Widow, children of Oswaldo Payá seek political refuge in Miami

Posted on Sunday, 06.09.13
CUBA DISSIDENTS

Widow, children of Oswaldo Payá seek political refuge in Miami
BY ENRIQUE FLOR
eflor@ElNuevoHerald.com

The widow of the late Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Ofelia
Acevedo, and her children Rosa María and Reinaldo, have asked for
political asylum in Miami, according to representatives of the
anti-Castro movement that Payá had founded.

The request marks the first time that high-profile dissidents who have
been allowed to travel outside of Cuba in the past several months have
requested asylum in the United States.

On Sunday, Antonio Díaz, member of the coordinating committee of the
Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), told El Nuevo Herald that Payá's
family members were in Miami and were focusing on initiating the
paperwork to settle in as political refugees.

"They're already here and are taking some time to finish the process,"
said Díaz in Miami, who said he was in contact with the family. "For now
they will take care of the paperwork, and shortly after, they will speak
to the media."

In a communication released Saturday night, the MCL said that the Payá
family arrived in Miami accompanied by other unidentified family members.

"On Thursday, June 6, Mrs. Ofelia Acevedo Maura, Oswaldo Payá's widow
and a founding member of the MCL's Coordination Council, arrived in
Miami accompanied by her daughter Rosa María, also member of the MCL's
Coordination Committee, and her younger son Reinaldo, as well as other
members of her family," the release says.

The Payá family's decision took place nearly two months after Rosa María
Payá's return to Cuba after a tour through Europe and the United States.
During her visit to Miami, she told El Nuevo Herald that the Cuban
regime had intensified the threats against her family.

On Sunday, leaders of the Cuban community in Miami expressed support for
the decision made by the family members, who had insisted in requesting
an international investigation to clarify the strange circumstances of
the deaths of Payá and Harold Cepero in a car crash on July 22 last
year. The family alleges that the government is responsible for those
deaths.

"It was to be expected that after requesting the investigation, Payá's
family members would begin to have a lot of problems," said Ninoska
Pérez Castellón, a talk-show host at Radio Mambí. "Unfortunately, this
is the path that numerous Cubans have had to follow. [...] I am sure
they will continue to energetically denounce the crimes that are taking
place there."

The executive director of the Human Rights Foundation of Cuba, Yvonne
Soler-McKinley, said that the Cuban regime has not hesitated to continue
threatening peaceful internal dissidents.

"Dissidents are being subjected to a lot of pressure, they are
constantly harassing them," said Soler-McKinley. "We in exile must now
support them in everything we can."

DISSIDENTS HARASSED

Several of the dissidents who returned to Cuba after traveling under the
immigration reform implemented on Jan. 14 have said they were victims of
constant harassment.

Among them is Eliécer Avila, who at the end of May said he was stopped
at Havana's José Martí International Airport by immigration officials
and police, who spent four hours thoroughly checking his belongings and
then seized more than a dozen books and magazines that he was carrying.

Upon her return to Cuba on April 16 after an international tour, Rosa
María Payá said that the threats against her and her organization had
not stopped.

"There is no doubt that vigilance has intensified," Rosa María told El
Nuevo Herald.

In May a pro-Castro blog accused Rosa María of "creating a matrix of
international opinion" about her father's death. The threats from the
Heraldo Cubano blog — sympathetic to the Cuban government — were part of
an opinion column titled "Those Who Play With Fire...," and was signed
by Arthur González.

Oscar Peña, president of the Miami-based Cuban Committee for Human
Rights, said that the Payá family's exit is a hard blow for dissidents
who remain on the island, but he said he understood the decision.

"I understand them perfectly well because I went through the same
situation," Peña said. "On the one hand there is the fatigue of the
dissidents' families and, on the other hand, there is the government's
plan to clear the streets of any voice opposing them."

The MCL release said that it will continue working "with love on the
opposition program known as El Camino del Pueblo (The People's Path),
which expresses the common goals of the Cuban democratic movement."

"Inside and outside of the island, we will continue to take action in
order to obtain an independent international investigation that would
publicly clarify the deaths of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero," said the
release.

Regis Iglesias, who is among those who signed the MCL's statement in
support of it, said the Payá family had been a victim of a harassment
campaign.

"They are going through very difficult moments," Iglesias said Sunday
from Madrid. "There is no option but to support them in these
circumstances."

Iglesias denounced that the government's violence against dissidents has
grown increasingly aggressive. He mentioned, for example, the machete
attack on Saturday against Werlando Leyva Batista, an MCL member in the
city of Holguín.

Eduardo Cardet Concepción, who also signed the MCL's statement, said
that Leyva Batista had to have surgery after wounds on his right
forearm. "They yelled insults calling Werlando a worm, a
counterrevolutionary, an opposition member [...] and then using a
machete they attacked him," said Cardet in a telephone message released
by MCL."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/09/v-fullstory/3442706/widow-children-of-oswaldo-paya.html