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CUBAN LIBRARIES
SOLIDARITY GROUP Cuban writers respond
to media maneuver In their January 22 issue, the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación, dedicated a full feature to a "Letter of recognition to the Cuban civic movement," directed to the Argentine foreign affairs ministry and signed by five Cuban writers from that country. This document, apparently not published in full until now, has had an unusual media repercussion: the all-powerful CNN, even, interviewed Marcos Aguinis, one of the signers, who was extremely aggressive against the Cuban Revolution; the predictable chain reaction identified today in the display that the Miami New Herald made of the interview statements and which included a photo; several media outlets have officially approved what could turn into a new campaign which the Latin American governments called on to exert interference in the internal matters of our country. Cuba has shown the world abundant proof of who are those so-called "civic fighters" and for whom they work and how humanity's greatest enemy manipulates the subject of human rights against us over and over again. Regrettably, our truths don't go far enough for the repercussion obtained by this strange "Letter", which in fact gives a service to those, who impede at any cost any expression, however timid it may be, of Latin American Unity. It is about a document and an advertising maneuver against Cuba and against the dignity of our people, at any moment in which the empire feels its hegemonic interests in the region is in danger, because of the social catastrophe provoked by neoliberalism. It is an affront that the very Aguinis, in his interview for La Nación, established, in some way, a parallel among the revolutionary government of broad popular participation that has scrupulously respected life and personal safety of their opposition and enemies since the fight in the Sierra Maestra, and the bloody dictatorship that the Argentines suffered between 1976 and 1983, with a toll of 30,000 disappeared, among which were victims such as dear and valuable writers like Rudolfo Walsh, Paco Urondo and Harold Conti, and the son and daughter-in-law of the great poet Juan Gelman, who has accused Uruguayan president Battle of criminal conniving in the sinister Condor Plan project. To describe a group of individuals recruited and paid by the United States government as "civil opposition" is to assault the sensitivity, intelligence and rights of a sovereign nation. To attempt to speak in name of our region, the signers of this document don't know that the best thing about Latin American intellectuality, markedly Argentine, has demonstrated against the siege against Cuba. The "Call to the world's conscience", made public on May 1, 2003, alerted the world about the threats against the survival of the Cuban nation. In the months following since then, in these days before the elections in the U.S., these dangers have multiplied and the media campaigns have tried to legitimize any type of aggression. We, the signers below, Cuban writers, participants in a diverse and plural culture and from a genuine dialog in the bosom of civil society, denounce this maneuver against Cuba, against Argentina, against Our America.
Pablo Armando Fernández Reynaldo González Eduardo Heras León César López Francisco López Sacha Carlos Martí Brenes Lisandro Otero Graziella Pogolotti Miguel Barnet translated by Dana Lubow |