Lincoln Diaz-Balart: “Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opporunity to put into a little bit of a perspective or context the murders of Saturday.…”

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opporunity to put into a little bit of a perspective or context the murders of Saturday. As I stated briefly before, it was back in December when 130, over 130 pro-democracy groups in Cuba came together and formed a sort of parliament. The whole gamut of the ideological range is represented by what is known as the Cuban Council. From Christian Democrats and supporters of limited government to Democratic socialists, the whole gamut of pro-democracy people in Cuba came together, and they announced to the world that they had come together. They have differences, but they came together on the concept of elections, democracy, respect for human rights, release of all political prisoners. They were going to meet publicly for the first time. They sent a letter to Castro asking for authorization to meet, and they did that in December. They asked the Catholic Church's cardinal in Cuba to be present as an observer. They asked the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Change to also send observers.”