MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile to request Havana details of the car accident in which Cuban dissident died

Oswaldo Payá, one of the most outstanding Cuban dissidents

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.