Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas

This is not a matter of interpretation, but of facts that can not be disputed: in Cuba there is no democracy. Citizens cannot choose a political, social or economic system; instead, they are imposed. Cubans want to change the system, but a totalitarian power prevents them from doing so, by force. It has even imposed on the Constitution itself an illegal and illegitimate contradiction and roadblock that denies the people’s sovereign right to decide their fate and their model of society. The Cuban people will never opt for an order without rights. We Cubans have not renounced our popular sovereignty – it has been taken away from us.            

If the decision to allow the return of Cuba to the Organization of American States (OAS) is an act of justice to our people, recognizing us as part of the mainland family and thus recognizing our right to establish friendly relations and cooperation that respects people’s right to self-determination, then we welcome the decision. If it is a bridge for respectful dialogue based on goodwill among governments, states and peoples in order to overcome bilateral and continental differences, then we welcome the decision.

The Cuban government has made clear that they do not want to rejoin the OAS. The Cuban people have no democratic instruments to decide on this matter, but remember that someday –hopefully soon– Cubans will be able to decide on this and other important issues for our society and our future.

When giving his version of the grounds on which the Cuban state was unfairly excluded from the OAS in 1962, the President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, said, “Because of a democratically different way of thinking...”

Based on the lessons of history, we do not support the exclusion of the Cuban state.  But, the statement made by the host of this General Assembly is, to say the least, a mockery of the Cuban people because, as a result of their beliefs and a democratically different way of thinking, many Cubans have been imprisoned, exiled or suffered exclusion and repression for decades. Does President Zelaya not know that in Cuba there is a regime that excludes and persecutes those who think differently, and even more those who want to express themselves freely, according to that universally recognized human right?

There is a serious inconsistency in the explanation of this decision.  On the one hand, they claim a desire to open up a space in the OAS that corresponds to Cuban people. This we support. But, on the other hand, many of the leaders there deny Cubans their right to rights. The Cuban people feels insulted by the repetitive statements of leaders and important figures of the continent, in this and other events, that demand respect for the alleged sovereign decision of the people of Cuba to choose this system that lacks liberty and democracy.

This offense is repeated against a people that cannot express itself. I accuse the leaders who use these expressions, to our people and to their own people, of being participants in a large theater of lies that it is contrary to the peaceful expectations that exists in Cuba of change toward liberty, rights, democracy and reconciliation.

Father Felix Varela taught us –and life confirms– that freedom and citizens' rights are inseparable from people’s true sovereignty and self-determination.

At a time when many unfair schemes are falling, and the need and right to change is proclaimed for all peoples, some in this continent –and elsewhere– insist on denying the Cuban people’s right to change.  They condemn us, based on lies, to live in oppression. We proclaim that this is not the way in which they would establish justice for their own peoples. God willing, everyone will open their hearts to the truth, because only then can we together build justice for all.

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas

Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement

Havana, June 4, 2009