The Christian Liberation Movement (CLM), a dissident organization operating within Cuba (usually underground because of Communist Party oppression), is calling for an international and totally independent inquiry into the death of Osvaldo Paya Sardinas—the founder of the CLM. On July 22, 2012, Paya and the chair of the CLM, Harold Cepero, were killed in an automobile accident. Two other passengers, a Swedish citizen named Aaron Modig, and a Spanish politician named Angel Carromero Barrios, survived the crash with minor injuries. The Cuban government released a statement that said the accident was caused by excessive speeding. However, according to the surviving passengers and Paya’s family, the crash was caused by a car with Cuban government license plates ramming into Paya’s automobile.

  And this is where the whole thing remains now. Paya was a leading dissident who had been imprisoned many times by the Cuban government, and who had called for time and again for free elections, freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, total freedom of religion, and for other political parties to be allowed to form. These things have not only been rejected by the Cuban government, but Paya himself had been threatened with death. From the circumstances described, this may indeed have been a political slaying. Since this incident, the Cuban government has never allowed any formal inquiry, and has most certainly never allowed any international cooperation in trying to figure out what happened that day to Paya and Cepero.

        The Paya family remains under constant Cuban government surveillance, and sadly Carromero now serves a Cuban sentence for “reckless driving” since he was the driver of the car where Paya and Cepero were killed (Carromero is now serving that sentence in Spain since Spain and Cuba have a bilateral treaty where Spanish citizens accused of a crime can serve their sentence in Spain). Carromero’s trial was closed to the public, and the whole trial was highly questionable from the beginning. But to legally clear Carromero in Spain, and to set the record straight, the Paya family has called for an international, independent investigation into the death of Paya. This seems unlikely to happen since the Cuban government will never agree to something like this. Can we ever find out how Paya and Cepero really died that day? Apparently, the Cuban government is making sure that no such inquiry will ever be made, so maybe they indeed have something to hide.