Cuba's crackdown on dissidents costs premier event for artists

HAVANA - (KRT) - Cuba's most significant showcase for third world artists, the Havana Biennial, kicked off its eighth edition this weekend despite a serious cash crunch and allegations of censorship from Latin American artists.

Featuring about 150 artists from 48 countries, the Biennial was already operating on a shoestring budget when three European foundations announced they would withdraw a total of about $200,000 due to the Cuban government's crackdown on dissidents earlier this year.

Cuban organizers call the move "an anti Cuban campaign" in line with the European Union's decision to downgrade diplomatic relations.

The director of a Dutch foundation, the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, said she knew some artists would be unable to exhibit in Havana without financial support, however the decision was made in solidarity with political prisoners sentenced to up to 28 years in jail.

"For us it was a very, very hard decision," Els van der Plas said Wednesday in a phone conversation from The Hague. "It was impossible to support a government that at the same time arrests poets, cultural and social activists."

The Netherlands-based Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (HIVOS) and the French Association of Artistic Action (AFAA) also withdrew support.

"The programme for the Biennial which was always the most important free place for non-Western art is not as free this year as in previous years," HIVOS said on its Web site. "There is clear censorship."

Ricardo Acosta, president of Cuba's National Council of Visual Arts, said the foundations' decision primarily affected Asian artists and others who were not able to attend due to the cost of airfare and transporting their materials. The foundations pulled out four months ago.

"They left us in a very difficult situation because there was very little time to maneuver," Acosta said. "It will be very difficult for informed people in the world to believe that the Prince Claus (Fund) and HIVOS are really foundations which help art … They try to attack Cuba, judge Cuba."

The Cuban government put up about $156,000 to pay for the event, Acosta added. He estimated costs for the Biennial, which ends on Dec. 15, will ultimately total about $300,000. Organizers and individual artists are working with other foundations to come up with the money.

Allegations that the works of two artists, Alexander Apostol of Venezuela and Priscilla Monge of Costa Rica, were censored also cast a pall over this year's show.

Both Apostol and Monge, who had participated in previous years, declined invitations to the Biennial after Cuban curators requested changes in the explanatory texts accompanying their work.

In a phone conversation from Madrid, Apostol said his video montage exhibit dealt with the shattered optimism of the 1940's, '50s and '60s that had "self destructed" in Venezuela and other Latin American countries. It shows large, familiar buildings in Venezuela being erased by curtains of water.

"There is a very, very close relationship between the government of Cuba and the government of Venezuela," Apostol said. "They felt it alluded directly to (President Hugo) Chavez's government, which isn't the case. It alluded to the last 20 years."

After the Cuban curator asked for a change in the text, Apostol said he showed his work to officials at Venezuela's Ministry of Culture, who did not request any changes. When Apostol informed the curator in Havana, however, she continued to want a change.

"I tried to find a means to negotiate but it was impossible," Apostol said. "I really didn't want to resign. My project had a lot to do with the history of Latin America."

Monge could not be reached for comment. But her work alluded to a victim of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion who wrote Fidel Castro's name in blood on a board as he lay dying. In six photographs she replaced Castro's name with other texts.

Acosta said both Apostol and Monge were unwilling to compromise on "nuances" in the texts accompanying their work. The texts were written by other curators.

"She (Monge) was told there were some paragraphs of the text which were a little disrespectful of some aspects of Cuban history," Acosta said. "The Costa Rican (Monge) quickly responded, `then I'm not going to Havana.' They were not censored."

Since its inception in 1984, the Havana Biennial has evolved into a prestigious platform for third world artists and especially Cubans, some of whom lack the money or permission to travel abroad and promote their work.

As in years past, Acosta said American museum curators and gallery owners were attending.

"Cuban art has the reputation of being very dynamic," said West Palm Beach, Fla., art restoration specialist James Swope, who attended an exhibit at a central Havana housing project. "The Miami Cuban American community has a lot of art coming out of it and it's interesting to see the other side."

Under the theme "Art with Life," exhibits opened throughout this week in a Spanish fortress, plazas, galleries and private homes across Havana.

"This is the most important thing that can happen to a young Cuban artist," said Havana artist Yoan Capote, who has traveled in Europe and Latin America and was participating in the show with a work of concrete television sets with blue lights and bars across their screens a reference to media domination.

Due to the funding restrictions some visiting artists said they paid for Biennial expenses out of their own pockets.

Barthelemy Toguo, a performance artist from Cameroon who lives in Paris, estimated he would spend about $3,000 during his stay in Havana. Cuban organizers told him they could not pay for his expenses.

"They wrote to me and said you are invited but we don't have money, accommodations, nothing," Toguo said. "I paid for everything."

>>>>>---"Since its inception in 1984, the Havana Biennial has evolved into a prestigious platform for third world artists and especially Cubans, some of whom lack the money or permission to travel abroad and promote their work."

* * * * * "Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker??? * * *

José Luis García Paneque
Sentence: 24 years
Status: Villa Clara , Santa Clara Provincial Prison

José Luis García Paneque is a plastic surgeon and a director of Libertad agency (Las Tunas),
sentenced in Las Tunas province. Prosecutors had asked for 18 years but the court raised the
sentence to 24 without explanation. In July 2000, Paneque wrote an article titled “Doctors or slaves?”,
which was highly critical of the official practice of imposing internal exile on any physician who asked
to leave the country legally. Married, Paneque has four children.

Oscar Elias Biscet
Sentence: 25 years
Status: Ciudad de la Habana

Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet was one of the last to be tried. Dr. Biscet is a medical doctor by profession and
had been jailed since the December 2002 protest.

Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello
Sentence: 20 years
Status: Ciudad de la Habana

Marta Beatriz Roque - the only woman detained - is an economist and the director of
the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists. Roque, age 58, had previously served nearly
three years in prison. Along with three other dissidents, she was prosecuted after publishing
an analytical paper titled "The Homeland Belongs to All," which discussed Cuba's human rights
situation and called for reforms. She is a recipient of the 2002 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of
Scientists Award of the New York Academy of Sciences. In April of this year, she was sentenced
for her opposition activity to 20 years in prison.

Jorge Olivera Castillo
Sentence: 18 years
Status: Guantánamo , Chafarina

Jorge Olivera Castillo was the head of Havana Press agency (Havana) and later its interim director
and a former reporter for New Cuban Press. In a 1997 crackdown on independent journalists he was
denounced by Cuban authorities for ''consorting with the foreign media.'' Neighborhood vigilante groups
ordered him to leave his Havana home and he was forced to sleep on park benches for a while.
In November 1999, he was denounced by name by Fidel Castro as one of the dissidents who allegedly
planned to disrupt the Ibero-American Summit in Havana. Married, he has a 10-year-old daughter

Omar Rodríguez Saludes
Sentence: 27 years
Status: Camagüey, Kilo 8

Omar Rodriguez Saludes received the second longest sentence of 27 years.
He is an independent journalist and the head of Nueva Prensa agency (Havana).

Miguel Galván Gutiérrez
Sentence: 26 years
Status: Matanzas, Agüica

Miguel Galván is a journalist for Havana Press agency (Güines).

Victor Rolando Arroyo
Sentence: 26 years
Status: Chafirina, Guantanamo

Victor Rolando Arroyo is a journalist for the UPECI agency (Pinar del Río).

Normando Hernández González
Sentence: 25 years
Status: Santiago de Cuba, Boniato

Normando Hernández is the head of Independent College of Journalists agency (Camagüey).

Manuel Vázquez Portal
Sentence: 18 years
Status: Santiago de Cuba , Boniato

Manuel Vazquez Portal is a journalist with Grupo de Trabajo Decoro agency (Havana).

Plus thousands more....

- "Why are these incredible heros not on the cover of the NYTimes/Newsweek/Time and not the lead story of ABCCBSNBCCNN etc?"

Yes. That's a good question. The American people have no idea what they are doing inside Cuba. The only picture the see or get to hear is the issue of "travel and trade" with Cuba.

There is no question in my mind that the Castro dictatorship can be completely isolated and suffocated, and it can be done by a relentless campaign of INFORMATION. Not just by Cuban-Americans, but by enlisting our own broad coalition of politicians / actors / civic and business leaders / to dramatize and ACTIVELY CAMPAIGN on the abuses and jailing of so many Cuban citizens risking imprisonment for trying to establish liberty and democracy in Cuba - AND THEY NEED OUR HELP AND SUPPORT!!!.

Here are some pictures of the 'real' Cuba

More pictures and brief Cuba travel report HERE

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