[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 122 (Monday, September 9, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




IN HONOR OF ANA RODRIGUEZ, A REMARKABLE WOMAN WITH AN ENDURING WILL AND 
                            A HEART OF GOLD

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 9, 1996

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today before the House of 
Representatives to pay special tribute to Ana Rodriguez, a woman and 
author of uncommon courage and fortitude. She is a woman who endured 19 
years of her life in a Cuban prison for a cause she and many others 
believed in. A cause which is alive today as much as it was then.
  In 1961, an aspiring young Cuban medical student with a promising 
future joined a fledgling struggle of opposition against one man and 
his repressive regime. Poised with others to defend the principles of 
liberty, she was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 30 years in prison 
for opposing Castro's Communist regime.
  Despite the day-to-day pain, suffering, and solitude of her 
incarceration, Ana Rodriguez found the will to remain faithfully 
committed to the principles of freedom and liberty. In ``A Diary of a 
Survivor,'' she details how Cuban political prisoners were constantly 
beaten, starved, threatened, and confined to dark isolated cells for 
months at a time without water or medical treatment. And through it 
all, she and other prisoners refused to give in to Castro and his 
repressive security force.
   Ana Rodriguez's 19-year struggle for freedom serves as a beacon of 
hope of those who continue to be unjustly persecuted for defending 
principles they believe in. Her life is a testimony to the many men and 
women still suffering today from the same repressive regime which 
shattered her life 35 years ago. Today, the scars of persecution, 
embedded within her memory and in the lives of so many, serve as cruel 
reminder of a regime which continues to silence its people by the use 
of undemocratic and barbaric means.
  I ask my colleagues to please join me in honoring this remarkable 
human being. Her resolve in the face of immeasurable adversity should 
be studied and emulated by all who dare to speak out against tyranny in 
defense of freedom and democracy. And I further ask my colleagues to 
read ``A Diary of a Survivor'' and let her detailed accounts of 
oppression and struggle for freedom serve as an example of similar 
struggles being waged today not only in Cuba but throughout the world.

                          ____________________