“We want to participate in the design of our future,” said Rosa María Payá, daughter of the late Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, of Cuba’s struggle for democracy at a panel April 9 sponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and NDI.

The event, Democracy and Human Rights in Cuba: The Legacy of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, was part of Payá’s trip to the U.S. to call for an international investigation into the car crash that killed her father, the founder and leader of Cuba’s Christian Liberation Movement. Other participants included Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at The Washington Post, and Santiago Cantón, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.

During her remarks, Payá noted that the superficial reforms made by the Cuban government have preserved the regime’s power without giving its citizens basic human rights, and that government oppression against opposition has increased. The Payá family believes that the car crash that killed Oswaldo Payá was orchestrated by the Cuban government.

“We are calling for an international investigation because we have the right to know the truth but also because we have to prevent this tragedy from happening again," Payá said.

She urged the international community to support “the Path of the People” in Cuba’s fight for human rights and democracy. “This is a dangerous moment but it is also a moment of hope....it is time for the truth, it is time for democracy. It´s the time of the Liberation.”

Read Rosa María Payá’s full remarks as prepared for delivery here.

Read more:

• Opinion: What Cuba Does to Its Own People
• Opinion: Oswaldo Payá's Fight for Democratic Cuba Lives On
• NDI Mourns the Death of Cuban Activist Oswaldo Payá

Published April 11, 2013