Cuban Dissident's Family Alleges Foul Play In His Death

Cuban Dissident's Family Alleges Foul Play In His Death
By Amrutha Gayathri: Subscribe to Amrutha's RSS feed
July 24, 2012 4:40 AM EDT

Family members of one of Cuba's most vocal government critics Oswaldo
Payá, who died in a car crash Sunday, said they believed his death was
not an accident.

Payá, one of the most prominent Cuban pro-democracy campaigners and a
long-standing opponent of the Castro dynasty, died of injuries after the
driver of his rental car lost control and struck a tree. He was 60.

Fellow Cuban democracy activist Harold Cepero was also killed while the
remaining passengers - one Swede and one Spaniard - escaped with minor
injuries.

Swedish politician Aron Modig, the current chair of the Christian
Democrats youth wing (KDU), and Spanish citizen Angel Carromero Barrios
left the hospital after treatment.

Payá's death was announced by Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez and was later
confirmed by his wife Ofelia Acevedo.

Payá's daughter Rosa María Payá said her father's car was deliberately
rammed in an attempt to take it off the road.

"There was a car trying to take them off the road, crashing into them at
every moment. So we think it's not an accident,'' she told the Spanish
service of CNN. "They wanted to do harm and they ended up killing my
father."

Payá's son reiterated his sister's suspicion when he told BBC that his
father's car was driven off the road deliberately.

The Cuban government, however, denied foul play in a statement Sunday
citing eye witnesses, according to a report in the Swedish media.

Payá's funeral will be held at the Colon Cemetery in Havana Tuesday.

Payá rose to prominence as the top organizer of the Varela Project which
sought to propose amendments to Cuban laws to contain rights recognized
by the constitution but were not fulfilled, including freedom of speech
and assembly.

The Varela Project, which collected 25,000 signatures in favor of a
referendum on laws, is considered the biggest nonviolent campaign
against the political order established after the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Payá won the Sakharov Prize in 2002 for his work with the Varela project.

The Cuban government criticized him as a U.S. agent who was working to
undermine the Cuban administration and political order. However, he was
not associated with Cuban opposition groups based in the U.S. and was
often criticized by Castro's opponents as being too moderate.

"With the death of Oswaldo Payá (1952 - 2012), Cuba has suffered a
dramatic loss for its present and an irreplaceable loss for its future,"
Sanchez, Cuba's internationally recognized youth activist and blogger wrote.

"His tenacity shone forth since I was a teenager, when he chose not to
hide the scapulars - as so many others did - and instead publicly
acknowledged his faith. In 1988 his civic responsibility was forged in
the founding of the Christian Liberation Movement, and years later in
the initiative known as the Varela Project," she wrote.

"I never saw him break down, or yell, or insult his political opponents.
The great lesson he left us is his equanimity, pacifism, putting ethics
above differences, the conviction that through civic action and through
legal action, an inclusive Cuba is closer to us," she wrote.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/366141/20120724/oswaldo-pay-yoani-sanchez-cuba-castro-opposition.htm