[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 39 (Wednesday, March 17, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H1566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CUBA'S PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak 
about Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience who went on a 
hunger strike in one of the Cuban gulags, one of the many gulags that 
is full of political prisoners in that island prison of Cuba.
  He went on a hunger strike to protest the multiple constant beatings 
that he was suffering under, that he and other political prisoners have 
to deal with on a constant basis. So he did, he went on a hunger 
strike. And after 80 days of being on a hunger strike, he passed away. 
He passed away after 80 days on February 28.
  Right after that, another pro-democracy activist, very well known, 
another also former political prisoner named Guillermo Farinas, also 
began his own hunger strike. Mr. Speaker, he is still on a hunger 
strike today, 21 days after the death of Mr. Orlando Zapata Tamayo. He 
is already under very, very difficult circumstances. He is exceedingly 
frail, and his health is quickly deteriorating. But he is not stopping, 
again, to protest the conditions of the many political prisoners, but 
also to protest the lack of freedom, and to demand freedom for all 
political prisoners in Cuba and demand freedom for all who live on that 
enslaved island.
  On March 11, Mr. Speaker, Felix Bonne announced that if and when 
Guillermo Farinas were to give his life in this hunger strike, that he 
would follow him; that he would be willing to give his life on a hunger 
strike to protest the conditions on the island, to protest the 
enslavement of all Cuban people, and the mistreatment of the political 
prisoners.
  Today, March 17, 30 women known as the Ladies in White who go and 
protest peacefully in the streets of Havana, and what they ask for is 
for the release of the political prisoners, of their relatives, their 
husbands, their sons, their brothers, today, 30 of them were thrown in 
prison. They were arrested, again, just because they were asking for 
the freedom of the political prisoners.
  Today's march was led by Reina Zapata. She is the mother of Orlando 
Zapata Tamayo who, as I mentioned, died after 80 days on a hunger 
strike. Again, they were also arrested, taken away. Some of them had to 
be sent to the hospital because of the way that they were taken away.
  And I mention this, Mr. Speaker, because it is important that the 
world understand that the people of Cuba are standing up, they are 
speaking out, they are protesting. They are protesting the conditions 
on the island, the lack of freedom, the oppression, the brutality of 
the Castro brothers who have been now the dictators on that island for 
over half a century.
  So it is important that we also stand up and speak out, that we stand 
side by side with those in Cuba who are giving their all, including 
their lives, in the cause of freedom.
  I know that there are some who still believe that it is okay to 
excuse those horrors; that we should try to make a buck, if we can, 
from that regime, with that regime at the expense of the suffering of 
the Cuban people. But, Mr. Speaker, as you know, there is no more noble 
people than the American people, which is why the vast majority stand 
side by side with the suffering of the Cubans, with the cause of a free 
Cuba.
  So it is important that we remember as we debate and as we speak and 
as we live in freedom that just 90 miles away from the shores of the 
United States there are people who are suffering and who are dying for 
the cause of freedom. Mr. Speaker, we stand with them, we admire them, 
we support them. And we know that that cause will not be in vain, that 
their deaths will not be in vain, and that Cuba will be free.

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