From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: miami gusanos pushed off Calle Ocho
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:47:21 -0700
Miami's Cuban community divided over Juanes'
Havana Concert for Peace
By
CARLOS MILLER
Updated 4:58 PM EDT, Mon, Sep 21
FACEBOOK
Carlos Miller
The pro-Juanes Cubans had the bigger flags. They also had
the numbers. And they had youth.
And in the end, they had Versailles Restaurant on Calle
Ocho, long a stronghold of hardline, right-wing politics in Miami.
When
it was over, the aging Cuban exile population that arrived in Miami in
the early 1960s and established itself as one of the most influential
political forces in the history of Miami was pigeonholed to a street
corner across Versailles where they were surrounded on the other three
street corners by screaming, chanting and taunting Cubans who fully
supported Sunday’s Juanes concert in Havana.
All
the aging exiles could do was destroy blank CDs that had been scrawled
with Juanes' name in magic marker to show their disgust for the
Colombian singer, who had performed for hundreds of thousands of Cubans
in Havana earlier that day.
Perhaps the CD-stomping gesture was meant to be symbolic but
the real symbolism ran much deeper.
“They have no voice anymore,” said Alfredo Martinez, a
29-year-old Cuban immigrant who arrived in Miami during the early 1990s.
“This
is our time now. We don’t believe in Castro but we believe in Juanes.
He did more for Cuba in one concert than they have done in 40 years.”
And
that was the sentiment that ran through more than 400 demonstrators
that outnumbered the 200 demonstrators who opposed the concert.
Almost
all the demonstrators on both sides of the issue were born in Cuba but
where they stood on the Juanes concert depended mostly on when they
arrived.
It
was a monumental – yet unexpected - shift considering the demonstration
had been organized by Vigilia Mambisa, the right-wing group that has
been accused of intimidating opponents through scare tactics, including
last year’s Code Pink protest and an earlier protest involving the
Bolivarian Youth from Florida International University.
But this time, they were clearly outnumbered.
Over the course of several hours, tempers flared, threats
were made and some people even came to blows.
At
one point, police tried to disperse the crowd by wailing their sirens
and ordering everybody to go home, but it was to no avail. The
pro-Juanes crowd kept increasing, showing up with musical instruments
or just pots and pans to bang.
The
protest began as soon as the concert in Havana ended with members of
Vigilia Mambisa standing on the corner of Versailles as they have done
so many times before, accusing anybody who does not agree with them of
being communists.
But
then the younger Cubans started arriving. And they were accompanied by
a few older Cubans who said they were touched by the concert. And the
momentum of the protest changed.
After
a few pushing and shoving matches and several screaming bouts
underneath the famous Versailles sign, the hardliners were pushed
across S.W. 36th Ave. where they took position on the sidewalk next to
Farmacia Luis, even hanging up the Vigilia Mambisa banner on the side
of the wall.
And
the pro-Juanes Cubans kept multiplying, forcing police to shut down
Eight Street because they kept spilling out into the street in front of
Versailles. By the end of the protest, the pro-Juanes Cubans occupied
the corner of Versailles as well as both street corners on the south
side of Eight Street.
But
even before that happened, Vigilia Mambisa had removed their sign and
went home, leaving the dwindling exile crowd to continue fighting the
losing battle.
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