Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya dies in car crash

Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya dies in car crash
ANDREA RODRIGUEZ | July 22, 2012 09:38 PM EST | AP

HAVANA — Cuban activist Oswaldo Paya, who spent decades speaking out
against the communist government of Fidel and Raul Castro and became one
of the most powerful voices of dissent against their half-century rule,
died Sunday in a car crash. He was 60.

Paya and a Cuban man described by media as a fellow activist, Harold
Cepero Escalante, died in a one-car crash in La Gavina, just outside the
eastern city of Bayamo, Cuban authorities said. A Spaniard and a Swede
also riding in the car were injured.

Cuba's International Press Center told The Associated Press that
witnesses said the driver of the rental car lost control and struck a
tree. Police are investigating.

"This Sunday has been a day of mourning. A terrible tragedy for his
family and a loss for the opposition movement," said Elizardo Sanchez, a
human rights advocate and de facto spokesperson for Cuba's small
opposition. "He was a prominent leader. He dedicated years of his life
to fighting for democracy."

Paya's home is in Havana and it was not immediately clear why he was
near Bayamo, 500 miles (800 kms) east of the capital.

He is the second leading Cuban dissident to die in the last year, after
Laura Pollan, co-founder of the protest group Ladies in White, died of
heart failure in October.

Paya, who drew strength from his Roman Catholic roots as he pressed for
change in his homeland, continued to voice his opposition after Fidel
resigned due to illness in early 2008, calling the passing of the
presidency to younger brother Raul a disappointment.

"The driving force of society should be the sovereignty of the people,
not the Communist Party," Paya wrote after the new parliament chose Raul
Castro as head of state and government. "The people of Cuba want changes
that signify liberty, open expression of their civil, political,
economic and social rights."

Paya, an electrical engineer, gained international fame as the top
organizer of the Varela Project, a signature gathering drive asking
authorities for a referendum on laws to guarantee civil rights such as
freedom of speech and assembly.

Shortly before former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's visit to Cuba in May
2002, Paya delivered 11,020 signatures to the island's parliament
seeking that initiative. He later delivered a second batch of petitions
containing more than 14,000 signatures to the National Assembly, Cuba's
parliament, posing a renewed challenge to the island's socialist system.

The Varela Project was seen as the biggest nonviolent campaign to change
the system the elder Castro established after the 1959 Cuban revolution.

The government set aside the first batch of signatures and launched its
own, successful petition drive to enshrine the island's socialist system
as "irrevocable" in the Cuban constitution.

Paya continued his efforts, saying it was more important to mobilize
Cubans to demand human rights than to win government acceptance of the
project. However, his influence waned notably in his final years as
younger activists and bloggers like Yoani Sanchez gained international
headlines.

Paya and other long-time opposition figures were described disparagingly
in leaked, confidential U.S. diplomatic cables as old, riven by petty
rivalries and out of touch with the island's youth.

"They have little contact with younger Cubans and, to the extent they
have a message that is getting out, it does not appeal to that segment
of society," said one cable from 2009, which was made available by
WikiLeaks the following year.

Cuba's government routinely dismisses opponents as American stooges
bankrolled by Washington to undermine the revolution. The revelation
that U.S. diplomats privately held so low a regard for the opposition
was a major embarrassment for many.

Oswaldo Jose Paya Sardinas was born on Feb. 29, 1952, the fifth of seven
siblings in a Catholic family.

Paya started his studies at a public elementary school in Havana's Cerro
neighborhood, but later transferred to a prestigious Catholic school
that was shut down shortly after the revolution.

Even from a young age, Paya openly criticized the communist government.
He was still a teenager when he was sent as punishment in May 1969 to
complete his military service at a work camp on Cuba's small Isle of
Youth, then called the Isle of Pines.

He finished his high school-level studies at a night school, and
enrolled at the University of Havana with a major in physics. But when
authorities learned Paya was a practicing Christian who rejected
Marxism, he had to leave the university and took night courses in
telecommunications.

In the early 1980s, Paya began work for the Public Health Ministry as a
specialist in electronic medical equipment – a job he maintained late in
life despite his dissident activities – repairing such things as X-ray
machines and incubators for premature infants.

He married Ofelia Acevedo in 1986 in a Catholic church wedding – a
practice tolerated but considered extremely odd in those years, as Cuba
was still an atheistic state. They had three children together.

Paya became an activist in the late 1980s when he founded the
non-governmental Christian Liberation Movement, which emphasized
peaceful, civic action. He was detained in March 1990, but released
after a few days.

Shortly thereafter, Paya's group made a public "Call for National
Dialogue" between Cubans on the island and in exile.

Around the same time, Paya launched the first of several early signature
gathering drives aimed at forcing a democratic opening on the island.
That effort ended with failure and an insult painted on his house:
"PAYA: CIA AGENT."

He began writing the text of the Varela Project in 1996 and the
Christian Liberation Movement began collecting signatures in 1998.

Just days after Paya submitted the first batch of Varela Project
petitions in May 2002, Carter praised the democratic effort in a speech
broadcast live – and as earlier promised by Castro, uncensored – to the
Cuban people.

In late 2002, the European Union awarded Paya its top human rights prize
and pledged to support his efforts to bring democracy to his homeland.
Named after the late-Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize is
awarded annually by the 15-member union's parliament to defenders of
human rights and democracy.

Through his years of activism, Paya always underscored his religious
upbringing as the foundation for his convictions.

"The rights that we demand in the Varela Project are enunciated in the
constitution. But we also have them because we are human beings, sons of
God," Paya said after turning in the second batch of petitions. "And
because of that, we will continue demanding them for all Cubans, with
the faith that we will achieve them."

Paya's death was also noted by the Cuban exile diaspora in the U.S. and
elsewhere.

"Through his leadership, Oswaldo inspired countless democracy advocates
who have embraced and carried forth his vision of non-violent political
change," read a statement from the Cuba Study Group, which encourages
political and economic change in Cuba as well as more U.S. exchanges
with the island. "Oswaldo's memory and legacy lives on in their work."

___

Associated Press writer Paul Haven in Havana contributed to this report.

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