[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 152 (Tuesday, November 4, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H9867-H9868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SHAME ON VENEZUELA

  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, a few years ago, actually more than 6 
or 7 years ago, the gangster who used to be the President of Mexico, 
Carlos Salinas, and his accomplice in some crimes and other activities, 
the former Prime Minister of Spain, Felipe Gonzalez, created a 
conference that meets every year named the Iberoamericana Summit and 
they invite the Latin American countries, heads of state and 
government, and of Spain and Portugal. They all curtsy to the king of 
Spain as though Spain still rules in this hemisphere every year when 
they meet, but the main purpose of Carlos Salinas' and Felipe Gonzalez' 
little gathering was to bring into the club and give credence and help 
out in every way possible their friend and certainly their accomplice 
in business and crime, the dictator of Cuba.
  So the decrepit tyrant is invited every year to these meetings of 
elected heads of state and government, and he sits there and he 
demagogues and offends the United States and lies about history, and of 
course offends even his own people, the people of Cuba, year in and 
year out.
  It is grotesque that they have invited to that putrid system that 
they created called the Iberoamericana Summit, it is putrid because of 
the fact that it was born with that tyrant and it is offensive that 
they invite that tyrant year in and year out.
  In a few days they will have another meeting, this time in Venezuela, 
with the decrepit tyrant, which of course the good news is not only is 
he decrepit and in his last months, but certainly his last years, 
because the good Lord is finally deciding to take him away.
  But something happened yesterday in Venezuela as they prepare for the 
summit in a few days where they have invited again the decrepit, bloody 
tyrant and will treat him with all of the honors which really, Mr. 
Speaker, is beyond the pale. Cuban exile organizations went, as they 
have gone every year, to meet with all who will listen, to meet with 
the press, to have press conferences, to denounce what the decrepit, 
Cuban bloody tyrant does to his people. And the Government of 
Venezuela, led by President Caldera, yesterday arrested the Cuban exile 
leaders, some of them, by the way, Venezuelan citizens, and is 
expelling them from Venezuela so that the decrepit, bloody Cuban tyrant 
does not even have to have, in the country that he is in, anybody 
expressing any view in dissent of what the decrepit, bloody Cuban 
tyrant does to his own people.
  So what President Caldera did is not only beyond the pale, it is 
condemnable, it is grotesque. It has gone beyond appeasement, Mr. 
Speaker, and it is in fact a disgusting, a disgusting act which now has 
become cowardly complicity with the torture apparatus of the decrepit 
tyrant in Havana.

[[Page H9868]]

  Shame on Venezuela, shame on Rafael Caldera. This will go down in 
history as something that will mark his history forever. The Cuban 
people, when the Venezuelans suffered a dictatorship, were hosts to 
Caldera and to other democratic leaders of Venezuela, in solidarity and 
in friendship, during the dictatorship of Perez Jimenez, and other 
dictatorships that the Venezuelans have to suffer.
  Now, notice how the Cuban people are reciprocated by leaders, 
mediocre leaders, such as this man, Rafael Caldera. The Cuban people 
will not forget and the friends of the Cuban people in the United 
States and elsewhere will not forget this act of cowardice, this 
shameful act of cowardice. This is an act of mediocrity and an act of 
cowardice and shamefulness.
  If there is any dignity left, Mr. Speaker, in the Venezuelan 
Government, they must forthwith apologize and readmit the Cuban exile 
leaders so that they may peacefully be able to express dissent against 
the horror, the oppression, the murder, the torture, the random arrests 
that the Cuban tyrant is continuing to engage in to this moment against 
the Cuban people.
  While a nation of 11 million people die at the hands of a murderous 
madman, much of the world and especially this hemisphere, Mr. Speaker, 
is led by men who make the word ``mediocrity'' seem like statesmanship 
in comparison. Men who are more than mediocre, men who commit acts of 
shame such as the one committed by Caldera. Shame on Venezuela.

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