Pro-Castro singer says 'most political prisoners' should be free
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- 06 / 02 / 2010
New York - Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez, often described as the "voice of the Cuban Revolution," admitted Tuesday that there are "political prisoners" in Cuba who should be released.
"I think that political prisoners should by now be free, at least most of them," Rodriguez told a press conference in New York.
Cuban authorities often deny the existence of political prisoners on the communist island and argue instead that they are common prisoners.
Rodriguez, who is to perform in New York's Carnegie Hall Friday in his first US appearance in 30 years, admitted that such prisoners were arrested for "violating the law," but he conceded that the sentences against them were "too tough."
The artist's tour, set to feature two Carnegie Hall concerts and five other performances across the United States this month, is historic.
For many years, US tours for artists who reside in Cuba were reduced to near zero, as were Cuban tours for US artists.
Since US President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, however, there has been a slow thaw in cultural exchange between the United States and Cuba.
The singer, 63, who is politically committed to the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers, said he was happy to be back in the United States.
"I really had lost faith," he said of the chance to return.
"I'm very happy to have been able to return to the United States," he noted. "It's a country that I admire in many ways, even if many don't believe it."
He praised US film music of the 1950s, and cited Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo (1958) as an example.
"The first US music that influenced me was films," he said.
Rodriguez said tensions between the United States and Cuba have lasted "too long."
"It would be very important to lift the blockade," he said, with reference to the decades-long US embargo on Cuba.
This would be particularly positive, he noted, "for the internal life" of Cubans.
Rodriguez praised modest changes under Obama, but he noted that, while the US president is a busy man, "it would be good for him to devote a little bit of his attention to Cuba every now and then."
He also called on Cuban authorities to change.
"I still believe in the Revolution, but in some ways it has grown old," he said.
In this sense, Rodriguez stressed the need to scrap the "r" from Revolution to just leave "Evolution," both politically and socially.
"One cannot contain evolution," he said.
Rodriguez is the leader of the Nueva Trova movement, which is politically committed to the Cuban Revolution led by the Castro brothers.
He is to perform in New York's Carnegie Hall on June 4 and June 10, in Oakland, California, on June 12, in Los Angeles on June 17, in Washington on June 19, in Chicago on June 21 and in Orlando, Florida, on June 23.
Copyright DPA
Source: www.earthtimes.org/
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