Cuba Loses a Patriot

Oswaldo Payá was a fighter, but not in an obvious way. He was a gentle, peaceful advocate for human rights and democratic freedoms that should have been the outcome of the 1959 Cuban revolution, but stood little chance under the revolution’s dictatorial leader. Payá was only seven years old then. Instead of following his peers into the “Pioneers” or Communist Youth Movement, he chose a life of studied resistance and fought to the end for civil liberties and individual dignity.

In contrast, “Maximum Leader” Fidel Castro Ruz sought to control all aspects of Cuban life and reportedly had some 40,000 political prisoners committed to squalid jails by the 1970s in an effort to stop opponents in their tracks. To encourage loyalty, Castro executed many former comrades who did not go along with or questioned his ideas.

Meanwhile, Oswaldo Payá dedicated himself to the Catholic Church. In 1988, he formed the Christian Liberation Movement and, as its coordinator, began calling for changes in Cuban society. He was not the first dissident activist to form an organization. That distinction belonged to the Arcos brothers, Gustavo and Sebastian, who started the Cuban Committee for Human Rights in 1978. But he clearly was continuing in that tradition, except that he manifestly rejected any assistance from the United States and even criticized the U.S. trade embargo.

During the early 1990s, he tried to run for the National Assembly, despite not being a member of the Communist Party. Police frequently detained him, and mobs, egged on by state security agents, attacked his home. In 2001, he formed the Citizens Organizing Committee for the Varela Project, named for Felix Varela, a national independence advocate. By March 2002, activists for the project had collected some 11,000 signatures on a petition that Payá presented to the National Assembly of People’s Power to hold a referendum on greater respect for human, political, and economic rights.

The petition hit just before former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visited the island in May 2002. In a seeming display of fairness, Castro allowed Carter to mention Payá’s Varela Project and criticize the regime’s human rights record on state television. However, an inexplicable malfunction garbled the audio during those parts of the broadcast. Subsequently, the state concocted a petition of its own to thwart discussion of the Varela Project in the National Assembly.

In September 2002, the Washington-based National Democratic Institute awarded Payá its W. Averill Harriman Democracy Award for his efforts to promote peaceful change. Cuban authorities refused permission for him to travel to receive the award. However, the state granted permission for him to travel abroad in January 2003, where he met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Mexican president Vicente Fox. During December of that year, the Varela Project delivered another 14,000 signatures in support of a new referendum.

Other initiatives followed that outlined a path toward a transition to democracy. One called for a national dialogue that brought together Cubans and exiles in thousands of discussion groups, and another sought a Forum for All Cubans that included citizens and government officials. Besides the Harriman award, Payá received the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament, an honorary doctor of law degree from Columbia University in New York, and was considered six times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Still young and an activist at 60, Oswaldo Payá died in a car accident Sunday July 22 while traveling in the Cuban countryside. Cuban authorities said the car in which he was riding hit a tree. Allegedly, two foreign activists traveling with Payá, Angel Carromero Barrios of Spain and Jens Aron Modig of Sweden, said that another vehicle forced them off the road. Uncharacteristically, Cuba’s party newspaper Granma reported the accident and names, calling the mishap “regrettable.”

Did Cuba’s state security engineer this tragedy? Did orders come from the top? Perhaps no answer is forthcoming. But it seems unlikely as Payá never directly threatened the Castro brothers, never advocated outside intervention, and was allowed to travel abroad. Still, as the regime’s aging leadership runs out the clock, Payá’s efforts may have been viewed as more of a challenge now—giving hope to perhaps millions of citizens and helping them lose their fear of authority. What is certain is that Payá’s Christian Liberation Movement will continue his peaceful struggle to enshrine human rights in Cuban law. And Oswaldo Payá will enter the history books as a visionary patriot who had the best interests of all Cubans at heart, an example that will no doubt inspire others.

Photo courtesy the National Democratic Institute.

Stephen Johnson is a senior fellow and director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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