[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 146 (Monday, October 3, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6040-S6041]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  CUBA

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in 
the Record an article highlighting the Castro regime's continued abuse 
of the Cuban people as they organize efforts to create a freer Cuba. 
The people being held unjustly and abused in Cuban prisons--as well as 
those being intimidated and repressed outside of prison--need the 
continued support of America.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 3, 2011]

                 America's: Cuba's Repression Escalates

                      (By Mary Anastasia O'Grady)

       Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson returned home from 
     an attempted hostage-rescue mission to Cuba last month empty-
     handed and ``still scratching [his] head'' as to why the 
     Castro regime double-crossed him. What is truly baffling is 
     why Mr. Richardson expected anything different from a 
     dictatorship operating in extreme-repression mode.
       In a Sept. 14 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Mr. 
     Richardson said he had been invited to the island to discuss 
     the release of U.S. Agency for International Development 
     contractor Alan Gross. Mr. Gross was arrested in December 
     2009 and is serving a 15-year sentence.
       Mr. Richardson admitted that he got stiffed by Cuba's 
     ``foreign ministry, which a lot of the people there I know 
     and have been friends'' with. What he could not grasp is why 
     those ``friends''--a strange designation for individuals who 
     might one day be hauled before an international human-rights 
     tribunal--don't appreciate the Obama administration's 
     outreach. Yes, they are ``hardliners,'' he admitted, but they 
     ought to understand that the White House has been bending 
     over backward to get along.
       Actually they do understand, and that's why they treated 
     him so badly.
       Mr. Richardson told Mr. Blitzer that he was 
     ``flabbergasted'' when, after a ``delightful'' three-hour 
     lunch discussing how U.S.-Cuba relations might be improved--
     including, he told me by phone Friday, the possibility of 
     removing the country from the list of state sponsors of 
     terrorism after the release of Mr. Gross--the foreign 
     minister ``slammed me three ways: one, no seeing Alan Gross; 
     no getting him out; and no seeing Raul Castro.''
       What happened was very predictable. The ``loosened travel 
     restrictions'' and increased ``remittances [from] Cuban-
     Americans'' that Mr. Richardson cited as signs of Mr. Obama's 
     willingness to deal are read as weakness by the bullying 
     regime. It has something, i.e., somebody, the U.S. wants back 
     very badly, and the administration acts as if it is 
     powerless. Why should Castro deal?
       Mr. Richardson did even less for Cuba's dissidents. One 
     Richardson pearl of wisdom, shared on CNN, was that Cuba's 
     ``human-rights situation has improved.'' In fact, human 
     rights in Cuba are rapidly deteriorating. To claim otherwise 
     is to abandon the island's brave democrats when they most 
     need international solidarity.
       Ask Sonia Garro, pictured in the nearby photo (See 
     accompanying photo--WSJ October 3, 2011) . . . For years Ms. 
     Garro has denounced the regime's discrimination against Afro-
     Cubans. Despite her own poverty, in 2007 she created a 
     recreation center in her home for poor, unsupervised 
     children, according to a report by an independent Cuban

[[Page S6041]]

     journalist. One of her goals: to get young girls out of 
     prostitution. Ms. Garro is also a member of Ladies in 
     Support, a group that pledges solidarity to the Ladies in 
     White, which was founded by the wives, sisters and mothers of 
     political prisoners in 2003 to work for their liberation.
       In October 2010, Ms. Garro was detained by state security 
     and held for seven hours. She emerged from the ordeal with a 
     broken nose. Another woman taken into custody with Ms. Garro 
     had her arm broken.
       The nongovernmental organization Capitol Hill Cubans has 
     reported that in the first 12 days of September, authorities 
     detained 168 peaceful activists. These ``express detentions'' 
     are designed to break up dissident gatherings, which risk 
     spreading nonconformist behavior. Locking up offenders for 
     long periods would be preferable, but the regime wants people 
     like Mr. Richardson to go around saying that human rights 
     have improved. The regime is also making greater use of 
     civilian-clothed ``rapid response'' brigades that are 
     trained, armed and organized to beat up democracy advocates.
       Mr. Richardson told me he considers Cuba's record improved 
     because 52 political prisoners were sent to Spain in 2010. 
     Yet exiling promising opposition leadership hardly qualifies 
     as a humanitarian gesture. Nor are gruesome Cuban prisons 
     anything to ignore.
       Last month in a speech in New York, one former prisoner, 
     Fidel Suarez Cruz, described his seven years and seven months 
     of solitary confinement, including two years and eight months 
     in a cell with no windows, ventilation or artificial light. 
     One favorite pastime of his torturers: Four military men 
     would pick him up and then drop him on the floor. His 
     testimony, posted on Capitol Hill Cubans website, is required 
     viewing for anyone who doubts the evil nature of this regime.
       Nevertheless, Cuba's dissidents remain relentless, and 
     there are signs that the regime is giving up on the express-
     detention strategy. Fearless democracy advocate Sara Marta 
     Fonseca and her husband Julio Leon Perez have been in jail 
     since Sept. 24. Ms. Fonseca's son has seen her and says she 
     is black and blue all over and has an injury to her spinal 
     column. Word is the regime is preparing to charge the couple; 
     11 other dissidents are awaiting trial. Meanwhile, Yris Perez 
     Aguilera, the wife of the prominent dissident Jorge Luis 
     Garcia Perez ``Antunez,'' and two peers were detained on 
     Sept. 26. Their whereabouts are unknown.
       Any hope of protecting these patriots lies in international 
     condemnation. Mr. Richardson could help by returning to CNN 
     to correct the record.

                          ____________________