[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.
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