[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 51 (Friday, March 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E635]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E635]]
             FREEDOM FOR FRANCISCO HERODES DIAZ ECHEMENDIA

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 23, 2007

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Francisco Herodes Diaz Echemendia, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Diaz Echemendia is a member of the respected Pedro Luis Boitel 
organization named for Pedro Luis Boitel, a heroic, legendary Cuban 
political prisoner who died in a hunger strike in 1972. This 
organization, based in Placetas, Villa Clara, with provincial 
delegations throughout Cuba, has the primary objective of urging the 
Cuban tyranny to grant amnesty to all political prisoners and to 
abolish the indefensible ``political'' crimes in totalitarian Cuba. 
Well aware of the consequences associated with his involvement in 
Cuba's pro-democracy movement, Mr. Diaz Echemendia has never 
relinquished his dream that the men and women of Cuba deserve freedom, 
democracy, and fundamental human rights.
  Because of his belief in these inalienable rights, Mr. Diaz 
Echemendia was arrested by the dictatorship on August 9, 1990 on absurd 
charges of ``enemy propaganda, sabotage, and disrespect'' which 
amounted to nothing more than his decision to voice the truth about 
totalitarian Cuba. For his supposed ``crime'' Mr. Diaz Echemendia was 
wrongfully and cruelly ``sentenced'' to twenty years and ten months in 
the totalitarian gulag.
  On September 10, 1997, after being held in a subhuman dungeon for 
seven years, over thirty of the tyrant's security thugs savagely 
attacked Mr. Diaz Echemendia and other incarcerated human rights 
activists. Mr. Diaz Echemendia was mercilessly punched and kicked on 
the neck, ribs, back and face. By the time the thugs ceased committing 
their crimes against him he had suffered severe injuries to his left 
arm and his nose and lips had been split wide open. To add insult to 
injury he and his fellow political prisoners were handcuffed and unable 
to defend themselves against their attackers throughout the entire 
brutal assault.
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Diaz Echemendia languishes in conditions that 
according to Amnesty International are rat infested and crawling with 
mice and cockroaches, with nothing but a small hole in the ground as a 
``bathroom''. In prison Mr. Diaz Echemendia has been beaten and 
tortured at the orders of a racist, brutal, maniacal tyrant, simply for 
dreaming that the Cuban people must have basic and fundamental 
universal human rights.
  Madam Speaker, this is only one of the abhorrent episodes of violence 
that are continually carried out on countless innocent Cuban men and 
women languishing in the darkness and infernal hell that is Castro's 
gulag. Let me be clear, Mr. Diaz Echemendia suffers cruel and malignant 
acts of hatred and horror, which have often left him, like many others 
on that oppressed island, in critical condition without any access to 
medical care. And yet, though the tyranny has attempted to destroy Mr. 
Diaz Echemendia, he will never cease in his commitment to freedom for 
Cuba.
  My colleagues, it is unconscionable that just 90 miles from our 
shores Mr. Diaz Echemendia is languishing in a totalitarian gulag for 
his belief in freedom. My Colleagues, we must demand the immediate 
release of Francisco Herodes Diaz Echemendia and every prisoner of 
conscience in totalitarian Cuba.

                          ____________________