Havana, Cuba, Oct 28, 2008 / 16:35 pm
The founder of the Christian Liberation Movement and promoter of the Varela Project—which seeks peaceful democratic change in Cuba—Oswaldo Paya, criticized the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela and Spain for offending Cubans by their lack of support for the re-launching of the initiative.
Last week at a press conference held by the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nicolas Maduro and his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos in Madrid, Maduro said that the Varela Project had “little credibility,” and Moratinos decline to comment.
Oswaldo Paya responded to the comments in a letter to reporters saying, Maduro “offended Cuban citizens who have promoted the ‘Varela Project’ and the Spanish minister seconded me by his silence, thus avoiding having to speak the truth.”
“These officials have offended thousands of Cuban citizens who have signed this petition for a referendum, which is also a demand for fundamental rights and which the Cuban government is denying its citizens,” Paya said.
“Lord willing, the people of Venezuela will learn of this,” he continued, “and whatever is left of the free press there will report this so that the Venezuelans will see the rights they will totally lose” if they live under a regime like the one in Cuba.
Paya explained that the “Venezuelan government needs totalitarianism to continue in Cuba because Cuba is its sanctuary and the model for its plan to have permanent and total power.”