The greatest troubadour of the Revolution, Silvio Rodríguez, raises the tone in his criticism of the Cuban regime by describing the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel as a “sect” and coming out in defense of the young musician Abel González Lescay, recently sentenced to six years in prison after demonstrating in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, on July 11.
Rodriguez public this monday on his blog, Second date, an economist’s post on the measures needed to straighten out the economy, starting with reducing excessive bureaucracy. In the first comment, the singer-songwriter adds to the article leaving his opinion. “I have no faith that verticality will be rectified. As I have said other times, it is still a very small group of people, practically a sect, that makes decisions,” he laments.
The troubadour continues his argument by pointing out that the new imposition of transit visas on Cubans in countries such as Panama and the Dominican Republic show that the United States –which he refers to without naming it– presses to prevent informal trade that, in his opinion, relieves the island and considers that the intention is “that the pot continues to gain pressure”.
“I have no faith that verticality will be rectified. As I have said other times, it is still a very small group of people, practically a sect, that makes decisions”
However, Rodríguez does not exempt the current leadership of the Party and the State from responsibility. “But it does not seem that we are learning that customs and borders must be made as flexible as possible, even though it is proven that this opening solves the survival of more and more people. And meanwhile ‘youth flee en masse’, what ‘miracle ‘Are we waiting?’ he claims.
The more than one hundred comments on the post, between friends and followers, stick to the economic and ideological debate, many from different positions but in a relaxed atmosphere. Until Walter Frías, a university professor, sends the link to the note released this Monday by the University Council of the University of the Arts (ISA) regarding the letter sent by the Facebook group FreeAbelLescay in which he asked the head of State a reversal of the sentence against the young student.
The note attacked the group head-on, accusing it of carrying out “campaigns that seek to discredit the Revolution” despite the fact that the institution has maintained, according to Lescay himself, a behavior of support and respect towards his student. The musician, who reiterated his thanks to ISA, accused the editors of the note of “cheeky” and “smells.”
The ISA statement also stated that there were representatives of the institution who “attended the oral trial” of Lescay and “attested to the practice of all constitutional guarantees.”
Thus, Silvio Rodríguez reacts to the message demanding that the process be broadcast on television if there is really nothing to fear. “If they don’t want the facts for which the young Abel Lescay has been asked for six years in prison to be ‘simplified’, they should clearly explain those facts or put the trial on television, so that they can see it. Give attention to a university student in process Penalty is nothing extraordinary; it is a duty of the University”, replies the singer-songwriter.
Rodríguez, who had already been in favor of reversing the heavy prison sentences for peaceful protesters of july 11, insisted yesterday on the specific case of Lescay. “Hopefully in the current appeal there will be enough courage to rectify the error, if there is one, in the very high sanction requested by the Prosecutor’s Office,” says the singer-songwriter. In reality, the six years in prison are the sentence of the court, since the Prosecutor’s Office requested one more year in prison. What does exist is, as Rodríguez says, the possibility of modifying the sentence in a higher instance.
“Hopefully in the current appeal there is enough courage to rectify the error, if there is one, in the very high sanction requested by the Prosecutor’s Office”
The troubadour closes that message by adding “Long live free Cuba. Down with the blockade,” but according to his statements in recent years, Rodríguez’s faith is cracking. The artist has directed many criticisms of the decisions of the Díaz-Canel government, although he had already rejected some of Raúl Castro’s policies and has even admitted that the “revolutionary offensive” of 1968 did “a lot of damage to the Cuban people.”
Although he has not stopped defending the socialist state and criticizing the US “blockade”, he has not stopped in recent times suggesting that the regime has not been able to be efficient so that it is not affected by foreign economic measures.
“We cannot spend our lives believing that everything we cannot do is because there is a very powerful neighbor that blocks us and prevents us from doing things. If in 60 years we have not been able to develop a creativity that overcomes the blockade, we are wrong” said in one interview with an Argentine media at the beginning of the year.
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