Martha Frayde Barraqué

Founder and one of the most important figures in the human rights movement in Cuba for nearly four decades, she died in Spain. She was 93 years old.

Frayde began, like many Cubans, as an enthusiastic supporter of Fidel Castro even before his revolution overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and promised democracy.

But she turned against him when Castro imposed a communist system on the island, denied human and civil rights to its citizens, and imprisoned people who peacefully opposed his government.

"I wanted to do something great for my country," she told El Nuevo Herald in an interview in 2008. "Fidel Castro deceived all of us, starting with me. The visionaries of that first moment were the minority."

Born in Havana, Frayde graduated from the School of Medicine at the University of Havana in 1946 and pursued postgraduate studies at McGill and Montreal universities in Canada. Back in Cuba, she actively participated in the Orthodox Party.

Castro appointed her as director of the National Hospital and School of Nursing in Havana, and later as ambassador to the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), a position she resigned from in 1965.

She began openly criticizing Castro, and in 1976 founded the island's first group for peaceful opposition, the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, with Ricardo Bofill. Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz and brothers Gustavo and Sebastián Arcos Bergnes joined her shortly after, and the five became the main statesmen of the dissident movement.

Frayde was arrested in 1975, accused of "counterrevolutionary" activities and sentenced to 29 years in prison. But under international pressure, Castro released her in 1979 after she agreed to leave the country. She went into exile in Spain.

In 2006 she donated her documents to the Cuban Heritage Collection, and her collection of Cuban paintings to the Lowe Art Museum, both at the University of Miami. Among her many artist friends were Cuban painting masters René Portocarrero, Wifredo Lam, Carlos Enríquez, Víctor Manuel, Amelia Peláez, and Mariano Rodríguez.

Living in Madrid, she continued as the representative of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, and distributed the denunciations made by it.

It had been reported that she said she wanted to live only five minutes longer than Fidel Castro, but in her interview with El Nuevo she expressed herself against taking any revenge in a post-Castro era.

"One will have to act with great patience, tolerance and intelligence," she stated, "placing above all else the desire to advance the nation."