Some 82 artists aligned with the island’s regime claim to speak on behalf of “Cuban intellectuals.”
MIAMI, United States. – More than 80 figures from the official Cuban cultural apparatus—among them presidents of organizations, directors of the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) and artists with high state recognition—signed a statement against the complaints of alleged corruption about MINCULT itself that are circulating on social networks.
The textoriginally published in the state magazine The Jiribillaaccuses critics of the institution of being “enemies” of the “Revolution” and of promoting a “campaign of discredit and defamation.”
The statement maintains that on social networks “a message is currently circulating about alleged acts of corruption in the Ministry of Culture.” The authors describe this publication as a “diabolical and rude move” directed not only against the MINCULT, but also against the “country project.”
In the center of the statement, the signatories of the statement repeat that “the Cuban people can never be divided with messages of hate”, which is why they say they consider it “opportune” to establish their “position in the face of this media campaign” with which supposed “enemies” would try to destroy the Cuban Revolution “on the symbolic ground.”
The authors relate the criticism of MINCULT to what they describe as a general atmosphere of aggression against the Cuban political system. According to the document, “once again the enemies insist on detracting from the Cuban Revolution” and they do so “with vileness and lack of scruples”, through “lies” and “insults”, particularly on social networks.
Those who subscribe to the text claim to speak on behalf of “Cuban intellectuals” who, according to them, “mostly” recognize that Cuba is “a sovereign nation protected by solid and clean institutions, where the development of a plot as turbulent and macabre” as the one described in the complaints is impossible.
Who signs the declaration
The letter appears headed by Marta Bonet de la Cruz, musicologist and president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), and by the writer and ethnologist Miguel Barnet Lanza, presented as honorary president of UNEAC and National Literature Award.
The authors of the text are the writers Luis Manuel Pérez Boitel and Ricardo Riverón Rojas, the latter president of the UNEAC in Villa Clara. Among the first signatories are the poet Waldo Leyva, also a National Literature Award winner; the visual artist Lesbia Vent Dumois, vice president of UNEAC and National Prize for Plastic Arts; the poet Nancy Morejón, also a National Literature Award winner; and the journalist Yuris Nórido Ruíz Cabrera, vice president of UNEAC.
They also adhere Abel Prieto Jimenezpresident of Casa de las Américas; Magda Resik Aguirre, journalist and first vice president of UNEAC; Lourdes de los Santos, documentary filmmaker and president of the UNEAC Film, Radio and Television Association; as well as provincial officials of that same organization in Granma, Holguín, Ciego de Ávila, Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and Sancti Spíritus, among others. In total, the declaration includes 80 names of officials, leaders and creators linked to state institutions.
Although the statement is presented as a direct response to the allegations of corruption, it does not mention what these accusations are nor does it provide information about the disputed facts. Nothing else is based on denying in advance the possibility of irregularities in the MINCULT.
This Monday, before the publication of the statement, the digital media The Scissors referred to an alleged “network of corruption, abandonment and illegalities within the Canary Islands Associations in Cuba and its so-called Management Commission, headed by the former Vice Minister of Culture of the Castro regime Fernando Rojas.”
