Speaker John Boehner is denouncing the Castro government’s new round of harassment of the Cuban dissident who accompanied him as a guest at President Obama’s annual State of the Union speech in January.
Boehner seized on reports that the Cuban government had organized an aggressive round of citywide protests against critics of the Castro regime Tuesday, the same day Obama announced his decision to remove the island nation from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The human rights activist Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who is known as Antúnez, was Boehner’s State of the Union guest. He says the Cuban government and its supporters are targeting him and several other dissidents by shutting down his town of Placeta and ordering people to show up at his door and taunt him.
“The Castro regime’s continued harassment of a peaceful advocate for human rights is yet another reminder that the Obama administration is intent on rewarding repression,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel told the Washington Examiner Wednesday afternoon. “America should be a beacon for democracy — not an apologist for its foes.”
Antunez, the 51-year-old leader of Cuba’s civil resistance movement, served more than 17 years in prison, with the Castro regime releasing him in 2007 ahead of expected European sanctions. He was imprisoned in 1990 after participating in a pro-democracy march.
He described his latest treatment in a brief audio tape circulating among supporters in Cuba and Washington, D.C.
“They’re telling us that we’re going to be refugees or you’re going to be arrested,” Antunez said, referring to the “political police” who shut down offices, shops and schools in the town and told residents to assemble in front of his house and threaten him.
He also said his stepson and the stepson’s girlfriend were hurt in the citywide protests.
The Cuban government-run news agency, Cuba Si, Wednesday ran a story about the protests targeting Antunez, his wife Yris Perez Aguilera and fellow dissident Guillermo Farinas, in Placeta. The story included a video of an angry group of mostly men surrounding Antunez house and the headline “Farinas and Antunez, in villa Clara, civil society is not functioning.”
Villa Clara is a province in central Cuba where the town of Placetas is located.
The article depicts the protests as springing up naturally in the town in response to revelations of a photo of Antunez with a former CIA agent the Cuban government and its supporters say is a terrorist.
Labeling dissidents as CIA spies or sympathizers is a common tactic of the Castro regime and its backers, critics of the Cuban government argue.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who formerly chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is the daughter of anti-Castro refugees from Cuba, said Tuesday’s attack against Antunez is a continuation of the regime’s retribution for his participation as part of a group of Cuban pro-democracy leaders last week in Panama during the Summit of the Americas.
” Even being a guest of Speaker Boehner at the State of the Union and testifying before Congress does not spare anyone from the Castros’ goon squads,” she told the Examiner in a statement. “Only by shining a light on abuses in Castro’s Cuba and standing in solidarity with the Cuban people can we work toward the day when they will enjoy the basic freedoms and liberties denied to them by the communist regime.”
Ros-Lehtinen, a vigorous opponent of reestablishing diplomatic and economic ties to Cuba as long as the Castro brothers are in power, plans to introduce legislation aimed at maintaining the terrorist designation for the island-state.
At the Summit of the Americas last week in which the Cuban government attended for the first time, Antunez was reportedly among a group of pro-democracy demonstrators assaulted by pro-Castro supporters.
Reacting to the violence, Boehner called on Obama to denounce the attacks and condemn the violence in the “strongest possible terms and reaffirm that the United States should and must always stand on the side of human rights and democracy against Community tyranny.”
The U.S. government — though not Obama himself — condemned the violence against protesters in Panama.
“We are deeply concerned by reports of attacks targeting civil society representatives in Panama for the Summit of the Americas exercising freedom of speech,” Acting State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement Thursday, “and harassment of those participating in the Summit of the Americas Civil Society Forum.”
“We condemn those who use violence against peaceful protesters,” she added.
White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan declined to comment on the latest protests outside Antúnez’s home. Instead she referred to Harf’s previous comments condemning the attacks at the Summit of the Americas, as well as similar remarks from other U.S. officials.
Meehan also noted that White House officials have been clear that “we will continue to have disagreements and concerns with Cuban policies, and will continue to raise those concerns with Cubans.”
Boehner, who opposes the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, decried the president’s Tuesday decision to remove the island nation from the terror list.
In a sternly worded statement, Boehner lamented the White House’s determination to “reward” the Castro regime, which he said “has a long record of repression at home and exporting violence throughout the region.”
“Not even a week has passed since the brutal attacks on Cuban democracy protesters Panama City during the Summit for the Americas,” he said.
Boehner so far has not indicated whether he will try to reverse or modify the president’s decision to remove Cuba from the terrorist list, though he hinted of some type of action to come.
“The United States has a responsibility to stand strong for all those who struggle for freedom, and the House of Representatives is committed to doing its part.”
Congress has 45 days to reject Obama’s decision to take Cuba off the list of terrorist state sponsors.
The move to end the terrorist-sponsor designation was a major priority for Cuban President Raul Castro who said opening embassies in both countries could not occur until it was lifted.
