[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 26975-26976]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN CUBA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I had the 
privilege a few days ago to speak by telephone with one of the great 
heroes that fight for democracy and human rights in Cuba, Jorge Luis 
Garcia Perez, ``Antunez.'' He is in the city of Placetas in Cuba. His 
house is surrounded by thugs of the dictatorship. He is continuously 
harassed, often detained, has spent 17 years as a political prisoner, 
and was recently released. Yet he continues his fight, peacefully, 
nonviolently, against the totalitarian system in Cuba, in that island 
that has been forgotten by the world, and yet its people continue to 
suffer under the yoke of a brutal, totalitarian, nightmarish regime led 
by a dictator who is infirm now, he is sick. By virtue of that, he has 
turned over some titles, titles of power to his brother, but yet he 
retains, Fidel Castro, retains absolute personal power, total power in 
that totalitarian fiefdom.

[[Page 26976]]

  His brother receives visitors, heads of state and has some titles of 
power, but be not mistaken, the totalitarian power remains in the hands 
of Fidel Castro, who, for example, is the one that orders that heroes 
like Antunez be detained or released, that heroes such as Oscar Elias 
Biscet or Rolando Arroyo or Pedro Arguelles Moran or Normando Hernandez 
or Ariel Sigler Amaya or Librado Linares or Horacio Pina or Ricardo 
Gonzalez Alfonso or Hector Maceda or Felix Navarro or Rafael Ibarra and 
countless others be retained in the gulag being tortured simply because 
those heroes support the ability for the Cuban people to have the 
rights, for example, that the American people, or free people 
throughout the world have.
  Jorge Luis Garcia Perez told me, when I spoke to him on the phone 
about the fact that his wife's brother, his wife is Iris Perez 
Aguilera, and she is also a fantastic, formidable freedom fighter. Her 
brother, Mario Perez Aguilera, is in the gulag being tortured, and is 
being denied access, visits by his family. In other words, Iris cannot 
visit her brother who is in horrible physical condition. We don't know 
how gravely ill, but we know he is very ill, and he is being denied 
access. His family cannot visit them.
  So I told Antunez that I would come to this floor and use the great 
privilege given to me by my constituents to tell the world about the 
brutality that Mario Perez Aguilera, that political prisoner, and the 
many others, that they are facing day in and day out, and the added 
inhumanity of not being able to be seen by their family members.
  The island that the world ignores. And what is most tragic is that it 
is 90 miles from our shores and for over 50 years, it has been in the 
grasp of a demented despot who orders such actions as the ones I have 
discussed this evening.
  So I will continue to denounce the brutality, the inhumanity, and I 
will also continue to remind the world that despite that brutality, 
Cuba will soon be free.
  To be continued.

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