Political Quotes

“As the attention of the world has been focused on the pre-1991 Soviet behavior of President Putin in Crimea, I come to the floor to remind the American public and Members of this body that there is also a full-fledged humanitarian rights crisis ongoing in our own hemisphere, just 90 miles away from our shores in Cuba. As Ukrainians courageously fight to protect the democracy they won when the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago this summer, the Cuban people continue to suffer from the oppression of a Soviet-style dictatorship that denies them the most basic rights. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, millions of people--from Kiev to Budapest to Africa to Asia-- were given their first chances in decades to build their own governments, a first chance to organize democratic elections, the chance to begin to determine their own futures. Since the end of the Cold War, peace, prosperity and progress has largely been the order of the day for hundreds of millions of people but not for the people of Cuba. Not one of those core principles of democracy can be found on the island. Fidel and Raul Castro have been the only names on any ballot in over 50 years. Not one free election has been held, not one Cuban has been allowed to own their own company, not one legitimate trade union has been allowed to be organized, and not one peaceful protest has occurred without being brutally squashed by the regime. No, this is the reality of Cuba today.…”