By Francisco Acevedo
HAVANA TIMES – A couple of weeks ago we talked about the disappointment of Cuban singer-songwriter Amaury Perez with the Cuban government, according to him because they do not promote his music. One more who apparently gets off the boat when they “step on his foot,” as they say in good Cuban, in reference to the one who only protests when they lose some privilege.
This week the spotlight went to the TV presenter and YouTuber Edmundo Garcia, a lifelong weathervane character, who is now sailing, also apparently, against the Revolution.
This is a person who became famous in Cuba as a host of programs at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), always related to art, who was a collector himself and that is why he had a prior clash with the Government. To the point that he left the country accused of trafficking works of art.
Upon his arrival in the United States he also worked on television and his image was of a moderate counterrevolutionary, until later he began his personal projects attacking the US embargo and defending the Cuban regime.
Over time it was learned that it was not for free. He had a nervous breakdown and went to live back on the Island for a couple of years. However, there he was not of much use to the government, rather he was a burden, and they sent him back into exile, according to him. He said with the mission of putting an end to the new influencers who are the nuisance of the dictatorship.
“I’m coming to bury them,” Edmundo proclaimed to the four winds, but he ended up with his tail between his legs when upon returning he realized that no one believed his story, and therefore no one sponsored him. Then the Cuban Government itself turned its back on him. He then made a bitter live broadcast in which he said goodbye to the social networks or at least stopped doing his usual program (because with 20 pesos you can’t do a direct, according to what he confessed).
Physically impoverished, he continued uploading videos indiscriminately, but this week he exploded and released what he had kept between his chest and back for a long time, because he knows with him there is no turning back.
He repeatedly talks about the lynching of his figure in exile, and openly says that it is an intelligence operation to empower Carlos Lazo and his “Bridges of Love” project, the weapon that the Cuban Government is currently using to promote the end of the embargo (they call a blockade).
From within the United States, Lazo and his group try to raise awareness among Cubans there with the story that the Homeland is above everything, and we must forget the differences to unite Cubans wherever they are and fight against what tries to separate them (except the dictatorship itself, which is the main separator).
Now that he is in the dunghill, Garcia, who at one time acknowledged that he had worked for decades for State Security (the repressive arm of the Cuban regime) and was an infiltrator in Miami, recognized that the only path for the people of Cuba is citizen participation.
“The popular consultation (voting), alternating governments, the repeal of everything that means the exclusion of a small political group. The only way for the people of Cuba is to stop the apathy and for there to be true participation,” and then he called the heir, Miguel Diaz-Canel, unpresentable.
“The people of Cuba deserve better, they need to fulfill themselves at the polls, in freedom, in prosperity, in the right to the pursuit of happiness,” he continued.
All this is nothing more than an obvious example of the double standards not only of Edmundo, but of all those who play into the hands of the regime, including Lazo himself, of whom Edmundo is totally envious because he is the new protégé of the dictatorship in exile, the one who keeps the funds that were previously for him.
The next day he almost begged for someone to give him a job, but his problem is that no one believes in him, neither in Cuba nor in the United States. This time it was not as dramatic as in the famous farewell speech in which he even offered to put “a gun to his head” and shoot himself in public when he felt betrayed and involved in a plot of sexual tourism in collusion with high figures of the dictatorship.
All of this, in addition to his insults to cultural personalities such as singer-songwriter Pablo Milanes, incitement to violence and indiscretion about military plans related to Venezuela, plunged the former presenter into discredit.
As I mentioned in the case of a founder of Nueva Trova, Amaury Pérez, Edmundo has always seemed to me like a bootlicker of Fidel Castro and his brother Raul (in fact, in his direct speeches he still has the image of Fidel behind him), so I don’t believe the story that he will be active in the opposition either. All you have to do is throw a piece of candy to him to make him lie down on the ground again.
And I left this for last, but not because it is less important, but quite the opposite. When Carlos Lazo presented the direct speech that provoked Edmundo’s outburst, he throws his arm over Israel Rojas, the leader of the Buena Fe duo, and Rojas tells him: “Don’t do that to me, I’m off social media, I’m only into my music.” Something really striking for one of the contemporary Cuban artists most closely linked to politics.
Evidently, the pressure from Cubans abroad has been felt, where only protected by Cuban embassies can he make the occasional presentation. Even then, Rojas always has to put up with worthy Cubans who reproach him to his face, not through social networks, for his collusion with the dictatorship. It is affecting his pocketbook and now he does not want to be linked so much with his backers, “if I have made a mistake at some point, forgive me.” He already knows that the Cuban Government has no remedy and at any moment a radical turn may occur. Will he be the new renegade?
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