Plan to Meet Castro Prompts Jab by Official : Rep. Levine and Abrams Squabble Over Cuba

In an unusually acrimonious exchange, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams accused California Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) on Wednesday of “spitting in the faces” of Cuba’s human rights advocates, and Levine derided Abrams as “a frustrated man who’s presided over a failed policy.”

Abrams charged that Levine, who is planning to visit Cuba next week, told State Department officials that he would not meet with any dissidents in Havana if that might endanger his chances of a meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

“For a United States congressman to allow a dictator to tell him whether he’s allowed to see human rights activists should be universally condemned, whether the dictator is of the left or right,” Abrams said in an interview.

“For a congressman who claims to be an advocate of human rights to spit in the faces of human rights activists in Cuba simply plays into Castro’s hands,” he said. “It will demoralize the human rights activists.”

Levine, stung, responded that he has in fact requested several meetings with human rights activists and said he would never plan a visit to Cuba without meeting dissidents.

“This diatribe of Elliott Abrams illustrates why he is held in such low regard in the Congress,” Levine said. “The fact is that I have requested a number of meetings in Cuba which include human rights meetings to a very large degree. . . . Apparently Elliott is so blinded by his ideological prism that it impairs his ability to see and hear facts.”

Levine acknowledged, however, that he thinks a meeting with Castro would be more important than meetings with dissidents.

“If it were to come down to that choice, I think that one could potentially have a greater impact on human rights by raising those issues with Castro than by raising them with anyone else,” he said. “To choose to see Castro certainly is not a choice against human rights and provides an opportunity to raise those issues with him directly.”

He said that he expects to meet with several human rights organizations during his three-day visit.

“I think it’s a parting shot by a frustrated man who’s presided over a failed policy,” Levine said. “And that’s my parting shot in return.”