[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2172]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  FREEDOM FOR ARNALDO RAMOS LAUZERIQUE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 10, 2005

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Arnaldo Ramos Lauzerique, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Ramos Lauzerique is a member of the Cuban Institute of 
Independent Economists and the Assembly to Promote Civil Society. He 
believes that Cuba should be and will be free from the nightmare that 
is the Castro regime. He believes that the Cuban people are entitled to 
human rights, democracy, and freedom from tyranny. Because he believes 
in freedom and because he actively and peacefully advocates for 
liberty, Mr. Ramos Lauzerique has been targeted by. the despotic 
regime.
  In March 2003, as part of the tyrant's heinous island wide crackdown 
on peaceful, pro- democracy activists, Mr. Ramos Lauzerique was 
arrested by the regime. In a sham trial, he was sentenced to 18 years 
in the totalitarian gulag.
  Mr. Ramos Lauzerique is over 60 years old and languishing in the 
revolting, hellish gulag. However, being confined in these inhuman 
conditions has not stopped him from continuing to demand justice for 
the people of Cuba and his fellow political prisoners. Amnesty 
International reports that Mr. Ramos Lauzerique has participated in at 
least two hunger strikes while imprisoned in Castro's dungeon. He has 
undertaken these strikes to bring attention to the repulsive squalor of 
the gulag, the lack of medical attention, and the barbaric punishment 
cells; all in defiance of the machinery of repression that has unjustly 
confined him in these repugnant conditions.
  Mr. Speaker, it remains categorically unacceptable that men and women 
who demand freedom from tyranny are locked in the dungeons of 
tyrannical monsters. Here, under the dome that represents modern 
democracy, we must continue to demand the liberation of all who suffer 
in the darkness of totalitarianism. As we continue to exercise our 
democratic rights, let us never forget those who are struggling to 
liberate their own nations. My Colleagues, we must demand the immediate 
release of Arnaldo Ramos Lauzerique and every prisoner of conscience 
locked in Castro's totalitarian gulag.

                          ____________________