[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6996-6997]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              BERTA SOLER

  (Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, it should come as no surprise that 
President Obama has agreed to arm Communist Vietnam and that he 
continues

[[Page 6997]]

to extend diplomatic niceties and concessions to authoritarian regimes 
that show no intention of changing their brutal tactics.
  These overtures to the Castros in Cuba have resulted in a prominent 
human rights defender, Berta Soler--right here in this poster--the 
leader of the peaceful prodemocracy group, the Ladies in White--Las 
Damas de Blanco--and 27 others being arrested this week and facing 
charges of resistance because only in Communist regimes and under 
ruthless dictatorships is nonviolent opposition to the regime 
considered a crime. Peaceful dissidence, resistance, is a crime in 
Cuba.
  For all of the engagement--the concession after concession to the 
ruthless dictatorship--it has not moved the Castros even 1 inch toward 
freedom, toward human rights, toward the rule of law, toward democracy.
  The people of Cuba deserve better.

                          ____________________