LIMA, Peru – Activists and defenders of democracy commemorated the 74th anniversary of the birth of Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with the blessing of a bench in his memory on the Malecón de la Ermita de la Caridad, located in the city of Miami.
Held this last Saturday at 3.00 PM, The event was organized by the Foundation for Pan American Democracy and the promoters of Cuba Decide.
The ceremony brought together dozens of people, including relatives of the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, and was attended by the Charge d’Affaires of the United States Embassy in Havana, Mike Hammer.
During the event, Payá’s legacy as a leader of the peaceful opposition was highlighted and the Cuban political prisoners were remembered. The phrase “The only option of the people is Freedom” was inscribed on the bench, presented by the organizers as a symbol of commitment to democratic change in Cuba.
Rosa María Payá, daughter of the opposition leader, founder of the platform Cuba Decides and member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), spoke about the crisis that the population is resisting within the Island, ensuring that the only way out is a profound political change.
“Look, you have seen how so many Cubans have gathered around this bench. My father’s legacy calls us and we are in an exceptional moment. We are in the moment that so many tried to deny us. For so long they told us that change was impossible, that it was very complicated, that Cubans were not united. Today we are showing that we are and we are fundamentally so. We are convinced that to get out of the crisis we have to get out of the dictatorship,” the activist told the media. Martí News.
“I want you to know that the United States Embassy in Havana, our team, the Trump Administration, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, know, they know that the night will not last forever and that we are working so that there is a bright dawn full of freedom in Cuba,” said Mike Hammer.
Oswaldo Payá was founder of the Christian Liberation Movement and main promoter of the Varela Project, an initiative that gathered thousands of signatures to demand democratic reforms to the Cuban regime.
For his work, he received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Conscience in 2002, awarded by the European Parliament, and last year, posthumously, he received the Medal for Service to Democracy awarded by the National Foundation for Democracy (NED).
On July 22, 2012, Payá died in an alleged car accident in the province of Granma, along with activist Harold Cepero. However, his family maintains that it was a murder perpetrated by agents of the Cuban regime and has taken their case to international bodies with compelling evidence. In 2023, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded that the Cuban State was responsible of his death, and that it was not an accident, but rather a deliberately caused event, in violation of his fundamental rights.
