Support Cuban Musicians
Julio Chavez | 11.06.2003 06:13
Cuban Music Star Defects to U.S. With Entourage
By SIMON ROMERO
HOUSTON, June 10 — One of Cuba's leading pop stars, Carlos Manuel, defected after crossing a bridge spanning the Mexican-United States border over the weekend and was released today by immigration authorities in South Texas.
Mr. Manuel, 30, decided to defect last week after performing in Mexico City with his band, Carlos Manuel and His Clan. He walked over the bridge connecting the Mexican border city of Matamoros with Brownsville, Tex. Five members of his entourage — his mother, his sister, his sister's boyfriend, his cousin, who is a percussionist in his band, and a sound engineer — also defected.
Two years ago, another prominent Cuban musician, the salsa singer Manolín, defected and now lives in Miami. Generally, however, popular Cuban musicians lead relatively privileged lives and have not sought to defect.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Manuel said he chose to defect after the Cuban government's recent crackdown on dissidents, which included the arrests of more than 70 people in March.
"The repression of the recent months was one of the main aspects of my decision, it kind of crept into regular life," Mr. Manuel said, speaking in Spanish. "The other aspects were the bureaucracy I had to deal with to leave the island and the limits that put on my career."
Mr. Manuel, whose full name is Carlos Manuel Pruneda Macías, arrived in Brownsville on Sunday after flying from Mexico City to Monterrey, in northern Mexico, and then driving about two and a half hours to Matamoros. Mr. Manuel and his entourage were released from a holding center today in Los Fresnos, near Brownsville. The Cuban detainees had been questioned for two days by officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security.
"This is standard operating procedure in some detainee cases, and Mr. Pruneda met the requirements for release," said Art Moreno, a customs enforcement spokesman in Los Fresnos.
Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a Cuban citizen who reaches the United States is allowed to stay after being interviewed and inspected. A year and a day after entering the United States, that person is allowed to become a permanent resident.
Mr. Manuel and his group entered the United States by walking across the bridge linking Matamoros and Brownsville. On reaching the American side of the bridge, Mr. Manuel told border patrol officials of his desire to defect. He and his group were accompanied by Mexican television journalists who were told of the defection by Hugo Cancio, Mr. Manuel's promoter in Miami. Mr. Cancio said in a telephone interview today from Los Fresnos, where he traveled to assist Mr. Manuel, that he wanted Mr. Manuel's defection to be as public as possible.
"I wanted the whole thing to go live," said Mr. Cancio, who has brought other Cuban musicians to perform in the United States. "It was a now-or-never moment that I thought was important."
Mr. Manuel is known for combining provocative lyrics with classical Cuban percussionist music and touches of Caribbean zouk and reggae. He had performed outside of Cuba on several occasions, including shows in the United States last year. In Mexico City last week, he opened for Ricardo Montaner, a Venezuelan balladeer. One of Mr. Manuel's most successful songs, "Malo Cantidad," involves word play on the cliché of women falling for consistently unfaithful men. In reviewing his career, Granma, the Cuban newspaper, once called Mr. Manuel "the good bad boy."
He was the first of his group to be released from the holding center but on leaving the building late this afternoon, he promptly walked back in after realizing that his mother, Martiza Macias Franco, 52, and his sister Yanelys Pruneda Macias, 25, had to be processed and released. The others in the group were Jorge Gabriel González Macias, 20; Juan Antonio García Delgado, 41; and Ernesto Álvarez Pérez.
The immigration holding building "resembled a resort," Mr. Manuel said minutes after his release. "It was very comfortable."
After Mr. Manuel performed last November in Miami, four members of his band defected, a move that he said weighed on him.
Mr. Cancio said he would provide Mr. Manuel and his family with a residence in Miami. There, Mr. Manuel said, he hoped to rest a little before getting back to work and promoting his new CD, "Enamora'o."
"From Miami, it will be easier to project myself internationally," Mr. Manuel said.
By SIMON ROMERO
HOUSTON, June 10 — One of Cuba's leading pop stars, Carlos Manuel, defected after crossing a bridge spanning the Mexican-United States border over the weekend and was released today by immigration authorities in South Texas.
Mr. Manuel, 30, decided to defect last week after performing in Mexico City with his band, Carlos Manuel and His Clan. He walked over the bridge connecting the Mexican border city of Matamoros with Brownsville, Tex. Five members of his entourage — his mother, his sister, his sister's boyfriend, his cousin, who is a percussionist in his band, and a sound engineer — also defected.
Two years ago, another prominent Cuban musician, the salsa singer Manolín, defected and now lives in Miami. Generally, however, popular Cuban musicians lead relatively privileged lives and have not sought to defect.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Manuel said he chose to defect after the Cuban government's recent crackdown on dissidents, which included the arrests of more than 70 people in March.
"The repression of the recent months was one of the main aspects of my decision, it kind of crept into regular life," Mr. Manuel said, speaking in Spanish. "The other aspects were the bureaucracy I had to deal with to leave the island and the limits that put on my career."
Mr. Manuel, whose full name is Carlos Manuel Pruneda Macías, arrived in Brownsville on Sunday after flying from Mexico City to Monterrey, in northern Mexico, and then driving about two and a half hours to Matamoros. Mr. Manuel and his entourage were released from a holding center today in Los Fresnos, near Brownsville. The Cuban detainees had been questioned for two days by officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security.
"This is standard operating procedure in some detainee cases, and Mr. Pruneda met the requirements for release," said Art Moreno, a customs enforcement spokesman in Los Fresnos.
Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a Cuban citizen who reaches the United States is allowed to stay after being interviewed and inspected. A year and a day after entering the United States, that person is allowed to become a permanent resident.
Mr. Manuel and his group entered the United States by walking across the bridge linking Matamoros and Brownsville. On reaching the American side of the bridge, Mr. Manuel told border patrol officials of his desire to defect. He and his group were accompanied by Mexican television journalists who were told of the defection by Hugo Cancio, Mr. Manuel's promoter in Miami. Mr. Cancio said in a telephone interview today from Los Fresnos, where he traveled to assist Mr. Manuel, that he wanted Mr. Manuel's defection to be as public as possible.
"I wanted the whole thing to go live," said Mr. Cancio, who has brought other Cuban musicians to perform in the United States. "It was a now-or-never moment that I thought was important."
Mr. Manuel is known for combining provocative lyrics with classical Cuban percussionist music and touches of Caribbean zouk and reggae. He had performed outside of Cuba on several occasions, including shows in the United States last year. In Mexico City last week, he opened for Ricardo Montaner, a Venezuelan balladeer. One of Mr. Manuel's most successful songs, "Malo Cantidad," involves word play on the cliché of women falling for consistently unfaithful men. In reviewing his career, Granma, the Cuban newspaper, once called Mr. Manuel "the good bad boy."
He was the first of his group to be released from the holding center but on leaving the building late this afternoon, he promptly walked back in after realizing that his mother, Martiza Macias Franco, 52, and his sister Yanelys Pruneda Macias, 25, had to be processed and released. The others in the group were Jorge Gabriel González Macias, 20; Juan Antonio García Delgado, 41; and Ernesto Álvarez Pérez.
The immigration holding building "resembled a resort," Mr. Manuel said minutes after his release. "It was very comfortable."
After Mr. Manuel performed last November in Miami, four members of his band defected, a move that he said weighed on him.
Mr. Cancio said he would provide Mr. Manuel and his family with a residence in Miami. There, Mr. Manuel said, he hoped to rest a little before getting back to work and promoting his new CD, "Enamora'o."
"From Miami, it will be easier to project myself internationally," Mr. Manuel said.
Julio Chavez
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Defend Cuban Socialism!
11.06.2003 23:35
‘[Revolutionaries] start out from the principle that this is a life or death struggle. If revolutionaries do not defend themselves, their cause is defeated’. Fidel Castro, 25 April 2003
The Rock around the Blockade brigade visited Cuba at a time of escalating tension in relations with the USA following the imperialist onslaught on Iraq and the Bush administration’s stated aim of pre-emptive strikes at a moment’s notice in any ‘dark corner of the world’. For imperialism’s ‘dark corner’, read, in this case, the shining example of socialism. In a world dominated by what Castro has characterised as the USA’s ‘Nazi-fascist’ foreign policy, the Cuban Revolution stands in very real danger and is prepared to fight to the death for survival. US strategy is to probe Cuba. It is engaged in a new Cold War. A false move by the Cuban government could set off a process similar to that which began in September 2002 when the US started the countdown to the invasion of Iraq.
It is in this context that the arrest and gaoling in April of more than 60 Cuban ‘dissidents’ and the execution of three hijackers – which provoked widespread criticism in the bourgeois press – must be understood. During our stay in Cuba, we were privileged to be able to discuss these issues with two leading Cuban communists and long-time friends of FRFI and Rock around the Blockade. Rogelio Polanco is editor of the youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde and a frequent participant in the nightly televised round-table discussions on important current events; Noel Carrillo is a member of the Department of International Relations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Hijackers executed
On 11 April, after a summary trial, the three Cubans who had hijacked a passenger ferry crossing Havana Bay, held knives to passengers’ throats and threatened to throw them over- board, were sentenced to death and executed. There was an international outcry, from Cuba’s enemies, obviously, but also from liberal supporters of Cuba. However, the Cuban communists are clear that the actions of the United States had left them with no option but to act as they did.
Let us be clear. As communists, we are opposed to the death penalty. Indeed, it is not something the Cuban Communist Party promotes, and there had been an effective moratorium on executions in the past three years, with the possibility mooted, before recent events, of removing it from the statute books altogether. Polanco stated clearly that the death penalty is not part of the philosophy of the Revolution, but rather something they had been trying to leave behind. It was not a decision undertaken lightly. Carrillo told us that Cuba respects those who oppose the death penalty but felt in the current situation it was necessary to prevent death and destruction on a far greater scale. Those who condemn Cuba, including many left parties, have ended up ‘somehow playing the same music as the north Americans’.
As Fidel Castro told the millions who gathered in Havana’s Revolution Square on 1 May:
‘The Cuban Revolution was placed in the dilemma of either protecting the lives of millions of Cubans by using the legally established death penalty to punish the three main hijackers of a passenger ferry or sitting back and doing nothing. The US government, which incites common criminals to assault boats or aeroplanes with passengers on board, encourages these people, gravely endangering the lives of innocents and creating the ideal conditions for an attack on Cuba. A wave of hijackings had been unleashed and was already in full development; it had to be stopped.
‘We cannot ever hesitate when it is a question of protecting the lives of the sons and daughters of a people determined to fight until the end, arresting the mercenaries who serve the aggressors and applying the most severe sanctions against terrorists who hijack passenger boats or planes or commit similarly serious acts, who will be punished by the courts in accordance with the laws in force.’
The US government has, as an act of aggression, drastically reduced the number of visas it issues to Cubans wishing to travel to the United States, from the agreed 20,000 a year to only 700 in the last six months. At the same time, it is actively promoting illegal emigration. Yet it has warned that any mass emigration from Cuba to the United States – as when Cuba opened its borders in 1980 and in 1994 – will be treated as a ‘national security issue’.
The scarcity of visas has prompted violent and criminal elements to resort to hijacking planes and ships in an attempt to reach the United States. This problem has escalated over the last seven months with seven vessels hijacked by Cubans armed with knives, firearms and grenades. In one case, a gang even grabbed an AK-M rifle from a soldier and attempted to storm a plane. The hijackers are encouraged by the fact that when they reach the USA, rather than being returned to Cuba to face criminal charges, they are bailed and released. Cuba is clear that the USA is waiting for an incident serious enough to serve as a pretext for invasion. Since the executions, the hijackings have stopped and the point has been made – not just to would-be hijackers, but to the USA and the world: Cuba takes the defence of its people and its revolution seriously.
US promotes counter-revolution
These are dangerous times for Cuba. Polanco told us the United States’ doctrine of pre-emptive action and Cuba’s inclusion on their list of so-called ‘rogue states’ meant that the situation in Cuba is the most dangerous for many years. Indeed, while we were in Cuba, US Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on television to announce that the island’s government should be eliminated. ‘We are in one of the most risky and dangerous moments not only for Cuba but for the whole of humanity,’ said Carrillo. For the Cuban Communist Party, the invasion of Iraq marks the end of the post-war world order and the beginning of a new and dangerous one. It believes the economic crisis of US imperialism is now so deep it cannot wait for measures such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas to enlarge its markets and profits, but must launch wars to defend the interests of US capital. The system of international relations has broken down completely leaving the way open for such attacks. The European Union has proved too weak and divided to act as any kind of brake on US aggression. No country is now strong enough to stand in its way, leaving Cuba totally isolated apart from the international solidarity it receives.
The United States is searching for a pretext to invade the island. Propaganda used in the past – that Cuba has been involved in international drug trafficking, or possesses the technology to manufacture biological weapons – has been comprehensively discredited by the Cubans and ‘put on ice’, as Carrillo put it, for future use. Since the invasion of Iraq, the USA does not need proof. After all, where are those famous ‘weapons of mass destruction’, the pretext for war in the first place?
Instead, US strategy has been to foment dissent within the island itself. Since the arrival last September of arch-reactionary diplomat James Cason, the US Interests Section in Havana has been used as a headquarters for Cuba’s fragmented and mercenary opposition. Here counter-revolutionary propaganda has been produced and printed, subversion planned and millions of dollars handed over to ‘dissidents’ of one kind or another. Information provided by these sources was regularly fed through to the US administration to be used as fodder for the tightening of the Helms-Burton Act. As well as wining and dining dissidents at his home, in a brazen abuse of his diplomatic position, Cason has travelled around the island meeting with counter-revolutionaries and urging them to set aside their differences and unite around a 10-point programme. As Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque wryly pointed out, the imperialists condemn Cuba for having one political party uniting the people around socialism, but are themselves desperately attempting to create a single party of counter-revolution.
The hundreds of grouplets, ranging from the Independent Press Association of Cuba to the Independent Rafters’ Association, are a key part of tried and tested US strategy, used in the former socialist countries of the Eastern bloc, to undermine revolution from within. As former CIA official Philip Agee has commented, these ‘so-called independent journalists, independent libraries and civil rights activists are not, nor were they ever, independent in any sense whatsoever’. Rather, they are completely in the pocket of the United States government and supplied with millions of dollars to say what they are told to say, write what they are told to write and lead comfortable and privileged lives with no need to work. From 1997 to 2002, $22 million was channelled into Cuba via the US Agency for International Development – and this was but a tiny fraction of money that finds its way into Cuba to foment counter-revolutionary activities.
All these activities were proved in court by 12 Cuban intelligence agents who had infiltrated these ‘dissident’ organisations. Two of them, ‘Octavio’ (Nestor Baguer) and ‘Tania’ (Odilia Collazo), had risen to become, respectively, the chairman of the Independent Press Association of Cuba and the president of the Pro-Human Rights Party of Cuba. Their testimony exposed the corrupt, bogus and mercenary character of these groups, and the degree to which they are little other than puppets of the US Interests Section.
Upon arrival in Cuba, Cason had stated that his goal was ‘to speed up the process towards a democratic Cuba’ and urged ‘support for all those who are contributing to this transition’. By March 2003 he was holding meetings with counter-revolutionaries every other day. Cason, in Castro’s words, had ‘attempted to transform his headquarters and his own residence into a venue for organising, instructing and directing mercenaries who betray their homeland in the service of a foreign power, or violate other laws through acts that cause serious harm to the country, expecting total impunity’.
At the same time, in a move further designed to provoke Cuba, Cuban political prisoners, the Miami 5, were being tortured in US gaols.
The Cubans decided it was time to act – but not by expelling Cason or closing the US Interests Section, which would have allowed the US to claim Cuba was taking hostile steps against it. As Polanco said ‘We are a guerrilla nation and must attack the enemy’s flanks’. Instead, 65 counter-revolutionaries (77 including the Cuban ‘double agents’) were rounded up and tried under Cuban law against receiving money or equipment from the US government for the purpose of implementing the Helms-Burton Law and sentenced to between six and 28 years in gaol. In the face of liberal furore, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque spelled it out: no-one is punished in Cuba for their ideas, but they will be punished for criminal and counter-revolutionary activity and the US must understand the consequences of its strategy: ‘These trials must be understood as Cuba’s behaviour when no other option remained…given the path of confrontation and provocation which the US government has chosen to pursue in its relations with Cuba.’
The Cubans do not believe an invasion is inevitable, but they are armed and ready to fight. Since the 1980s, when Reagan came to power on an anti-communist crusade, they have been preparing to resist occupation with a guerrilla war of all the people. An invader would face not just the Cuban army, but the entire people armed and ready to fight to the death in defence of their Revolution.
Ed Scrivens and Cat Wiener
From FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 173 June/July 2003
Ed
e-mail:
office@ratb.org.uk
Homepage:
http://www.ratb.org.uk
Ed is right here
12.06.2003 15:09
The concerns of individual musicians, (or individuals of any kind) take second place at the moment. personally, i think most people should be able to leave anywhere they dont feel happy, but one cannot ignore the context here. when Cubans have the right to build socialism free from the USAs interference, then we'll see about other matters...
Im right too
there is no socialism in cuba for gods sake!!
13.06.2003 15:40
-food riots in the 60s
-Cubans worse off economically than before Catro
-Communist Party had an agreement with Batista to support him and in exchange control the government trade unions, switched to Castro when he was about to win
-spying, indoctrination, etc
-boys not allowed long hair
-homosexuality 'decadent'
-lots of racism
etc, etc.
anti-castro
Reactionary propaganda
13.06.2003 17:31
If Cubans are so much worse off than before the revolution why do they live so many years longer? Why do so many fewer children die than in the rest of Latin America or Africa or Asia?
These people always like to trawl up the issue of homosexuality in Cuba. In the past (1960s and 70s) the official policy was homophobic it is true. But they lie when they present this as what is happening in Cuba today. All offial discrimination has long been removed, the CP has criticised its earlier policy and everything is being done to combat homophobia that still exists in society. Shouldn't Cuba be judged on what it is doing today rather than past errors whether that is on the CP's attitude to Batista or homosexuality?
While Cuban socialism is not a perfect society, and no-one including the Cuban people, government or Communist Party claims it is, it has transformed the lives of millions of people for the better and provided and inspiration for millions and millions of people worldwide.
Ed
sympathies with communist tyrants.....
13.06.2003 17:57
The reason why people live longer in Cuba is because of the hospitals- that doesn't make them richer. Castro and his fellow bandits got TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS off the Soviet Union, and through their idiotic economic policies they've squandered and wasted the lot.
Whether or not Cubans are better off (ie. hospitals etc) under Castro than a right-wing pro-US regime is not relevant here, what is relevant is that people are lying about the nature of Castro's regime- which is a brutal dictatorship- and supporting it when it deserves to be overthrown.
In the 80s (I think) they opened their doors for people to leave, a QUARTER OF A MILLION left immeditately while they could. Boys are not allowed long hair in Cuba because if one boy had long hair, then others would as well, and then everyone would be different- which is bad.
Cuba may have inspired many people, but so did Stalin and Lenin still does. It drapes its regime in lies, and many have fallen for them.
anti-castro
reactionary propaganda
13.06.2003 19:48
Just how petty bourgeois they are is shown by the fact that they dismiss the fact that ordinary Cubans have a higher standard of living, have better housing, food, health and every other basic necessity of life and more, than either before the revolution or in parts of the world still under imperialist domination. What could be more important than having the necessities for life when hundreds of millions of people are denied them?
No wonder Cuba provides an inspiration for so many real revolutionary struggles from Colombia to Palestine (FARC-EP, ELN, EPL, PFLP...) but this type of reactionary anarchism finds no popular support and is of no concern to imperialism or its 'war on terrorism'.
long live the cuban revolution!
leftists should oppose dictatorships...
13.06.2003 20:11
The thing about long hair is NOT bullshit:
"... in the same speech Castro denounced the youth for wearing "extravagant" foreign fashions [Too tight pants and long hair in the case of boys. Too short mini-skirts in the case of girls.], liking "decadent literature." In some cases, "... the youth were used by coutner-revolutionaries against the Revolution ..." Castro found "residual manifestations" of prostitution and homosexuality. In 1967, minors participated in 41% of all crimes committed in the nation. Four years later the percentage rises to 50%... (16)
... in 1972, Joe Nicholson, Jr., a sympathetic journalist who visited Cuba, asked Cuban officials why boys are not allowed to wear long hair. The official answered that if one boy is allowed to be different in hair, dress or behavior, the rest might request the right to be different, too. This in turn, would create controversy, something that was considered incorrect... "
Leftists should oppose Castro just as much as they oppose right-wing dictators.
anti-castro