[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15677]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     LAURA POLLAN, DAMAS DE BLANCO

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I came to the Senate floor 
because over the weekend a very noble lady in Cuba passed away of a 
heart attack, and I want to tell you about her.
  Her name is Laura Pollan. She founded the group Ladies in White, 
Damas de Blanco. She did so to protest the brutal Castro regime in 
Cuba, and her protest was specifically the jailing of 75 people in a 
crackdown on dissidents in 2003, one of which was her husband. Many of 
those who were imprisoned were married to the ones who became known as 
the Ladies in White, including Senora Pollan's own husband, Hector 
Maseda.
  Since 2003, Laura had gathered the group on most weekends in central 
Havana after church. Everybody would wear white and they would hold 
gladiolas, a flower that is typical in warm climates. They would stage 
their marches, and they would demand the release of their loved ones, 
since 2003 when their husbands were jailed.
  Damas de Blanco defied this brutal dictatorship, the Castro regime. 
For its human rights work, the European Parliament awarded the group 
the 2005 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Just this year, the 
U.S. Government gave Damas de Blanco the Human Rights Defender Award 
for ``exceptional valor in protecting human rights in the face of 
government repression.''
  Damas de Blanco succeeded earlier this year--succeeded. In the face 
of this brutal dictatorship, it succeeded when the last of the 75 
imprisoned were finally released, including Laura's husband. She and 
her husband only had 8 months together before she died of a heart 
attack last week.
  Despite this group's achievement, Laura Pollan lamented earlier this 
year that:

       As long as the government is around, there will be 
     prisoners . . . while they've let some go, they've put others 
     in jail. It is a never-ending story.

  Mr. President, it is a never-ending story, and isn't it typical; here 
is a regime that still holds an American citizen there now for 2 years, 
Alan Gross. Alan Gross is in ill health. His daughter here in the 
States has cancer. Is this regime showing any kind of compassion? Of 
course not. Did it show any kind of compassion to those Ladies in White 
and their husbands when they swept in, in the middle of the night, 
scooped them up and put them in prison because they dared to speak out 
their free thoughts?
  It reminds us of another regime, one on the other side of the globe, 
Iran, which still imprisons an American, Bob Levinson, a former FBI 
agent. They still deny they have him, and yet there is plenty of 
evidence they do have him. And yet we wait. In Bob Levinson's case, a 
wife and seven children wait, and have waited for years and years.
  So we say, like Damas de Blanco--just like they said they will 
continue to challenge the regime until the day all the Cuban people are 
able to enjoy the blessings of freedom--that is all they want. It is so 
sad that because of the ties between America and Cuba, with so many 
families having been split, with it being only 90 miles away from Key 
West, there is a brutal dictatorial regime that still imprisons its 
people. But there is one thing they can't imprison: they can't imprison 
their minds and their yearning for freedom.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded and that I be allowed to speak in morning 
business for as much time as I may consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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