Rodrigo Paz Pereira held a meeting with Rosa María Payá to address the situation in Cuba and the influence of the Havana regime in the region.
MADRID, Spain.-The Cuban opposition leader Rosa María Payá, founder of the citizen project Cuba Decide and director of the Foundation for Pan American Democracy, was received by the president of Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, at the Palacio Quemado, one day after participating as a guest in the Transmission of Command ceremony in La Paz. The meeting took place during the president’s first day in office, whose victory marked a significant political turn in the Andean country.
During his official visit, Payá held conversations with Paz Pereira about the political situation in Cuba and the historical ties of the Havana regime with sectors of power in Bolivia. On social network
“Thank you President @Rodrigo_PazP for the welcome. We offer our support so that your new government can dismantle the interference of the Cuban regime in the institutions of the State. The new Bolivia that opens to the world is integrated into the nations that defend freedom and democracy in the Americas,” he expressed.
The meeting takes place at a time of political reconfiguration in Bolivia. On October 19, centrist senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira won the second presidential round with 54.5% of the votes, compared to the 45.5% obtained by former president Jorge Quiroga. With this, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), which had governed or exerted influence since 2005, was left out of the runoff. The coming to power of Paz Pereira marks the first center-right government in more than two decades. The new president took office on November 8, with an agenda focused on economic stabilization and the search for legislative agreements, as he did not have his own majority in the Assembly.
In addition to his meeting with the president, Payá took advantage of his stay in La Paz to visit former president Jeanine Áñez, recently released from prison after almost five years in prison. The meeting took place at Áñez’s family residence. “President Áñez has faced with dignity all these years the political revenge of the Castros and their accomplices. Today it fills me with joy and I am honored to meet Jeanine, now free, to reaffirm that this is a continental struggle against the interference of communist Havana, the dictatorships and their injustices,” said Payá.
In January 2020, during her government, Áñez received Rosa María Payá at the Government Palace, in a gesture of support for the democratic cause in Cuba. That same month, the Bolivian government broke diplomatic relations with Cuba after denouncing political interference through the so-called medical brigades.
Since the death of her father, the opposition member Oswaldo Payá, in 2012, in circumstances denounced as an attack orchestrated by the Cuban regime, Rosa María has developed intense international work in defense of human rights and the democratic transition in Cuba, with a presence in hemispheric forums and organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
