Cuban dissident died because nobody listened, laments Paya

Havana, Cuba, Mar 2, 2010 / 12:53 pm

The founder and leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Paya, said this weekend that the death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata was due to the lazy reaction of the political world to warnings of his arrest and the abuse he received in prison.

In an article published on his website www.oswaldopaya.org, the Christian Liberation Movement (CLM) leader said, “Before the heartbreaking death of Orlando, we made repeated calls on this website and other media sources to save the life of Orlando Zapata.”

“Other Cuban democracy supporters, in Cuba and abroad, did the same.”  He added that “Reina, Orlando’s mother, even showed the t-shirt of her son bloodied from abuse in prison, and almost nobody listened.”

“This was just like when Pedro Luis Boitel went on a hunger strike in 1972, or when many years before, Che ordered executions by firing squad at La Cabana.  In short, over the last 51 years…almost nobody has listened to the Cubans,” Paya lamented.

Paya said that he has been inundated with requests by the media for interviews about the Zapata case, but he wondered: “How long before they again forget about the suffering of the Cubans? Will another brother have to die for them to listen?”

He then called on the media and nations around the world to act now to secure the release of all political prisoners and thus avoid another tragedy.