[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 124 (Thursday, July 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S4913]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  Cuba

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, throughout my career, I have been 
proud to amplify the voices of freedom fighters around the world, brave 
men and women working to secure the blessings of liberty that we enjoy 
here in America. And I have repeatedly shone a floodlight on the 
oppressive regimes that stand in their way. I have championed the pro-
democracy movement in Burma, the brave advocates for freedom in Hong 
Kong.
  Right now, the loudest cries for liberty are coming from pretty close 
to home. After enduring 60-plus years of socialist tyranny just 90 
miles from American soil, the people of Cuba are telling the world they 
have had enough--had enough. They have had enough of a regime that has 
stolen their dreams for decades. They have had enough of its 
stranglehold on information and on prosperity. They have had enough of 
its intimidation and its repression.
  The past week's demonstration in the streets of Havana should 
represent a major turning point in the Cuban people's movement toward 
liberation. The regime's failed communist ideology has saddled 
generations of Cubans with a backward economy, inadequate services, and 
no means of justice or dissent.
  Now, some naive Americans on the left seem intent on once again 
running interference for the Cuban regime. They still buy the 
propaganda that Cuba is a socialist paradise--paradise--with a model 
healthcare and education system that we should actually emulate. But 
the Cuban people see a different reality: an open-air prison that 
communism has run right into the ground.
  Since the 1950s, the blight of Castro rule has driven many Cubans to 
flee to the United States. Generations of immigrants and their 
descendants have lived out and are living out American dreams of 
prosperity, achievement, and service. We are blessed to call them 
fellow Americans.
  As Senator Rubio put it so well this week, ``The only country on this 
planet where Cubans are not successful is Cuba.''
  My hometown of Louisville is actually home to one of the largest 
Cuban-American populations in any American city outside of Florida. In 
recent days, this vibrant community has rallied by the hundreds in 
support of Cuban protesters. As one of these fellow Kentuckians of mine 
put it, ``The only voice they have is us.''
  The brave men and women who have taken to the streets in Cuba are 
demanding freedoms they have been denied their entire lives. They 
deserve our strong support. I am proud to cosponsor a new resolution 
with Senator Rubio and several other colleagues to communicate 
precisely that.