Shouts and detentions
By the staff of Progreso Weekly/RPA
HAVANA – After the Mass in homage to oppositionist Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, said by Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, a group of oppositionists began to shout “Freedom! Freedom!” outside the small and narrow church of San Salvador.
The police arrived at the site, some to open a path for the funeral van and the attendees at the religious service. Other police officers began to tussle with the people who were shouting.
“Yes, there was pushing … a brouhaha, and some people were taken away,” said Caridad Pérez, a resident of Calzada del Cerro, a busy boulevard a few yards from the church. From the almost centenary portals on that street, curious observers watched the departure of the funeral cortege, as well as the struggle between protesters and police.
“I climbed to the balcony of this house to watch the vehicles and everything that happened down there … I didn’t see any blows, only a tumult and people pushing,” said Liuba, a 14-year-old girl who said she lives in that barrio.
Sources in the dissident movement told of the detention of between 40 and 50 oppositionists, some of them arrested before arriving at the church. Among these was Guillermo Fariñas, a psychologist who received the Sakharov Prize in 2003.
According to the dissident sources, most of the detainees were later released.
While this happened in Havana, the Spanish daily El Mundo reported that Ángel Carromero, leader of the New Generations of the Spanish Popular Party (PP), remained under detention in the city of Bayamo. Carromero drove the car that crashed, killing Cubans Payá Sardiñas and Haroldo Cepero. Injured were Carromero and Swedish political activist Jens Aron Modig, both associated with the Christian Democrat movement.
“According to Carromero’s statement, he did not see a traffic sign that ordered a reduction in speed. For this reason, he lost control of the vehicle and fell into a ditch.” (El Mundo, Ana Romero, EFE, 24/07/2012).
This statement by the driver goes against the opinions of those who said that the accident was no accident but a political crime.
For his part, the chairman of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and former political prisoner Elizardo Sánchez said that, according to Commission emissaries who went to the site of the accident, the road conditions were deplorable. The road was full of potholes.
Echoing those statements, the Spanish conservative daily ABC says in its report: “Two collaborators of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) who visited the site of the accident where Cuban dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero died have stated categorically that the vehicle suffered “a brutal impact” and have ruled out that any other vehicle was involved in the disaster, according to the CCDHRN’s spokesman, Elizardo Sánchez.”
ABC said that the two collaborators of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation traveled to the province of Granma (in southeastern Cuba) to verify the conditions in the area. Both activists confirmed that the vehicle suffered “a brutal impact” and found no proof of the involvement of any other vehicle in the accident.
When asked by the activists, “area residents assured them that no other vehicle was on the road when the crash occurred.”
