Oswaldo Payá

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas (29 February 1952 – 22 July 2012) was a Cuban political activist. A Roman Catholic, he founded the Christian Liberation Movement in 1987 to oppose the one-party rule of the Cuban Communist Party. He attracted international attention for organizing a petition drive known as the Varela Project, in which 25,000 signatories petitioned the Cuban government to guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of assembly as well as to institute a multi-party democracy. In recognition of his work, he received the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize and People in Need's Homo Homini Award.

On 22 July 2012, he died in a car crash under controversial circumstances. The Cuban government stated that the driver had lost control of the vehicle and collided with a tree, while Payá's children and one of the car's passengers asserted that the car had been deliberately run off of the road.

Early life

Oswaldo Payá was born on 29 February 1952 in Cerro, Havana. The fifth of seven children, he was brought up as a Roman Catholic and attended a Marist Brothers school in Havana. Payá was the only student at the school who refused to join the Communist League following the Cuban Revolution. The school was later closed. In 1969, he was sentenced to three years of hard labor on Isla de Pinos when he refused to transport political prisoners during his mandatory military service. While there, he discovered a locked Catholic church, Nuestra Señora de Dolores, that received permission from the Bishop of Havana to reopen as a mission, giving religious talks and caring for the sick.

After his release, Payá enrolled in the University of Havana as a physics major, but was expelled when authorities discovered him to be a practicing Christian; he then attended night school and switched his major to telecommunications. Payá later became an engineer and worked at a state surgical-equipment company. He was offered an opportunity to leave Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, but chose to remain in Cuba and work for change. He married Ofelia Acevedo in 1986 in a Catholic wedding. The pair had three children: Oswaldo José, Rosa María, and Reinaldo Isaías.

Career

Varela Project

In 1987, Payá founded the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), which called for nonviolent civil disobedience against the rule of the Cuban Communist Party. The group advocates for civil liberties and freedom for political prisoners. He also began a magazine for Catholics titled ''People of God'' (''Pueblo de Dios''), calling for Christians to lead the struggle for human rights. However, the magazine was shut down the following year by Cuba's bishops under government pressure. Payá attempted to run for the National Assembly of People's Power (NAPP) in 1992, but was not allowed to stand.

In the late 1990s, Payá and other MCL activists began collecting signatures for the Varela Project, a petition drive that would become his best-known program. Named in honor of Félix Varela, a Catholic priest who had participated in Cuba's independence struggle with Spain, the Project took advantage of a clause in the Cuban Constitution requiring a national referendum to be held if 11,000 signatures are gathered.

In May 2002, Payá presented NAPP with 11,020 signatures calling for a referendum on safeguarding freedom of speech and assembly, allowing private business ownership, and ending one-party rule. On 3 October 2003, he delivered an additional 14,000 signatures. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter endorsed the petition when granted a chance to speak on Cuban television, bringing Payá's efforts to the attention of a wide Cuban audience. Cuban President Fidel Castro described the petition drive as a U.S.-backed conspiracy to overthrow his government.

According to the ''Los Angeles Times'', the petition drive was "the biggest nonviolent campaign to change the system the elder Castro established after the 1959 Cuban revolution", giving Payá an international reputation as a leading dissident. An expert described it as "the only initiative of its time that enlisted citizen participation on a large scale". Fellow dissident Rene Gomez Manzano, on the other hand, was critical of the Project, stating that appeals to the Communist-Party-controlled NAPP were futile; similarly, other Cuban exiles criticized the initiative for what they considered its implicit acceptance of the legitimacy of the Castro regime and its constitution.

Later that year, Payá's efforts were recognized by the European Parliament, which awarded him its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, although he was nearly denied an exit visa to attend the awards ceremony. In the months that followed, Payá met with Pope John Paul II, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Mexican President Vicente Fox to discuss the cause of Cuban democratic reform. The Varela Project progress was blocked when the government launched its own petition drive to declare the socialist state "irrevocable". During the 2003 crackdown popularly known as the Black Spring, MCL members comprised around 40 of the 75 defendants, though Payá himself was not arrested.

Later activism

During Castro's illness, which culminated in his 2008 resignation, Payá continued to criticize the Cuban government as it transferred power to Castro's brother Raúl. He called on Raul Castro to allow multiparty elections and free all political prisoners, and delivered a petition asking that the Cuban people be granted freedom of travel.

In the years before Payá's death, his influence was said to be waning, and attention shifted to younger activists such as blogger Yoani Sanchez. In 2010, WikiLeaks released U.S. State Department cables from Jonathan D. Farrar, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, describing Payá and other older dissidents as "hopelessly out of touch", writing, "They have little contact with younger Cubans and, to the extent they have a message that is getting out, it does not appeal to that segment of society." However, many of the younger generation of dissidents cited him as a role model and expressed grief at his death.

Political views

Opposition to United States groups and policy

Payá refused to accept U.S. aid and also opposed the U.S. Cuban embargo. In a 2000 editorial for the ''Miami Herald

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