Statement on Meeting With Mario Chanes de Armas

I am honored to welcome to this house and to this country one of the heroes of our time. Mario Chanes de Armas was freed from prison in Cuba after having spent three decades as a political prisoner of the Castro regime. He is a living testimony to the unbending will to strive for liberty and dignity.

He sacrificed the best years of his life to the ideal that he and his fellow citizens will be free. The full might of dictatorship was brought to bear against him. Yet, it could not break his spirit. It is men and women like him who have built our land into a beacon of freedom and hope for the oppressed peoples of the world.

Our meeting today is a symbol to those brave Cubans who remain in prison on political charges or who struggle daily, risking their lives, for the twin causes of human rights and democracy. Our message to these courageous people is simple: The United States will not rest until all of the peoples of this hemisphere enjoy the fruits of freedom and democracy.