Providing for Consideration of H.R. Reversing the Youth Tobacco Epidemic Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Madam Speaker, I urge defeat of the previous question so that we can amend, as the gentleman just explained the rule, to immediately consider my resolution condemning Senator Sanders' blatantly false comment regarding the racist, terrorist, murderous Castro regime in Cuba.

I have said this before: If anybody wants to know the devastation of socialism and the tyranny that so often accompanies it, I invite you to speak to some of my constituents, including thousands of former political prisoners now in exile. Let me just mention some of those.

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, ``Antunez''; Angel de Fana; and Roberto Martin Perez. There are so many others who are in south Florida who have suffered in the prisons of Cuba just because they have asked for and fought for freedom.

But there are also former political prisoners who are still on the island, and I can mention many of them. Let me just mention Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, who just recently was arrested, harassed, and then it looks like potentially released; and the relatives of current political prisoners such as: Jose Daniel Ferrer, Mitzael Diaz Paseiro, Miguel Diaz Bauza, and Yanet Perez Quevedo. You can't speak to them because they are in prison currently, but you can speak to their relatives.

All of them have witnessed firsthand the destruction that socialism causes. All of these political prisoners have to be released at once. That is what we should be demanding.

Now, unfortunately, this is not new coming from the Progressive movement. But I remind Senator Sanders and the Progressive movement that the Castro regime is not only a threat to the national security interests of the United States, but also to the democracies in our hemisphere.

I want to remind Senator Sanders of the Cuba regime's close relationship with some of the world's worst thugs, such as Iran. Iran and the Cuban regime held the first Iran-Cuban business forum in Tehran in August of 2019 and have signed memorandums of understanding affirming their commitment to expanded trade and coordination. There were, just recently, two high-profile visits of the Iranian so-called Foreign Minister and also the so-called President of Iran to Cuba in 2016.

For years, the Cuban regime has been on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for their support of other terrorist states, terrorist organizations, and violence around the world and in this hemisphere.

In 2013, the Cuban regime, I remind folks, was caught smuggling weapons to North Korea in the largest violation of international sanctions against that rogue regime.

It has been propping up the Maduro regime with thousands of intelligence operatives to oppose the Venezuelan people and, in some cases, to kill the Venezuelan people.

The Cuban regime has been harboring fugitives from U.S. justice, including FBI's most wanted terrorist Joanne Chesimard and terrorist bomb maker William Morales. That is just to name a few.

So that is why, Madam Speaker, I filed the resolution that condemns the blatantly false comments of Democratic Socialist candidate for President Senator Bernie Sanders.

This resolution also rejects the false claims that Cuba's healthcare, education, and literacy rate have improved as a result of the Castro regime, the Castro dictatorship. Those claims have been debunked by numerous sources.

Let me just go over a couple of facts.

According to a State Department report, Cuba's infant mortality rate was 32 of 1,000 live births, one of the best in the Western Hemisphere. But, Madam Speaker, this was not Castro. This is in the 1950s, pre- Castro.

Cuba's life expectancy was also one of the highest in Latin America in the 1950s, pre-Castro. No, it wasn't Castro. This was pre-Castro.

Cuba's literacy rate was one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere, pre-Castro in the 1950s.

Those are the facts, Madam Speaker, the realities of Cuba.

In Cuba now, over 1 million people--in a country of just 11 million-- have risked everything to try to find freedom, to try to get away from that socialist tyranny. Many have perished on rafts as they place themselves and their children at risk in shark-infested waters for just a chance at freedom.

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Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Madam Speaker, why would they do this if things in Cuba are just not all that bad?

Again, in contrast, during the pre-Castro Cuba, more Americans were traveling to Cuba and going to Cuba than Cubans coming to the United States.

Today, now, Madam Speaker, here we have an opportunity to condemn Senator Bernie Sanders' blatantly false and hurtful comments regarding the racist, terrorist Castro regime. Join me in standing in solidarity with the Cuban people and, by extension, also solidarity with the Venezuelan people who are working to regain their freedom against what the OAS Secretary General has called the Cuban army of occupation in Venezuela.

So join me in standing in solidarity with the people and not with the regime that oppresses them.

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