OAS Caves to U.S. Pressure, Puts Pro-Trump Cuban American on Human Rights Commission

Reed Lindsay

June 27, 2025

Cuban-American activist Rosa María Payá was voted into the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Friday despite concerns from an independent panel of her “conflicts of interest” and lack of knowledge about human rights law. The Trump administration has lobbied hard for the organization to select Payá, with whom it has close ties.

Payá runs Cuba Decide, which is backed by groups bankrolled by the U.S. government. She has also been a vocal supporter of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, which have contributed to shortages in food, medicine and electricity on the island.

Hardliner @RosaMariaPaya, whose initiative @CUBADECIDE has received support from annual @USAID recipient the Bacardi Family Foundation, called on @POTUS to issue even more sanctions on Cuban officials and foreigners doing business in Cuba as “the way to support the Cuban people.” pic.twitter.com/AVCtaIoZba
— Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) July 14, 2023

“Payá’s long record of support for the crushing embargo against Cuba runs directly counter to the commission’s purported mission of protecting human rights,” said Michael Galant, an analyst at the D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which submitted a report on Payá to the panel at American University that evaluated her.

Payá has also leveled unfounded accusations against left-leaning governments in the region, such as calling Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez a supporter of terrorism (check out our interview with Márquez on our YouTube channel).

Meanwhile, she has maintained warm relations with right-wing leaders like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. In 2020, Payá praised then de facto Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez (now in prison for leading a coup) weeks after her government committed massacres that were condemned by the IACHR.

Payá was admitted into the IACHR in the first round of voting by 20 of the 32 OAS states that voted.

“A fervent advocate of human rights violations has now become one of the seven ‘custodians’ of human rights in the region,” said Galant. “Her election to the commission is a stain on the institution, a reminder of the U.S.’s outsized and pernicious influence at the OAS.”

Payá’s selection was expected given the U.S. government’s history of arm-twisting OAS member states to do their bidding.

Before the OAS General Assembly in Antigua and Barbuda, the State Department announced that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau would “meet with foreign counterparts and heads of delegation to advocate for the election” of Payá.

On Thursday, the State Department put out a statement praising Payá and “urging” member states to support her candidacy.

After the OAS vote, Payá thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for paving the way for her selection to the commission through “bold leadership” and an “unwavering defense of freedom in our hemisphere.”

The U.S. is the top funder of the OAS.

Payá’s selection to the human rights commission comes at a time when the U.S. government is ramping up its campaign to pressure other countries into cutting ties with Cuba’s medical missions. This campaign already appears to be impacting the IACHR, which recently sent an unprecedented request to member states requesting they submit information within 30 days about Cuba’s medical cooperation in their countries. Read more about that letter in our article HERE.