They canceled the show because the Cuban Gov't didn’t want them to play a song dedicated to the Prisoners.

oh, i don't think so.

Drummer Stewart Copeland's father was CIA official Miles Copeland, in charge of CIA attacks against the Castro dictatorship in the early 1960s.
That would make some interesting publicity when the band shows up in Cuba.
I agree with Henry that these hypocrites will not dare denounce the human rights situation in Cuba like they have done for leftist causes internationally.

My letter to the Sting fan website

The problem with the Police playing in Cuba in a free concert is that there is no such thing as a "free concert" in that dictatorship.

The Castro dictatorship very successfully limits what Cubans see or hear on the island, and a lousy Police concert is not going to change things on the island - like bring freedom and democracy.

The same goes for when the other Police members played the "Music Bridges" concerts a few years back in Havana. Naive Western musicians, fans, record industry execs,and concert producers think that concerts like these foster some type of positive cultural exchange between peoples of the world. Not so! Actually this is one of the biggest tricks in the communist playbook. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Cuba - actually in Cuba Western musicians have for decades been fooled into believing that there the music was not available because of the USA embargo - but in reality most American popular music has not been available in communist backwaters like Cuba because that type of music - Rock and Roll has always been viewed as dangerous, subversive, and disrespectful to the authoritarian communist system. Remember how during the 60 even into the 1980s the Castro dictatorshipbanned popular American music and forcefully put young music fans known as "rockeros" into labor concentration camps.

Like in all communist nations the only individuals that get to attend concerts such as these are mainly high ranking communist party members, military higher up, friends and family members of connected Castro officials, and those the regime has favored OK because of political alliance. The notion that Cuba's everyday citizens will be allowed to attend is laughable. I hope Sting and his lads are not that gullible and realize that Cuba is very similar to South Africa in the 1980s where an apartheid system existed and now a similar one is working full time in Cuba were ordinary Cubans are not allowed to use the same facilities dollar paying tourists do.

But what can you expect of Sting and his wife - they are part investors in a swanky nite club and restaurant centered around a Cuban theme park environment that goes by the name "Socialista' in New York City! How freaking original!

If Sting and his boys really had cojones, then they would go to Cuba and speak out against the Castro's almost 50 years of continuous human rights abuses, the repression of free speech, the jailing of independent librarians and journalists, the executions, and tortures, and jailed Amnesty International prisoners of conscience like Dr. Oscar Biscet and other Afro Cubans

If Sting plays in Cuba he'll be a big hypocrite and he will finally play SUN CITY!

Mario Ramirez
echuta66@gmail.com

"... and he will finally play SUN CITY!" Precisely.

I wonder if the BUCL.ORG campaign tugged at their conscience.

They canceled the show. There was push back from Diaz-Balart and then they canceled

Nope, I don't think Diaz-Balart had anything to do with it.

Mario, I read your letter on the website, and you hit it the nail on the head. Sun City, indeed.

As I've pointed out before, Miles Copeland was the CIA's chief sponsor for Gamal Nasser, and a few years later, not having learned the lesson after Suez; was chief contact for the Baathist
cell in Cairo that included Saddam