Interview with Aron Modig

Swedish Radio P1 Morning

Transcript and translation: CDV Eva Belfrage

August 10, 2012

A little more than three weeks ago, Oswaldo Payá, a Cuban critic of the regim, and another activist were killed in a car accident in Cuba. Next to the driver was Aron Modig, chairperson of the Youth Movement of the Christian Democratic Party. Good morning!

You cancelled the press conference approximately a week ago, why did you choose to talk only now?
Because the press conference was only a couple of days after I had returned home from Cuba and it didn’t feel right at the time.

Why not?
Because I was exhausted.

What do you remember from the car accident itself?
Short memory flashes from the accident, from just before the car crashed, that we lost control of the car and it was about to turn off the road. Then the crash happened. It must have been a powerful crash for I lost consciousness and then woke up in an ambulance some time later and that is all I remember.

How did you react when you woke up?
When I woke up I was very confused. I didn’t know where I was at all. I asked for help from a friend in Sweden, whom I sent an SMS and asked of he knew where I was. This was my first question and then little by little I realized what had really happened.

How did you react when you understood that several people had died in the car?
This I understood only several hours later, I didn’t understand it then. It was only in the ambulance that I realized that I was in Cuba and that I had been in a car with politicians from the Cuban opposition and that something had happened.

How was it when you realized that they in fact had died?
It came as a chock of course, in the midst of everything else, very much happened at the same time and it was really a big chock.

The human rights activist and widow of Payá has said that the car was hit?
I don’t remember more than I tell you here.

Could there be any grounds for the accusations?
I don’t speculate in that. I don’t remember anything more than this.

Do you have any thoughts about the causes of the accident?
No – I don’t speculate in that.

But you must have thought about or reflected quite a lot about this?
I don’t speculate in that.

In Cuba a legal process has started against the driver, who is accused of causing the two deaths. As you were seated next to the driver when he drove, how does this influence what you can tell us here?
In fact nothing. I can tell you the memories I have from my travel to Cuba and that is not affected by this.

So that is not the reason why you don’t want to talk about what  possibly could have caused the accident?
No, as I said, I tell you what I remember.

Has the Cuban police questioned your testimony?
Laughing …. The Cuban police was interrogating me for 6-7 days and put the same questions several times, so it depends on what is meant by “questioning”.

What questions did they ask?
In the beginning they asked about the car crash. It was the local police in Bayamo, where the car crash happened. Then after a day or so they took me by airplane to Havana and then the interrogations continued at this time as I understand it by the national security. And then the interrogations were not any longer about the car crash but about what I was doing in Cuba, why I was there, whom I had met, who had sent met etc. I say that it was simply about my meeting with politicians in the opposition.

Did you see the fact that you were carried away by the state security as something connected with the car accident or was it because they had discovered that you were in the country?
I saw it as if they had found out that I was in the country and then things changed.

When i asked you if the police questioned your testimony, you laughed a little and said that it depends on what you mean by ”questioning”. Did you feel that they had doubts about your testimony?
After a day or so they no longer pursued the question, therefore I think they actually believed me.

Did you know where you were when the security police took you away?
I knew that we  flew from Bayamo to Havana. And when we got on the flight, there were two guards on board and when we landed in Havana there was a car picking us up directly by the airplane. They then drove me to a house in the Havana area. That's what I know.

How was it not knowing what would happen?
That was probably the worst. Not knowing what would happen, for how long I would be there and also tknowing hat nobody knew were I was. When they took me from Bayamo to Havana, they didn’t even tell the Swedish ambassador where they hade taken me. So of course it didn't feel good.

You entered on a tourist visa and they questioned your being there, you were going to visit the opposition in Cuba, was it naive to enter in that way?
I have been to Cuba before, some years ago on a similar visit. I have been to Kenya twice, in Cambodia, in Georgia on similar missions and obviously the situation is different in all countries, but before the trip I didn’t find it strange the way it was going to be carried out.

Just briefly – how do you feel today?
I am very happy to be home again and naturally that I am free and secure on Swedish soil.

Thank you very much Aron Modig, chairman of the Youth Movement of the Christian Democratic Party.

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On Swedish Radio P1 and a programme called “Studio One” later in the afternoon the same day, Yoani Sánchez was briefly interviewed about the increased repression in Cuba (nothing newsworthy). Aron Modig who was also interviewed said nothing more about the car crash, but it was interesting to note that when he was asked about the press conference in Cuba where he had excused himself for his "illegal activities" in Cuba, he said that the last two days in interrogation by the national security they had prepared him that he would meet the press. He told Studio One that “It wasn’t as if they were holding a gun to my head, but it was very clear what they wanted me to say.” in sesponse to the question on why he spoke the way he dig at the pressconference he said that “I was worried and wanted to be able to leave as soon as possible.”

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