MIDEM belongs to us all, not to Castro and his minions

Little was said about MIDEM as such. The images were shown in the order described. Later the reports said that the musicians had received their visas but that their business managers hadn't; they showed the musicians at Miami International Airport, looking very happy to land in a free country.

Right away they turned to the concert by Compay Segundo. The only image shown was the hall being evacuated because of a false bomb threat. Then they showed angry exiles holding some sort of repudiation rally. The protesters said that they were sick and tired of people honoring artists from the island, that the world instead should honor artists from Miami.

Then the screen showed Castro, smiling sardonically in Santo Domingo, commenting on the assassination attempts, the visas, and the U.S. policy toward Cuba, followed by a group of Dominican sympathizers waving signs supporting the dictator. One picture is worth a thousand words.

Yes, there still are some people who don't want to know what's happening in Cuba. Someday we'll see those very same people trying to cleanse themselves and turn their coats; some already have begun to do that.

Unfortunately, our cause has been among the least understood in the history of humanity and the worst treated by manipulators from all sides. It's hard to recognize our dead, our missing, our political prisoners. To do that, many of us raise our voices every day and devote most of our time to free Cuba.

I don't agree with the repudiation rallies, the acts of violence, the bomb threats -- in short, with terrorism. I'm not criticizing public demonstrations, which everyone is entitled to join. But the repudiation rallies still are fresh in my memory and remind me of tactics of the Castro dictatorship. That is, assuming that the organizers of said activities are real exiles. Because there's a suspicion that the rallies are organized by covert security agents doing their thing in Miami. If that's not so, then the demonstrators are wrong and unknowingly are berating their own allies on the island, their own compatriots. Deep inside, many of those artists feel and think just as we do.

I do share the demonstrators' contempt for the regime, but I'm not in favor of violence. Once again an event in Miami is conditioned by You Know Who. Opposing the visit by island musicians to such a special event is not a positive thing. Cuba is in and of itself, and so are we, both inside and outside. I agree with the decision to bar the agents and [recording-company] functionaries from U.S. soil, because some of them are apparatchiks. It's true that some musicians don't deserve a visa to any country, but that's only because they're mediocre or bad musicians.

Let's not be stupid. Let's think this mess through. Let's unite. It's tough enough that exile musicians can't perform in Cuba or that a few infiltrators slip in among the musicians from the island. But we shouldn't surrender to the dictatorship what belongs to us. Because that music is ours, because we are Cubans and the homeland belongs to us all. And because the dictator is using all this in an effort to corrode the strength of our truth.