[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 24, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   SORROW AND OUTRAGE AT THE DEATH OF CUBAN DISSIDENT ORLANDO ZAPATA 
                                 TAMAYO

  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my deepest sorrow and 
outrage at the death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. 
Imprisoned since 2003, he had been on a hunger strike for several 
weeks. He first heard he was seriously ill last week, and yesterday, he 
died at the prison clinic.
  Zapata Tamayo paid the ultimate sacrifice for his commitment to 
changing Cuba's system. He commands our respect. No one has starved 
himself to death in a Cuban prison in over 40 years. Surely, the Cuban 
Government could have and should have intervened earlier to have 
prevented this tragedy. His death is on their conscience.
  I have always felt and continue to believe that, if we are truly 
going to do a better job of standing with the Cuban people, then we 
need to be closer to them and in greater numbers. We need to travel 
freely to the island to meet and to learn from them and they from us. I 
hope that day comes soon so we can tell all of the Cuban people that we 
remember the sacrifice of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

                       [From the Washington Post]

           Activists: Cuba Dissident Dies After Hunger Strike

       Havana--An opposition political activist imprisoned since 
     2003 died Tuesday after a lengthy hunger strike, members of 
     Cuba's human rights community said.
       Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who was jailed on charges including 
     disrespecting authority, died at a clinic at Havana's 
     Combinado del Este prison, according to Vladimiro Roca, a 
     leading dissident who said he spoke to Zapata Tamayo's 
     family.
       Zapata Tamayo, 42, was not among the island's best-known 
     dissidents. He was arrested in 2003 on charges of 
     disrespecting authority, said Elizardo Sanchez, head of the 
     Havana-based, independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights 
     and National Reconciliation.
       He was sentenced to three years in prison, which Sanchez 
     said was lengthened to 25 years, in part because of his 
     political activism while behind bars.
       Sanchez said Zapata Tamayo staged a hunger strike for weeks 
     before his death. His family first announced last week that 
     prison doctors said he was gravely ill.
       Relatives were transporting Zapata Tamayo's remains to his 
     hometown in Holguin province, said Roca, a former fighter 
     pilot and son of a legendary communist leader who served 
     nearly five years in prison himself for his opposition 
     political beliefs.
       Word of Zapata Tamayo's death was first reported on Cuban 
     exile radio stations in southern Florida, which broadcast an 
     interview with his mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo.
       Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida--and 
     the nephew of Fidel Castro's ex-wife, Mirta Diaz-Balart--said 
     on the floor of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday that the 
     dissident's ``condition and fate are the Castro brothers' 
     doing.''
       Hours later, as news of Zapata Tamayo's death spread, the 
     congressman issued a second statement declaring that his 
     ``murder by the tyrant Fidel Castro and his cowardly jailers 
     will never be forgotten.''
       U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, of Florida, said in his own 
     statement that ``freedom-loving people everywhere should hold 
     the Cuban regime responsible for the fate of Orlando Zapata 
     Tamayo.''
       ``His reported death today is a sad reminder of the tragic 
     cost of oppression and a dictatorship that devalues human 
     life,'' Nelson said.
       Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, also of Florida, noted 
     that Amnesty International declared Zapata Tamayo a 
     ``prisoner of conscience'' in 2003.
       ``The Cuban government's stunning lack of respect for human 
     rights was highlighted by Orlando as much in his life as in 
     his death,'' Meek said in a statement.

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