The other Prieto
Guillermo of Venepoetics posts about the visit to Venezuela of Cuban Minister of Culture Abel Prieto. Venezuelan writers want nothing to do with him and have banded together to publish an open letter to the minister. Bravo.
Caracas, January 25 2004
Mr. Abel Prieto
Minister of Culture for Cuba
Present
You have arrived in Venezuela as the leader of an official delegation of Cuban writers and police. It is obvious that you have come to lend a hand to the Castro-like dictatorship that the Liutenant Coronel Hugo Ch?vez is unsuccessfully trying to build in our country.
On this occasion, your visit was preceded by the sad news of the agony suffered in prison by Dr. Oscar El?as Biscet and by the writer Manuel V?zquez Portal, identified as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International. Your visit was also preceded by the humiliating harrassment and imprisoning of Cuban women in the form of Martha Beatriz Roque, as well as by the despicable confinement of Juan Carlos Gonz?lez Leiva, the only known case in the world of a blind prisoner of conscience. We know about the suffering of the poet Ra?l Rivero and the other seventy-five dissidents, who were jailed for writing their opinions or, simply, for lending out banned books. All of them have been condemned to up to 28 years for defending--as Jos? Mart? said--"the right of every honest person to think and speak without hypocrisy."
You should know, Mr. Prieto, that those of us in Venezuela who love freedom do not welcome you. You represent a dictatorship that has kept Cubans in terror and misery for almost half a century. You and your colleagues are accomplices of what is happening in Cuba. With your writings, with your praises for the tyrant, with your silences, with your accusations and persecutions against intellectuals who are not willing to bow their heads, you are as guilty as those jailers that torture, as guilty as those soldiers in the firing squads, as guilty as those judges that condemn, as guilty as the dictator who orders these iniquities from the peak of power.
Mr. Prieto: we will not tolerate firing squads in Venezuela. We will not allow homosexual writers to be jailed here, as you jailed Reynaldo Arenas. We will not tolerate book burnings, nor prohibitions on certain books. We will not tolerate the purging of "uncomfortable" books from libraries. We will not allow poets to be forced into Stalinist circuses, as you did with Heberto Padilla, and which has been repeated dozens of times. Here in Venezuela, we will not allow the kidnapping of the right to have an opinion, to write what we think, to use the internet or the telephone to communicate with anyone we want, to watch TV stations in order to remain informed about what happens in our country and the world. Venezuela will never be another Cuba.
Mr. Prieto, the immense majority of Venezuelans love and respect freedom and we are ready for any sacrifice in order to maintain that freedom. You and your colleagues lack the moral authority to represent the Cuba of Jos? Mart?, Jorge Ma?ach, Lidia Cabrera, Lino Novas Calvo, Enrique Labrador Ruiz, Levi Marrero, Gast?n Baquero, Reynaldo Arenas, Jos? Lezama Lima, N?stor Almendros, Ernesto Lecuona, Gonzalo Roig, Rodrigo Pratts, Miguel Matamoros, Hortensia Coalla, Celia Cruz, Ren? Touzet, Jos? Ra?l Capablanca ,Virgilio Pi?era and many others who also died in Cuba or abroad, as well as all of those who are waiting to return to the big house of their homeland. Just as you do not represent the more than 150 prisoners of conscience and jailed dissidents, nor the millions of Cubans with free spirits who suffer on the island. You have nothing to do here. Go back to the huge, embarrassing jail--maintained with your help--that is Cuba today.
Lourdes T. Acosta
Alicia Alamo
Silvia Alegrett
Harry Almela
Alberto Alvarez
Sonia Angelli
Edda Armas
Dolly Armitano
Gustavo Arnstein
Ram?n Guillermo Aveledo
Leonardo Azp?rren
Guillermo Barrios
H?ctor Borges
H?ctor Luis Borges G.
Soledad Bravo
Eleonora Bruzual
Marco Tulio Bruni Celli
Julio C?sar Camacho
Axel Capriles M?ndez
Luis M.Carbonell
Mar?a de L. Carbonell
Sandra Caula
Israel Centeno
Alfredo Coronil Hartman
Margareth Cubill?n
Yolanda Cubill?n
Raquel Chonchol
Roberto Echeto
Alicia Freilich
Miriam Freilich
Agust?n Gabald?n Ram?rez
D?bora Gabald?n
Paulina Gamus Gallegos
Raquel G?mus
Jacqueline Goldberg
Carlos Ra?l Hern?ndez
Susy Iglicki
Gioconda Inman
Angelina Jaffe
Marisa Kohn Beker
Luis de Lion
Maria Teresa L?pez
Philippe H. Lugagne G.
Ricardo Mari?o
Esperanza M?rquez
Natacha M?rquez
Trino M?rquez
Xiorama M?rquez de Pizani
Am?rico Mart?n
Russell Mayworm
Juan Carlos M?ndez Gu?dez
Iv?n R. M?ndez
Glenda Mendoza
Alfonso Montes
Maria Mercedes Nouel Pa?l
Nela Ochoa
Jos? Antonio Parra
Antonio Pasquali
Clara Pasquali
Anita Pantin
Yolanda Pantin
Marisabel Pa?l
Edilio Pe?a
Carlos Poveda
Gisela Rangel M
Elsa Recagno
Maria Teresa van der Ree
Eleonora Requena
Julie Restifo de Vidal
Beatriz Rittigstein
Manuel Rafael Rivero
Jos? Rodr?guez Iturbe
Maria Teresa Romero
Malena Roncayolo
Cesar Miguel Rond?n
Frank J. Rond?n C.
Mar?a Elena Salas
Adolfo P.Salgueiro
Julieta Salas de Carbonell
Antonio S?nchez Garc?a
Juan Carlos Santaella
Luis M.Segovia
Enrique Sifontes
Julio Sosa
Blanca Strepponi
Ana Teresa Torres
Jos? Toro Hardy
Iru?a Urruticoechea
Thaelman Urguelles
V?ctor Valera
Javier Vidal
Perla Vonasek
-Open Letter, Venezuelan writers- 1/29/2004
(First published in El Meollo)
I wish I could write exactly what I feel right now, upon reading this letter of solidarity and truth. Suffice it to say that I am in tears and chills have control of my body. Thank you Scott, for posting it y gracias a mis amigos Venezolanos, que somos, ahora, hermanos en la misma lucha.
Viva Venezuela! Y viva Cuba, libre y soverana.
And BTW, this Prieto is no relation to "the other Prieto."
The part that made me most emotional was when I first read it over at Guillermo's - "You and your colleagues lack the moral authority to represent the Cuba of Jos? Mart?," etc.. devastating. Perfectly pitched.
Then I scrolled down the names of those who had the courage to sign the letter...so many in solidarity.
These people are not fooled.
Hi,
The letter moved me too when I first read it last night, which is why I had to translate it and post it as soon as possible. It's true, the destinies of Cuba and Venezuela are now directly linked to each other because of these twin tyrants.
I pray for peaceful solutions in both countries, and I deeply regret the years I wasted in believing the mythology of the Cuban revolution that Castro & co promote.
Too many of us Venezuelans never stopped to think about the destructive elements of a "revolution." Until recently.
Best wishes,
Guillermo
I am sincerely moved by this letter. I will be forwarding this to many people. I was able to get a copy of it in Spanish at the "El Meollo" website. Thanks for the link.
Wonder what Danny Glover and his ilk would think of it? (Not that I'd really care anyway!) Aaargh! Whenever I think of his open letter in support of Castro, it just makes me ill.
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