[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 59 (Friday, April 11, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H3345-H3346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MURDER OF CUBAN FREEDOM SEEKERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today once again to talk about one of 
the last hostile regimes on the planet, an island 90 miles to the south 
of my home State of Florida, Cuba.
  For well over 40-plus years, Fidel Castro has time and time again 
shown his reprehensible disregard for the safety and welfare of his own 
people. His tyrannical regime has forced countless innocent people to 
risk their lives to seek the shores of the United States. What is 
worse, these people go to the furtherest of extremes, even placing 
other countrymen at risk in order to seek freedom.
  On April 2, in another one of the countless stories of Cubans trying 
to seek refuge, a group of three men attempted to take over a ferry 
ship and force it to go to the United States. Though I am in no way 
supportive of hijacking or putting others at risk, it is clear from our 
history with this oppressive Nation that its people will do almost 
anything for just a taste of freedom.
  The men were prosecuted on Tuesday, those three men, in summary 
trials for very grave acts of terrorism and given only a few days to 
appeal their sentences. This pathetic excuse for a judicial system 
never gave these men a chance. I must report to this body that, earlier 
today, these three men were executed.
  Mr. Speaker, these actions were not that of terrorists but those of 
people seeking freedom. It is clear that these men never intended to 
harm anyone. All they wanted was a chance at what millions of Cubans 
have been thirsting for since Fidel Castro took control and took power, 
and that is freedom, a right we in this country enjoy and a right we 
are fighting for today in Iraq. Though these acts should have been 
punished, the penalty was extreme, barbarous, even by the most strict 
of standards.
  I have fought on this floor against terrorism all my life, and I will 
not accept it in any form, but this execution today was clearly a 
message to the Cuban people that freedom is not an option.
  To those colleagues of mine who have suggested over the past year-
and-a-half that we open trade and opportunity with Fidel Castro, they 
need to look at this material and see that this man executed three 
people today. Would these same Members offer a peaceful resolution to 
Saddam Hussein who I consider equally heinous as Fidel Castro? Would 
they suggest going to do trade with Saddam? Let us look at what Fidel 
Castro is all about, and let us recognize what danger he puts his own 
people in.
  We must continue what we do by upholding the sanctions and further 
limiting U.S. government involvement with this rogue Nation. The people 
of Cuba deserve a democracy. Their leader is a tyrant, a dictator and 
now, based on this evidence, a murderer. Many of us have known that. My 
colleagues, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart), the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) and the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), have all been telling this body about the 
horrors of the oppression, of the silencing of people merely trying to 
get a democracy in place in that Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, if anyone must be put in front of a firing squad it is 
Mr. Castro himself for these despicable acts.

[[Page H3346]]

  So I ask and urge my colleagues to be as outraged as we are in 
Florida. This was murder of three citizens. This was murder, a trial of 
3 days, an appeal of 24 hours and a firing squad a day later.
  This is the Nation we want to do business with? This is the Nation we 
want to trade with? This is a person my colleagues want to ship goods 
and medicine to? Prop up his regime? I think not.

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