[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 39 (Wednesday, March 1, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S613-S614]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING OSWALDO PAYA

  Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to honor the memory of 
Oswaldo Paya, who would have celebrated his 71st birthday this week. 
His memory and his story have been an inspiration to dissidents across 
the world, and I would like to briefly retell it here today.
  Oswaldo Paya was a dissident and a democracy activist in Cuba with 
unrelenting passion and dedication. He was someone who stood up against 
the Castro regime at very direct risk to his own life. He had 
incredible courage. He spoke up for human rights. He spoke up for free 
speech. He spoke up for democracy.
  Eleven years ago, Oswaldo Paya was murdered. On July 22, 2012, Paya 
left his house with three other people to go visit friends. From the 
start of their journey, their car was followed. On the way, the Cuban 
police drove Paya's car off the road and killed him. The crash is 
widely believed to have been orchestrated by the Castro regime.
  Paya had long been a thorn in the side of the Castros, even from a 
young age. He was the only person at his school who had refused to join 
the Communist Youth. As a teenager, he publicly opposed the communist 
crackdown on protesters in Czechoslovakia who were fighting for 
freedom, and he was punished with 3 years in prison.
  Paya went on to found the Varela Project, which sought a referendum 
on Cuba's communist system. Their demands were simple: democratic 
government, religious liberty, freedom of expression, and the freedom 
to start businesses. Paya managed to get 11,000 signatures to petition 
the government to hold a referendum, and eventually 20,000 people 
supported the referendum. Twenty thousand people risked their lives by 
standing with Oswaldo Paya for freedom. But the Cuban Government 
refused to hold a referendum.
  Paya's fight for freedom made him a target repeatedly of the 
Communist Party in Cuba. They harassed him, tried to intimidate him, 
and arrested him numerous times. And in 2012, they killed him.
  Paya's friend and the driver of the car said that when he awoke after 
the crash, he was confronted at the hospital by a government operative, 
and the hospital was flooded with uniformed military personnel. Under 
extreme duress, drugged, and threatened with death by government 
officials, he signed a confession that directly contradicted what he 
knew to be true--that the communist regime had just murdered Oswaldo 
Paya.
  I have met multiple times with Oswaldo Paya's daughter, Rosa Maria, 
who is an incredible, courageous, powerful leader in her own right, and 
we have discussed ways we can continue her father's fight for justice 
in Cuba. One of the things I have done is I have filed legislation to 
rename the street in front of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC, 
``Oswaldo Paya Way.'' Renaming the street in front of the Cuban Embassy 
would send a powerful message to the communist regime.
  During the Cold War, President Reagan followed this very same 
strategy. He renamed the street in front of the Soviet Embassy 
``Sakharov Plaza'' after the famed human rights dissident in the Soviet 
Union. It was part of a broader strategy to call out the evil regime. 
My strategy is the same here.
  Some people may think a street name is not that big a deal, but think 
about it for a moment. If you change the street name, it means anyone 
who wants to write to the Cuban Embassy will have to write Oswaldo 
Paya's name. If you need to go there, you will have to look up the 
address and see the same. Tyranny exists in darkness. Oppressive 
regimes are terrified by dissidents. Members of the Cuban Government 
who deal with the Embassy will have to acknowledge that Paya existed 
and that this hero who was wrongfully murdered was real. They will have 
to say his name. There is power in saying his name.
  I want to tell you another story that illustrates just how powerful 
this renaming strategy can be. Several years ago, I introduced 
legislation to rename the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in 
Washington, DC, ``Liu Xiaobo Plaza.'' Liu Xiaobo was a Noble Peace 
laureate and democracy activist in China who was wrongfully imprisoned 
there. My bill ended up passing the U.S. Senate 100 to nothing. Every 
Senator, Republican and Democrat, agreed with that bill. Sadly, even 
though it was a Democrat Senate at the time, the Republican House 
failed to take up the bill, so it didn't pass into law.
  But here is an epilogue to that story. At the beginning of the Trump 
administration in 2017, I was having breakfast with Rex Tillerson, the 
new Secretary of State. We were at Foggy Bottom at the State 
Department. We were talking about China at one point, and he said he 
had just had a meeting with his counterpart, the Foreign Minister of 
China. He said the Foreign Minister came out and said the Chinese 
Communist Government has three top priorities in foreign policy, and 
Rex kind of shook his head.
  He said: Ted, it is the damnedest thing. One of their top three 
priorities is to prevent your bill to rename the

[[Page S614]]

street in front of their Embassy from passing.
  I will tell you what I told Rex that morning. At the time, Liu Xiaobo 
had passed away. He had never collected the over $1 million that he was 
entitled to for winning the Noble Peace Prize. But his widow, Liu Xia, 
was still in China. China would not let her go.
  I told Rex: You go back to China, and you tell them the following. If 
they release Liu Xia, if they let her go, I will stop pressing to pass 
this bill. But if they don't, I will continue pressing to pass it, and 
we will succeed. I have already passed it 100 to nothing in the U.S. 
Senate, and the next time, we are going to get it passed in the House 
as well and get it passed into law.
  Just a few weeks later, communist China released Liu Xia. She was 
able to receive the prize money for the Noble Peace Prize and escape 
the oppression of communist China.
  This story speaks volumes about the weakness of a tyrannical regime, 
just how vulnerable they are to sunshine, to truth, to transparency, to 
being called out.
  Renaming the street in front of the Cuban Embassy after Oswaldo Paya 
would shine a light and would highlight the truth about the communist 
regime in Cuba. It would be a powerful tool in bringing down the 
machinery of oppression there.
  We saw not long ago thousands of Cubans taking to the street, 
fighting for liberty. The Cuban people should know the American people 
stand with them against tyranny and against the communist oppression, 
the poverty, the misery, the death under which they live every day, and 
it would be a powerful tool to bringing down the machinery of 
oppression in Cuba in the nonviolent way that Oswaldo Paya so 
powerfully championed.
  This Congress, I am very hopeful that my bill to rename the street in 
front of the Cuban Embassy ``Oswaldo Paya Way'' will be passed by both 
Chambers.
  Oswaldo Paya fought for a free Cuba--Cuba libre--built on human 
decency, on human rights, where citizens are heard, not murdered by 
their government. Let's come together, Democrats and Republicans, to 
honor Oswaldo Paya. Let's come together and force the communist regime 
to say his name.
  I yield the floor.

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