Silvio Rodríguez called for amnesty for non-violent detainees from July 11 and opened a space for dialogue

July 23, 2021

The Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez, founder of the "new Cuban trova," called on Wednesday for amnesty for all "non-violent" detainees who participated in the protest demonstrations on July 11 on the island and opened an unexpected dialogue with dissident intellectuals to generate a space for debate.

The amnesty request was made on his website Segunda Cita in the comments section of an article written by Ernesto Padrón about the situation on the island. There, in the midst of an exchange of ideas with his followers, the author of Ojalá recalled a similar request made years ago that made possible the release of 70 dissidents. Shortly after, he posted it to his Facebook account.

"They asked me to call someone and ask for amnesty for all the prisoners. I remember the last time I asked for amnesty. It was at the Antimperialist Tribune (in Havana, across from the U.S. embassy). A second before going up, an authority told me not to say it. 'If I don't say that, I won't say anything,' I replied. And I was able to reach the microphone. And among many other things I asked for the freedom of those people with whom I disagreed. And a couple of weeks later (not because of me) 70 lives were freed. I don't know how many prisoners there are now, they say there are hundreds. I ask the same for those who were not violent and I keep my word. They have nothing to owe me because I asked for nothing. Hopefully they never feel left out again," he wrote.

In this way he fulfilled the commitment he made during a meeting with opposition playwright Yunior García Aguilera, with whom he met on Wednesday in Havana.

"We met for 70 minutes. It was part of what we agreed to. He said he was going to ask for the release of the prisoners," said the playwright in a telephone conversation with an Argentine publication.

García Aguilera, 38 years old, was one of the Cubans detained during the protests against the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel on July 11. His arrest took place in front of the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), where he demanded 15 minutes of response to the official discourse about the mobilizations on the island.

In an open letter released on his social networks, he invited Silvio Rodríguez to dialogue about the protests in Cuba and the reasons that moved a sector of the population to take to the streets throughout the country. And the singer-songwriter accepted the invitation.

"We have agreements and we have some points where we don't agree. We agreed to fight for those who are imprisoned," said García Aguilera.

Furthermore, he announced that both committed to developing "a future project so that a broad and diverse debate opens up with respect for differences and thus reach solutions through non-violent means" to the crisis the island is going through, he indicated.

And he added: "I will draft the project. We want it to be a broad project that includes more people and generates debate. We agree that Cuba needs real, concrete changes, with rights and inclusion and not to exclude any Cuban for the way he thinks."

In his open letter to the creator of Unicornio Azul, García Aguilera had stated: "If I still have, after July 11, even a minimal hope of dialogue, I want it to be with you. I don't imagine you throwing us into a garbage truck or defending stores with a stick in your hand. I don't imagine you kicking a 22-year-old socialist in a police station or supporting the condemnation of those to whom you have given so many concerts in their neighborhoods. I invite you. Give us those 15 minutes that were denied us at the ICRT (Cuban Institute of Radio and Television). We don't need cameras or microphones. Just us and our fragments of truths," he wrote.

And he stated: "I don't know if those 15 minutes will help you recover your unicorn. But perhaps you can help us not lose ours definitively. Hopefully."

In a lengthy post published on his site Segunda Cita and later uploaded to Facebook, Silvio Rodríguez alluded to the meeting he held with Yunior García Aguilera.

"The meeting with Yunior and Dayana (Prieto) was good, I'm not exaggerating if I say it was fraternal; there was dialogue, exchange, we listened to each other with attention and respect. For me the most painful thing was to hear that they, as a generation, no longer felt part of the Cuban process but something else," he wrote.

And he added: "They explained their arguments, their frustrations to me. I tried to make them understand that at my age everything also turned out to be much slower than we expected it to be. Whose fault is it, who is to blame? And we talked about misunderstandings between different ages, between different interests and understandings. Too painful for me that they declare themselves out; I cannot accept that failure even in the name of the pain of misunderstandings."

At that point, he recalled his own experience. "I suffered them too and I never came to feel left out. But I think that my generation was the one immediately after the insurrectional one and that we inherited the motives of our parents and then, growing up, we suffered with them how much it has cost to be sovereign and also socialist."

"There have to be more bridges, there have to be more dialogues, there have to be fewer prejudices; less desire to hit and more desire to solve the mountain of pending economic and political issues; less habit of listening to those who speak the same way with the same words, decade after decade, as if generations didn't also come with their own words and illusions," he questioned.

Right after, he asked for amnesty for those detained during the protests and recalled a similar request made some years ago. "I ask the same for those who were not violent and I keep my word," he indicated.