Lucía Céspedes Ocampo, a Cuban resident in Europe and known for her public statements supporting the regime, interrupted the event "Cuba en el Umbral" on Tuesday, while Rosa María Payá was presenting the Democratic Transition Plan for Cuba to diplomats and regional leaders at the Wellington Hotel in Madrid.
Céspedes Ocampo had already been involved in similar episodes in Spain and appeared in September on the official Cuban news, thanking Miguel Díaz-Canel, during a visit by the leader to the Havana neighborhood of La Timba. During that intervention, he stated that he lived in Guadalupe and expressed his support for the government.
During the event in Madrid, the woman shouted: "Down with the blockade! Long live freedom! Down with the criminal blockade that kills children, that kills grandparents!" When she was escorted out of the room by those present, she shouted one last slogan: "Long live the people of Cuba, long live the Cuban revolution!"
Payá accused the regime on his X account of orchestrating the interruption: "The Cuban regime sent a repressor to sabotage the event in Madrid where we are now presenting a plan to support democratic transition in Cuba." The public record of Céspedes Ocampo's support for the government does not independently confirm that he acted under instructions from Havana.
The activist took the floor: "I was starting to miss that something like this hadn't happened. Too much time had passed in tranquility."
Payá held the regime responsible for the situation on the island: "The reality is that the people of Cuba are going through their darkest moment, and they are experiencing it due to 67 years of communism."
"The guilty ones, those responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Cuba, those who make mothers unsure of how to feed their children, who do not know how to care for their elderly… The ones responsible are in power, they are in the Castro family, and they are among the group of generals who have clung to power for 67 years," he stated.
Regarding the woman who left the room, Payá extended an invitation: "This is also for that girl who, if she is willing to listen, is invited back."
The event, organized by the opposition platforms Cuba Decide and Pasos de Cambio, was strategically scheduled one day before the start of the XXX Ibero-American Summit, which brings together representatives from the 22 countries of the Ibero-American Community this Wednesday and Thursday in Madrid.
Among the attendees were the Secretary General of the OAS, Albert Ramdin; the Dominican foreign minister Víctor Orlando Bisonó Haza, via videoconference; Polish MEP Arkadiusz Mularczyk; Spanish politician Javier Fernández-Lasquetty from the PP; and Rocío Monasterio, former spokesperson for Vox in the Madrid Assembly. Berta Soler, leader of the Damas de Blanco, also participated remotely.
The presented plan, consisting of more than 50 pages, outlines four phases —Liberation, Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Democratization— and proposes a transitional structure with a Parliament of 51 members, an Executive with a president and two vice presidents, and nine technical commissions. The first phase requires the release of more than 1,000 political prisoners; the final phase anticipates free elections with international oversight.
The document derives from the Liberation Agreement signed in Miami in March 2026 by Pasos de Cambio and the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, with the support of more than 30 opposition organizations, and was ratified in Madrid in June of the same year.
Before the event, Payá met with Chilean President José Antonio Kast and the President of the Chilean Senate, Paulina Núñez, who expressed their solidarity with the Cuban people. The activist summarized the spirit of the meeting in a few words: "We are no longer just denouncing the dictatorship. We are preparing the Republic."
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