[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 26 (Thursday, February 16, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E210-E211]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING ORLANDO ZAPATA TAMAYO

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MARIO DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 16, 2012

  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, next week, we will commemorate the two-
year anniversary of the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.
  Orlando Zapata Tamayo was a member of the pro-democracy organizations 
Movimiento Alternativa Republicana and the Consejo Nacional de 
Resistencia Civica. He was arrested several times; the last arrest 
occurred on March 20, 2003 during Cuba's notorious ``Black Spring,'' 
while he was taking part in a hunger strike at the Jesus Yanez 
Pelletier Foundation in Havana, to demand the release of Dr. Oscar 
Biscet and other political prisoners.
  Amnesty International began calling for Orlando Zapata Tamayo's 
release shortly after his arrest and referred to him as a prisoner of 
conscience who should be released immediately. He spent more than a 
year in prison before he was actually tried and sentenced in May of 
2004. Although he was originally sentenced to three years in prison for 
``disrespect,'' ``public disorder,'' and ``resistance,'' the length of 
his sentence was extended several times so that he was serving a 
thirty-six year sentence at the time of his death. During his many 
years in prison, he suffered beatings, humiliation, and long periods of 
solitary confinement. According to Amnesty International, on October 
20, 2003, he was dragged on the floor of Combinado del Este Prison by 
his jailers after requesting medical attention. The abuse left his back 
full of lacerations.
  Orlando Zapata Tamayo began a hunger strike on December 3, 2009 to 
protest abhorrent prison conditions and the arbitrary extensions of his 
sentences. His hunger strike lasted more than 80 days. During that 
time, he was deprived of water and ultimately developed pneumonia after 
being kept naked underneath an air conditioner. He died at the

[[Page E211]]

hands of the Castro regime on February 23, 2010.
  Reina Luisa Tamayo, Orlando Zapata Tamayo's mother, declared that the 
regime murdered her son and loudly condemned the atrocity. As a 
consequence, Castro's thugs punished her with harassment, barbaric acts 
of repression, and beatings by hateful mobs in the days and weeks 
following her son's murder.
  Sadly, the two years since Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death have been 
years of increased repression and more murders by the Castro regime. 
The number of political arrests doubled between 2010 and 2011. 
Furthermore, since Orlando Zapata Tamayo's death, the Cuban regime has 
murdered three other brave prisoners of conscience--Juan Wilfredo Soto 
Garcia (d. May 8, 2011), Laura Pollan, inspirational leader of the 
Ladies in White (d. October 14, 2011), and Wilman Willar Mendoza (d. 
January 19, 2012). They are all heroes, and their deaths were all 
immeasurable losses.
  While we continue to mourn the loss of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and the 
senseless deaths of so many other brave activists, his spirit and 
mission have strengthened Cuba's courageous pro-democracy movement. 
Immediately following his death, other political prisoners picked up 
his cause and began hunger strikes of their own. Another great pro-
democracy activist, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (``Antunez''), renamed his 
pro-democracy organization the ``Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Front 
for Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience,'' which continues to 
organize protests and oppose the Castro dictatorship. On June 30, 2011 
in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of 
Democracies unanimously passed a resolution honoring that organization 
and acknowledging its importance to the pro-democracy movement in Cuba.
  I remain outraged that the regime in Cuba robbed the world of such a 
remarkable and courageous leader. But, in many ways, Orlando Zapata 
Tamayo lives. Within the pro-democracy movement that still honors him, 
and among the courageous activists that were emboldened by his 
sacrifice, Orlando Zapata Tamayo has become a symbol of perseverance in 
the face of crushing totalitarianism. His life will forever be a 
blessing to Cuba's brave pro-democracy movement, and his memory will 
outlast the horrors of the dying Castro regime. When the Cuban 
dictatorship is finally relegated to the ash heap of history, Orlando 
Zapata Tamayo will be remembered as a hero who helped to lead Cuba into 
freedom.

                          ____________________