U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Miami, said she is bringing Rosa María Payá, a renowned Cuban human rights leader, as her guest to the 2026 State of the Union in Washington.
Payá, who last year was elected to serve on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, is the daughter of the late Cuban dissident democracy advocate Oswaldo Payá. He was killed 13 years ago this month in a mysterious car crash in Cuba that involved Cuban state security agents who sought to kill him.
“As the Cuban regime enters its final hour, the cry for freedom is no longer a whisper. It is a roar,” said Salazar, a daughter of Cuban exiles, in a statement late Monday. “Rosa María Payá embodies the moral courage this dictatorship has tried to crush for decades and failed to extinguish."
"She stands for truth in the face of repression, for justice in the face of impunity, and for the millions of Cubans who refuse to surrender their right to live in liberty," she added. "Her voice is a reminder that tyranny is not permanent, that fear no longer controls the Cuban people, and of the undeniable reality that the regime's time is running out.”
In a statement, Payá said she was honored with the invitation and that she and her late father represent "the voices of millions of Cubans who cannot yet speak freely but are determined to live in liberty."
"Ending the regime is both a moral imperative and a strategic necessity for our hemisphere," Payá said. "The dictatorship has no legitimacy and no future.
"To my brothers and sisters on the island: you are not alone. La noche no será eterna," she said.
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The Cuban communist government is under intense political and economic pressure from the Trump administration, which has tightened the embargo of Cuba as key parts of a Trump corollary to the 19th-century policy that he refers to as the “Donroe Doctrine.” The administration wants to see the Cuban government move toward a free-market economic system and democratic rule.
As a result, the Caribbean island nation is facing an increasingly dire energy crisis that has heightened in recent weeks after oil shipments from Venezuela, its main oil supplier, were halted when the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its leader, Nicolas Maduro.
Mexico, another major supplier, then also suspended oil shipments under U.S. pressure.
