Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | N | NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs

CUBA: REFERENDUM LEADER OSWALDO PAYA COLLECTS PRIZE, CRITICIZES EMBARGO, ENCOUNTERS OPPOSITION IN MIAMI.

Article Excerpt
Oswaldo Paya, head of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberacion (MCL) in Cuba and chief figure in the Varela Project referendum drive, has been all over the news since he received the European Union (EU) 2002 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Received in the Vatican, Washington, Miami, and Mexico City, Paya has called attention to a shifting US Cuba policy and angered a divided exile community.

Paya said in mid-December that he had been denied permission to leave Cuba to collect the prize and that his house had been vandalized. Finally given permission, after Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar made a personal appeal to the Cuban government, Paya went to Strasbourg, France, to receive the Sakharov Prize on Dec. 17. The award carries a US$50,000 purse, which Paya said he would use to back the referendum project, which calls for political change in Cuba (see NotiCen, 2002-05-23).

The EU parliament, however, was split on the choice of Paya. Leftist parties preferred other candidates. EU Deputy Miguel Angel Martinez said that the parliament's Conference of Presidents had ignored the majority opinion expressed in the Foreign Affairs Committee favoring other candidates over Paya and that the choice was a breach of parliamentary custom of proceeding on the basis of broad consensus among member states.

"There was an infinity of candidates much more deserving," said Martinez. "For example, thousands of fighters who risked their lives every day for the...