Havava, Mar. 1, 2007 (CNA/CWNews.com) - In an emotional message sent via
internet, the leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya,
called on Cubans at home and abroad to overcome their hurt and their
desires for vengeance in order to establish a dialogue that will bring
reconciliation to the country.
In his letter, Paya recalled his own years of captivity as a young man.
"I do not remember them with hatred," he said, despite having been
obliged to "work 10 hour days like animals, dressed truly in rags and
sleeping and being transported like livestock."
Paya recalled that at the work camps, thousands of young people "saw
their lives destroyed forever. Religious brothers and sisters, children
of emigrants who were not allowed to leave the country because they were
of military age, children of political prisoners, homosexuals, anyone
that the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution deemed to be
deviant, and even those who liked rock music, The Beatles and The
Rolling Stones, all suffered confinement," Paya said.
According to Paya, injustice does not begin "when someone decides to
remain abroad and say what he has not said up that point. I understand
the reaction of many artists and intellectuals to seeing someone who has
hurt them on television and who at one point in time violated their
rights in the name of and with the power of the revolution. I support
the right to protest and the claims of artists and intellectuals who
have been affected. Many Cubans-- millions-- see things on television
every day that hurt them and which they would like to respond to, but
they have no voice, and the artists and intellectuals who do have one do
not speak for them."
"It's a right of all Cubans that the historical memory be opened, but
there is a greater right, which includes the former, and that is that a
new horizon of freedom and rights for all be opened. Not in an
atmosphere of settling scores but rather of reconciliation and
liberation. For these ideals peaceful Cuban political prisoners are
behind bars," he added.
Drawing upon his own experience of suffering, Paya called on
"intellectuals, journalists and artists who live in Cuba and who live
abroad, from all positions and walks of life," to embrace "humility and
the option for the person, for the people.
More than demanding justice for a group of individuals for a dark period
they suffered, this option for the people, for solidarity, means
defending the rights of freedom of conscience and of expression for all
Cubans, and promoting the national dialogue that our society needs."
"Cuba needs dialogue between free persons in order to open this
horizon," Paya stressed. "A dialogue without boundaries or exclusion.
Perhaps we cannot agree about the past, but we have the responsibility
to agree with each other about the future, to spread hope."
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