He dies in Miami, the former Cuban-American former Lincoln Díaz-Balart. It served by the Republican Party at the US Congress in Washington DC between 1993 and 2011.
The Cuban-American ex-congressor (Republican for Florida) Lincoln Díaz-Balart, died Monday at his home in Miami, his family reported in a statement on social networks.
“With great regret we announce the death of Lincoln Díaz-Balart. (…) Defender of the silenced and oppressed, author of the democratic requirement for the lifting of the US sanctions against the Cuban dictatorship and author of the Nicaraguan adjustment law and help Central America (Nacara), said the representative Mario Díaz-Balart.
Lincoln was educated in Spain and the United States, where he graduated from law and his practice of law allowed him to exercise law in Miami, called the capital of Cuban exile.
He was the son of the prominent Cuban politician Rafael Díaz-Balart who served during the Fulgencio Batista period between 1954 and 1958 in Havana, Cuba, the family was linked to the Cuban ruler Fidel Castro, whose wife, Mirtha Díaz-Balart was his aunt.
His political career amounted from the House of Representatives and the Senate in Florida in the early 1980s until he reached a seat in the House of Representatives for the 21st district of Florida in the Capitol in Washington.
Lincoln is attributed the main effort in the Cuban -American lobby of the 1990s against the government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, mainly in the Hispanic Leadership Institute of Congress (CHLI), which co -founded in 2003.
When the news was known, political functions and other personalities immediately reacted on Monday.
Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, sent the condolences to the Díaz-Balart family and said in A statement that the former congressman offered testimony “of his deep love for the United States and the cause of freedom and democracy.”
Rubio added that “Lincoln Díaz-Balart's life and legacy are a tribute to American dream and the unwavering defense of human rights and democracy in our region.”
“A very sad day for Miami,” republican representative María Elvira Salazar said from his account.
The republican congressman for Florida, Carlos Gimenez described him as “Titan”, thus highlighting the “leadership” of Díaz-Balart's work in the political spectrum for Cuba.
The former Colombian president, Iván Duque, also lamented the death of the Cuban American politician, who thanked the support he gave him during his career.
The Hispanic congressional conference issued a statement in which it transmitted its “prayers” and condolences to the Díaz-Balart family “during this moment.”
“Lincoln Díaz-Balart's legacy will live through the many people impacted by their monumental service life,” said the entity.
Cuba and Spain: literature and vocation for friendship
In 2019, shortly after the centenary of the exiled Cuban poet Gastón Baquero, whom Díaz-Balart met during his years of stay in Madrid, Spain, explained to Martí News about his links with the poet.
And it is that both being from Banes (Holguín, Cuba) and “having enjoyed his friendship” led him to say: “Gastón Baquero is the brightest person I have met in my life and would have been a Nobel Prize for Literature, if I had not been a Cuban and anti -communist.”
Díaz Balart offered on his considerations regarding the publication of Prose fabulations, A book under the seal notebooks of fundamental work and in the care of Alberto Díaz-Díaz, who was also reviewed by the newspaper The country.
The personal relationship with the poet marked him since he met him when Baquero visited the Díaz-Balart house.
“It was common sense, which is the least common of the senses among geniuses. It was amazing, it was so pleasant. He came home to lunch and despite being so brilliant, I was a teenager, he put on my level to teach me, ”he said with emotion.
The fact of feeling an exile, someone who has lost an important part of his spiritual belongings, led him to host other banished and witnessed Lincoln: “He loved to meet Cubans who were arriving, that filled him with joy and pride in our Cubania. When he knew a Cuban and began to learn from that Cuban, he filled him with happiness. Every Cuban who got to know him wanted him, for Era, so Cuban … ”, concludes Díaz-Balart.