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Activist looks to shape
Cuba's future
All Cubans should join
talks on a post-Castro era, he says.
By Vanessa Bauzá,
Havana Bureau. Posted February 18 2005 in
the Sun-Sentinel.
HAVANA · Cuban opposition leader
Oswaldo Payá launched a new stage
in his campaign for a peaceful democratic
transition, calling on Cubans within and
outside the island to participate in a national
dialogue to shape a post-Castro future.
Payá, who earned international attention
for organizing a petition drive signed by
25,000 Cubans in favor of government reforms,
hopes his Committee for National Dialogue
will spark a discussion across political
and geographic lines and dispel some of
the uncertainty shrouding Cuba's future.
"We want Cubans to have control over
the process of transition," he said.
"We don't have to fear change but rather
fear remaining in the conditions we are
in now."
He has invited government supporters and
members of the exile community to debate
a range of topics, from how to deal with
potential claims for properties confiscated
after the 1959 revolution to whether Cuba's
health and educational systems should be
privatized.
A national steering committee of 110 Cubans
includes dissidents and former political
prisoners as well as prominent exiles such
as author Carlos Alberto Montaner, academic
Juan Clark, Brothers to the Rescue founder
Jose Basulto and former Cuban American National
Foundation executive director Joe Garcia.
"It's the first time Cubans on the
island and in the rest of the world are
working as one people with one objective,"
Payá said Thursday at a relative's
home, where the words "Dialogue Without
Frontiers" were posted on the wall
as a backdrop.
"We have different opinions, different
expectations, but Cuba is our home and we
have to get together," said Payá,
who in 2002 was awarded the European Parliament's
Sakharov human rights prize, named after
a Russian dissident.
Payá's Varela Project was an unprecedented
attempt to use Cuba's current system for
change. It was deemed "unconstitutional"
by the Cuban government.
Dozens of his supporters were jailed during
the government's crackdown on dissidents
in 2003. Payá's dialogue committee
is one of two opposition-led initiatives
that have been founded since crackdown.
The other, a large-scale civic meeting spearheaded
by former political prisoner Martha Beatriz
Roque, is planned for May 20.
Payá insists his drive for national
dialogue is not geared solely toward dissidents,
but is inclusive of those who support the
Cuban government.
"The government is part of Cuban society
and we are open to dialogue with its members,"
Payá said.
It is precisely Payá's moderate
stance and willingness to work within Cuba's
current system that has made him a target
for criticism among some hard-line sectors
of Miami's exile community.
Emilio Izquierdo, a former political prisoner
in Cuba, said Payá's peaceful efforts
for change will not succeed under Cuba's
current government.
"Cubans cannot do anything under the
structure of terrorism that exists in Cuba,"
he said.
However, Payá's supporters like
Garcia, a member of the Foundation's board
of directors, said dialogue is essential
to "demystifying" Cuba's future.
Some Cubans fear a transition might strip
them of social safety nets like subsidized
healthcare or that Cuban Americans might
return to the island and reclaim their homes
and properties.
"One of the reasons [President Fidel]
Castro has had such power is that he's been
so successful in painting a picture of the
alternative [to Cuba's current system],
that the enemy that is coming," Garcia
said. "What Payá is trying to
do is say, wait a minute, we're all Cubans,
we're all here. What's there to be scared
of?"
Basulto, another supporter, said Payá's
project represents a shift in the exile
community's expectations that the U.S. government
could topple Castro's government.
"I think this signals that the exile
community is beginning to realize we are
on our own and if we want to ... change
the [Cuban] government we have to look for
alternative ways," Basulto said. "Violence
has failed. We have to look for our own
tools to exert pressure."
Payá said supporters across Cuba
have held modest meetings in homes and churches
to discuss potential reforms, from amnesty
for political prisoners to decentralizing
Cuba's economy. Thousands of suggestions
and opinions have been collected. A compilation
of citizens suggestions could be available
my mid-year, he said.
One of the themes that has emerged is Cubans'
desire for a gradual transition to avoid
"chaos," Payá said.
He said the important thing is for Cubans
to be "protagonists" in their
future.
Staff Writer Madeline
Baro contributed to this report.
Vanessa Bauzá
can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com
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