[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 99 (Wednesday, July 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H6172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            BARBARIC ACTIONS OF RUTHLESS CASTRO DICTATORSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, we recently marked the sad anniversary 
of a dark day in the history of human rights and of Cuba, my native 
homeland.
  It was 4 years ago on July 13, 1994 that thugs of the Castro regime 
purposely attacked and sunk a tug boat filled with Cuban refugees, 
refugees who were attempting to flee the island in search of freedom 
and democracy. It was another example, sadly, of the hundreds already 
available that clearly demonstrate the barbaric nature of the 
dictatorship that has ruthlessly ruled Cuba for 38 years.
  Early in the morning of that day, over 50 Cuban refugees boarded a 
tug boat named the ``13th of March.'' They did not know that all along 
they were being watched by Castro's brutal authorities. After sailing 
about 7 miles in the the open sea, Castro's gun boats began to 
repeatedly ram the tug boat filled with mostly women and children, 
while shooting water guns at the refugees aboard the vessels. Rejecting 
the pleas of mercy from the refugees, the ruthless Cuban soldiers, 
acting under Castro's order, continued to ram the vessel until it began 
to sink, but this was not enough.
  While the drowning refugees asked for help, the Cuban gun boats 
circled around the tug boat wreckage in order to create a whirlpool 
effect that literally sucked the refugees into the bottom of the sea. 
As a result, over 50 people were murdered, most of them women and 
children.
  Here are posters, Mr. Speaker, and it speaks volumes when we look at 
this photograph, and these were young children who were aboard that tug 
boat, small boys and girls who would never be able to live their lives, 
and all for the crime of trying to flee the Communist tyranny that 
engulfs the island of Cuba, and because their parents wanted a better 
life here in the United States for these children.
  Whole families, whose only crime was to seek a new life and freedom, 
were massacred by the Castro regime. One of the survivors of the 
attack, Maria Victoria Garcia Suarez, later recaptured this sad 
incident in an interview. Maria said, ``We begged them not to do it, 
not to shoot more water at us, to stop. There were children aboard, 
that they were going to kill both them and us. Then we cried out to one 
boy who was stationed on the bridge of one of the thugs, and we cried 
at him, that `Jacobo, don't shoot, don't hit us with more water', and 
he just laughed saying, `Let them die.' We cried out, we offered to 
surrender, but they kept spraying us with the water cannons and bumping 
against us. Then later, the boat that was on one side, on the right 
side, hit us hard and we capsized. That's when the boat began to sink 
on us.''
  This tragic incident, Mr. Speaker, is not the exception in the brutal 
history of the Castro dictatorship; it is, sadly, the rule. In the 
almost 40 years of totalitarian rule, thousands of Cubans just like 
these small children have been subjected to torture, to harassment, and 
even to death. The Cuban political prisons continue to be filled with 
dissidents who fight for freedom and for democracy.
  Right now, as I speak, dissidents who dared to publish a document 
criticizing the Cuban communist constitution and asking for more 
democratic reforms on the island remain in prison.

                              {time}  2245

  Many thought that after the Pope's visit to Cuba, the Cuban dictator 
would change. But as he has clearly shown throughout his brutal nature 
in power, he will not change. His only goal is to maintain power at any 
cost without any consideration for the suffering and the misery of the 
Cuban people.
  The best way to remember the murdered refugees of this sad episode, 
these boys and girls, Mr. Speaker, is to continue to fight for the 
freedom of the Cuban people and to let them know that the United States 
and the United States Congress stand in solidarity with their daily 
struggle.

                          ____________________