The Center for Security Policy’s 4th Annual Latin America Symposium on Capitol Hill

On October 29, the Center for Security Policy’s Menges Hemispheric Security Project convened its fourth annual Latin America Symposium on Capitol Hill. The half-day program focused on two issues: 1) the domestic repression and foreign adventurism of Cuba’s Castro regime in the wake of President Obama’s normalization of relations with Havana and 2) the rapidly deteriorating political, economic and security situation with regard to the one-time patron, now client of Cuba: Venezuela.

The Symposium featured remarks by the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Chairman Emeritus, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and two panels of former senior U.S. government officials, national security experts, human rights activists, prominent academics and a top international journalist. The participants persuasively argued that the Obama opening to Cuba is providing legitimacy and life-support to one of the world’s most odious dictatorships and that Venezuela’s conduct warrants its listing as a state-sponsor of terrorism.

In addition to Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, the following made remarks in the course of the program:

Menges Hemispheric Security Project Director Nancy Menges
Dr. Jose Azel, Director of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies
Frank Calzon, Director of the Center for a Free Cuba
Jose Cardenas, former Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean
Venezuelan expatriate human rights activist Adriana Vigilanza
Emili Blasco, correspondent with Spain’s ABC Network and the author of Bumeran Chavez
Amb. Otto Reich, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and former US Ambassador to Venezuela
Counterterrorism expert Joseph Humire, the Executive Director of the Center for a Secure Free Society AND
Dr. Luis Fleishman, the Menges Project’s Senior Fellow and editor of its Americas Report

Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., who served as the program’s moderator, said at the conclusion of the Latin America Symposium:

“The powerful, fact-based and analytically rigorous interventions by these world-class authorities underscore a reality lost on most Americans: The stakes regarding developments in Cuba and Venezuela – and, indeed, in much of the Western Hemisphere – could not be higher for the United States. The Castro brothers’ regime is a metastasizing cancer in our region, as is its client in Venezuela. President Obama’s much-ballyhooed rapprochement with the former is national security fraud. His administration’s ongoing efforts to achieve a similar outcome with the latter would greatly compound that act of malfeasance.”

Panel 1: Cuba

Professor Jose Azel: The Essence and Implications of the US-Cuba Deal

Senior Research Associate, Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS), University of Miami
Holds a master degree in business administration and a Ph,D in International Affairs from University of Miami

Frank Calzon: The Political Prisoners and Human Rights Situation in Cuba

Director, Center for a Free Cuba
holds a BA and MA in political science from Rutgers and Georgetown Universities
Born in Cuba

Jose Cardenas: The Problematic International Connections of the Cuban Regime

Former Chief of Staff to Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
Former Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin American and the Caribbean, USAID

Panel 2: Venezuela

Adriana Vigilanza: Problems within Venezuela and Fraudulent Elections

Lawyer
Human Rights Activist
Received a law degree from Central University of Venezuela and a masters of Comparative Law at NYU.

Emili J. Blasco: The Criminal affects of the Chavez Leadership

ABC Correspondent in Washington
Author of “Bumeran Chavez”

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: On Cuba & Venezuela “They are the greatest offenders in the Americas”

Representative for the 27th district in Florida
Chairwoman for the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa in the House and Foreign Affairs Committee
Former Chairwoman in the House and Foreign Affairs Committee

Ambassador Otto Reich: The U.S. Relationship with the Venezuelan Regime

Presiden of Otto Reich Associates
former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela
former Undersecretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs

Joseph Humire: Venezuela as a State Sponsor of Terrorism

Eight year veteran of the United States Marine Crops. He served in combat tours in Iraq and Liberia
Was Director of Institute Relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Currently an Executive Director at the Center for a Secure Free Society

Dr. Luis Fleischman: Closing Remarks – “We need to be in-sync with the people of Latin America.”

Menges Hemsipheric Security Project, CSP
Adjunct professor of sociology and political science at Florida Atlantic University Honors College
Editor of the Americas Report