[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 27, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E27]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CUBA'S POLITICAL PRISONERS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 27, 1998

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, as Jose Marti, the Cuban patriot said: 
``The sufferings endured for the sake of winning freedom make us love 
it the more.'' Dr. Eugenio De Sosa probably knows more than most of us 
about that love for freedom and what it is like to live without it. 
Eugenio De Sosa, now in his seventies, was a successful businessman in 
a pre-Castro Cuba. Educated in the University of Havana, he earned his 
degree in diplomatic and consular law and became Editor and board 
member of the daily newspaper, Diario de la Marina, the oldest and one 
of the most prominent of Latin American publications.
  In December of 1959, Dr. De Sosa's life was changed forever. He was 
arrested by Castro's forces for conspiring against the regime and was 
forced to serve a prison term of 21 years in Cuba's gulags. The torment 
endured by Dr. De Sosa during his prison term included routine beatings 
and torture, both physical and psychological. Eventually he was 
transferred to the Havana's Psychiatric Hospital where, along with 
other political prisoners, he was forced to live among the violently 
insane. In addition to being subjected to the brutality of the guards 
and deranged prisoners, he was forced to ingest psychotropic drugs and 
endure electroshock treatments at the hands of Castro's thugs.
  After 21 years of suffering through what seemed to be an endless 
nightmare, this courageous Cuban compatriot was set free. Dr. De Sosa 
arrived in the United States on January 18, 1980. He has enjoyed 
tremendous success since his arrival in Miami and is a source of pride 
to his family and community. Dr. De Sosa's story is but one of the 
thousands of examples of those whose lives have been scarred and torn 
apart by the last tyrannical dictator left in the Western Hemisphere, 
Fidel Castro. Let his story be an example of the strength of the human 
spirit, of the fragility of freedom and of the hope of millions of 
Cubans living under Castro's brutal regime to one day be free.

                          ____________________