A big thank you

I have been remiss in not posting this earlier but I need to thank all of the folks who pitched in and sponsored the last BUCL.org campaign (check out their names below the fold). In the past, our campaigns have been stand-alone in nature.

We helped expose the nature of tourist apartheid in Cuba and how it's been enabled by Spanish companies.

We denounced the hypocrisy of Sting and his band, The Police (who never played that concert in Cuba they had announced).

And we helped support the efforts of Cuban dissident Dr. Darsi Ferrer as he marched on International Human Rights day.

This last campaign was different. Fortunately it was only a miniscule part of a gigantic grassroots effort undertaken on behalf of Gorki Aguila by many who are friends of ours and some who are not. But that's OK. What mattered was that the regime felt external pressure for the first time that I can remember.

I need to specifically thank two special people. The first is Fernando Villar Jr. I first met Fernando when he came to my house to film an interview with me for a documentary he was making about the merchandising of the image of Che Guevara. It turns out that also appearing in the documentary is Paquito D'Rivera, the Grammy-winning jazz musician and composer who is very outspoken about Cuban liberty. I was humbled to share the screen with such a great man.

So when we decided to put together a campaign to bring attention to the case of Gorki Aguila I immediately thought of Paquito and wondered if he could help us out. As luck would have I told Ziva about my idea and she forwarded me an open letter that Paquito had already written about Gorki. I was emboldened by the fact that Paquito knew what was going on with Gorki and so I contacted Fernando to see if Paquito would join us as the honorary chairman of the campaign. Fernando called Paquito and of course Paquito said yes. Fernando says Paquito was ecstatic to help however he could and he approved the press release in the blink of an eye. It should be noted that Paquito also signed Ernest Hernandez Busto's open letter to Cuban musicians asking them to speak out on behalf of Gorki.

I was always an admirer of Paquito D'Rivera but today I can honestly say he's my hero.

By the way, Fernando Villar Jr.'s documentary about Che merchandise has not been released yet though I have seen a cut of the short film. It's excellent and I will post more info about it here when it comes out.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at August 31, 2008 11:03 PM

Comments

Posted by: Ziva Sahl at August 31, 2008 11:48 PM

Posted by: Dave Sandoval at September 1, 2008 10:06 AM

Post a comment