[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 96 (Thursday, July 21, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               INTENTIONAL SINKING OF CUBAN REFUGEE BOAT

  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, precisely on the subject that my 
colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez] was speaking 
about, I have a further portion of the transcript of the telephone 
conversations with Janet Hernandez Gutierrez, one of the survivors of 
the intentional sinking of the tug boat, which I think is very 
important, as is her entire conversation.
  ``The captain of this tug boat is Jesusito,'' the Polargo 5, that is 
the name of the tug boat. ``He was the one who rammed us from behind 
and cracked the boat, then came to the front and sank us. This man 
[Jesus Martinez] coming with this horror, this cynicism, with that 
murder he committed, that he provoked, they call him the hero at his 
company, the Navegacion Caribe,'' government's navigation, maritime 
company, that is the state, Castro's government navigation, maritime 
company. ``They call him the hero. Then this Polargo 5,'' she goes on 
saying, and this is the tug boat that sank the vessel with the 
refugees, ``this Polargo 5, they want to take it to Nuevistas,'' in 
another port, ``to wait for everything to calm down, but what they 
don't known is that this isn't going to calm down.'' That is Janet 
Hernandez Gutierrez, and she is correct, this is not going to calm 
down.
  I read today a press report of triple hearsay that supposedly a 
relative of a survivor had heard that a judge in Cuba has said that now 
Castro, or in other words the dictatorship apparently feeling the 
condemnation of the Pope, and perhaps other condemnations, despite the 
silence of the international press, even with that, apparently Castro 
now, according to this triple hearsay, is questioning whether it is in 
his interest to continue to consider Mr. Jesus Martinez a hero. He may 
very well put Jesus Martinez before the firing squad tomorrow and say 
that the hero is now in front of the firing squad because that is the 
nature of the due process that exists in the country where a vessel 
full of refugees is purposely sunk while the surrounding vessels are 
shooting high-pressured water with hoses on the women and children in 
the vessel. And they laugh while after having sunk the vessel the 
refugees are drowning. That is the nature of that regime.

                              {time}  2000

  That is the nature of that regime.
  I do not understand. I do not understand the reasons for the lack of 
attention given this tragedy by the international press. I do not 
understand that.
  But I do not understand the lack of attention to so many other 
incidents, and my plea is to the American people: What can we do to see 
if the media can obtain somewhat of a conscience and exercise its 
responsibility of objectivity with regard to the tragedy that is 
occurring in Cuba? What can we do?
  There is a free press, but when a free press obviously has an agenda 
with regard to an issue, in this case an entire people oppressed by a 
regime that has clearly become a regime committed to genocide; when the 
media has an agenda with regard to that regime, what can we in a free 
society do to convince the media to exercise its requirements of 
objectivity?
  Because this is not the only incident, this incident of the vessel 
that was sunk last week.
  In Guantanamo Bay, where the American naval base is, in June of 1993, 
it was seen by eyewitnesses that Castro's thugs machine-gunned swimmers 
repeatedly who attempted to reach the American base, and then with 
fishhooks, after having thrown hand grenades at the swimmers, with 
fishhooks would pick up the cadavers.
  Where was the reporting in the national networks with regard to that?
  I ask the American people; perhaps I did not see it and you did. I 
did not see reporting, not only with regard to last week's tragedy, but 
the fishhooks and hand grenades at the swimmers in Guantanamo. I did 
not see that either.
  When armed attacks occurred by the dictatorship on the people of the 
town of Cojimar in July of 1993, I did not see any reporting on that, 
of armed attacks on unarmed civilians in the town of Cojimar or Regla. 
I did not see that. Obviously there are many things that are occurring 
that we are simply not seeing because there is an agenda.
  We need to continue speaking about this, Mr. Speaker.

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