#LetWomenSing: Castros wouldn't let Celia Cruz sing in Cuba but the Queen of Salsa sang to the world

Let Celia Cruz be heard on radio in Cuba.

Let Celia Cruz's music be heard in Cuba

Freemuse in 2017 is focusing on women’s and musicians’ rights and access to cultural equality under the banner #LetWomenSing. The image they are using in their media campaign bears a striking resemblance to Celia Cruz and it is appropriate because Freemuse wants to create awareness and start a conversation about the inequality female musicians are experiencing.

Celia Cruz was and remains a nonperson in Cuba. Celia Cobo of Billboard Magazine once said "Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music." The impact of the Castro regime on music in Cuba goes beyond jailing musicians and includes systematic censorship that threatens the island's musical legacy as has been the case with the Queen of Salsa.

According to the 2004 book Shoot the singer!: music censorship today edited by Marie Korpe there is increasing concern that post-revolution generations in Cuba are growing up without knowing or hearing censored musicians such as Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations. This process has been described as a  Cuban cultural genocide that is depriving generations of Cubans of their heritage.

Olga Guillot's music is also still banned on Cuba radio

Later this month on October 21st the world will observe the 92nd anniversary of the birth of Cuban music icon Celia Cruz. The Queen of Salsa passed away fourteen years go on July 16, 2003 and her music is still banned in Cuba today.  At the time of her death in 2003 the Associated Press reported:

"While the death of salsa singer Celia Cruz was reported prominently in newspapers across the world, the news got scant and somewhat bitter treatment Thursday in the official media of her homeland. The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma reported Cruz’s death in a tiny, two-paragraph story published low on page 6 of the eight-page edition."

On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that the Cuban regime's ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and two days later the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news.  The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio. This wasn't news but a rumor that nine years after her death her music would be played on Cuban radio, after a half century absence but they were dispelled by regime officials. On August 21, 2012 Tony Pinelli, a musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned. The e-mail stated:

"All those who had allied with the enemy, who acted against our families, like Celia Cruz, who went to sing at the Guantanamo Base, the ICRT arrogated to itself the right, quite properly, not to disseminate them on Cuban radio "

This e-mail refers to Celia Cruz playing at the Guantanamo Naval Base in 1990. Because she had decided to continue to play her music, as a free woman, outside of Cuba the Castro brothers barred Celia from returning to Cuba in 1962 to bury her mother who had just died. When she went to the Guantanamo Naval Base three decades later she picked up some Cuban soil, a piece of home, to take back with her into exile. 

Celia Cruz picks up some Cuban soil to take a piece of home back to exile

In October of 2015 Telemundo aired the first of an 80 part - novela on the life of Celia Cruz, the woman who would become known as the Queen of Salsa and "La Guarachera de Cuba".

Google Doodle of Celia Cruz from 2013

In 2013 Google, on the tenth anniversary of her passing, honored Celia on her birthday with a Google Doodle. In 2010 the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in her honor describing the Cuban artist as follows.

"A dazzling performer of many genres of Afro-Caribbean music, Celia Cruz (1925-2003) had a powerful contralto voice and a joyful, charismatic personality that endeared her to fans from different nationalities and across generations. Settling in the United States following the Cuban revolution, the “Queen of Salsa” performed for more than five decades and recorded more than 50 albums." 

Sadly, it is not only in Cuba, Freemuse is working to bring attention to the "very violent and direct restrictions women musicians face in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan," and censorship elsewhere. Here in America we witnessed an ugly episode of censorship with the Dixie Chicks in 2003, but at least it was not government sponsored but Clear Channel played a sinister role in keeping their music out of their airwaves. However they are back on the airwaves and touring across the country. Something that Celia Cruz and other banned Cuban musicians were never able to do, not even posthumously in the island where they were born: have their music played on the radio. This is part of the terrible legacy of Castroism. The music of Celia and Olga will return to Cuba's radio airwaves one day and that will be cause for celebration. Azucar!

The Cuban Regime's International Impact on Human Rights: Syria

“Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres”. ["Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are."] - Spanish proverb

Bashar al-Assad and Raul Castro

Update: On February 5, 2012 ALBA Countries reiterated rejection of "foreign interference" in Syria's internal affairs, expressing support for President Bashar al-Assad and confidence that he would resolve the Syrian crisis. ALBA Countries include Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Meanwhile in Syria President al-Assad has been engaged in massacres throughout the country to put down a predominantly nonviolent opposition.

On Tuesday, August 23, 2011 the Cuban government along with China, Russia and Ecuador voted against investigating gross and systematic human rights violations in Syria. Those who follow the human rights council closely would not be surprised by the behavior of the Castro regime.

The dictatorship in Cuba engages domestically in the systematic violation of human rights of the Cuban people. Over the past few months the regime has returned to the practice of beating nonviolent women peacefully attending mass and silently marching to demand that their imprisoned husbands, political prisoners be released. Internationally the regime collaborates and is allied with the worse human rights violators in seeking to subvert international human rights standards and with their position on the United Nations Human Rights Council have assisted China, Sri Lanka and other countries in avoiding accountability for gross and systematic violations in addition to attempting to make a mockery of the institution itself and in at least one case physically assaulting a human rights defender after the regime lost a vote that criticized its human rights practices.



Thankfully, yesterday the Cuban regime’s machinery and their allies lost a key vote at the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Cuban diplomat, Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, gave an impassioned presentation (video above in English - but also available in Spanish) saying that the available information was partial and politicized and blamed the United States and Israel as having a strategic objective to do away with the regime in Syria, and called for a special session on the "barbaric acts" of NATO in Libya. Making no mention of the massacres committed by the Cuban dictatorship's close ally Muammar Qaddafi. The diplomat for the dictatorship also brought up the issues of torture in Guantanamo and spoke of double standards. He concluded that the government and people of Syria should resolve the problems themselves and keep the international community out of it and rejected all calls to investigate the situation on the ground. His presentation was a mixture of outright fabrication combined with half-truths to avoid dealing with the substantive issues of what is taking place in Syria which was the subject of the special session held in Geneva. At the last special session human rights experts were to conduct a fact finding mission to Syria to assess the situation. It was the Syrian regime that blocked their visit.



Ms. Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Human Rights Council is from South Africa and she has an extensive background as a human rights defender who battled the racist South African apartheid regime. She spoke at the start of the special session on Monday,August 22, 2011 (video of her statement is embedded above) her statement is reproduced, in part, below:

Allow me to recall that the Human Rights Council in its sixteenth Special Session on 29 April 2011 requested that I dispatch a fact-finding mission to Syria to investigate all alleged violations of human rights law and report on the situation of human rights in Syria to the Council during its eighteenth regular session in September. This report was released on 18 August, as you may have seen. In a closed session on the same day, I also briefed the members of the Security Council on the findings of our report and urged them to consider referring the current situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. The situation remains under consideration by the Security Council. I wish to begin today by highlighting the Mission’s key findings.
OHCHR fact-finding mission found a pattern of widespread or systematic human rights violations by Syrian security and military forces, including murder, enforced disappearances, torture, deprivation of liberty, and persecution. Although the report covered the period of 15 March to 15 July 2011, there are indications that the pattern of violations continues to this day. It is our assessment that the scale and nature of these acts may amount to crimes against humanity.

It is regrettable that the Government of Syria did not give access to the Mission, despite my repeated requests. Nonetheless, the Mission gathered credible, corroborated, and consistent accounts of violations from victims and witnesses, including military defectors, and Syrian refugees in neighboring countries.
The Mission concluded that while demonstrations have been largely peaceful, the military and security forces have resorted to an apparent “shoot-to-kill” policy. Snipers on rooftops have targeted protesters, bystanders who were trying to help the wounded, and ambulances. The Mission also documented incidents of summary execution outside the context of the demonstrations, and during house-to-house searches and in hospitals. Victims and witnesses reported widespread attempts to cover up killings by the security forces, including through the use of mass graves.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights went on to report that "over 2200 people have been killed since mass protests began in mid-March" and that the fact finding mission had also found that: "Torture and ill-treatment were found to have been widespread. Former detainees cited cases of death in custody, including that of children, as a result of torture."

Hafez al-Assad and Fidel Castro

Now the regime in Syria, like that of Cuba's, has been in power for a long time and one family has transferred power when the founding dictator became incapacitated. The father of the current dictator in Syria, Hafez al-Assad, ruled from 1971 until his death in 2000. He is credited with having carried out the bloodiest crackdown in the Middle East in modern times in 1982 when he put down an uprising in the city of Hama surrounding it with regular military troops and attacked killing between 10,000 and 25,000 Syrians. Since 2000, Bashar al-Assad took over his father's dictatorship and is currently engaged in a crackdown on a predominantly nonviolent movement in which over 2,200 people have been killed as of today.

Bashar al-Assad and Raul Castro during June 2010 visit to Cuba

Fidel Castro visited Syria on more than one occasion and endorsed both generations dictators with warm praise. One of the Syrian regime's propaganda sites contains pictures of Fidel Castro with Bashar al-Assad with the location and date reported as Damascus, Syria on May 16, 2001. The following text describes the encounter between the two men when Bashar had just recently assumed power following his father's death on June 10, 2000:

Cuban President Fidel Castro and his accompanying delegation visited al-Assad library and laid a wreath at late president Hafez Assad's statue.In a statement to reporters, Castro described the late President as was one of the bravest men in the world. "The Syrians, Arabs, and the world freedom-loving people would never forget President Hafez Assad. The late Assad tops all in firmness, pride, and dignity; he never surrendered in all his life. Assad, indeed, knew how to raise his cause up to the top of glory and how to build for Syria her glory.’’ President Fidel Castro of Cuba said of the late president."In President Bashar Assad, I have seen all success, an identical image of his late father in features, morals, sense of responsibility. President Bashar definitely enjoys the full support of the Syrians and would achieve the sublime status realized by his late father,’’ President Fidel Castro of Cuba said of president Bashar Assad.

Hafez al-Assad and Fidel Castro in Havana on February 9, 1979

Relations between the dictatorship in Cuba and Syria have been close throughout the rule of both the father and son with both Castro brothers. They have paid visits to each others countries over the years and maintained close diplomatic ties and relations. Bashar al-Assad visited Raul Castro in Cuba on June 28, 2010 and on the second day of his visit visited a biotechnology and genetics center in Cuba.

Raul Castro and Bashar al-Assad

Beyond the obvious desire to assist in crushing the popular aspirations of the Syrian people to avoid the Cuban people getting any ideas that they can actually free themselves of the Castro brothers dictatorship there also appears to be an international strategic dimension that will have an impact throughout the hemisphere in the future. It appears that the Castro brothers have a strategic interest in maintaining the al-Assad dictatorship and are willing to assist in the cover up of mass killing of nonviolent demonstrators by their Syrian allies.

Bashar al-Assad and Fidel Castro, Damascus May 16, 2001

There are also common links to Lukashenko in Belarus and a close relationship established with a key ally of the dictatorship in Cuba and that is with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The first country visited by al-Assad on his June 2010 visit through Latin America was Venezuela and the second was Cuba.

Bashar al-Assad and Hugo Chavez

The trouble that Syria's dictator faces is that the international environment is changing and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International are demanding that they be held accountable because there is "a growing body of crimes against humanity, the Human Rights Council should support a move which would demonstrate to Syria’s leaders that the international community intends to hold those who have committed such crimes individually criminally responsible for them. This is particularly crucial given the Syrian authorities’ ongoing failure to bring an end to such crimes in response to the international community’s repeated expressions of concern. "

Bashar al-Assad lays wreath at tomb of Jose Marti in Cuba

This is also a problem for the Castro brothers on two levels. On one level they also have a track record of having had and continuing to commit serious human rights violations including extrajudicial killings and could also find themselves before an international tribunal having to answer for their actions. Secondly, the loss of Syria is the loss of a staunch ally of the dictatorship. Add to that their public defense of mass murder in Syria and Libya the odds are that if new governments replace them they will not be as keen to develop strong relations with a regime that supported repression against the peoples of those respective countries.

Bashar al-Assad and Raul Castro during June 2010 visit to Cuba

It is a good sign for the international human rights movement that the regime in Cuba and their international allies are losing more votes at the UN Human Rights Council and that systematic human rights violators are being called to account. The vote at the council for a commission of inquiry on the events in Syria was 33 votes in favor, 9 abstentions and 4 against (China, Cuba, Russian Federation, and Ecuador).

Cuba 2009: The Year of Dangerousness

An important opportunity for the Cuban government to demonstrate that it was seeking to reform itself was presented in 2009. The international community and many Cuba watchers expected improvements and reforms with Raul Castro. He had been running things in a de facto manner since 2006 when Fidel Castro became deathly ill and formally took over head of state duties on February 24, 2008. As a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council the government of Cuba had made a number of commitments to be elected on the Council among them to submit to human rights instruments such as the Universal Periodic Review and invitations to special rapporteurs to visit the island and report their findings. In addition to international mechanisms the United States under the new Administration unilaterally loosened sanctions and extended an offer of a constructive dialogue which included scholarships for Cuban students to study at Universities in the United States.

Universal Periodic Review: A missed opportunity

The Universal Periodic Review is a peer review by countries done in a spirit to improve human rights conditions on the ground following a careful self-examination with the participation of civil society. According to the Geneva based Human Rights Tribune when Cuba underwent its review on February 6, 2009 and was questioned "by members of the Western group and some Latin American countries on violations of civil and political rights, the Cuban officials refused to commit to achieving progress, in contradiction with the spirit of the review." Although victims of the dictatorship where able to testify in a parallel forum at the time there voices were not heard in the main chamber because the review only permits states to ask questions and engage in a dialogue. The title of the article on the review was "Universal Periodic Review of Cuba: A Missed Opportunity" but it held out hope for Cuba to revisit the questions posed prior to the adoption of the report in June. When June arrived the Cuban government tried to stack the list of speakers to avoid having any critical questions asked, but failed and instead lashed out against Human Rights Watch and the Centrist Democrat International representatives who had made critical statements before the adoption of the final report.UN Watch on hand to witness what occurred reported:

In his testimony for CDI, former Cuban prisoner of conscience, Jose Gabriel RamonCastillo drew attention to the plight of hundreds of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba. He cited 21 deaths in prisons because of medical negligence or psychological harassment, more than 500 cases of arbitrary arrests and 26 imprisonments of human rights defenders. “On behalf of the thousands of Cubans who are repressed tortured and whose fundamental rights are violated, I ask this Council to bring justice, and that this document should explain the real situation of human rights in Cuba,” he said.

This and one other speech for Castro’s victims were too much for the Cuban delegation who, in its closing remarks, accused them of serving imperialist interests. “Just as a swallow doesn’t mean there’s a summer, the noisy voices of those not-NGOs, but mercenaries in pay of the empire and defeated voice of counter-revolution, we regret they felt the need to come here and make the clown act. At any rate, we will continue to be victorious,” Cuba said.

The Special Rapporteur on Torture

In response to the commitments made to be eligible for membership on the UN Human Rights Council then Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque in January of 2009 announced that "Cuba will proceed in the course of the next week to extend an invitation to the (U.N.) special rapporteur on torture, Mr. Manfred Nowak, to visit our country in the course of the current year." The day after the Cuban Foreign Minister announced the intention to extend the invitation to him Nowak announced plans to make "unannounced" visits to all kinds of detention facilities while in Cuba stating: "The Cuban government knows perfectly well my conditions for visiting a country. I want to meet alone with prisoners and their families." Over the course of the year it became evident that the visit was not going to take place in 2009. In October the special rapporteur on torture expressed dissapointment that the visit had failed to authorize the visit, but is confident that it will be extended in 2010. Time will tell.

Free Scholarships for Americans and Ideological Purges for Cubans

Thirty students had their exit permits denied and some were expelled from the University they were attending in Cuba for accepting an opportunity to study in the United States. One of the expelled students offered to speak anonymously about what had occurred:

"I've been told that I have been expelled from the university and that I have a hearing pending with the Communist Youth, where I am to receive a temporary sanction due to the fact that, in self-criticism, I acknowledged having applied for the scholarship. [...]Our state of mind couldn't be worse. We feel unprotected. Nobody will defend us nor challenge the Cuban government to claim our right to exercise the option any university student in the world has.''

At the same time, unlike there Cuban counterparts, American students have been studying on scholarship in Cuba for years without a hitch beginning in the George W. Bush Administration and according to Scholarships.com there numbers are increasing and "have had success enrolling in Cuban programs. Recently, a medical student from Dallas opted to finish her degree in Havana because the Cuban school offered her a full scholarship, monthly stipend and room and board paid for by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health." On the other hand according to a University of Havana professor, who agreed to speak as long as not identified, said that "We are involved in a new process of control and ideological purges that resembles the worst moments and stages of the past."

Ominous Trends

Human Rights Watch released a 123 page report New Castro, Same Cuba that Raul Castro's first three years in power have been as brutal as his brother. According to Human Rights Watch, "In addition to imprisoning dissenters, Raúl Castro's government also enforces political conformity using beatings, short-term detention, public acts of repudiation, and the denial of work, among other tactics." Two high profile examples of two of these tactics were applied to Yoani Sanchez , Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo and a group of bloggers and later against her husband Reinaldo Escobar. Interviewed by the Daily Telegraph, Yoani Sanchez described her abduction and beating "I was on my way to a peaceful protest against violence with a few friends when it happened. A black car pulled up. The three men inside called out my name and told me to get in." On her Generation Y blog the entire affair is described with great detain and continues:

I refused to get into the bright Geely-made car and we demanded they show us identification or a warrant to take us. Of course they didn’t show us any papers to prove the legitimacy of our arrest. The curious crowded around and I shouted, “Help, these men want to kidnap us,” but they stopped those who wanted to intervene with a shout that revealed the whole ideological background of the operation, “Don’t mess with it, these are counterrevolutionaries.” In the face of our verbal resistance they made a phone call and said to someone who must have been the boss, “What do we do? They don’t want to get in the car.” I imagine the answer from the other side was unequivocal, because then came a flurry of punches and pushes, they got me with my head down and tried to push me into the car. I held onto the door… blows to my knuckles…

Returning to the interview she said that "They were saying, 'It's all over, Yoani.' I really thought they were going to kill me."Both she and Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo were badly beaten and deposited back on the street two bruised human heaps. Outraged at the abduction and beating of his wife Reinaldo Escobar challenged one of the agents they were able to identify to meet him at the corner of 23 and G in Havana (were the peace protest had taken place a week earlier) to have a verbal duel over what had occurred. He set the date and time and arrived to be recieved by an act of repudiation organized by State Security and along with a small group of friends was shouted down and physically assaulted by the government organized mob. This time international media such as CNN documented the attack:

Pattern of Torture and Extrajudicial killings documented

On November 6, 2009 the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights conducted hearings on torture and extra-judicial killings in Cuba and systematic patterns of government abuse and intimidation to cover it up: Two instances that were presented first, a journalist’s wife found her husband dead under a tree after he had received numerous death threats. When she tried to get more information from the government, she was told that he had had a heart attack. Second, the family of another prisoner who died was told that he had committed suicide in prison; however, other prisoners had seen the man severely beaten by police hours before he supposedly killed himself.

African Americans Pushback

The Cuban government's behavior towards Afro-Cubans has finally caught up with the regime. The arrest of Dr. Darsi Ferrer on July 21 led to international attention from Reporters Without Borders, Committee of Concerned Scientists and the Inter-American Press Association and caught the attention of historic Afro-Brazilian civil rights pioneer Abdias Nascimento and 60 prominent African Americans among them Cornel West, Jeremiah A. Wright and Ruby Dee Davis. They have condemned the repression and harassment of Cuban civil rights leaders and are demanding Darsi Ferrer's immediate release and recognition as a political prisoner.

Dangerousness as the New Thought Crime

Human Rights Watch in the report mentioned above analyzes the use of the Dangerousness provision of the Cuban Criminal Code that allows for individuals to be imprisoned before they commit a crime. According to Human Rights Watch:

This “dangerousness” provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts socialist norms. The most Orwellian of Cuba’s laws, it captures the essence of the Cuban government’s repressive mindset, which views anyone who acts out of step with the government as a potential threat and thus worthy of punishment. Despite significant obstacles to research, Human Rights Watch documented more than 40 cases in which Cuba has imprisoned individuals for “dangerousness” under Raúl Castro because they tried to exercise their fundamental rights.

A review of the actions taken by the Cuban government in 2009 reveals an unpopular regime at home seeking to hang on to power and not reforming itself on the contrary returning to past brutal practices already condemned by the international community. The arrest of scores of Cubans for "dangerousness" makes 2009 the year of dangerousness and organizing a mob to harass the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of prisoners of conscience a shameful reflection of a morally bankrupt regime.