In Senate Hearing, Rubio Challenges Obama Administration On Cuba, Colombia

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women’s Issues held a budget authorization hearing to review the budget requests of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and the Office of Global Women’s Issues.

In his opening remarks, Rubio addressed the importance of these issues for the Department of State and for America’s role in the world, and reviewed some of the challenges facing the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere and around the world.

In his exchanges with Obama Administration officials, Rubio expressed his concerns regarding the security of our Interests Section in Cuba and the possibility of the Interests Section in Havana being infiltrated by Cuban intelligence agents , and asked about the impact of these concerns on the transition of the Interests Section into an embassy (20:40). Rubio also touched on the Cuban military’s smuggling of weapons from China and to North Korea (31:30).

Rubio also inquired whether the U.S. had received a request from the Colombian government to release narco-terrorist Simón Trinidad, who is currently in U. S. custody, as part of its peace negotiations with the FARC (15:50), to which the administration replied that at the present time there were no discussions about his release.

Rubio’s other questions focused on “The Girls Count Act” (7:15), The National Action Plan for Women, Peace, and Security (9:26), religious freedom around the world (10:44), and the persecution of Christians in the Middle East (12:56).

Read more: http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=7d385bb2-e81e-4e86-97d1-0fe42d5d8fd6