Cuba: Government Won’t Meet with U.S. Supported People or Media

Cuba’s Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) reported Friday that minister Alpidio Alonso will not meet with people who have direct contact and receive funding, logistical support and propaganda backing from the US government and its officials, or with press outlets funded by US federal agencies.

In a press release, MINCULT clarified that for the young people and all
those artists who met in front of the Ministry last November 27, who have
not pledged their work to the enemies of the Cuban nation, the opportunities for dialogue remain open, as has been a historic practice of the cultural institutions of the Revolution.

Due to its relevance, the Cuban News Agency conveys below, fully, the press
release.

Press Release from the Cuban Ministry of Culture

Last November 27th, in front of the Ministry of Culture, people with different complaints gathered. Due to the respect for the concerns and
demands of young people engaged in the arts, who gathered there through
networks of groups with other interests, the Ministry’s doors were opened
for an exchange with deputy minister Fernando Rojas and representatives of the UNEAC (Cuban Association of Writers and Artists) and the AHS (Hermanos Saiz Association).

After more than four hours of dialogue, they agreed to hold a new meeting,
chaired by the minister, for which they would previously coordinate lists of
topics and participants.

This December 3, at 1:39 p.m., an insolent mail was received at the
Ministry of Culture, where the group standing as the voice of all, intends
to impose, in a unilateral way, who, with whom and for what purpose will
accept to dialogue.

By pretending to include among the participants people who have long been self-excluded because of their aggressions against the patriotic symbols, common crimes and frontal attacks against the leadership of the Cuban Revolution, under the mask of art, those who implemented this maneuver have just broken all possibility of dialogue.

The Minister of Culture will not meet with people who have direct contact
and receive funding, logistical support and propaganda support from the
United States Government and its officials. Nor will he meet with media
funded by U.S. federal agencies.

We deny the budgets -contained in the above-mentioned mail, which can be
consulted in the digital sites of MINCULT- on which the conditions of this
group, lacking legitimacy and ethics to summon the institutions of Cuban
culture, have been structured.

For the young people and for all those artists who met in front of MINCULT
on November 27, who have not committed their work to the enemies of the
Cuban nation, the opportunities for dialogue remain open, as has been a
historical practice of the cultural institutions of the Revolution.

 As the President of the Republic, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, has
reiterated, we are not a clandestine government.   We are a Revolution in
power, which has among its most powerful forces culture, a sovereign,
independent and anti-imperialist culture from the root.

 With the mercenaries, we do not come to terms.

 Ministry of Culture, Havana, December 4, 2020, Year 62 of the Revolution