Date: 2009-12-14
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Madam Speaker. Senator BOB MENENDEZ gave an important speech last Thursday. December 10. opposing concessions to the dictatorship of Cuba. In his speech Senator MENENDEZ read out loud an open letter which had been sent by one of Cubas true heroesa giant of the resistance to the Cuban tyrannyJorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez." here photographed with his wife. Yris Perez Aguilera. a letter to the titular Cuban dictator. Raul Castro. on Tuesday. December 8. "Mr. Raul Castro." Antunez wrote. "for months now my wife Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera and I have been kept in extrajudicial house arrest by your political police. Mr. Dictator. let me ask you some questions that may help clarify some doubts for those fellow countrymen of mine who may at some point have had hope your government would reduce the repression or even carry out democratic openings. "What do you feel when you incite or allow people who call themselves men to beat and drag through the streets women like Damaris Moya Portieles. Maria Diaz Rondon. Ana Alfonso Arteaga. Sara Marta Fonseca. Yris Perez and now more recently the blogger Yoani Sanchez? "How can you sleep after your subordinates cruelly beat. more than once. Idania Yanez Contreras while she was pregnant? "How can you and your government talk about the battle of ideas. when ideas constantly face repression with beatings and arrests and years of imprisonment? "Maybe your followers will not dare respond. but I who am in the long list of those who do not fear you. will answer: "You act like that because you are a cruel man. insensitive to the pain and suffering of others. because. loyal to your antidemocratic and dictatorial vocation. you are convinced that dictatorships such as yours can only sustain themselves by fear and torture. and that even the most minimal of openings can end the only thing that interests you: staying in power. "And finally. speaking of my case in particular. I will respond to you without the need to first ask of you the motives for such focused repression against my person." Antunez. by the way. Madam Speaker. now 45 years old. was a political prisoner for 17 years until 2007. He continued to write. "Your government and its lackey -repressive forces cannot forgive my two great and only crimes. First. that for almost two decades of torture and cruelties during my unjust and severe imprisonment. you were not able to break my dignity and my position as a political prisoner. Second. because despite all the violence and harassmentand above all the risk of returning to prisonI have decided to not abandon my country. where I will continue fighting for a change I believe to be as necessary as it is inevitable." Signed. in the City of Placetas. by Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez". Tuesday. December 8. On Friday. December 11. Antunez and his wife. Yris Perez Aguilera. she is a heroine. were violently arrested. The doctrine of Fidel Castros hero Adolf Hitler was again devoutly followed: "The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence." "This is kidnapping." yelled Yris. "Long live human rights." shouted Antunez as they were being beaten and taken away by the Castros political police on Friday. I condemn the brutal arrest of these two heroes by the Castros cowardly thugs. The days of the Castros racist totalitarian tyranny in Cuba are coming to an end. Those who have collaborated with the violence and brutality of the racist regime will face justice and eternal shame. Antunez. Yris Perez Aguilera. her brother. Mario Perez Aguilera. Oscar Elias Biscet. Darsi Ferrer and many other heroic political prisoners of Cuba will be elected the leaders of free Cuba. That change is as necessary as it is inevitable. Because of heroes like Antunez and Yris Perez Aguilera. the day of freedom in Cuba is approaching.