The Cuban saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera made a direct appeal to Silvio Rodríguez: why doesn't he tell the Brazilian singer-songwriter Chico Buarque that there is a Grammy winner imprisoned in Cuba for singing?
The statements come just days after Chico Buarque visited Havana to record a new version of the song "Sueño con serpientes," by Silvio, at the Ojalá studios. It was his first visit to the Island in 34 years, celebrated by the regime as a gesture of international solidarity.
"Why hasn't anyone told her that there is a person, that there is a Grammy winner imprisoned for singing a song that she didn't like?" D'Rivera asked in an interview with CiberCuba.
The musician was referring to Maykel Osorbo (Maykel Castillo Pérez), a Cuban rapper and co-interpreter of "Patria y Vida," a song that became an anthem for the protests on July 11, 2021, the largest popular demonstrations in Cuba in decades.
Osorbo was arrested on May 18, 2021, by State Security and won two Latin Grammys in November of that year from prison - Best Song of the Year and Best Urban Song - becoming the first Cuban musician to achieve this while imprisoned.
In June 2022, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for charges of contempt, assault, public disorder, defamation, and outrage against national symbols.
D'Rivera was direct in pointing out Silvio Rodríguez's responsibility: "Why doesn't Silvio say that to Chico Buarque? Because he knows."
The context is particularly revealing: weeks earlier, on March 18, Silvio publicly demanded an AKM rifle to defend Cuba, and days later, the minister of the FAR, Álvaro López Miera, handed it to him in an official ceremony presided over by Díaz-Canel.
D'Rivera used that episode to reinforce his criticism: "After he had a shooting lesson with his AKM, let him say, let him tell Chico Buarque that there are people imprisoned for singing and for protesting."
The musician also mentioned the case of sculptor and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who has been detained since 11J, and that of a teenager: "There is a little boy from Morón who is 16 years old and is imprisoned for sabotage. His sabotage was shouting down with the dictatorship."
D'Rivera expanded his criticism to the music community in general: "Musicians have not done much for the freedom of Cuba. That is the truth," except for figures like Celia Cruz, Bebo Valdés, and Cachao.
To illustrate the weight of silence, he quoted Martin Luther King: "What hurts me the most is not the wickedness of the wicked, but the silence of the good," and added that with silence, one cooperates greatly with the wicked.
In the interview, D'Rivera revealed that he met Silvio Rodríguez in his youth when Rodríguez—then a cartoonist for the magazine El Olivo—came to visit him accompanied by a lieutenant from the Regular Army while D'Rivera was serving in the Military Service in the band of the Army General Staff, with the aim of inviting him to an artistic group of the FAR. "After that, I never saw him again," he recalled.
This Wednesday, Descemer Bueno, another co-author of "Patria y Vida," joined the call urging that Chico Buarque be reminded that Osorbo remains imprisoned.
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