Chile to request Havana details of the car accident in which Cuban dissident died
Chile will request from Cuba all the information on the death of opposition leader Oswaldo Payá who according to the Havana government died in a car accident, something with the Chilean authorities wants to corroborate to “complete certainty”.
“We much regret the death of Mr Payá and President Sebastián Piñera has instructed the foreign ministry to request all the background on the incident so that we can have a full and correct picture of the causes and circumstances in which Oswaldo Payá died” said on Monday the Chilean government spokesperson Andrés Chadwick.
The Chilean request wants “complete certainty that it was a traffic accident as has been indicated officially, so that we can be sure and at peace that the version from the Cuban government is what corresponds”, added Chadwick.
Payá died on Sunday when the car he was driving collided with a tree in a route in the province of Granma to the southeast of Cuba. Another Cuban, Harold Crespo also died but two Europeans survived Angel Carromero Barrios from Spain and Jens Aron Amodig from Sweden.
However the official version from Cuban authorities did not completely convince the followers of the Cuban dissident.
His daughter Rosa Maria Payá said to have received information that next to the car in which his father was travelling “there was another vehicle trying to push them out of the road bumping them all the time”.
“We believe this is not an accident” said Rosa Maria.
Payá, 60, and the European Parliament 2002 Sarajov Prize became internationally notorious that year when he delivered the Cuban Parliament 11.020 signatures in support of an initiative he sponsored and presented calling for political reform and which is known as the “Varela Project”.
The initiative was ignored by the Castro brothers’ regime.
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It is about time our countries start demanding Cuba do something about democracy, liberties, human rights.
@3 “our countries”? Whose countries would they be? Don't bother with argieland, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela. None of them would know what the words “democracy, liberties, human rights” mean.
@4 The PP is nationalist. Obvious links to other Spanish-speaking nationalists.
Don't you think Cuba looks bad already?
Wouldn't have thought a Country run by a Family Dictatorship would have appealed to your previously expressed sensibilities. But then I guess Dictatorships thrive on servile hypocrites massaging their egos and ......things.
The medical forensic report indicates that Oswaldo Paya died instantly as a result of head trauma caused by the heavy impact he received, while Harold Cepero died in the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Surgical and Clinical Hospital in Bayamo city, due to acute respiratory failure as a result of a pulmonary thromboembolism in the upper lobe of the left lung, caused by the fragmented fracture of the left femur.
Angel Carromero told the investigating unit that he could not remember having seen the signs warning about the state of the road. He added that he entered the dirt road at a speed he cannot determine because he had not looked at the speedometer and that when he realized he was driving on gravel he tried to slow down by braking suddenly and the car began to slide sideways until it hit a tree. Jens Aron said he was asleep when he felt the sudden brakes and lateral movement of the vehicle; then he lost consciousness.
From the logical analysis of the travel time (about eight hundred kilometers in less than eight hours, with three stopovers), the statements of the witnesses and the forensic study of the scene and the vehicle, the research team concluded that Angel Francisco Carromero Barrios must have been driving at an average speed of over 120 kmph [74.6 mph], and that his careless driving, excessive speed and incorrect decision to apply the brakes violently on a slippery surface, were the causes of this tragic accident with the loss of two lives.
The investigation and the legal process continue according to Cuban law
Here is an English translation of the complete Cuban police report on the accident. Www.walterlippmann.com/docs3498.html
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