A message from the celebrated Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez has captured media attention amid political tensions between Washington and Havana: “I demand my AKM, if they come. And let it be known that I mean it,” Rodríguez wrote in his personal blog, Segunda Cita, as originally reported by Agence France-Presse. The remarks were in response to the warning issued Tuesday by President Miguel Díaz-Canal to Donald Trump: “Any external aggressor will encounter an indomitable resistance in Cuba.”
Rodríguez’s comment appears on his blog titled Cuba at the crossroads of hypocritical multilateralism, which denounces the “suffocation” suffered by the island and its population due to the economic embargo imposed by Washington and the recent blockade ordered by Trump, which is stifling the local economy and plunging the country into darkness due to constant and increasingly prolonged blackouts.
The statement refers to the Kalashnikov assault rifle developed by the Soviet Union, which was historically the island’s main benefactor, providing massive aid for three decades (1960-1990), including constant shipments of oil, machinery, heavy weaponry, and technology, and assisting the government by purchasing sugar at preferential prices. Cuba suffered the harsh impact of the USSR’s collapse in 1992, which plunged it into a deep economic crisis that led Fidel Castro’s government to implement painful adjustments during the so-called “Special Period.”
Cuba now faces a new crisis due to the embargo imposed by Trump. The economic strangulation that is squeezing Cubans every day through blackouts, fuel shortages, and a lack of food and medicine has sparked a wave of international solidarity, mobilizing aid such as the convoy that arrived in Havana this week with five tons of medical supplies. Support has also come from politicians and figures of the Latin American left, such as former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who spoke out last weekend in defense of the sovereignty of the people of Cuba and called for financial donations “to buy food, medicine, oil, and gasoline and help the Cuban people.”
It was after López Obrador’s call that Silvio Rodríguez wrote his impassioned remark about taking up arms if there is an invasion of Cuba, in the comments section of his blog. Rodríguez maintains an open dialogue with his blog’s readers in the comments section, where, in addition to writing his personal opinions, he shares messages and emails sent by his followers and even shares songs and poems, such as the song “Viene la cosa” (The Thing Is Coming), whose lyrics are very relevant to the times his country is experiencing: “The thing is coming, / the ugly thing is coming. / The thing is coming / like a tarry hand.”
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