Text of a speech given by Louis Zúñiga, a former Cuban citizen who spent nineteen years in Cuban concentration camps for daring to oppose the communist takeover of his homeland, at a Human Rights Torch relay Forum held in Miami Florida on April 12. Mr. Zúñiga is a member of the Former Cuban Political Prisoners Association and the International Union of Anti-communist ex-Political Prisoners.
Once again we meet again to renounce the crimes and injustices that are prevailing in communist countries, especially in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba.
Today we sadly see how the world prepares to attend the largest sports event—the Olympic Games. The world's mass media keeps its eyes and consciences closed, not to see that the games will take place in China, which is the country with the largest number of oppressed people in the world—people deprived of their most basic rights.
China, with large economic growth rates and attractive investment opportunities, is also a Hell for the majority of its citizens. The Chinese people have no freedom of expression of freedom of the press. There is no freedom to practice religion—especially for Falun Gong believers. The Chinese people have no labor rights, despite the communists saying that their countries are "Proletarian Paradises." In China workers have no right to strike or organize into independent unions.
In China there are no political rights. The Chinese communist Party monopolizes all political decisions. The CCP owns the government, into perpetuity. Mixed together with this is government corruption. Chinese leaders enrich themselves and ignore the poverty of most Chinese people. Outside the thin coastal region where most foreign factories are located, there is a huge hinterland where poverty reigns. Poverty in rural China is scary.
This country, which claims to have one of the largest economies in the world, has the majority of its people living in shameful poverty. While forty percent of its villages have no running water, the Chinese regime spends billions of dollars sending a man to outer space. While the military boast of having sophisticated weapons, there is no welfare system to care for the elderly and the sickly people.
Today, China spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the Olympics, with the only purpose being to generate positive press reports, telling how majestic the opening ceremonies will be, and how luxurious are the stadiums for the events. The priority of the Chinese communist regime is to get the greatest amount of positive publicity possible so as to hide its political dictatorship, its control over the lives of its citizens and the offensive poverty in rural China.
None of the newspapers or TV networks will write about or show the Chinese regime's rampant corruption, the high levels of pollution, the fragile banking system, or the violation of human rights.
The reports of highly respected human rights organizations do not appear in the headlines. Not shown are the facts that the Chinese regime executes more people than any other country, executes people for organizing political parties, puts millions of its citizens in concentration camps with out trial, that huge numbers die every year due to state-sanctioned torture; nothing is heard in the media about how Chinese prisoners have their organs removed even before they are declared dead.
The horrors in China are similar to those faced by the citizens of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba.
Behind the communist "economic liberalization," there is a remarkable increase in political repression, seeking to maintain tight control over the population. Anyone protesting or challenging the dictatorship is beaten and thrown in prison.
At this time we demand from the media a decent degree of honesty to reject the threats and pressure of the communist regimes, where the condition for receiving entry visas to the countries is silence.
The protests and rallies that we see today all around the world because of Tibet, should serve to show what a trial it is to live in communist China, which is similar to the hardships faced by people in other communist countries.
Pedro Fuentes, also form the Cuban ex-Political Prisoners' Association, added: "I just want to bring to you this thought—it was the theme of a recent conference we attended in the Czech republic; this thought is that the anti-communists of the world should unite."
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