Cuba's Prisoners Of Conscience

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a prisoner of conscience who went on a hunger strike in one of the Cuban gulags, one of the many gulags that is full of political prisoners in that island prison of Cuba.

He went on a hunger strike to protest the multiple constant beatings that he was suffering under, that he and other political prisoners have to deal with on a constant basis. So he did, he went on a hunger strike. And after 80 days of being on a hunger strike, he passed away. He passed away after 80 days on February 28.

Right after that, another pro-democracy activist, very well known, another also former political prisoner named Guillermo Farinas, also began his own hunger strike. Mr. Speaker, he is still on a hunger strike today, 21 days after the death of Mr. Orlando Zapata Tamayo. He is already under very, very difficult circumstances. He is exceedingly frail, and his health is quickly deteriorating. But he is not stopping, again, to protest the conditions of the many political prisoners, but also to protest the lack of freedom, and to demand freedom for all political prisoners in Cuba and demand freedom for all who live on that enslaved island.

On March 11, Mr. Speaker, Felix Bonne announced that if and when Guillermo Farinas were to give his life in this hunger strike, that he would follow him; that he would be willing to give his life on a hunger strike to protest the conditions on the island, to protest the enslavement of all Cuban people, and the mistreatment of the political prisoners.

Today, March 17, 30 women known as the Ladies in White who go and protest peacefully in the streets of Havana, and what they ask for is for the release of the political prisoners, of their relatives, their husbands, their sons, their brothers, today, 30 of them were thrown in prison. They were arrested, again, just because they were asking for the freedom of the political prisoners.

Today's march was led by Reina Zapata. She is the mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo who, as I mentioned, died after 80 days on a hunger strike. Again, they were also arrested, taken away. Some of them had to be sent to the hospital because of the way that they were taken away.

And I mention this, Mr. Speaker, because it is important that the world understand that the people of Cuba are standing up, they are speaking out, they are protesting. They are protesting the conditions on the island, the lack of freedom, the oppression, the brutality of the Castro brothers who have been now the dictators on that island for over half a century.

So it is important that we also stand up and speak out, that we stand side by side with those in Cuba who are giving their all, including their lives, in the cause of freedom.

I know that there are some who still believe that it is okay to excuse those horrors; that we should try to make a buck, if we can, from that regime, with that regime at the expense of the suffering of the Cuban people. But, Mr. Speaker, as you know, there is no more noble people than the American people, which is why the vast majority stand side by side with the suffering of the Cubans, with the cause of a free Cuba.

So it is important that we remember as we debate and as we speak and as we live in freedom that just 90 miles away from the shores of the United States there are people who are suffering and who are dying for the cause of freedom. Mr. Speaker, we stand with them, we admire them, we support them. And we know that that cause will not be in vain, that their deaths will not be in vain, and that Cuba will be free.

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