[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 4926]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               FREEDOM FOR ROBERTO DE JESUS GUERRA PEREZ

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 4, 2006

  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
speak about Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez, a political prisoner in 
totalitarian Cuba.
  Mr. Guerra Perez is an independent journalist and a chronicler of 
truth amid the lies and deceit of Castor's villainous regime. He writes 
about the reality of the reprehensible repression inflicted on the 
Cuban people by the dictatorship. Because of his belief in truth in 
print, truth for the people of Cuba, and truth to enable the world to 
better comprehend the daily horrors of totalitarian Cuba, Mr. Guerra 
Perez was a target of the tyrannical regime. Make no mistake, brave men 
and women who seek truth and freedom are the enemies of Castro's 
totalitarian dictatorship.
  According to Reporters Without Borders, Mr. Guerra Perez was arrested 
for ``disturbing the peace'' on July 13, 2005, while staging a fast 
along with a dozen other opposition activists to protest against the 
incessant harassment of independent journalists. Over eight and half 
months later, he is still locked in the totalitarian gulag and still 
waiting for a trial.
  Castro's ruthless machinery of repression does not stop after 
sentencing innocent Cubans to the totalitarian gulag. In the U.S. 
Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices--2005, 
it is reported:

       Prison conditions continued to be harsh and life 
     threatening. Conditions in detention facilities also were 
     harsh. Prison authorities frequently beat, neglected, 
     isolated, and denied medical treatment to detainees and 
     prisoners, particularly those convicted of political crimes 
     or those who persisted in expressing their views . . . 
     Prisoners sometimes were held in ``punishment cells,'' which 
     usually were located in the basement of a prison, with 
     continuous semi-dark conditions, no available water, and only 
     a hole for a toilet.

  To protest these grotesque abuses, Mr. Guerra Perez has conducted 
four hunger strikes to call international attention to the inhuman 
treatment in the gulag. In a cry of solidarity for Mr. Guerra Perez, 
Reporters Without Borders said, ``We are all the more concerned about 
this hunger strike as he had only called off the preceding one a few 
days before and he was still very weak. There are no serious grounds 
for holding him as all he did was describe what life is really like for 
Cubans. We demand his immediate release.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is intolerable for Mr. Guerra Perez to languish in a 
gulag where he is abused and tortured. It is morally abhorrent that, in 
the 21st Century, brave men and women like Mr. Guerra Perez are still 
locked in repugnant gulags for reporting the truth. My Colleagues, we 
must demand the immediate and unconditional release of Roberto de Jesus 
Guerra Perez and every prisoner of conscience languishing in the 
totalitarian gulags of the nightmare called the Castro regime.

                          ____________________