[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 2, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ORLANDO ZAPATA TAMAYO: A CUBAN HERO

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 2, 2010

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, Friday's Washington Post featured an 
editorial which posed the following question: ``Since the critique of 
the old Cuba policy was grounded in its supposed ineffectiveness, it 
seems fair to ask: Is the new, Castro-friendly approach working?''
  The Post continued, ``A good answer to that question came Tuesday, 
when Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a 42-year old Afro-Cuban political 
prisoner, died after an 83-day hunger strike.''
  Last week, just 90 miles off our shores, Mr. Tamayo's heroic protest 
against his treatment by the Cuban regime tragically ended.
  Mr. Tamayo had been active in several dissident organizations and was 
arrested in 2003 during a government crackdown and sentenced to a 
lengthy prison term. Forced to endure what he described as repeated 
beatings among other abuses, he stopped eating solid foods on December 
3. At the time of his death he was he was facing a total of 36 years in 
prison for a variety of baseless charges, among them ``disobedience.''
  He was not alone in his repression. The U.S. State Department's 
annual human rights report outlines in grim detail the reality of life 
in a country where the government continues to deny its citizens the 
most basic human rights. The 2009 report indicated that at year's end 
there were ``at least 205 political prisoners and detainees. As many as 
5,000 citizens served sentences for `dangerousness,' without being 
charged with a specific crime,'' according to the report.
  I'd be curious to know how many of those political prisoners or their 
families have been visited by any of the international delegations, 
including U.S. congressional delegations, that frequent Havana.
  I have long held the belief--in Democrat and Republican 
administrations alike--that America is most true to its defining 
principles when in the face of tyranny, fear and oppression, we boldly 
speak for those whose voices have been silenced. Ronald Reagan did this 
time and again with the Soviet Union. And when the Wall had crumbled, 
and the dust had settled, stories emerged of dissidents who found the 
hope to carry on when word reached their cells of this American 
president who had raised, by name, their individual plight.
  Let us speak out for heroes like Mr. Tamayo who cannot speak for 
themselves.

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