Statement from the Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas Family

Statement from the Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas Family / Ofelia Acevedo
Ofelia Acevedo, Oswaldo Payá, Translator: Cleonte

Source: Heraldoes
It has been ten days since the event which took the life of my husband,
Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, National Coordinator of the Christian Liberation
Movement, and the life of the young man Harold Cepero Escalante, a
member of the same movement.

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


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