Message From Leonardo Acosta / POLEMICA: The 2007 Intellectual Debate

Since 1959 to the present, the ICRT has been characterized by being the media and cultural (????) organism that has enjoyed, or better yet suffered, the punishment of having the most mediocre and/or flailingly abusive and irresponsible leaders of the country, almost always ignorant of journalism and culture, or indifferent to both professions. That character “Papito” Serguera owned the strange privilege of having every single one of these “qualities,” which added to his anti-historical performance as a diplomat, which unfortunately has been forgotten, and that almost destroyed our friendship with one of the Third World countries most strongly tied to Cuba through the revolutionary processes of both countries and the first and hugely important internationalist mission from Cuba confronting the imperialist invasion against these brothers.

In the case of Luis Pavon, there are so many overt and covert accomplices that it’s not worth mentioning them here, but it is unarguable that his term at the head of National Council of Culture (CNC) for much more than a “five-year stint” only served to engender or at least prolong the state of “Blood, Sweat and Tears” in the national culture.

But the praise of both characters, now added to the frustrated, resentful and vengeful Torquesada [after the 15th century Spanish Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada] and the disastrous Congress of Education and Culture of 1971 is simply a disgrace and an insult to the memory of Jose Marti, Felix Varela and all our heroes and intellectuals.

This makes me think that there are sinister people behind this true campaign for the rehabilitation of the hit-men who have done so much damage to our country and the world prestige of the Revolution.  Who must we hold responsible for these excesses?

I estimate, first of all, the ICRT (Cuban Institute of Radio and Television).  I believe that as journalists, writers, artists, scientists, and of course the clear political minds that abound in our country, we have an obligation to unite to make them explain to us how it is possible that this lack of tact is permitted, with respect to the sensitivity that places us on the plane of certain countries of the South Cone under the power of people like the terrible Menem, champion of neoliberalism, with his so-called laws of pardon and forgetting toward the torturers.

Act quickly with tact and intelligence.

Leonardo Acosta

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January 2007