Inquiry Is Sought Into Death of Castro Critic

Inquiry Is Sought Into Death of Castro Critic
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: April 4, 2013

MEXICO CITY – The daughter of a well-known Cuban dissident who died in a
car wreck last year stepped up calls on Thursday for an independent,
international investigation of the case after hearing from the man who
was driving the vehicle that another car had struck it from behind just
before the accident.

The dissident, Oswaldo Payá, who relentlessly challenged the Castro
government's human rights record, and another dissident, Harold Cepero,
died on July 22, when the car in which they were traveling with two
European politicians, from Spain and Sweden, hit a tree in eastern Cuba,
according to the Cuban authorities. The Spaniard who was driving, Ángel
Carromero Barrios, was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and was
transferred to Spain in December. He is on conditional release.

But immediately after the accident, Mr. Payá's family had questioned the
authorities' account, because Mr. Payá had been threatened regularly and
followed by people presumed to be allied with the government. Witnesses
had suggested that another car was involved.

Now, Mr. Payá's daughter, Rosa María Payá, is touring the United States
and Europe to press her case for an independent investigation, after Mr.
Carromero told her recently and said in an interview with the opinion
section of The Washington Post in March, that a second vehicle had hit
the car he was driving from behind. Mr. Carromero also said that during
the post-accident inquiry, he was under the influence of medication and
intimidated by Cuban investigators.

"There are now certain facts that indicate it was not an accident," Ms.
Payá said in a telephone interview Thursday from New York, where she had
arrived Wednesday for appearances. "So we are asking the international
community for an independent commission to investigate."

The Swedish politician who was traveling with Mr. Payá, Jens Aron Modig,
has said he was asleep when the accident occurred, but Ms. Payá said he
had sent a text message afterward saying Mr. Carromero had reported that
another car had hit them before the accident.

In his interview with The Post, Mr. Carromero also said he was dazed by
the crash and by the drugs given to him at a hospital, but that several
cars had been following the group as they left Havana, including one
that had driven up close just before the accident.

"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,"
he told the newspaper, in the unsigned opinion article. It did not
disclose where and when the interview had taken place.

Ms. Payá said she has the support of a bipartisan group of eight United
States senators, who wrote a letter last week to the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights asking for an investigation, a move backed by
the State Department. The department's spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland,
told reporters, "The people of Cuba and the families of these two
activists deserve a clear, credible accounting of the events that
resulted in their tragic deaths."

Separately, Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, has asked the
United Nations for an inquiry.

Cuba, however, is unlikely to accept such an investigation, and United
States support for one could deepen a wedge in relations already hung up
by a five-decade economic embargo, the more recent jailing of an
American contractor in Cuba and prison terms in the United States for a
group of Cubans convicted of spying.

Cuba has dismissed Ms. Payá's claims, though it did allow her and
several dissidents to leave the country recently for extended visits abroad.

A state-sponsored Web site, Cubadebate, ridiculed Mr. Carromero, The
Post and Ms. Nuland and said Mr. Carromero "repeats a series of
commonplace anti-Castro propaganda."

The Web site also said the foreign experts had attested to the quality
of the investigation and that Spain's consul general had called Mr.
Carromero's trial "procedurally impeccable."

Analysts said Cuba has been known to subject dissidents to human rights
abuses but less so for orchestrating political murders, suggesting
instead that if a second car did cause the accident, it might have been
the case of overzealousness in the pursuit of Mr. Payá.

"Without prejudging such an investigation, a knowledge of the ways in
which the Cuban Communist government deals with dissent would lead one
to be skeptical of charges that he would have been deliberately targeted
for such an accident by the central government," said Robert A. Pastor,
an American University professor who has long studied the island and who
was an adviser to former President Jimmy Carter.

"Whether incompetent or overzealous local officials acting on their own
might have done something that led to the accident is a different
question," he added.

Ms. Payá stopped short of blaming the Cuban government for what occurred.

"I just want what happened clarified," she said. "I want the truth to be
known and recognized."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/americas/inquiry-is-sought-into-death-of-oswaldo-paya-cuban-dissident.html?ref=oswaldopaya&_r=0