U.S. should press harder on Payá’s death

Posted on Saturday, 08.10.13

U.S. should press harder on Payá's death
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
AOPPENHEIMER@MIAMIHERALD.COM

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power deserves credit for
asking Cuba's foreign minister to launch a credible investigation into
the suspicious death of leading Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, but she
should have gone a step further.

Early last week, Power tweeted that she had just raised with Foreign
Minister Bruno Rodriguez the need for a serious investigation into the
mysterious 2012 car accident in which Payá lost his life.

The prominent Cuban dissident, founder of Cuba's Christian Liberation
Movement, was known worldwide for having organized a petition that
gathered more than 25,000 signatures on the island asking for a
referendum on whether the Cuban government should allow freedom of
speech, and a multi-party democracy.

Payá, who I had the honor of interviewing many times, was Cuba's Mahatma
Gandhi. He never raised his voice, and consistently preached a message
of non-violence and national reconciliation. Many of us saw him as
Cuba's best hope for a post-Castro era.

His death took place on July 22, 2012, after the car in which he was
traveling crashed against a tree in Cuba's countryside.

Payá, 60, and fellow Cuban Harold Cepero, 32, both of whom were in the
back seat, were pronounced dead hours later. The car's driver, Spanish
Popular Party politician Angel Carromero, 27, and Swedish political
activist Jens Aron Modig, who was seated next to him, survived the wreck.

Carromero was arrested on charges of "vehicular homicide,'' spent five
months in a Cuban prison, and was released on condition of serving the
remainder of his sentence in Spain.

After the crash, Payá's daughter Rosa María Payá told reporters that a
Cuban government car had been following the group and repeatedly slammed
into Payá's car from behind, driving it off the road and into a tree.
She said the two European visitors had sent text messages to friends in
Europe from the site of the accident, telling them that their car was
being followed.

But her story was hard could not be backed up by hard evidence at the
time. The two Europeans were kept at a Cuban prison, away from
reporters, and Carromero had signed a Cuban government affidavit backing
the government's version of events.

Worse, Carromero had a history of bad driving: he had accumulated 45
traffic tickets in Spain over the 15 months before his trip to Cuba. And
Modig, after being released from prison in Cuba, told reporters that he
had been asleep when the accident occurred.

But the Payá family's story began looking much more credible a few
months later when, back in Spain, Carromero told The Washington Post on
March 5 that he had signed the Cuban affidavit under duress, and that
Cuban secret police cars — with their blue license plates that
characterize them — "were following us from the beginning."

Carromero said that the last time he had looked back in the mirror
before losing consciousness, "I realized that the car had gotten too
close — and suddenly I felt a thunderous impact from behind."

In a subsequent interview with the Spanish daily El Mundo last week,
Carromero said that Payá and Cepero had survived the crash and were
taken to a hospital, where "Cuba's secret services killed him."

Adding to the latest revelations, El Mundo published pictures of the
original text messages sent by the two Europeans from the site of the
accident. Payá's daughter Rosa María posted the pictures at her father's
website, OswaldoPayá.org.

In a telephone interview, Rosa María Payá told me that her family has
requested an international investigation by the United Nations Special
Rapporteur for Extra-Judicial Killings, and the Organization of American
States' Human Rights Commission. It is also pursuing the case in Spanish
courts, since Payá also held Spanish citizenship.

Asked about Power's request to the Cuban foreign minister, Rosa María
said it's a "good first step, but the Obama administration should take
the petition to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and to the U.N.
Special Rapporteur of Extrajudicial Killings. As far as I know, they
have not done that yet."

My opinion: I agree. Power should be commended for raising this issue.
But instead of requesting a credible investigation to the Cuban foreign
minister — we all know how that will end — she should take it to the
U.N., the Organization of American States and other international
institutions. There are now too many pieces of evidence, including the
original text messages and two eyewitnesses — to close the book on the
highly suspicious death of one of Latin America's biggest civil rights
heroes.

Source: "Andres Oppenheimer: U.S. should press harder on Payá's death -
Andres Oppenheimer - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/10/3551223/andres-oppenheimer-us-should-press.html