The city of Hialeah has unveiled a monument to Oswaldo Paya, a Cuban democracy activist who was assassinated by the communist Castro dictatorship in 2012. Esteban Bovo, the mayor of Hialeah, was joined by Paya’s daughter, Rosa Maria, his widow Ofelia, U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, and others in the dedication of the memorial to Paya’s legacy.
Oswaldo Paya’s family: ‘This monument perpetuates his legacy’
The mayor of Hialeah, Esteban Bovo; Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart; and Cuban opposition leader Rosa María Payá, among other politicians and local personalities, inaugurated a monument dedicated to Oswaldo Payá in the city of Hialeah this Friday.
In a ceremony held at 10:00 a.m. on Friday at the Patria y Vida Plaza, located in Walker Park in Hialeah, attendees also unveiled a work by artist Sergio Lastre named “Mural of Freedom.”
The monument dedicated to Payá consists of a bronze relief created by artist Natalie Plasencia.
Regarding this, Rosa María Payá told CubaNet: “We are excited, we are very happy that the memory of my father is being honored from the most Cuban city in the United States. We are very grateful to Mayor Esteban Bovo and to these artists who have wanted to capture this constant invitation that my father made to all Cubans, which is the invitation to be the protagonists of our own history, to take control of our lives, and to fight for freedom.”
“I believe the city recognizes my father’s dedication and that of so many who accompanied him in the struggle for the freedom of the Cuban people, and it invites everyone, all citizens of Hialeah, to continue that legacy,” she continued.
Additionally, when asked about the lawsuit against Cuban spy Víctor Rocha, Payá replied: “The lawsuit was filed several weeks ago; the legal team of this spy still has a couple of weeks to respond.”
The widow of the Cuban activist, Ofelia Acevedo, expressed that Payá’s absence has left a deep void in the family. “We still miss him very much, and it’s a big void for the family.”
Does this memorial made in the city alleviate the pain a little bit? CubaNet asked. “It alleviates it in the sense that it perpetuates his memory, his legacy. In a way, his presence continues among us and for future generations. Of course, it does alleviate,” Acevedo replied.
“We still miss him very much. A lot, a lot. His absence is very difficult to fill.”
On his part, Cuban influencer and Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Alexander Otaola referred to the importance of Payá’s legacy. “It is very important for the Cuban people to understand that they have the right to have rights, and that is the phrase he always used against the dictatorship. A thought that today is more relevant than ever in the face of a people increasingly subjected and oppressed by the Cuban dictatorship.”
“As we commemorate another anniversary of the first date when the first 11,000 signatures of the Varela Project were submitted, today we see young Cubans who, for going out to protest in the streets, are being sentenced to long prison terms of 15 years, for example, in the recent protests in the city of Nuevitas,” he continued.
The monument contributes to conveying a message of “strength, encouragement, for all of us who raise our voices against the dictatorship and for the Cuban people, to demand the release of all political prisoners and the end of a totalitarian tyranny that has crushed us for the last 65 years as a nation.”
Finally, he opined that the event offers an anti-communist message to the city and “is a way of telling everyone who is here defending the indefensible and trying to maintain the subsidy to the communists on the island that Miami is a city of exile, that Hialeah is the capital of the Cuban exile, and that the exile is respected.”