Fighting For Democracy And Human Rights In Cuba

Floor Speech

Fighting For Democracy And Human Rights In Cuba

Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I had the privilege a few days ago to speak by telephone with one of the great heroes that fight for democracy and human rights in Cuba, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, ``Antunez.'' He is in the city of Placetas in Cuba. His house is surrounded by thugs of the dictatorship. He is continuously harassed, often detained, has spent 17 years as a political prisoner, and was recently released. Yet he continues his fight, peacefully, nonviolently, against the totalitarian system in Cuba, in that island that has been forgotten by the world, and yet its people continue to suffer under the yoke of a brutal, totalitarian, nightmarish regime led by a dictator who is infirm now, he is sick. By virtue of that, he has turned over some titles, titles of power to his brother, but yet he retains, Fidel Castro, retains absolute personal power, total power in that totalitarian fiefdom.

His brother receives visitors, heads of state and has some titles of power, but be not mistaken, the totalitarian power remains in the hands of Fidel Castro, who, for example, is the one that orders that heroes like Antunez be detained or released, that heroes such as Oscar Elias Biscet or Rolando Arroyo or Pedro Arguelles Moran or Normando Hernandez or Ariel Sigler Amaya or Librado Linares or Horacio Pina or Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso or Hector Maceda or Felix Navarro or Rafael Ibarra and countless others be retained in the gulag being tortured simply because those heroes support the ability for the Cuban people to have the rights, for example, that the American people, or free people throughout the world have.

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez told me, when I spoke to him on the phone about the fact that his wife's brother, his wife is Iris Perez Aguilera, and she is also a fantastic, formidable freedom fighter. Her brother, Mario Perez Aguilera, is in the gulag being tortured, and is being denied access, visits by his family. In other words, Iris cannot visit her brother who is in horrible physical condition. We don't know how gravely ill, but we know he is very ill, and he is being denied access. His family cannot visit them.

So I told Antunez that I would come to this floor and use the great privilege given to me by my constituents to tell the world about the brutality that Mario Perez Aguilera, that political prisoner, and the many others, that they are facing day in and day out, and the added inhumanity of not being able to be seen by their family members.

The island that the world ignores. And what is most tragic is that it is 90 miles from our shores and for over 50 years, it has been in the grasp of a demented despot who orders such actions as the ones I have discussed this evening.

So I will continue to denounce the brutality, the inhumanity, and I will also continue to remind the world that despite that brutality, Cuba will soon be free.

To be continued.

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