[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               MURDER OF INNOCENTS IN CUBA GOES UNNOTICED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my colleague from New 
Jersey [Mr. Menendez], in condemning in the strongest possible terms 
the brutality committed just last week by the Cuban dictatorship 
against more than 70 unarmed refugees in a tugboat who were seeking to 
escape the oppression of Communist Cuba.
  As today's Miami Herald I think very eloquently states in an 
editorial, it asks,

       Has our hemisphere grown so used to the Cuban regime's 
     savagery that it cannot summon a cry of outrage for the 
     nearly 40 Cuban refugees sent to their deaths by Fidel 
     Castro's government? The prudent silence over Cuba's 
     murderous sinking of a tugboat loaded with escapees is 
     without justification. Would this complicitous silence greet 
     the murder of innocent men, women and children fleeing other 
     places?

  My colleague just spoke about the very likely invasion of Haiti, 
which is certainly being contemplated, and may very well take place in 
the next few weeks. Well, Cuba is even closer to the United States than 
Haiti. There is even a greater national interest in what occurs 90 
miles away than what occurs in a more distant island. The closest 
island in the Caribbean to the United States is Cuba, and for 35 years, 
a brutal dictatorship has oppressed a people, and the world stands in 
silence.

  The reality of the matter is that even with this incident, where more 
than 40 unarmed refugees were assassinated by a dictatorship just a few 
days ago, I ask the American people watching on C-SPAN, how many of you 
have seen or have heard this news in the media? Have you seen in the 
networks coverage of this brutal assassination by a government 90 miles 
away from our shores, upon unarmed refugees? Have you heard that on 
CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN? Have you heard that? Have you seen that in the 
network news? I have not. I hope I am wrong, but no one has informed me 
there has been coverage of that news.
  Like the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez] stated, what will 
it take before the suffering of the Cuban people is heard in the 
international community?

                              {time}  1940

  What will it take before the newspapers and the media in this country 
and in the international community pay attention to the suffering that 
is occurring 90 miles, not in Somalia, not in Bosnia, not even in 
Haiti, 90 miles from our shores? How long will it take? What has to 
happen, Mr. Speaker, what has to happen for the Cuban people to be 
heard?
  What has to happen before the international community demands 
elections and freedom for those people, like it demands elections and 
freedom and the restoration of democracy, for example, in Haiti and 
like it demanded elections and freedom from apartheid in South Africa? 
What has to happen?
  But we are not talking about 10,000 miles away. We are not talking 
about 5,000 miles away. We are not talking about 500 miles away. We are 
talking about 90 miles away from our shores.
  Just a few days ago, when I first heard about this story, I issued a 
press release, because since, in the last 6 weeks, two boats have 
arrived on the shores of south Florida, after having been shot at by 
Castro's Navy, and yet they managed to arrive anyway here on the shores 
of freedom. It did not take too much to assume that when this tugboat 
sank that there was a very high possibility of, if not probability, 
that it had been purposefully sunk by Castro's thugs.
  So in a press release issued on that same day of the incident, I 
stated, ``Up until this time, a number of news reports regarding this 
incident have been extremely worrisome. Since they have continuously 
referred''--and I have them here, Reuters and AP and AFP and a number 
of others, ``since they have continuously referred to the `rescue' of 
refugees by Castro's armed forces after a boat capsized. By not making 
even the slightest reference to the possibility,'' this was Wednesday, 
``that this incident is similar to others where Castro's armed forces 
shot upon vessels filled with unarmed refugees, these news reports 
reflect an extraordinary lack of seriousness, objectivity and 
sensitivity.''
  Well, confirmation came. Because even though the men that survived 
are now in prison, the women and children that survived--very few 
children survived, by the way, Mr. Speaker, but they are under House 
surveillance. And as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez] 
stated, a number of them, I have had the opportunity to listen to three 
personal reports from survivors, women, and they have told the story 
and they have explained about how the murder took place and the 
purposeful sinking. Yet I have not seen to this day either in the 
networks or in the wires a story with that specific story told with 
regard to the actual occurrence of the assassination.
  So something is happening. For some reason, there is a practice that 
is not reflective of a free press, but rather a press with an agenda. 
My time may have run out, but this subject must be discussed further.

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