[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3408-3409]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



   STATEMENT OF MARITZA LUGO ACCUSING THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT AND STATE 
                 SECURITY OF VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, despite the visitors, some from this 
body, who are going down to meet with the Cuban dictator and come back 
thrilled, having drooled with the privilege of meeting with him and 
having a banquet in his palace, the reality of Cuba today is quite 
different. The leaders of the Cuba of tomorrow, of the inevitably 
democratic Cuba of tomorrow, are in many instances in the political 
prisons of the totalitarian state today.
  One such young woman, the mother of two, is Maritza Lugo, a Cuban 
political prisoner of conscience. A few days ago she managed to sneak 
out. She knows she is risking her life. But if she had the courage to 
sneak this out for the world to know, I think that I have the 
obligation to read it for my colleagues and those interested to know 
what she says.
  Statement by Maritza Lugo, March 5, 2001, addressed to all people of 
good will who defend human rights.
  She states:

       From this horrible place I come before you, the 
     international organizations who defend human rights, the 
     organizations defenders of democracy, justice, and peace, the 
     religious organizations who promote liberty; the whole world 
     and its people, to denounce the government of Cuba.
       I accuse the dictatorial government imposed on Cuba and its 
     repressive arm, the State Security, of all the injustices and 
     abuses they commit against the Cuban people, the penal 
     population, and especially against the political prisoners of 
     conscience. I accuse those miserable and cowardly men and 
     women who, through the use of force, commit all types of 
     human rights violations, while nothing stops them as they 
     attempt to defend a false revolution built and maintained 
     upon a foundation of lies and infamies.
       As a physically defenseless woman in ill health, as a 
     mother of two unfortunate daughters currently without a 
     mother's care and armed with my religious faith as my only 
     weapon, I accuse.
       I accuse them of publicly blaming every day a foreign 
     country to give a false impression to the Cuban people that 
     they have nothing to be guilty of. And this is why we, the 
     repressed ones, demand that the criminals be sanctioned in 
     the name of all victims that have suffered and continue to 
     suffer in our homeland.
       Stop the continuous wanton detention of innocent people 
     whose only crime is disagreeing with the Castro regime. Stop 
     taking them to inhumane prison cells where they are 
     physically as well as psychologically tortured, as are their 
     family members. They are kept in these prisons for an 
     arbitrary and undetermined amount of time, living among 
     dangerous common criminals and exposed to all kinds of risks. 
     They are kept incarcerated for months without an expeditious 
     trial, serving an unjust sentence while waiting to be charged 
     or tried, as others are tried and unjustly condemned.
       To the dictatorial government, I say, stop denying that you 
     torture people. Stop denying international organizations 
     access to our prisons with the pretext that you do not accept 
     others meddling in internal affairs or that you do not 
     compromise your sovereignty. To promote your agenda, you 
     conveniently allow bribery and deception to prevent the 
     inspection of these prisons according to international law.

  Maritza Lugo continues:

       I denounce that political prisoners are treated differently 
     from other prison inmates. We are more rigorously repressed, 
     even though the behavior of some common prisoners may be 
     undesirable. Political prisoners, ``counterrevolutionaries,'' 
     as they call us, are constantly watched by guards and common 
     prisoners trained for this sole purpose. We are searched more 
     often and more demands are placed on us to follow their 
     stringent so-called rules. The women's prisons are 
     practically uninhabitable due to the putrid water that leaks 
     from the floors above. The sinks are clogged and the 
     prisoners have to do their wash on the floor. We are neither 
     given supplies nor detergents to clean, leaving us to our own 
     resources to solve our problems, using our own pieces of 
     clothing. But this doesn't stop them from making demands on 
     us and passing inspection to check our cleanliness. If they 
     fail you, they submit a report that may carry the possibility 
     of punishment. Medical attention is atrocious and there's 
     hardly any medicine, while the Communist government affords 
     the luxury of exporting doctors and medicine to other 
     countries. This is not done because government officials are 
     kind and generous people. This is done for propaganda 
     purposes only, taking advantage of the misery other nations 
     suffer to sell them their propaganda of solidarity and 
     unselfish interest.
       Stop showing the exterior walls of prisons as well-kept and 
     elegant facades while incarcerated human beings are degraded 
     in extreme dearth.
       I denounce that the prison food is vile.
       Families arrive weary and emaciated bringing bags of food 
     to supply the needs of the prisoners, only to be turned away 
     because authorities fail to notify them that visiting hours 
     have been changed. That is why they don't want international 
     inspectors. They do not want the world to know these internal 
     matters so well known to the innocent political prisoners.
       I denounce that, in the majority of cases, we leave these 
     prisons physically ill, thus history continues to repeat 
     itself as so many of us are imprisoned so many times. That is 
     why the Castro government represses us, implementing laws 
     that penalize any group of two or more people whose ideas 
     resist and oppose the so-called revolutionary government of 
     Castro.

[[Page 3409]]

       I accuse the Cuban government of separating the Cuban 
     family, who, in desperation flee Cuba for political reasons.
       I accuse the so-called ``revolutionary government'' of the 
     political and democratic ignorance our people suffer, as they 
     deceive the unwary people of the world with their propaganda 
     of mass and cultural opinion education. They accomplish this 
     by creating public opinion created by the state using Nazi-
     style techniques copied from Bolshevik Russia where Cubans 
     pay a high price, acting hypocritically as they pretend to go 
     along in public in order to subsist.
       We ask the addressees of these lines, soon to convene in 
     Geneva, Switzerland, at the Human Rights Commission, to 
     discuss Cuba, to consider the ill-treatment of the Cuban 
     people by its own government. I know that no delegation, not 
     even those who defend Castro, will be permitted to come to 
     visit me so they can corroborate this raw truth.

  If any justice exists in the world for Maritza Lugo and her 
denunciation, this government, the government of Castro, should be 
sanctioned for this and so many other violations that they are 
constantly inflicting upon the Cuban population as they deceive and 
laugh at the whole world.
  This, Mr. Speaker, is the reality of Cuba today, from Maritza Lugo, 
President of the 30th of November Democratic Party, from the women's 
prison popularly known as Black Cloak.

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