[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 41 (Friday, March 9, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FREEDOM FOR RENE MONTES DE OCA MARTIJA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 9, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Rene Montes de Oca Martija, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Montes de Oca Martija, Secretary General of the Pro Human Rights 
Party in Cuba, is a peaceful pro-democracy and human rights activist 
who has courageously denounced the cruel policies of the dictatorship 
and demanded freedom for the Cuban people. Although he has been a 
constant target of the brutal tyrant's machinery of repression, he has 
remained steadfast in his demands for freedom, democracy, and that the 
people of Cuba be allowed their inalienable rights.
  Mr. Montes de Oca Martija, as early as the age of 8, has been a 
target of the dictator's villainous regime. On more than one occasion 
as a child he was persecuted and denied the most basic of human dignity 
in treatment simply because his mother was a Jehovah's Witness and 
considered a threat to the totalitarian regime. Although he has been 
jailed and detained on numerous occasions, Mr. Montes de Oca has always 
maintained his steadfast opposition to Castro's tyranny.
  Most recently, on July 13, 2005, Rene Montes de Oca Martija was 
wrongfully arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Havana honoring 
the victims of the 13 de Marzo tugboat massacre of 1994 in which 72 
men, women, and children attempting to flee the Cuban dictatorship in 
search of freedom, were chased down and attacked by Castro's security 
thugs, who mercilessly sank the 13 de Marzo. More than half of the 
unarmed refugees on the tugboat were systematically assassinated by 
drowning at the direct order of Castro while they were fighting to stay 
alive in the waters.
  On December 13, 2006, Amnesty International reported their concern 
that Mr. Montes de Oca would not receive a fair trial in totalitarian 
Cuba since the right to a fair trial is severely limited in Cuba, with 
the courts and prosecutors under government control. Amnesty 
International went on to say that they believed that Mr. Montes de Oca 
had been detained solely for exercising his most basic human rights to 
freedom of expression, association and assembly.
  On February 27, 2007, after being locked in the totalitarian gulag 
for nearly 2 years, without ever being convicted of any genuine crime, 
Mr. Montes de Oca Martija was sentenced to 2 years on trumped-up 
charges of public disorder and locked in a dungeon in deplorable, life 
threatening conditions.
  Mr. Montes de Oca Martija is one of the many heroes of the Cuban pro-
democracy movement who are locked in the dungeons of the dictatorship 
for their beliefs. My Colleagues, we must not stand by in acquiescence 
while pro-democracy activists are suffering in the depraved prisons of 
tyrants. We must demand the immediate and unconditional release of Rene 
Montes de Oca Martija and every political prisoner in totalitarian 
Cuba.

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