[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 64 (Friday, May 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      COMMENDING MR. CAMILO DUARTE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 16, 2002

  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize and commend a 
constituent of mine, Mr. Camilo Duarte, for the work he is doing to 
help Colombian Americans and Colombian immigrants in the United States. 
Mr. Duarte is in Washington, DC this week, meeting with Members and 
congressional staff, to discuss the worsening crisis in Colombia, and 
specifically, activities by the FARC terrorist group in Colombia.
  Mr. Speaker, my community perhaps more than any other in the United 
States, is witness to the crisis in Colombia. There is a growing 
Colombian immigrant community in the United States, numbering more than 
280,000 in just Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties of South 
Florida. Many of them have already become U.S. citizens. They are 
mothers and fathers, children, students, businessmen, middle class 
professionals, and workers all seeking a better life. They are hard-
working immigrants which I welcome to my community just as I have 
welcomed others fleeing communist insurgencies in Latin America, or 
coming to America seeking a better life for their children.
  These immigrants are fleeing the violence in Colombia in ever-
increasing numbers and the migration will not stop until the terrorists 
are defeated in Colombia. These immigrants are firsthand witnesses to 
terrorism, narcotrafficking, kidnapping and random violence by the 
Colombian terrorists, which seek to overthrow, with assistance from the 
Cuban dictatorship, the elected government of Colombia.
  Mr. Speaker, we should listen to what the Colombian American 
community, and their leaders, can tell us. I welcome Mr. Duarte to 
Washington, DC and look forward to working with him on issues of mutual 
concern.

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