Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas. On June 3, 2015, the United States House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in support of a provision prohibiting exports to the Cuban military and security services in the Fiscal Year 2016 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill (H.R. 2578), with a recorded vote of 153 to 273 in opposition to House Amendment 308 to strike that provision.

The Cuban military, through its tourism conglomerates, is currently operating resort facilities in properties confiscated from United States citizens. In 2003, a United States grand jury indicted General Ruben Martinez Puente, head of the Cuban Air Force, and two Cuban Air Force pilots, Col. Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez and Francisco Perez-Perez, on four counts of murder, two counts of destruction of aircraft, and one count of conspiracy to kill United States nationals for their roles in the February 24, 1996, attack by Cuban military jets over international waters on two United States civilian Cessna planes operated by the Brothers To The Rescue humanitarian organization.

The 2003 United States indictment against Cuban military officials is the only outstanding indictment against senior military officials from a country designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism for the murder of United States nationals. In a December 17, 2014, article in Politico, United States Representative James McGovern (D–MA) stated that General Raul Castro admitted to giving the order to shoot down the United States civilian planes that resulted in the murder of those United States nationals in 1996.

I gave the order. I’m the one responsible. , Castro told McGovern. One of the Cuban spies exchanged in the December 17, 2014, deal by President Obama with the Cuban regime was Gerardo Hernandez, who was serving a life sentence for murder conspiracy in the deaths of three United States citizens, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Pena, and permanent resident of the United States, Pablo Morales. According to a July 16, 2013, article in The New York Times, the Cuban military played a central role in the 2013 trafficking incident that involved more than 240 metric tons of heavy weapons, including fully fueled MiG fighter jets, missiles, and air defense systems, to North Korea.

A United Nations panel of experts found that the trafficking incident described in paragraph

(11)violated United Nations Security Council sanctions and was the largest weapons cache ever intercepted being transported to or from North Korea. The Cuban military refused to cooperate with United Nations investigators. According to a March 5, 2015, article in The Washington Times, in February 2015, the Colombian authorities intercepted a Chinese-flagged vessel carrying a clandestine shipment of war materiel destined for the Cuban military, via one of its shadow companies, TecnoImport S.A. The shipment, disguised as grain products, included 99 rockets, 3,000 cannon shells, 100 tons of military-grade dynamite and 2,600,000 detonators. According to a March 25, 2014, article in The New York Times and an April 15, 2014, Financial Times article, the Cuban military has provided military intelligence, weapons training, strategic planning, and security logistics to the military and security forces of Venezuela, which has contributed to the subversion of democratic institutions and violent suppression of peaceful protests in Venezuela. The Cuba 2013 Human Rights Report prepared by the Department of State states that the military maintained effective control over the security forces, which committed human rights abuses against civil rights activists and other citizens alike. .