'Change will come when the man dies'
Wilfredo Cancio Isla, El Nuevo Herald, May 15, 2007. | 21.05.2007 14:03
For punk rocker Gorki Aguila, nothing has changed in Cuba since Fidel Castro ceded power to his brother nine months ago.
''Tyranny is present . . . even if he doesn't make a public appearance,'' said the 38-year-old.
His band, Porno For Ricardo, is the leading exponent of underground music, a flourishing movement today in a country where 1.5 million people are too young to remember the better times before the economy imploded with the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991.
The band's latest CD, whose title roughly translates as ''I don't like politics, but she likes me, comrade,'' contains several profanity-laced critical songs, including one titled El Comandante.
The band has been blackballed by the government, and Aguila has received several police summonses for ''interviews.'' In 2003, he was arrested on drug charges -- entrapment, he says -- and served two years in prison. Just last week, authorities forbade his band to practice at his apartment.
But he says he will not leave Cuba, and hopes for a peaceful transition to democracy.
''Change will come when the man dies and Number Two [Raúl] retires gradually, to allow the installation of state capitalism,'' he said.
''Tyranny is present . . . even if he doesn't make a public appearance,'' said the 38-year-old.
His band, Porno For Ricardo, is the leading exponent of underground music, a flourishing movement today in a country where 1.5 million people are too young to remember the better times before the economy imploded with the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991.
The band's latest CD, whose title roughly translates as ''I don't like politics, but she likes me, comrade,'' contains several profanity-laced critical songs, including one titled El Comandante.
The band has been blackballed by the government, and Aguila has received several police summonses for ''interviews.'' In 2003, he was arrested on drug charges -- entrapment, he says -- and served two years in prison. Just last week, authorities forbade his band to practice at his apartment.
But he says he will not leave Cuba, and hopes for a peaceful transition to democracy.
''Change will come when the man dies and Number Two [Raúl] retires gradually, to allow the installation of state capitalism,'' he said.
Wilfredo Cancio Isla, El Nuevo Herald, May 15, 2007.