Harold Crespo Marrero, Cuban artist resident in Uruguaymade an impressive performance in the public thoroughfare of the capital of this country to denounce the Cuban regime for its appropriation of the national symbols that belong to all Cubans.
Standing in the middle of the Human Rights alley in Montevideo, Crespo Marrero painted his clothes and body with motifs that evoked the oppression and suffering of the Cuban people, subjected to an ideology that has divided the nation and promotes confrontation between Cubans.
Motivated by the penultimate maneuver of the regime, that prevented the Cuban professional boxer Robeisy “El Tren” Ramírez from entering the ring with the notes of the national anthem To discuss the world featherweight belt of the World Boxing Organization, Crespo Marrero decided to claim the right of all Cubans to feel identified with their flag and national symbols.
“From Uruguay, with my art I support you. The Flag and the Anthem are Our Symbols. They have kidnapped us with that absurd ideology”, wrote the artist in his social networkssharing a video of the performance made last Friday.
With the hammer and sickle alluding to communism nailed to his neck and a briefcase symbolizing the hundreds of thousands of Cubans who have emigrated in recent yearswith a sign of “Cuban Murderous Dictatorship”, the artist made a living statue on the Montevidean promenade before the gaze of hundreds of onlookers who passed by him.
“A few days ago the Uruguayan left met to ‘celebrate’ with the ambassador of the Havana regime, disrespecting the feelings of thousands of Cubans… In the face of the affront we respond with irreverent and transgressive art in the middle of the Human Rights alley in Montevideo!” said in X (former Twitter) the Cuban activist based in Uruguay, Magdiel Jorge Castro.
In an audio that accompanies the video of the performance, Crespo Marrero explained that they were “telling the world of our cruel suffering,” and that “we no longer want to carry that cross.”
In a position similar to that of Jesus Christ on the Via Crucis, and with the hammer and sickle nailed to his back, the artist affirmed that “now that cross has lost its essence and the true seed of evil has emerged from within.”
“We do not want to carry this cross of the murderous dictatorship anymore,” said the artist who went into exile in 2018 after being censored in his country.
“Being an artist in Cuba has a very complicated connotation because either you are an elite artist, that is, for the end of the ruling party, or you are a protester and for that reason you are considered an enemy,” Crespo Marrero said in December 2022 in statements to latin newspaper.
Interviewed by that medium, the Cuban artist acknowledged that “here in Uruguay I allow myself to be able to expose everything that happens in my country, because I can express my opinion freely and make known what the regime seeks to hide so much.”
remembering the historic 9/11 protests in CubaCrespo Marrero focused on the repressive logic of the Cuban regime, incapable of sustaining a national dialogue with those members of the civil society who lead a different vision of Cuba.
“When the demonstration took place, the president on national television said that the order to combat had been given and that all the communists had to go out and face the streets; This is how they put the people against the people, ”he maintained.
The performance carried out in Montevideo was accompanied by Cuban activists belonging to the Civil Association ‘Cubanos Libres en Uruguay’, one of the most active in the region in the work of denouncing the lack of rights and freedoms in Cuba.
