Freedom and remembering those who paid the ultimate price: Oswaldo Payá and the "13 de Marzo"

“In Cuba there are missing and it is known who has disappeared them, the latter are heroes for the government….There are more than 20 murdered children waiting to be claimed and mothers and grandmothers who were not allowed to look for them when they were killed off the coast of Havana” – Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, El Nuevo Herald, March 18, 2005*

13 minute vigil at FIU at 12 noon on July 13, 2017

23 years ago on July 13, 1994 in the early morning hours, a few miles off the coast of Havana several families risked all to get to freedom and paid a terrible price. The Castro regime had learned of their plans, rather than preempt and stop the journey before it started, the dictatorship opted to make an example of them in an act of state terror that will never be forgotten by those touched by this crime against humanity.

Five years ago on July 22, 2012 in Eastern Cuba two human rights and pro-democracy leaders who had organized a petition drive 15 years ago that shook the dictatorship to its very core were murdered in a successful effort by Cuban state security to silence and stop those who could not be intimidated by threats of prison, violence or even death. It is an outrage but not a shock sadly because Cuba is a totalitarian, communist dictatorship where human rights have and continue to be systematically violated.

However the unfolding events at the University of Miami are both an outrage and shocking because we are told that America is the land of the free and universities are supposed to be bastions of free academic inquiry.

Yesterday we learned that the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS) was going to be shut down on August 15, 2017 after 18 years of becoming an established institution in South Florida and its director Professor Jaime Suchlicki resigning in protest over the direction that the University of Miami administration has decided to take on Cuba.

The logical question that arises is why? Why would the President of the University of Miami want to do away with this prestigious institution?

Earlier this year on January 19, 2017 ICCAS hosted a book presentation on The Sinking of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat by Jorge A. Garcia who lost seventeen family members on July 13, 1994 and over 20 years later remains a man marked by the devastation visited upon his loved ones. How many other universities around the United States with a Cuba program have organized a book presentation about this heinous crime? Despite being well documented, even human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch ( who both documented the crime when it happened) seem to have developed amnesia on these extreme atrocities when conducting an assessment of the human rights legacy of Castroism at the time of Fidel Castro's death in November of 2016.

Three years ago on October 14, 2014 at ICCAS  Ángel Carromero, one of the survivors of the state security engineered extra judicial executions of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante of the Christian Liberation Movement on July 22, 2012, was able to give his testimony in an academic setting with the Payá family at his side and declare that they had been attacked. Five years after the murders of Oswaldo and Harold the current leader of their movement, Eduardo Cardet, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, has been in prison since November 30, 2016 and has suffered repeated beatings, and poor treatment.

The Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami has not taken part in the white wash of the human rights record of the Castro regime and the forces of the Left in the Academy cannot forgive ICCAS  exposing the nature of the dictatorship in Cuba. This is the reason that Professor Suchlicki is being forced out and ICCAS either destroyed or transformed into something that will play the game of forgetting in order to be able to get along with the Cuban dictatorship.

These are dark days in the Academy when freedom of expression is under assault around the United States on college campuses. Sadly we are witnessing this darkness envelope the University of Miami. We must defend bastions of scholarship and free inquiry such as the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies but at the same time it is necessary to speak truth to power where ever possible.

On July 13, 2017 at 11:00am at the Cuban Democratic Directorate together with Ramon Saul Sanchez, Jorge A. Garcia will be presenting his book on the tugboat sinking. At 12 noon at Florida International University members of the Free Cuba Foundation will hold a thirteen minute moment of silence in memory of those murdered by the regime in July.

One week later on July 20, 2017 at the West Dade Regional Library at 6:00pm there will be a symposium on the legacy of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas with friends and family members in attendance.

Misa 5to aniversario muertes @oswaldopaya y Harold Cepero
Capilla Siervas de María. Plaza de Chamberí , Madrid 22 de julio 11:00 am pic.twitter.com/y7a6B1OidD

— MCL (@oswaldopaya) 10 de julio de 2017

Two days later on July 22, 2017 there will be a Mass in Madrid at 11:00am and a second in Miami at 8:00pm giving thanks for the lives of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante taken from us far too soon five years ago.

Truth and memory in defiance of the attempt to whitewash and forget. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explained in his 1986 Nobel Lecture why it is important to remember:  "To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." ... "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."  

Second survivor in events surrounding July 22, 2012 activists' deaths confirms car was violently forced off the road

Spanish newspaper Diario YA ES published an article yesterday citing a 2013 interview in which Aron Modig reaffirmed not recollecting the events during the crash but did recognize that the SMS texts describing a second vehicle crashing into his was sent by him.

Jens Aron Modig spoke on July 22, 2012 events in Cuba

 In the Spanish newspaper DiarioYA.ES on March 26, 2015 in the article titled "Jens Aron Modig confirmed that the car was forced off the road violently" the following information was published referring to a March 14, 2013 radio interview:

The Swedish activist Jens Aron Modig who on July 22, 2012 was in the passenger seat in the car driven by the Spanish politician Angel Carromero and in which Cuban dissidents Oswaldo Payá  and Harold Cepero were killed has confirmed that the vehicle was forced off the road violently by another car when they had the accident. Although initially the Swedish activist claimed to have no recollection of the alleged involvement of another vehicle in the accident, thus denying the criminal nature of the event while Angel Carromero was detained in Cuba, and he obtained permission from the Cuban authorities to leave the island, recognized on National Radio of Sweden the existence of SMS (text messages) that he sent that recounts how a vehicle forced them off the road. This contradicts the version of the communist government about the crash being due to a speeding driver.

  (...)

For Modig what happened "was a traumatic experience .. I could see up close how it works in a dictatorship like Cuba. I was imprisoned about a week, stripped of my belongings, I had no chance to make contact with my family or with Swedish diplomats in Cuba. All without being informed of what crime I was being accused (...). I could see the reality in which people live daily in Cuba," said the young Swede.

This account contradicts the version put forward by the Castro regime and corroborates the Spanish survivor Ángel Carromero. The SMS text messages mentioned above were copied and are a key element in understanding the events surrounding the deaths of Oswaldo and Harold on July 22, 2012.

Two years + three months later the demand for truth and justice for Oswaldo and Harold continues

"The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future." - George Orwell

Two years, and three months ago today Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante were killed in Cuba. The Christian Liberation Movement continues to gather signatures for a petition demanding an international investigation. International dignitaries are already demanding an investigation among them Nobel Peace Laureates Lech Walesa (1983) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984).

One of the survivors of the incident on July 22, 2012, Ángel Carromero, has spoken on the record and last week visited Miami to give his testimony at the University of Miami, Radio República, Voces de Cuba and other media outlets.

On October 20, 2014 The Washington Post published an editorial challenging the Cuban dictatorship's version and lack of a proper and thorough investigation into the deaths of Oswaldo and Harold below is an excerpt pertinent to their case:

THE OTHER day, Fidel Castro wrote an opinion column for Cuba’s state-run newspaper, Granma, as he has done periodically from retirement. He lavished praise on an editorial in the New York Times that called for an end to the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. But Mr. Castro had one complaint: The Times mentioned the harassment of dissidents and the still-unexplained death of a leading exponent of democracy, Oswaldo Payá, and a younger activist, Harold Cepero, in a car wreck two years ago.

The assertion that Cuba’s authoritarian government had yet to explain the deaths was “slanderous and [a] cheap accusation,” Mr. Castro sputtered.

So why has Cuba done nothing to dispel the fog of suspicion that still lingers over the deaths? If the charge is slanderous, then it is long past time for Mr. Castro to order a thorough investigation of what happened on an isolated Cuban road on July 22, 2012. So far, there has been only a crude attempt at cover-up and denial.

We know something about what happened, thanks to the eyewitness account of Ángel Carromero, the young Spanish politician who was at the wheel of the rental car that was carrying Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero to a meeting with supporters. Mr. Carromero, who visited Washington last week, told us the car was being shadowed by Cuban state security from the moment it left Havana. He said his conversations with Mr. Payá as they traveled were mostly about the Varela Project, Mr. Payá’s courageous 2002 petition drive seeking to guarantee democracy in Cuba. Many of Mr. Payá’s supporters in the project were later arrested and imprisoned. 

After the wreck, Mr. Carromero was pressured by the Cuban authorities to describe it as an accident caused by his reckless speeding. But he reiterated to us last week that what really happened is that the rental car was rammed from behind by a vehicle bearing state license plates. Mr. Carromero showed us photographs of the damaged car, damage that seemed inconsistent with a wreck caused by speeding. But the precise details of what happened are unknown and need to be cleared up by a credible investigation. Mr. Payá’s family has sought one for two years, without success. When the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States sent a query to Cuba about the case, they got no answer. Nothing.

Ángel Carromero in Miami declares that Cuban dissidents were killed in an attack

“What happened on July 22 [2012] wasn’t an accident, it was an assault.” -  Ángel Carromero

Angel Carromero holds up car crash photos from July 22, 2012 in Cuba. (Pedro Portal)

 Ángel Carromero arrived in Miami last week to give his testimony on what happened on July 22, 2012 when Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante were killed. This is not the first time that he has spoken on what took place. He has spoken to The Washington Post, in Geneva, in Spain and written a book. The family of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas has defended his innocence and were barred from attending the show trial that Ángel was subjected to by the dictatorship in Cuba. Others have come forward to say that Oswaldo and Harold were extrajudicially executed. International figures, Lech Walesa and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, among them have called for an international investigation into the two deaths. The complete interview on video  is available in Spanish from El Nuevo Herald.


Below is what was published in the interview with The Miami Herald Editorial Board.

Question and Answer session:

What arguments were presented at trial to sentence you?
The formula used to sentence me and to calculate the speed at which the car supposedly traveled has no validity, it's the one of rectilinear motion uniformly accelerated.
This movement doesn't exist and doesn’t account for the acceleration made when you brake, the friction. ..l The international experts contacted by my lawyers broke all of this down. Experts from the CUJAE (Cuba’s University of Engineering) said it was nonsense.

Did those experts go to the trial?
In Cuba, if they accuse you, you’re sentenced. Cuban legislation doesn’t allow for experts to come and testify. This doesn't happen in countries which are not dictatorships.

Did you have access to documents relating to your case?
I never saw the report of my case. They didn't give my defense lawyer a copy. The lawyers has to travel from Havana to Bayamo to transcribe 800 documents by hand. Why didn't they give them a copy the way it's done in all cases? Because they knew that when they copied it that the documents would make it out of Cuba and the case would be read. The drawings of the supposed tests which they had done to me to accuse me had to be done by hand too, like children. You can laugh, but it's not a joke.

When did you send that text message stating, “Help! We're surrounded by military men”?
They let us keep our cellphones at the beginning of our stay in the hospital in Bayamo but later on they took them from us. I sent that text when I was in my hospital bed surrounded by military men. In that moment, they had obligated me to change my version of the story and were filming me with a handycam and I knew it was going to end badly.

The first thing he said was that they had run us off the road and had hit us. This made them nervous, and they hit me. Later on a Cuban official who introduced himself as an expert told me the version that I was to repeat: that I pressed the brake pedal and “fell in an embankment.” In Spain this has another meaning and the phrasing of the words is different too.

Was Modig sleeping when the accident happened as he has alleged in interviews?
There were times when he was asleep but he was the copilot. If he chose to remain quiet and turn the page, well I don't share in that sentiment. I respect it but I've chosen a more complicated road and one with worse consequences for me but I couldn't stay silent.

Has it been a long time since you last spoke to him?
Yes. The last time he came to Spain he simply told me he didn't remember anything.

How did you find out about the deaths of Payá and Cepero?
I asked in the hospital and in the interrogation in Bayamo they told me about it again.

At what speed where you traveling when all this happened?
Well, I don't remember the speed, but whoever has been in Cuba knows that on the main highway, even if you want to, you can't go too fast because it's full of potholes. Also it was a rental car and didn't work so well. I was with Rosa Maria [Payá] yesterday and we remembered that the day before the trip we were about to cancel it because the car didn't accelerate well.

At the time you traveled to Cuba was your driver's license in good standing?
Yes. Not even my family or my friends could defend me in Spain because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to return. The leftist party and the Cuban government took advantage of that silence to try to destroy my credibility. So, I took the heat from the media on my own.

In the book you're very blunt about why you filmed those videos in which you take the blame ...
There's something very clear here, I was surrounded by soldiers, in a loathsome dungeon-like cell without access to lawyers and without being able to call anybody. I was alone and at the mercy of what the soldiers wanted to do to me. This is in Cuba, not a country with rights, and so they told me that if I collaborate, that they'll let me go.

What were you afraid of the most?
Of them killing me. They can do with you whatever they want. You have no cellphone, no outside contact, you're in a dictatorship. It was collaborate and do what I'm told or I wouldn't be here with you today. It's like a video from al-Qaida, my face was swollen and I could barely speak. ...

In which jails were you?
I was in Bayamo and later I was moved to Cien and Aldabo, it's an instructional jail. They stick you in there until you confess, and if not, they won't let you out. I was there until November in a cell in which they'd take me out once a day every two or three weeks. It was psychologically trying and I clung on to the fact that I wanted to go back and that if I did, I wanted to be well and I did it.

What did you do in jail?
Think. Think about my family and friends. Try to keep feeling alive, part of my life. Think about what I'd be doing if I was with my loved ones. I tried to not let the isolation they imposed on me affect me. I don't know if it's mental tricks or what but it helped me.

Did councilmen come see you at your jail cell?
Of course, they didn't let me out but a slew of military men passed by there. They talked to me and told me that Cuba was gorgeous. Of course, I had to act docile towards them because they were my captors and the ones who brought me food. It's difficult. I also fought with myself over that.

But on trial, despite having been docile, you decided to say you were innocent.
Of course, because the regime created a friction and did so in such a bad way that there were elements to defend myself from their version of the facts. My lawyers told me to declare myself innocent because even with their version they had proof to show that I was innocent. It was also an act of rebellion on my part, even though later I regretted it because an official threatened me. It's complicated to act without consulting anyone. One day they told me that I hadn't support from my party and my government. I lived in a contradiction, without knowing, and making decisions blindly is very hard.

When did you have that initial contact with the Spanish embassy?
When I was in Bayamo, the Swedish ambassador and the auxiliary consul from Spain. The ambassador manages to have her national sent home with her and the Spanish consulate just asks me how I'm doing and doesn't provide me with any further instruction.

It's also strange that they sent an auxiliary consul.
They told me that they tried to treat it as a case between consulates, but from that first moment, they didn't send an ambassador and only sent an auxiliary consul.

Why did the National Court in Spain disregard a petition to investigate the death of Oswaldo Payá, who was a Spanish citizen?
My return to Spain wasn't free. The Cuban government isn't stupid and got a lot out of my return. One of the conditions they put was that the Spanish government has to accept the validity of my sentence and can't revise my case. This was part of a prisoner extradition treaty that both governments signed.

Can Spanish authorities pardon you?
Yes, but they have to communicate that to Cuba first.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article2674868.html#storylink=cpy

Crash Survivor: Cuban secret service murdered Oswaldo Payá

Murdered by the Cuban Secret Service

Ángel Carromero, the young politician of the Partido Popular (Popular Party) breaks his silence and speaks to the Spanish media (El Mundo) on August 4, 2013 about what happened on July 22, 2012 on a road in Bayamo, on the one year anniversary of the deaths of Cuban opposition leader, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and MCL youth leader Harold Cepero Escalante.  Ángel first spoke of the events on that day to The Washington Post on March 5, 2013.

Ángel Carromero

Below is a translated excerpt from the interview in El Mundo:

Question. - What happened that July 22 in Cuba?
 
Response.-We were going to Santiago and they had already followed us on three occasions during the journey. In Bayamo, a blue vehicle begins to pursue us. Harassing us, it comes very close. So close that I could see the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror. Seeing the car, Oswaldo says, 'They belong to the communists because of the color of the license plate. Angel, continue as if nothing. "
 
Q. - Do you accelerates at that time to try to escape?
 
R. 'On the contrary. We did not want to give them an excuse to stop us. It was also impossible to go fast, the road is very winding and full of potholes.
 
Q. - And what happens next?
 
R. - The car smashed into us from behind and knocks us off of the roadway. I lose consciousness. The next thing I remember is how men put me in a van with sliding doors, such as those used by Cuban state security, and I sream, "F*+k! who are you and what the f*+ck have you done." Then I lose consciousness. I think they hit me with the butt of a gun because I have a breech in the head.
 
Q. - Did both Cuban dissidents come out of the accident alive?
 
A. - Yes, I'm quite sure. The nurses and a pastor assured me that four of us had entered the hospital.
 
Q - Was it a strong impact?
 
R. - The windows of the car did not break Aron nor I had any bruising.
 
Q. And if it was not an accident, how Oswaldo Payá died?
 
R. - The Cuban secret service murdered Oswaldo Payá. It was not the first time they had tried. Two months earlier, another car had caused their vehicle to flip.

 

June 25, 2012 Oswaldo and Ofelia in van flipped over by another car

The original Spanish text reproduced below:

Pregunta.– ¿Qué ocurrió aquel 22 de julio en Cuba?
Respuesta.–Nos dirigíamos a Santiago y ya nos habían seguido tres veces durante el trayecto. En Bayamo, un vehículo azul comienza a perseguirnos. Viene hostigándonos muy cerca. Tanto que pude ver los ojos del conductor por el retrovisor. Al ver el coche, Oswaldo me dice: «Son de la comunista por el color de la placa. Ángel, sigue como si nada».
P.–¿Acelera en ese momento para intentar escapar?
R.–Todo lo contrario. No queríamos darles una excusa para que nos dieran el alto. Además, era imposible ir deprisa, la carretera es muy sinuosa y está llena de socavones.
P.–¿Y qué ocurre después?
R.– El coche nos embiste por detrás y nos saca de la calzada. Yo pierdo el conocimiento. Lo siguiente que recuerdo es cómo unos hombres me meten en una furgoneta con puertas correderas, como las que usa la seguridad del Estado cubano, y les grito: «¡Joder, quiénes sois y qué cojones nos habéis hecho!». Luego vuelvo a perder el conocimiento. Creo que me dieron con una culata porque tengo una brecha en la cabeza.
P.–¿Salieron los dos disidentes cubanos vivos del accidente?
R.– Sí, estoy completamente seguro. Las enfermeras y un párroco me aseguran que en el hospital hemos ingresado los cuatro.
P.–¿Fue un impacto fuerte?
R.– Los cristales del coche no se rompen y ni Aron ni yo tenemos ninguna magulladura.
P.–Y si no fue un accidente, ¿cómo murió Oswaldo Payá?
R.– Los servicios secretos cubanos asesinaron a Oswaldo Payá. No era la primera vez que lo intentaban. Dos meses antes otro coche había hecho volcar su vehículo. 

Carromero talks

"What if the Soviet Union had murdered Sakharov, or Czechoslovakia Havel? That is what seems to have happened in Cuba." - Jackson Diehl, twitter



Ángel Carromero

Ángel Carromero on the crash that killed Cuba’s Oswaldo Payá

The Washington Post, Tuesday, March 5, 3:32 PM

Ángel Carromero, a leader of Spain’s ruling party, was visiting Cuba last July when a car he was driving crashed, killing Cuban dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero. Mr. Carromero was convicted of vehicular homicide; in December, he was released to Spain to serve out his term. This week he agreed to be interviewed by The Washington Post about the crash. Mr. Carromero, 27, holds a law degree and has taken a business course at Fordham University in New York.

What happened that day?

Oswaldo Payá asked me to take him to visit some friends, since he didn’t have the means to travel around the island. There were four of us in the car: Oswaldo and Harold Cepero in the back, [Jens] Aron Modig [of Sweden] in front, and me driving. They were following us from the beginning. In fact, as we left Havana, a tweet from someone close to the Cuban government announced our departure: “Payá is on the road to Varadero.” Oswaldo told me that, unfortunately, this was normal.
But I really became uneasy when we stopped to get gas, because the car following us stopped, waited in full view until we were finished and then continued following. When we passed provincial borders, the shadowing vehicle would change. Eventually it was an old, red Lada.

And then another, newer car appeared and began to harass us, getting very close. Oswaldo and Harold told me it must be from “la Comunista” because it had a blue license plate, which they said is what the government uses. Every so often I looked at it through the rearview mirror and could see both occupants of the car staring at us aggressively. I was afraid, but Oswaldo told me not to stop if they did not signal or force us to do so. I drove carefully, giving them no reason to stop us. The last time I looked in the mirror, I realized that the car had gotten too close — and suddenly I felt a thunderous impact from behind.

I lost control of the car, and also consciousness — or that is what I believe, because from that point my memories are unclear, perhaps from the medications they gave me. When I recovered consciousness, I was being put into a modern van. I don’t know how it had gotten there, but neither

Oswaldo nor Harold nor Aron was inside. I thought it was strange that it was only me, and I figured that the rest of them didn’t need to go to the hospital.

I began to yell at the people driving the van. Who were they? Where were they taking me? What were they doing with us? Then, woozy, I again lost consciousness.

What happened after that?
The next time I awakened, I was on a stretcher, being carried into a hospital room. The first person who talked to me was a uniformed officer of the Ministry of the Interior. I told her a car had hit our vehicle from behind, causing me to lose control.
She took notes and, at the end, gave me my statement to sign. The hospital, which was civilian, had suddenly been militarized. I was surrounded by uniformed soldiers. A nurse told me they would put in an IV line to take blood and sedate me. I remember that they kept taking blood from me and changing the line all the time, which really worried me. I still have the marks from this. I passed the next few weeks half-sedated and without knowing exactly what they were putting in me.

Some text messages were sent from the scene, and there have been reports of others, not yet disclosed. Do you know about them?
They took away my mobile phone when they took me out of the car. I was only able to use Aron’s mobile phone the time we were together in the hospital. I didn’t remember the messages until I arrived in Spain and I read them, asking for help and saying that our car was hit from behind.

How was your statement obtained?
They began to videotape me all the time, and they kept doing so until the last day I was jailed in Cuba. When they questioned me about what happened, I repeated what I told the officer who originally took my statement. They got angry. They warned me that I was their enemy, and that I was very young to lose my life. One of them told me that what I had told them had not happened and that I should be careful, that depending on what I said things could go very well or very badly for me.
Then came a gentleman who identified himself as a government expert and who gave me the official version of what had happened. If I went along with it, nothing would happen to me. At the time I was heavily drugged, and it was hard for me to understand the details of the supposed accident that they were telling me to repeat. They gave me another statement to sign — one that in no way resembled the truth. It mentioned gravel, an embankment, a tree — I did not remember any of these things.
The hit from the back when we left the road didn’t need to be hard, because I remember that there was no curb or incline. The pavement was wide, with no traffic. I especially did not agree with the statement that we were traveling at an excessive speed, because Oswaldo was very cautious. The last speed I saw on the speedometer was approximately 70 kilometers per hour [about 45 miles per hour]. The air bags did not even deploy during the crash, nor did the windows shatter, and both I and the front-seat passenger got out unhurt.

A video of you describing the accident was shown to journalists by Cuban authorities. Under what circumstances was it made?
Once I left the hospital, they took me to a jail in Bayamo. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever lived through. I was held incommunicado, never seeing the light of day. We walked among cockroaches until they put me in the infirmary cell, along with another Cuban prisoner. The conditions were deplorable. A stream of water fell from the roof once a day, the toilet didn’t have a tank, and you could use it only when you had a bucket of water that you could throw afterward into the bowl. The cell was full of insects that woke me up when they fell on my body. Although I remember almost nothing specific from those days, images come to me — and I only wish they were nightmares, and not memories.
The video that the authorities made public was recorded under these conditions. As viewers can see, my face and my left eye are very swollen and I speak like I am drugged. When an officer gave me a notebook in which the official Cuban government account was laid out, I limited myself to reading statements from that notebook. In fact, you can see me reading Cuban expressions I didn’t know, like “transit accident” (in Spain it’s “traffic accident”) , and you can see me direct my gaze to the right corner, which is where the officer stood who held the notes. I hoped that no one would think that the video was freely recorded, or that what I said there corresponded to what really happened.

Who sent you to Cuba? Why did you travel there?
Nobody sent me to Cuba, and I didn’t even tell my boss about my trip. I traveled there during my summer vacation, like so many other supportive people — because I admire the peaceful defenders of liberty and democracy like Oswaldo, who is very well known in Spain.

What do you think about the trial in Bayamo?
The trial in Bayamo was a farce, to make me the scapegoat, but I had to accept the verdict without appeal in order to have the minimal possibility to get out of that hell. However, I decided at the last minute to not declare myself guilty, thinking of Alan Gross [an American contractor sentenced to 15 years in prison for bringing communications equipment into Cuba illegally].
As for the Spanish authorities, I can only thank them for managing to repatriate me. I don’t want to cause any more problems. I want to get my previous life back. I even understand that, even though I am innocent, I have to continue with my liberty restricted due to the bilateral accord between Cuba and Spain. I only hope that this unjust situation will not last for long.
Despite the accusations to which I am daily subjected by the press and by the defenders of the Castro dictatorship, it’s not my intention to go on talking about this traumatic experience. I’ve received death threats in Spain, and I have had to testify before a notary so that at least the truth would be known if something happened to me.

Why are you speaking out now?
The most important thing for me is that the Payá family always has defended my innocence, when they are the most injured by this tragedy. That’s why, when I met Rosa Maria [Payá’s daughter] this week, I could not hide the truth any more. I am not only innocent — I am another victim, who might also be dead now. I know that this decision could result in more brutal media attacks against me from Cuba, but I don’t deserve to be considered guilty of involuntary homicide, and, above all, I could not live, being complicit through my silence.
I don’t know what they gave me in the intravenous line, but I continue to have large memory lapses. What they didn’t manage to make me forget is that Oswaldo is one of the people who most impressed me in my life. He is the true protagonist of this nightmare. He was an exceptional person, and I will never forget him.

The interview has been translated from Spanish.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/angel-carromero-speaks-out-on-cuba-crash-that-killed-oswaldo-paya/2013/03/05/1080077a-85b6-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story_2.html