English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
VOICES Magazine No. 16 is a report on the life and work of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and the Christian Liberation Movement. This issue is exclusively the words of the Payá Acevedo family and visions from the periphery from multiple Cuban and foreign intellectuals, on and off the Island. An issue beautiful and sad to edit.
September 6 2012
The freeest Cuban magazine, VOICES 16, is preparing a special issue about the life and work of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas.
It will be launched Friday, August 31, 2012.
Come to Havana with us, in these desolate days without remedy in this end of summer and of Revolution.
August 20 2012
The procession starts again after a few minutes of resistance under the burning sun of the nation, Rodiles, Aleago, Guillermo and others already on their way to the jails. The line of vehicles follows the avenue in Cerro crossing a cordon of police and agents form the former G-2 that divide the crowd to let them pass, or stop them: who knows, the balcony of a house visible where Peñón Street intersects the Avenue is full of people.
One of those in the blue uniforms with white stars on his shoulder pushes someone who crouches like a frightened sheep. The hearse has disappeared and an anarchic automotive Formula One chase begins. Presumably the driver of the hearse has been given the order to minimize the travel time as much as possible, under threat of social exclusion with the accusation of being a mercenary in the pay of a foreign power, this when they haven’t swapped him out for gunman starved of dignity.
The caravan consists of various cars that gun their engines in hopes of not being the last of the Mohicans. On 23rd Avenue at the top of 14th Street, I think, a Soviet-made Moscovich car dares to interrupt the regular traffic to make way for the procession, thus assuming the negligent ethics and responsibility of the motorized blue uniforms. The entrance to the cemetery was protected or attacked by restless soldiers ordered to continue ahead, finally the hearse appears again having won the last stage of the Revolution: the fear of the dead.
A nun takes a large photo of the leader for democracy and human rights and carries it on the front of the hearse, while a chain of bodies holding hands extends to both sides of the nun. The torrid sun embraces the skulls devouring the shadows and the skin mourns its compassionate entelechy in the spoils of time, we go to the banks of a sacred river of crystalline waters.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me lie down in green pastures. 23rd Psalm
The funeral march begins at the cemetery chapel.
17 August 2012
The event has been covered by Cuba’s National Television, which is unusual since fatal traffic accidents occur daily in Cuba and never receive this level of media coverage.
I will not get into details regarding the technical analysis presented by the official version of the event; I am not an expert, although one does not need to be an expert to question their version. I want to clarify that I learned about how the event occurred through the television since only a brief verbal version was given to me by Major Sanchez when I received my husband’s body. I told him that I did not believe what he was saying and that I needed to talk to the surviving witnesses. I was not informed by the authorities about the death of my husband. Yesterday, July 31th at 8:45pm, 10 days after the death of Oswaldo and Harold, I was visited by two officers from the Center for Criminal Investigations and Operations carrying a subpoena that required my presence today at 11:00am, with the purpose to “clarify issues of civil liability and responsibility regarding the accident.”
As Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas’ wife and on behalf of my family living inside and outside Cuba I declare:
1. We do not accept the explanation of the events as presented in national television because:It has been presented by the same governmental organization that under the Security of the State has sent agents threatening to kill Oswaldo multiple times over the years; they have discredited, defamed, spied, and insulted us through media campaigns inside and outside Cuba; the same individuals who have placed microphones on our bed, in our phones; the same individuals who, knowing that Oswaldo’s mother had cancer, proceeded to cowardly visit and intimidate her, who did not allow her children living outside Cuba to visit her; the same individuals who forbade my oldest son, a 24-year-old student, from visiting his aunt in Spain during his vacations last year, who do not allow any of our family members to leave or enter Cuba.
They are the same individuals who intimidate our neighbors, my husband’s co-workers, my brothers and sisters from the Christian community, and even people that we hire to make repairs in our house; they go to the institutions where my sons and daughter study or work and alert their peers to avoid relating to them; they are the same individuals who break into hospitals and intimidate doctors every time my children have any type of health problems; the same individuals who have attacked my house with mobs brought from other places and who have painted my house facade with offensive signs, who have stained my door with red paint simulating blood, who have filled the walls of the neighborhood with threatening signs and phrases packed with hate.
They are the same individuals who on several occasions have loosened the screws on the wheels of our car knowing that we were traveling with family and friends. Last June 2nd, Oswaldo and I were traveling in our car (a 1964 VW station wagon) towards my mother’s house in La Lisa. Driving through La Calzada del Cerro and having just driven across the intersection with Rancho Boyeros Avenue, we were hit by an old American car in the right rear wheel of our vehicle with such a force that it made our car rock. My husband could not control it and after sliding on the two left wheels, already on the opposite lane the car flipped, we were trapped inside and covered with broken windshield glass. Oswaldo was hurt in his left elbow and I was unhurt.
These are the same individuals who have threatened to kill members of the Movement and their families, who have imprisoned Yosvany Melchior, a young man, son of Rosa Maria Rodriguez, a member of the Movement. He is serving twelve years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Their goal is to make people abandon the Christian Liberation Movement.
…I do not believe the official version because:
2. My husband, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was notable for his limitless sense of responsibility towards all people, especially those who associated with him. He would never have allowed the driver of the car to speed. His friends and those who know him know that I speak the truth when I say this. He knew his life was at risk every day in Cuba.
3. Because I received the news of the alleged accident from Madrid at 3:18pm on Sunday July 22 and was told “four people were traveling but only three are in the hospital, there is no available information regarding the forth one. Two friends, one of them is unconscious. They were hit and pushed away from the road. Do you know who the other two were? One of them has disappeared.”
4. Because I was not allowed to meet with the Swedish man and have not yet been allowed to visit the Spaniard, survivors of the event.
Because of these records and information that have reached us about what happened in the newspaper Granma, my family calls on international institutions for help demanding an independent investigation of the facts.
I’m very proud to have shared 26 years of my life with an extraordinary man, I am proud of the family we have founded. He had the sorrow of not being able to devote to his family all the time he wished, but his passion to serve always led him to work for the common good with all his intelligence and intellectual ability.
He constantly fought and searched for ways for the people to ascend to their rights, he said: “Neither the state nor the market can dominate society, or be above the people’s decisions, freedom and dignity.”
Now we must try to direct our life without the physical presence of Oswaldo, it will be very hard, but those of us who live by faith know that he will continue to protect us, and will always be in our midst.
Thank you for listening.
Havana, August 1, 2012
Translated by Cleonte
On the afternoon of Sunday, 22 July 2012, we were surprised by unexpected and terrible news: Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, founder and leader of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), had tragically died near the city of Bayama, seeking the roots of our Cubanness to say goodbye to the land he loved so much and for which he fought so peacefully.
Today Oswaldo’s life appears more transparent and coherent than ever. Death is, for everyone, a summary, a transition, and a lesson.
His history is not yet written. But his accomplishments are. And it is not good to wait too long to put everything in its property place when there is, starting now, an example and legacy to gather, apprehend, and continue. I try, although still moved by the immediacy, to outline what this loss and this gain has meant to Cuba, its present and its future.
Loss, because each person is unique and irreplaceable. Gain, because nothing is lost and everything is gained and the depths of the earth when a good seed falls in the furrow of life, to bring forth more fruits.
I met Payá when he was young, almost a teenager, in one of the halls of the Cerro Parish, where Father Petit was then his pastor and mentor, in a meeting of the few young people who professed the Catholic faith in the hard years of the ’70s. Those were the days when we were discriminated against just for going to Church and declaring in our school records whether or not we were believers.
Oswaldo’s entire life, like that of so many Cuban men and women faithful to Christ and to Cuba, is a daily offering of civil martyrdom of all those who are treated as second class citizens, as “unreliables” for living in what became to be called “a fantastic reflection of reality” for having religious beliefs.
At that time, neither he nor I yet had our own and various projects for Cuba and its freedom and prosperity. But we trained in the bosom of a poor Church, persecuted, committed and faithful to the gospel of its Founder. We received, through the Church, that we must recognize and thank forever, an ethical, civic, religious, and very Cuban education, that followed the saga of Varela, Luz, Mendive, Marti and many others. That is the origin, the cause and the root of our lives and the soul of our Christian commitment. That is its deep motivation, its essence, inspiration, style, methods, criteria of judgment, determination of values, ways of thinking, examples of life.
Each who has lived in his way, as it should be, diverse in the Christian social commitment, but united in the bowels of the Gospel, the Church and Cuba. From this fraternal and daily fellowship where a life is over too quickly was forged, I give testimony to what I think is the legacy of Oswaldo to Cuba and his Church.
His person and his path
For all of Cuba, Payá leaves the trajectory of a coherent life. Of a whole man, of one piece, true to what was, what is and what will be: a human being who does not want to us to deify him, who doesn’t need it, who already has and believes in one true God. He was a human being, on earth, with his faults and virtues. But most important is that in his existence there was no contradiction between who he was, what he though, what he said and what he did. Cuba needs men and women with this morality, the “sun of the moral world.”
For all of Cuba, Payá is also a citizen who freely chose to stay in his country, despite the constant threats and dangers. A citizen who did not remain in internal exile or the alienation of an ivory tower, or who “took refuge” in an opiate-religion, but who learned from his Master Jesus that true religion is the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection.
The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was an expression of this active and systematic engagement. The Varela Project is another example of his faith in action, being the most important civic exercise in the last half century, that managed to transcend the boundaries of the MCL, to be and exist with “All Together”. Cuba needs citizens to stay here, who are one nation with those who work hard to find peaceful solutions.
For the Church, Oswaldo is a paradigm of vocation and mission of lay Christians. He did not abandon the Church in spite of the sorrows and misunderstandings. he did not use it for political purposes but demanded the same thing it taught: consistency and faithfulness to the Gospel of Christ.
The Church needs lay people involved in the world of politics, civil society, culture, economy … and the laity need not be excluded, nor seen as rare, both Tyrians and Trojans, because of their commitments, be they political or civic. They need to be considered and followed, without taking its own political choices, both in life and in death, as do our parish communities, priests, religious and bishops. Just as with other, laypeople who are caregivers, teach the catechism, work in Caritas, pray the Rosary, or animate a mission house. This is what we see and thank Paya’s funeral.
For the Church, Payá is also an example of Christian prophecy. He was the voice many who did not have a voice, but he did not disqualify or exclude his brethren who thought differently. To disagree and debate, is not to exclude. To exclude is to segregate the family of those who are considered “dissidents” or “dangerous” or “troublesome”, or not accepted by the powers of this world. Oswaldo suffered this and much more. But his prophecy did not rest, nor was it exhausted. He denounced the ills suffered by the people and the Church that formed a part of him. He announced the Christian liberation and he created, proposed projects, thinking, laws, new roads, in an absolutely peaceful and proactive way.
Cuba and its Church need this kind of prophet who not only denounces but also proposes solutions and puts them into practice, patiently and bravely.
The immediate fruits of the death of Payá
Here, in the Cerro Parish, with the body still present, we can observe various immediate fruits of the sacrifice of Oswaldo Payá. I will mention a few:
The physical family of the deceased gave testimony of spiritual strength, serenity and faithfulness to the work of Oswaldo. Mired in unspeakable pain they did not lose the integrity or peace of knowing that their husband and father has given his life to a worthy cause and died in the fulfillment of Christian and civic duty.
The Church, Payá’s religious family, offered during his burial an example of communion without exclusion, solidarity in pain and coherence with what it preaches. It has been truly organic and sacramental from the Good Shepherd, from the Pope’s condolences to the last parishioner of the parish who offered water or consolation, through various religious congregations, the pastor, other priests and monks, evangelical pastors, bishops and their bishop the Cardinal, whose homily must be studied and lived. All united by faith in Christ and love for Cuba. Despite the normal and even desirable differences, in the healthy pluralism of the People of God. As the fruit of a Church united in diversity, embodied, prophetic and reconciliatory dialogue, beginning with itself.
Civil society, the citizen family that shares the same history, nation and destination, has also, on the occasion of the death of Payá, shown a clear and unequivocal gesture of unity in diversity, respect for differences without disqualification, excluding hatred, confrontation and other human miseries that we all have and must overcome, to put above all ideological and political differences, which in themselves are not bad … to put above all Cuba, our homeland, the common home, its freedom and prosperity. What I saw there, that mature civic spirit and weaver of coexistence, is the Cuba that we dream of are building together.
The diplomatic corps, represented there as well as the press,accredited or independent, also show respect and the normality with which observers, international and our own, consider Cuban society as a pluralistic body in a process of maturation and serious and peaceful commitment with the changes and democracy.
These gestures have also been made possible by the good will and civic and political maturity of civil society. Other immediate fruits might be mentioned as an example and comforting encouragement to family members of his movement and friends. In the future to come in the medium and long term, surely we will see more that one seed is capable of producing, a symbol, a paradigm, a flag of peace brought by love. No one can calculate.
I want to end by saying that at Oswaldo Payá’s funeral I noted that pluralism and respect for the unity in diversity have come gradually, first to the life of civil society and, in some ways, to the life of the Church, the people of God. May God grant that will also reach the State that it will move them, so that Cuba will be a home where “we all fit.”
I pray to God, for the intercession of Oswaldo Payá, of Harold Cepero, of Laura Pollán, of Wilman Villar, Wilfredo Soto, Orlando Zapata, Pedro Luis Boitel, and many others, who were faithful to their faith and their ideals in this life, that comes to an end, fully, for all in Cuba, with respect for pluralism, unity in diversity, ethical, civic and religious coherence, that we have received as the raised and hopeful fruit of the living cross, the cross accepted by these our brothers.
They were able. We follow his example and legacy.
So be it. Amen.
August 9 2012
When the funeral cortege left the chapel in Cerro with the body of the political leader Oswaldo Payá, having barely advanced a few yards, it was stopped for some twenty minutes. Something happened at the beginning of the caravan. Several people got out of the car to find out what; we feared the worse although we hoped that nothing was happening and we wanted to give a Christian burial to our dead.
While celebrating the Mass officiated by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, outside, the authorities were planning the engagement. I looked out of the door of the church, looked down the street and I could recognize the faces of the State Security agents, but there, at the end, where the Calzada del Cerro terminates, I saw an officer talking to a large group of civilians.
I remembered that it seemed very much like the operation they had every time the Ladies in White met at their headquarters: the house of their spiritual leaders, the feisty Laura Pollán. I recorded some footage of what was happening and approached as far as the camera lens would let me. In any event, I couldn’t imagine they planned something similar in the midst of that pain, that they would disrespect the family of the deceased, the Cardinal and the entire delegation of the Catholic Church, as well as the broadcasters and the international journalists covering the event.
But despite the constant proofs of the governmental abuse, we still insist on being naive, as if this attitude would save us from contagion by the all the evil that always surrounds us.
What I do know is that the partner of Antonio Rodiles, Ailer Gonzalez, with the intention of finding out what was going on, got out of the car, and, coming to the crowd, witnessed how they preyed on Fariñas and another group of opponents. She demanded their release and the police pushed her also, and forced her with beatings onto a Chinese-made Yutong bus that they’d prepared by way of a rolling jail cell. And inside there, they continued beating her.
Antonio, impatient on seeing that his partner didn’t return, went to look for her. While he was walking he heard a State Security Agent shout to another who was nearby, “Look, there goes Aleaga, let’s grab him.”Rodiles observed that Aleaga wasn’t even taking photos, just walking on the sidewalk, and he said to the “securities” to leave him alone. They looked at him and responded, “Come on, you too, you’re going.” He refuses, meanwhile seeing that Aleaga is being put in a car handcuffed. Rodiles resists their putting him into a car, finally they lay him on the backseat and two burly agents climb on top of him to immobilize him with the weight of their bodies.
Fariñas returns slap
The lawyer Vallín is in the car with me, and deducing that something happened at the beginning, we get out, and when we’re about to go to the place the procession resumed its march and we got back in the car. In the Calzado de Cerro they’ve already armed an operation of the repressive forces, we managed to see a woman with the rank of colonel waving for the caravan to continue.
They had two Yutong buses on each direction of the street that were blocking traffic. Without distinguishing the faces I could also see that there were several people inside the buses that they were hitting. Later I learned that they were Fariñas, whom they hit at that moment, which he returned with the same energy.
Ailer was in that bus; and she said the struggle was maintained for a while, that the driver took the route toward the beaches to the east of Havana. That there was a moment when they thought the bus would turn over, it looked like a swing and gave the impression that the driver lost his way, that they would be killed and she began to plead with Fariñas to stop, because he was continuing to brawl with the agents who were trying to hit him.
Fariñas looked at her and understood her fear and appeased them to please her and calm them down. It was a humane act and one of chivalry that made the difference with the government’s henchmen, who continues their insults and provocations.
Ailer handcuffed
They take her to a place that looked like a shelter or abandoned classroom, and told her to hand over the memory card of the camera. She had already secured it, taking it out of the camera and putting it in her purse. And she refuses to surrender it, warning that they themselves are violating the laws, she has been kidnapped on a public street, and they are violating her civil rights that she knows well.
But two women and a man come and push her and throw her on the floor to demobilize her and take the bag. She yells at them one day have to answer for their abuses and repressive attitudes that tarnish the name of all their families. She warns them that she has heart problems and has arrhythmia. They show their fear. Soon they take her to the outside of the Naval military hospital and tell her to exit the car. And leave her there abandoned.
Rodiles refuses to enter the cell
When they take Rodiles to the police station, Aleaga has just arrived. The “securities” continue provoking, they want him to enter a cell but they can’t make him do it despite the shoving, they have given him a lot of punches, scrapes and torn his clothes. I’m not a criminal, Rodiles tells them, I haven’t committed any crime and I am not going in any cell.
A lieutenant colonel in the police intervenes and tells the “securities” that they will allow him to talk, look, he said, I give you my word I will not let them take you to the cell, but first you have to give me your shoelaces and belt, it is mandatory; they put in the waiting room. And what about Aleaga, asks Rodiles. The officer keeps looking at him and understands it will have to be that way or he will continue his protests. Fine, he stays with you at him and know that you will have to be so or continue their protest. Okay, it stays with you, he responds. The “securities,” against their will, accept keeping them out of the cell.
The bells in the cemetery receive us
We arrived at the cemetery worried, we didn’t understand clearly what had happened. Someone said they had arrested Rodiles, Aleaga, Ailer, Fariñas, among many other dissidents. Singing, accompanied the remains of Oswaldo Payá, from the entrance to the chapel, then to his grave. That death had changed us, the living. Taught us, once again, the lack of scruples of the Cuban government. Nevertheless, we agree that Payá received the funeral honors worthy of a President. That last space I toured hugging the great Cuban poet Rafael Alcides, who, recovering from a recent hospitalization for his diabetes, had not wanted to fail to pay his respects and say a final goodbye to the brother in the struggle.
He told me that of course all of us who are fighters like Payá are aware of the risk that faces us when we defy a totalitarian government. But we know that despite risking our lives, it’s impossible to avoid our protest.
Demanding freedom in front of the police station
We were told that Aleaga and Antonio remained in detention at the 4th Police Station in Infanta. In half an hour we were there, along with a group of young fighters, Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar and Santana (the writer), to accompany the families of those arrested who were waiting outside the station. There I found a lawyer Vallín who went inside, from time to time, to demand that at least they present the arrest warrants, which they had not yet done; he warned that they were detained there as hostages, in open violation of applicable laws.
Soon a Major of the police came to ask Vallín speak with us and to tell us to go home. By that time we were over twenty people. Vallin told us the desire of the officer after he had retired. We were laughing that the officer thought, just ask, we would retreat. At the time the Major came out again and warned us that we could not be there (we stayed right across the street from the police station). He said that in twenty minutes they would release those arrested.
So we decided to go to the facing sidewalk. The Major returned and told us we could not be there either. To facilitate the release of Antonio, we decided to retreat about fifty feet, our position was no longer right in front of the station. But those twenty minutes passed when they promised to release him; and we waited an hour. Then it occurred to someone to make “a small geographical pressure,” and we returned to the place where we were earlier, on the sidewalk right across from the station.
From there we could observe every movement. The Major returned and told us he was the Chief of the Municipality, and that it we continued there he would have to send the “forces of order” to remove us. We were already over thirty people demanding the release of our brothers. The writer Orlando Luis Pardo had come, with his girlfriend and another girl.
We told the official they we felt for him for all that he’d gone through, given that he had been patient and at all times, had turned to us with respect, but we urged him to keep his word. Reinaldo Escobar told him to put himself in our position, would he be able to abandon a comrade in these circumstances, and we didn’t even know under what condition Antonio was in, if he was beaten.
The officer tried to deny our suspicions, saying they didn’t hit him, but when we showed the wounds that had some had recently received from the repressive forces, among the other detainees Ailer, who had just joined us, the soldier chose to remain silent and, nevertheless, seemed to understand, or maybe it was our decency and sympathetic stance. Finally we told him that if he felt that he should pressure us, we were determined to accompany Antonio in the cell. They we had no objection to his doing his duty.
Then he left and never came back. After a while they released Aleaga and we applauded as he walked out in front of all their captors. But if they thought we would settle for one of two taken, they were wrong; they were left waiting to see what we would do and when they saw we would continue stationed there, they formed the idea to devise other action against us.
Half an hour later a truck of the Special Branch appeared, full of guards. Also two ambulances arrived. In one corner State Security agents in plain clothes began to meet. Ailer saw one of the ones who had beaten her and took advantage of it to tell her abusers to their faces that one day they would have to pay for such abuses. The men did not answer. They turned away and we saw them climb the stairs to shelter in the police station.
Someone phoned to say that Fariñas had been taken to his province in a police car. Soon we were approached by a “security”: a black guy six feet tall who, in order to provoke us, stationed himself very close to us. But his presumed bravery was just a show for his comrades who were watching, because Reinaldo Escobar also went to meet him, and when he passed behind him, I saw the “security’s” cowardly eyes, his six-foot body shrank, he turned to follow Reinaldo with his eyes as if he was afraid of being attacked, something Reinaldo would never do, quite the contrary, because what he did was fake a call for him to overhear, as if he were telling someone that everything was fine.
After that the provocateur also pulled out his phone and informed us we were clowns. I took mine and he heard me and I said there were no problems, that the provocation was sheer monkey business. Then the black guy quickly left, frustrated at not having received the order to beat us and take us by force, which is what he wanted.
After one o’clock in the morning, Vallín and Reinaldo spoke to the Colonel, who said he was the Head of the Station. Vallín said he had twenty-four hours to make the decision to charge the person or not, and to define the offense for which he’d be tried. The official acknowledged that was true, by law, and confirmed that ten o’clock marked the term, and then he would report back what they would do in that case, which they were now studying the decision to make. Vallín and Reinaldo made it clear that it was an agreement, and the Colonel agreed.
The elderly parents of Antonio said as long as we were there they would not leave. Then we got them to agree to let us take them home and come back and meet at ten o’clock. The couple agreed. And so we all went.
At ten o’clock the future of Antonio was decided
When I reached the police station with the attorney Vallín, already there were Antonio’s parents, his partner and some other opponents. Forced to sit in the sun on the sidewalk in front of the station, they would not let us approach, in fact no pedestrians could pass through the place. The whole street was blocked by police cars and policemen. We had to wait twenty yards from the station.
When Yoani and Reinaldo arrived, they hurried their steps to join Antonio’s parents, and police tried to stop them, but they, like experienced athletes of the opposition, managed to dodge them and sit on the wall where the elderly parents were. A police captain said they could not stay there, and Yoani and Reinaldo told them about laws and rights and the police were astonished.
All they could do was exert force, but their order was to avoid confrontation at all times. They were very close to the fateful date of celebration for the defeat of the 26th of July, and they didn’t want to tarnish it, it was bad enough with the mysterious death of Oswaldo Payá.
Immediately the Colonel came out, it was 10:10 in the morning and he should comply with the agreement. He spoke with the parents and then with Vallín, the decision was he would be released, and then we saw Antonio could out in a patrol car and greet us. The Colonel said that the prisoner would be brought to his house.
When we got to Antonio’s house he already was there and told us the abuses they committed, all the horror that his oppressors made him suffer to force him to give up; we saw his ripped clothes ragged, the bruises and scratches on his body.
We all returned to our homes knowing that Antonio, Ailer, Aleaga, Fariñas and the rest of the group were already in theirs, wanting rest, until a new warning alerts us that another injustice has been committed, and we have to once again be present for the freedom of Cuba and our brothers.
Those hours helped us to push the wall of the dictatorship that oppresses us a few inches. We know that the worst part of this difficult struggle is yet to come, that to achieve democracy we will make many sacrifices. But the good thing is that these days we confirm that, despite all the repression of the Castro regime, we worthy Cubans are ready to give ourselves for the ideals that Oswaldo Payá died for.
August 8 2012
Today, I do not intend to give another version of what happened, we are not accusing anyone at this time.
The facts I will communicate below were read by Captain Fulgencio Medina, a criminal investigator, in a room at Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Hospital in Bayamo, the evening of Sunday 22 July. I will not narrate how these reports have reached our hands because we do not want to expose to pressure from State Security the people who, in solidarity with our family, have sent us this information.
According to what they told us, Captain Fulgencio Medina read the statements spoken by the witnesses of the events that took the life of my father and Harold; he relayed the following to all those present in one of the rooms of the hospital. The captain said he was going to tell what happened, reading the witness statements, he said.
The witness on the bike and the witness in the tractor said there was a red Lada [a Russian make car] traveling parallel to the wrecked car. For a moment, the wrecked car got ahead of the rest, the bicycle, the tractor and the red Lada, then the pavement ended and the gravel covered terrain started. The cyclist said that all he saw was the dust when the car fell (and that seemed normal to him.) The driver of the tractor commented that it seemed as if something had happened.
The officer said another tractor was coming from the other direction but apparently the road was wide enough and the tractor was far enough away to avoid causing any reaction in Angel’s driving. There was no danger of collision between the two.
The individuals from the red Lada came to the rescue, according to the words of the witnesses on the bicycle and in the tractor. The officer said that the witnesses declared that when the individuals from the red Lada came to aid the Spanish man, he reacted by saying, “Who are you and why are you doing this to us?” First, they took the Spanish man out, and there was another man complaining inside the car (apparently, this was Harold), he had a very sore leg and was touching his own chest, as if it hurt a lot. They did not do anything with the other person because they said that they touched him and realized he was dead.
The individuals from the red Lada took the foreigners out and then they took out a cell phone that they had and said: “Send an ambulance over, there has been an accident.” At that time a blue van arrived and picked up some of the injured and drove them to the hospital.
They received a call from the girl and said they did not know who the phone belonged to because everything was a mess. First a traffic police officer responds and then the coroner speaks. Fulgencio Medina said he knew the daughter had called because the coroner that had been in the ambulance talked to her.
This ends the information we have received about what Captain Fulgencio Medina said that evening in that room where officers and other persons were present.
It seems very strange to us:
1. That a coroner was present in the ambulance.
2. That none of the official versions mention this red Lada or the people traveling in it.
3. If there was no red Lada, who would have called the ambulance? [Translators note: it is not common in Cuba to call an ambulance or have ‘ phone numbers, rather people offer rides to the medical centers.]
4. The reaction Ángel had when he was assisted, according to witnesses.
5. Who determined and how was it determined that my father was dead so early during the events.
We have received other information which narrates that the ambulance was ordered by a lieutenant colonel and that in one ambulance they took Harold to the hospital after making ??a stop at a children’s hospital. We also have information regarding the doctor who attended Harold (nicknamed “The Kid”, son of Dr. Pérez Profet) According to this information he was heard expressing disdain for Harold. He told the other doctors and nurses that these people were bringing drugs to Santiago and that they were planning to plant bombs.
I have questions regarding the care my friend received in the hospital.
We have been informed that Ángel arrived at the hospital accompanied by an officer who said he was an eyewitness to the accident, and that at that point Ángel said twice that the car had been hit from behind.
I wonder, if this officer was a witness:
1. What was he doing at the place of the events?
2. If it was he who called, why didn’t he take the injured men in his car?
3. How did he know the hospital’s phone number?
4. Was he one of the individuals from the red Lada?
I also have doubts regarding the technical condition of the car in which my father and Harold were traveling.
They did not allow our friends, the people who represented our family, to see my father’s body until after 8 pm. They told us that the corpse had a syringe placed at the top of the leg, a shirt, his jeans and shoes and that at that time they saw it, the body was still without any form of conservation treatment, or refrigeration.
Regarding the state of Harold, a physician told our friends that the boy was going to die because he had suffered brain death. This information does not match the official version regarding the cause of death of Harold Cepero. It is also very strange because witnesses claimed they saw a conscious Harold according to information we received about the words read by Captain Fulgencio Medina. Our friends did not have access to the survivors until after Ángel was sedated so they were never able to talk to him. With Aron they were barely able to communicate because they do not speak English.
Aron, Ángel and I met Friday afternoon and talked, as three young people with social concerns converse, without interventionist agendas or money involved.
My father faced the power of a state, a totalitarian state with 53 years of experience. And that state has been bringing all its force to bear against a family, my family, since many years ago. I fear deeply for the lives of my brothers, my mother and my family. I reiterate that I hold the government responsible for the physical integrity of the members of my family.
We count on the support of many within and outside Cuba, we thank you all deeply. On the other hand, we know that these events have become a matter of international affairs, we know that sometimes between governments agreements are reached and they remain silent, but while others will remain silent, we will not, neither will we stop seeking the truth even if it means we will end up alone. My father, the Christian Liberation Movement and my family have been alone before, we are not afraid of loneliness.
We know, because we seem to have been touching it in recent days, that only evil fears the truth.
Translated by Cleonte
August 1, 2012
It’s still not a year since we suffered the death of Laura Pollán — in October — and in January that of Wilmar Villar, when mourning once again cloaked the feelings and spirit of the alternative civil society in Cuba. Oswaldo Payá, the most prominent of the opposition leaders inside Cuba, is physically absent from the atlas of the peaceful Cuban opposition.
He fought prompted by his Catholic faith, commitment and love for Cuba, and to win relevance for proposals ignored on the radar of the authorities, who only legitimate and recognize the rights and the participation in the national political life of their followers. But the dreams of liberty that encouraged his tireless work for the freedoms, human and civil rights of Cubans, will survive in the future of the nation.
I remember the concern between the years 1988 and 1990 because it seemed that they didn’t hear or value a discourse coming from political authenticity, and that left the members of the Christian Liberation Movement without the international recognition they needed and at the mercy of the arbitrariness of the Cuban authorities.
Oswaldo’s constant struggle came to fruition scratching at the dictatorial inconsistencies of the Cuba’s Constitution itself. The Varela Project and the program All Cubans, stand and are fused with the history of our country. Those who dig graves for the rights and freedoms of Cuba cannot bury Oswaldo’s example nor hide their totalitarian outrages of hatred and discrimination.
May our exemplary compatriot rest in peace.
July 31 2012
In less than a year the Cuban opposition has lost two of its most important leaders. On October 14 of last year life of Laura Pollán, the principal coordinator of the Ladies in White and the key figure in the release of the Black Spring prisoners, was cut short. A week ago a car crash, yet to be fully explained, claimed the life of Oswaldo Payá, founder of the Christian Liberation Movement.
These activists had great national and international recognition and their physical absence comes at a time when the dissidence is seeking new horizons. Hence, the need to analyze the scenario in which these deaths have occurred, and their potential impact on the immediate future.
On thing about which there is no doubt, is that the Cuban opposition on the Island is characterized by its peaceful nature and its renunciation of armed violence. It prefers to base its actions in political programs, documents demanding respect for Human Rights, street demonstrations, signs painted on facades, or simply open door meetings.
It behaves and manifests a much more democratic behavior than the government installed in the Plaza of the Revolution. Within the ranks of the dissidence there is a great variety of opinions with respect to possible paths and outcomes of the transition. Although some of these routes diverge, there are numerous points on which all converge. The urgent need for political, social and economic changes is the common thread that runs through civil society.
Calls to end the harassment of dissidents, arbitrary arrests and politically motivated prison sentences, form a part of this common agenda. In addition, everyone agrees that Raúl Castro’s government has exhausted its solutions to pressing national problems.
To talk or to overthrow
Although many schemes have been offered to classify the Cuban opposition, most of the studies have focused on the political leanings of the groups within it. Some analysts have established generational breaks, between the historical opposition and much younger actors. In practice, however, it is not political colors or age that differentiate most markedly the dissimilarities between dissident organizations. A key point is the legitimacy they assign to Raúl Castro’s government in their agendas and their proposals for change.
Some maintain that dialog with the authorities could possibly lead to a non-violent transition. Within this line of thinking are distinguished figures such as José Daniel Ferrer, president of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, who believes that “dialog is possible, but from a position of strength within civil society.”
Others dismiss any attempt to deal with the regime, basing their posture on the fact that it was not chosen by a vote of the people in free and direct elections. They see the Communist Party as a kidnapper of hostages with whom there should be no negotiations under any circumstances. To negotiate or to overthrow seem to be the two poles around which current opposition forces are defined.
The United States embargo also constitutes a parting of the ways that defines postures and platforms. Within the Island, many dissidents argue that economic restrictions must be maintained to strangle the government. They believe that allowing fluid trade with the United States or allowing Americans to travel to Cuba would be a source of fresh air that would strengthen the General-President. José Luis García (known as Antúnez), an opposition leader from the center of the Island is one of the main champions of this position.
The great challenge of the people
The Cuban dissidence is denied any opportunity to access the mass media. This significantly limits its ability to broadcast its proposals and political programs. Instead of allowing them even one minute in front of the microphone, Raúl Castro’s government uses television and the official press to accuse them of being “mercenaries in the pay of the Empire,” or “tiny groups of no importance.”
Human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez, opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque, Catholic layperson Dagoberto Valdés, and the Ladies in White group have all been frequent targets of these media stonings. From different perspectives, these social actors could be key in the years to come, along with several socio-cultural projects such as Estado de Sats, directed by Antonio Rodiles, which even attracts people involved in State institutions. To support these activities with a constant dissemination of information becomes vital, hence the importance of independent journalists and alternative bloggers.
In the current scenario, Oswaldo Payá’s death raises the question of the future of the Christian Liberation Movement, which has many members throughout the Island. That this political force manages to survive the death of its founder will demonstrate the maturity of the entire Cuban opposition.
On the other hand, Raúl Castro has co-opted some of the points that made up the agenda of his political opponents. The aperture for small private businesses, the ability to buy and sell houses and cars, and the leasing of vacant land in usufruct, are all part of the measures implemented by the government in the last four years. Such a scenario obliges the opposition groups to chart new horizons and to redefine their proposals.
30 July 2012
The trashed cityscape reaches all the way to the gate of the parish, in the arid Cerro neighborhood. “The Savior of the World,” says the sign, so distant from the desert outside, beyond the gates. And one thinks, sleepwalking before sunrise: how poor any form of expression is in this country.
Dawn lingers on the park benches. The wake is supposed to start at 8:00 am, but there are only the little workers brigades, trying, on this Monday, to make up for decades of decadence: mowers, sprayers, trash collectors which, like the cop cars, pass and pass again without picking up anything. Everyone pretends it’s normal. It’s July 23rd and since yesterday Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas is dead.
They had promised it to him by word and with attacks, which he survived without even realizing it. It doesn’t matter with whom or how they fulfilled their promise. The idea is that there will be no Nobel Peace Prize in Cuba if Fidel Castro doesn’t win it first.
In a nightmarish sequence, Payá’s body, with his 60 years and thousands of signatures collected to reestablish our nation, fell so far away, a province whose name didn’t exist before the Revolution: Granma… An accident among strangers, Europeans with presidential ambitions who now will be anything but witnesses to the truth. A catastrophe without the protection of his brave and beautiful family, near this deadly Bayamo of the National Anthem.
It was the end of an era of a deceptive balancing act between the dissidence and the torturers: a declaration of war, although it seems exaggerated. And before so much horror, to the first curious we can only speculate what not even the Christ of the Democrats would dare to type here now: if it was carelessness or a paid assassin, if he died without suffering in the act, or perhaps looked with terror at the paramedics or the paramilitary or both, if he repented and assumed his martyrdom without the final temptation to betray himself.
The hearse traveled from the Oriente to Havana under an insulting sun without optimal conservation measures (or came secretly by air and the delay was only a ploy to pressure his family: living in Cuba is a lot like a police procedural). In the text messages we received and resent like automatons, the funeral was postponed until 11 am, and then to the secret hour permitted by State Security, already mid-afternoon when, amid the cellphones and tears, Oswaldo’s box made its entrance flush with the crowd.
By then the church sheltered almost a whole spontaneous congress of the Cuban opposition, from its media stars to the anonymous infiltrating agents of the last generation. The operation of control this time would play at not interfering with the ceremony and conceded everything his widow asked for (except the resuscitation of her love of 26 years). The irrepressible applause burst forth as the coffin advanced, in an unsuspected consensus from minutes earlier, erasing rancor and caudillos, displaying everyone’s best side before the memory of a good man who saw like no one else the promised land and, not to disprove the Bible, never managed to inhabit it.
It was not a private wake, but every time they felt invaded, the church’s young strongmen limited the labor of the cameras, cautioning us not to disturb “the suffering of the family.” A most dignified pain and more real than any other sentiment I remember in my life. But pain in public and not behind closed doors. That is, a pain that needed to be captured in all its beauty and brutality, in all its strength and fragility, in all its decency and denunciation, until it infected our sleepiest fibers, so that the world would understand the debacle that just occurred on the Island: another death the naturalness of which not even death itself trusts.
When the cries of “Freedom! Freedom” startled the pastor, with a nervous gesture implored the wife to calm the flock. And Ofelia complied in the name of Oswaldo, taking the microphone for the first time, and was instantly obeyed.
But perhaps her husband would have preferred that the music of throats and hands was never quelled, that explosion of sympathy that went from the intimate to the social, that instant plebiscite between indignation and revolutionary: it lacked nothing then to rip out the roots of resignation and appropriate the august corpse to take the Plaza by assault.
Perhaps the Christian Liberation Movement had never counted on such a quorum and this posthumously late, between grief and fear, compelled to say goodbye to their leader with more than incense and rosaries. An instant later, silence, it was obvious that we thousands gathered there will never play a leading role among the people, and the death of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas will be diluted in the government statistics of the Traffic Division.
Foreign broadcasters crowded in line hoping for my cell phone, while I chronicled tweet by tweet trying to be the eyes and the heart of an ever more desperate diaspora. In exhaustive detail, exhausted. I took eleven million photos and video clips, approach the main altar where the coffin rested with wreaths of flowers and a flag, but I never joined the infinite line expressing condolences to his family for hours.
Perched dangerously above Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, I saw his bruised face reminiscent of a fight, a trickle of blood without a biography flowing from his mind, his chest sunken under his Cuban shirt, his smile disappeared, his eyelids stoned, and I trembled before the remains whom I had admired from my ignorance and whom I defrauded before reading it by not signing the most virtuous Varela Project and in exchange, indeed, the socialist mummification of our Constitution, an anti-constitutional outburst with which Fidel Castro took his personal revenge on him.
His daughter Rosa María, whom I had heard on the underground radio like a miracle of courage and faith in human justice, emphatically imposed on me without knowing me, “I don’t want photos of my father’s face.” But I treasured much more than that. I had managed to cry softly, moved by so much helplessness among my contemporaries, infinitesimal beings when not infantilized, at the intemperance of a State incapable of communicating a single word to us, except those of our stigmatization by decree (and at this same time they humiliated the Payá Acevedo family with vicious vermin on the web, without a note of protest coming from the Catholic Church nor from any other denomination).
With the setting of the sun came the Eucharist and then followed the deepest midnight. I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything. I was tired and my clothes were drenched by the vile summer. My Nokia and Canon batteries had given out. I went home and looked at my mother, who still suspected nothing, and gave her a hug as if suddenly it was me who would never come home again. I don’t want my accident to catch me without having said I love you to those I love.
But totalitarianism is exactly that surprise, you can always be removed from their spaces: from the cradle to school to high school to the brigade to the hut to the desk to the prison cell to the firing squad wall to the ambulance to the chapel to exile to heaven to the pantheon.
I returned to The Savior of the World church and lay down on the Plaza Galicia’s benches, amid the sacred snores of some Ladies in White. Inside the temple a few crestfallen mourners slept. I felt unpunished, indolent, and wanted to take the flag off the coffin, this heroic rag shared by saints and soldiers. Cuba tired. Outside was the most beautiful morning. The ceiba trees, a fingernail moon, the damp chill misting the pale streetlights and my eyelashes: this time there were tears without crying, a salt trickle flowing from my backward mind. Why do I stay in this citizenless cenotaph? They make you want to flee and not be killed. But, as long as I am free of so much hopelessness, I was enamored of those few words dictated despotically be despair, and now I came back for more photos of her father’s soul.
Tuesday dawned, and not having breakfast or perhaps the Cardinal’s weather made me want to vomit. Jaime Ortega y Alamino demagogued that “the aspiration to participate in the political life of the nation is a right and a duty of a lay Christian,” and even dared to quote Pope Benedict XVI who, when in Havana, had time to greet tyrannical atheists but not a lay Christian democrat with the last name of Payá: “let no one be impeded from joining this enthralling work by the limitation of their fundamental freedoms.” I had already heard this quoted on the jail TV, in His Holy Manipulated Mass of the month of March, and with hundreds of Cubans jailed on a prophylactically Catholic basis, with the consent of his spokesman Orlando Márquez in the Communist Party newspaper named with the same six letter word of accidental death as that unfortunate province: Granma…
All ritual is reiteration. Botched, yawn. But at the end of the funeral liturgy she returned to speak, there, a sliver of unspeakable Cuban truth. Rosa María Payá spoke with more spirit than a half century of erudite fakers. She accused without panic, although she was preparing her own gallows. She left hatred outside her discourse like the testament of a twenty something in terminal danger. From the elementary particle, the divine word, wherein is incarnated the mute honor — the prostituted honor — of this nation. The bishops stared at the infinite, faceless, masks of glass of those who couldn’t throw even the final stone. And then her mother Ofelia Acevedo, with a manifesto that claimed the right to fight from the peaceful opposition to be free beings in Cuba and not to die in the attempt.
Minutes later, a few yards away, the rapid response mobs and the police beat dozens of those present who, for trying to accompany the coffin on foot, never made it to the cemetery. Nor to their homes.
Rather than narrating the standing ovation goodbye at the cemetery, I would like to end with the horror still coagulating over the surviving witnesses from the rental car where Payá and his young collaborator Harold Cepero died. From promising European politicians, Ángel Carromero and Jens Aron Modig have become victims of verisimilitude for life. Whatever they say at this time of mystery and misery, their declarations will now echo with intrigue, traps, torture. I affirm it with the sarcasm of my own involuntary sacrifice: if both of them were to agree now that a flying saucer with the initials INRI* bombarded them on leaving Bayamo, their alibi would sound more sincere and less vulturous.
We Cubans do ourselves in. Cuba buries us. I haven’t slept a wink since then. Insomnia is a very persistent thing. Rest in peace if you can, first president of the country who wasn’t. What’s wrong with us.
*Translator’s note: Cuba’s Foreign Ministry
From Diario de Cuba.
July 28 2012
World: Death on the island
The death of Oswaldo Paya in Cuba has impacted the dissidence and sowed suspicion. This is the story and tribute from a Cuban writer and photographer from the ranks of the opposition.
By Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, from Havana 26/07/2012
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (1952-2012) has died like they kill the dissidents on the island: in a spirit fired by paranoia against State Security, a residue of the Cold War that operates above Cuban law and perhaps the divine as well. He has died with condolences signed by everyone from the White House to the Vatican, but with the Stalinist stigma of “enemy of the people” in the State press — the only press legal in Cuba — plus a campaign of vulgar insults on government web pages.
His wake was a bath of masses in an open church over two days, overwhelmed by shouts of “Freedom!” applause and tears. One of the masses, before the diplomats accredited in Havana, was offered by Cardinal Jaime Ortega, much criticized lately for his distancing from pro human rights activists and his ever more complacent collusion with General Raúl Castro.
All made sacred by the intimate and public grief of his widow, Ofelia Acevedo, and their young children, now orphans: Reinaldo, Oswaldo and Rosa María, who read an allegation where she held the government responsible for the tragedy, demanded an impartial investigation, and denounced the death threats endured by the family. Weeks early, a car had rammed his car causing it to flip over, although that time Payá was unharmed.
During the wake and internment, the congregation was surrounded by a battalion of police and the mobs of the so-called Rapid Response Brigades, which eventually resulted in dozens of arrests.
Payá has died, with his Andrei Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament (2002) and his five nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The death of the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement and the author of civic renewal platforms such as the Varela Project, which gathered more than 25,000 national signatures for a constitutional referendum that was rejected by the Cuban government. He died in a traffic accident at noon on Sunday 22 July, on a road in Bayamo, east of the island.
Moments later, in the capital, his daughter received a terrifying phone call: according to the testimony of the survivors (the Spaniard Ángel Carromero Barrios and the Swede Jens Aron Modig), another vehicle had struck their rental car. Inexplicably, this time, only the Cubans riding in the back seat died (Payá and his young collaborator Harold Cepero), without the two foreigners suffering serious injuries.
Like every prophet, Payá didn’t manage to exercise his power in the promised country he was trying to found. Like every prophet, it will have to be his body that calls the citizenry to awaken.
July 27 2012
Yesterday afternoon a piece of hope for Cuba died. Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was the fatal victim of an auto accident in circumstances still not clarified. Cuba is dying while continuing to lose its best children, emptying the vital fountains due to unrestrained emigration, galloping corruption, the larceny of such a prolonged dictatorship that has sucked the sap out of four generations, and loses like this one: the death of a Cuban of great worth that fills us with grief.
I did not share all of Payá’s points of view, I was even critical at times of some of his proposals. I would be again; but I always respected the man who created them, his will, his spirit and his dedication. I admired above all his courage and his faith in a better Cuba, the dream to which he dedicated so much energy and so many sacrificed over many years, longer than some deserve who now shrug their shoulders and look away.
Not all the leaders of the opposition have had the merit of confronting absolute power without flinching, without abandoning the fight, without giving in. So today is particularly tragic. In a few hours a Havana perish will hold a wake for the body of a man whose principal weapon was his faith in God and love for Cuba, I bow my head before his death.
I see people walking the streets without even known that an essential Cuban has died; surely the administrators of the terror, cowardly and selfish, will be celebrating a feast in their barracks. But to feel resentment at this time would profane the memory of this fighter for peace. It is consoling to know that Payá had already transcended in life; so death will not be enough to silence him.
I would have wanted us to be able to count on him in the democratic future that we will have some day, no longer so far off, because we need leaders of his stature in a nation that is left bereft of values. Hopefully there are many like him, hopefully they won’t have died. Here is a farewell and a small tribute that I would have preferred never to offer. So that death does not triumph, we offer thanks to Oswaldo Payá for his life, and may God welcome him at his right hand, as befits the righteous men.
July 23 2012
Still dazed and in shock I compose these words to Oswaldo. When I started to get the first messages about Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas’s death they were showing the film “War Horse,” and in one of the scenes a soldier leaves his foxhole to save his charger and before the imminence of his death he is praying parts of the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” as if nothing should be lacking now to someone who is and well be a man-bridge, man-dialog, man-country.
The messages clogged my phone with the hashtag #OrlandoPayá and the mention OswaldoPaya. The questions of friends from every corner of the island and of the world. The police cordon at the hospital in Bayama, the details of the fatal incident, the doubts of a witness about a supposed police chase, the construction crews in the middle of the road on the El Naranjo curve. The questions. The answers. The words. The damn words.
It’s difficult to think of Payá and not go back to the now well known EFE Agency photo where he, Antonio Díaz Sánchez and Regis Iglesia, on that 10th of May 2012, are approaching the site of the National Assembly of People’s Power to deliver the 11,025 signatures of citizens who supported the Varela Project.
There was the map of tomorrow’s Cuba. I say that because now the faces of the three blend together for me with those of hundreds of anonymous opponents, without a visible mark for the “mass media” merrymaking, those who gave birth to and collected these desires.
The most insignificant of the Cuban dissidents saw pass through their hands a form, a copy, or a summary of the range of strategies that Payá wanted to tune into so that Cuba would be different. Along with virtues, defects and contradictions, there was his greatness. The Cuban regime had to move, in an acrobatic high-wire act to the people to amend those articles that gave a glimpse of freedom and that were a dead letter in the Constitution until Oswaldo Payá grabbed hold of them.
The Varela Project was a lever that moved the country.
I think of Payá, but also of Osmel Rodríguez (The Chinaman Manicaragua), of Ezequiel Morales and Juan Carlos Reyes Ocaña, of the Ferrer-García brothers and of the hundreds of Cubans who armed with courage went out through our dark country to seek signatures for the Varela Project, to spark the desire to be free or to dream with this treasure that is freedom.
I didn’t support all of Payá’s initiatives, and for this I won his friendship. The first time we met he listened to my arguments without interruption. In 2007 he invited me to review the draft of something he’d been “cooking up” for months and I still appreciate that gesture, that cunning to get me to participate. From that time he called me and I him.
The first close people who talked to me about him were Father Olbier Hernández and Deacon Andrés Tejeda who described him as a contradictory being, helpful, a rebuilding. They and the way in which the former American president Jimmy Carter in some way presented him on that day in 2002* in the Great Hall of the University of Havana depicted the face of Payá Sardiñas in the tapestry of an inclusive Cuba for everyone. It will come, we will have to find it together.
*Translator’s note: Jimmy Carter was allowed to address the Cuban people on live TV and took the opportunity to praise Oswaldo Payá and the Varela Project.
July 23 2012
This video is just over 2 minutes long.