[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 77 (Thursday, May 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5739-H5740]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NOMINATING LEONEL MOREJON ALMAGRO FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

  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, tomorrow morning approximately 60 
members of this House, including the Speaker, will be sending a letter 
to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament, the entity that 
designates the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, to nominate Leonel 
Morejon Almagro, the National Delegate of the Concilio Cubano, the 
Cuban Council, an umbrella of over 140 pro-democracy groups in Cuba, 
for the Nobel Peace Prize.
  Mr. Morejon Almagro is at this time a political prisoner at the State 
security prison at Villa Marista in Havana. Mr. Morejon Almagro is a 
31-year-old attorney who was dismissed from his position as a lawyer 
because of his defense of numerous political prisoners in court. In 
1986 he founded NaturPaz, Nature Peace, a peaceful environmental group 
that was prohibited by the Cuban dictatorship. Shortly after its 
founding, NaturPaz supported a ban on all nuclear weapons testing in 
the world. In 1991 he was detained by Cuban State Security for 
organizing a peaceful demonstration in front of the UNESCO office in 
Havana to protest the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the environmental 
destruction that it caused.
  In 1986 and 1987, Mr. Morejon Almagro, at great personal risk, taught 
ecology and pacifism to students in school and criticized Cuban 
involvement in the Angolan and Ethiopian conflicts.
  He played a decisive role this year in the formation of Concilio 
Cubano, as I stated, a coalition of over 140 peaceful pro-democracy 
organizations in Cuba. And he was elected a National Delegate of 
Concilio Cubano on February 10, 1996. He was arrested 5 days later, 
charged with resisting authority, and sentenced to 6 months in prison. 
He began a hunger strike after his arrest and his mother told 
independent journalists in Cuba that she feared for his life and 
believed that he was being subjected to psychiatric torture, including 
electroshocks. Upon appealing his sentence, Mr. Morejon Almagro was 
resentenced to 15 months instead of 6 months imprisonment. He has been 
declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. The 
National Vice-Delegates of Concilio Cubano also remain in prison to 
this day, Lazaro Gonzalez and Mercedes Parada Antunez, the latter in a 
hospital. The regime stated that she would be subjected to surgery and 
has not specified what it has meant by that.

  Just as Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident leader, received the 
Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and before

[[Page H5740]]

that, Desmond Tutu in 1984 and Lech Walesa in 1983 and Andrei Sakharov 
in 1975 and Martin Luther King in 1964, Mr. Morejon Almagro at this 
time deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. He represents, Mr. Speaker, an 
entire new generation of Cubans which is fighting from within the 
totalitarian nation to achieve freedom and the reestablishment of 
democracy. That is why Castro fears Leonel so much.
  By awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize, not only would the great work 
of Mr. Morejon Almagro be duly recognized, in this way hopefully 
contributing to his physical protection at this extraordinarily 
difficult time of political imprisonment, but also the important work 
of the entire internal opposition in Cuba would be honored. The 
importance of all who risk their lives by being members of Concilio 
Cubano as well as the rest of the internal opposition and the 
independent journalists in Cuba would all be recognized by the awarding 
of the Nobel Peace Prize to Leonel Morejon Almagro.
  With regard to the independent press, Mr. Speaker, just a few days 
ago, perhaps the most well known independent journalist in Cuba, Rafael 
Solana, was put on an airplane and expelled, sent to Madrid where he 
very reluctantly arrived, vowing to continue his work and of course to 
return as soon as Cuba is free.
  Olance Nogreras, another well-known independent journalist, was 
picked up just hours ago by State Security. The repression is 
intensifying in an extraordinary manner within Cuba.
  We must fight and with this nomination of Leonel Morejon Almagro for 
the Nobel Peace Prize, we are fighting against the great conspiracy of 
silence that exists in the international community against the Cuban 
tragedy, Mr. Speaker. This conspiracy of silence will be grasped in all 
its magnitude only when Castro is history and all the political prisons 
are opened.
  The true story of the Cuban tragedy is really not being focused upon. 
Humberto Real, a Cuban patriot, has been sentenced to death by the 
dictatorship in the last weeks but the Cuban people continue to 
struggle.
  That is why I am proud of my colleagues who joined me in signing this 
letter today in nomination of Mr. Morejon Almagro for the Nobel Peace 
Prize, and of course our struggle will continue because it is very just 
and necessary.

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