Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas Responds to Totalitarian Spokesman

Response to the Spokesman of the Totalitarian Regime, Mr. Bruno Rodriguez
Oswaldo Paya, Christian Liberation Movement

November 2nd, 2009 - Havana, Cuba - Mr. Bruno Rodríguez, you have spoken in the United Nation’s General Assembly, using the language of the agents of the repressive forces, to offend those in Cuba who defend the dignity and rights of Cubans and those who are imprisoned for this cause. As a representative of a tyranny, you spoke unabashedly, with insulting and cynical phrases, against the Cuban people.

The first and most insulting statement: Cuba is a democracy.

First it should be clarified that Cuba is all Cubans, and the government representatives that oppress it are by no means the voice of our people. In Cuba there is no democracy, there is a totalitarian regime where one group with power, that is not popularly supported or representative, denies the citizens and people at large their sovereign rights to choose and to decide, and their right to self determination.

Mr. Rodríguez also said: " Cuba respects the freedom to travel."

It is only because the Cuban people have no voice that you are able to so greatly offend them with such cynicism. In Cuba , freedom to travel is not a right and the government that Rodríguez represents denies this right to the Cubans who live inside and outside the country, a policy that cruelly separates many families.

It is not our style or our spirit to respond to offenses, nor to the sewer language of the officials and agents of the repressive government; however, on behalf of my brothers who are imprisoned for defending freedom and the rights of all Cubans, I respond to you as I responded to your predecessor, Felipe Pérez Roque, when faced with a similar offense:

Bruno Rodríguez, you are a mercenary to a government that pays you to justify to the world the oppression under which our people live!

But as I did with Felipe Pérez Roque, I remind you that those who order you can place and remove you with one finger; but we are not ordered by anyone. And as we said to those that are now in disgrace, we say to you: We are ready to defend your rights as a human being when they throw you to the trash; if it is not before the Cuban people win their freedom and their rights, as will surely happen.


Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement Havana , Cuba October 29, 2009