Official Statement From Rotilla Organizers

Havana, Cuba. July 20th, 2011

Official Statement of the Directive Council of the Rotilla Festival
Purpose: Denunciation of the Kidnapping of Rotilla Festival

Rotilla Festival, founded in the year 1998, is the only event of its kind in Cuba. It is brought together every year in the month of august, and during three consecutive days it promotes and exposes the great majority of the demonstrations of the Cuban artistic vanguard. It is of a non-lucrative character, completely free and open to the public.

Originally it began as a movement promoting electronic music exclusively, since 2008 it incorporated in its artistic program musical bands of the most varied formats, but always under the principle of promoting the alternative within the arts.

In the same way, since its beginnings the festival has been administered INDEPENDENTLY by its founders, and practically without any collaboration of the Cuban authorities (state-government). That has been our policy and our position, we wanted to grow by ourselves, develop ourselves and generate an authentic movement aimed specially at the youth with their true expectations and demands very much in mind.

In our last edition (2010), already because of the artistic proposals, because of the national and international press coverage, because of its long trajectory and the renown it has acquired world-wide, the festival obtained a record attendance of 20,000 people, thus placing itself as the longest running and most attended by youth event in the island. The great quantity of film material gathered in all this time legitimizes this claim.

Today, in 2011, Rotilla Festival faces its biggest challenge. The Cuban Government, personified by vice-president Esteban Lazo, together with the Ministry of Culture, personified by vice minister Fernando Rojas, aim to hijack the event from the hands of its organizers and founders, and produce it through government institutions, seizing and plagiarizing our name, our scheduled days and our convocation, distorting the very concept of the event, bringing to the "festival" bands that modify the format that we ourselves, the festival's legitimate owners, had established. At the same time, the institutions questioned have offered the participating artists of this "event" monetary remuneration, in that way deteriorating the social relationship established historically (on a non lucrative basis) among the original organizers and the artists, and thus securing the performance of the latter.

Traditionally there existed a dialogue with the authorities, where they pressured us so that a certain group did not perform, and in exchange they would cooperate to allow the festival to happen. Thus it was established a modus vivendi, of coexistence. It has never being easy informing an artist that he cannot perform because the Ministry of Culture rejects him; but that, is the traditional folklore that we live in Cuba regarding art; everyone knows it. However, this time…the so-called institutions have gone too far. They have informed us informally, by way of Noel Soca, government official who heads the Commission of Recreation and Culture in the new province of Mayabeque, that we no longer had any involvement in the subject, that the festival would be run by the Ministry of Culture and the Institute of Music in the arranged days, as young people would attend any way.

The board of directors of Festival Rotilla headed to the Ministry of Culture, knowing that a meeting was being carried through with the purpose and name "Rotilla", in the offices of Fernando Rojas, vice minister of Culture. From this meeting we were politely expelled; we had not been invited.

Censorship (already traditional), is one thing, and something very different is the theft, plagiarism, and hijacking of the work that has reached such high levels of attention at even international levels, and that counts with the congratulations of thousands of young Cuban people that have attended for years.

The organizing team of Rotilla Festival wants to clearly and categorically assert, that on this year 2011, the Rotilla Festival is cancelled, due to the ethical violence that has been manifested by the highest authorities of Cuban culture.

We, organizers and authors of the Rotilla Festival, and I myself, its director and founder, DENOUNCE the theft, plagiarism, and kidnapping that this attitude represents for all the young people of this earth that we today represent. We denounce the excessive and stubborn censorship that is being exerted against any cultural activity that DOES NOT originate in the so-called institutions. We denounce the harassment to which we are constantly being put through. We denounce the surveillance and the subtle or direct threats to which we are subject daily.

"A country is not governed as one governs a barracks" said Jose Marti to the general Maximo Gomez on the occasion of the small war. We believe a country should foster pluralist thought, its society should be the owner and true sovereign of its nation, and above all, the owner of the good work constructed with the effort of many years and with its very own sweat.

The theft of one's own work, conceived as a life project, is the most immoral and deplorable act that the government of a nation could be involved in. It violates all the principles of revolutionary ethics, whose concept is written in each corner of every neighborhood across the whole country.

We warn our leaders that this type of behavior attacks even the base of the social contract that is in place in Cuban society. It attacks the principle of respect that a populace (nation) must have for their government. We believe this even contradicts some of the same points that have just been released by the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, ignoring some of the principles that were set forth; leaving the children of Cuba wandering aimlessly without hope or direction.

To reconstruct the nation, it is evidently necessary that we all participate, and that participation can only be generated with the confidence and the respect between the government and its people. Such acts will plant in us, today’s youth, distrust to build and create on our own land, because there is no guarantee that neither our creations nor our investments in time, human resources, and material resources will be respected.

We made it clear to our institutional counterpart that we will initiate the corresponding legal proceedings against them, because this act not only violates all known ethical and moral concepts, but also a set of laws on copyright and ownership of intellectual property that, we expect, are still in force in the Cuban nation.

It is time that each of us demand the rights that correspond to us as citizens, and that these rights mark our relationship with institutions. It is time to bring order to the folly (stupidity) and arbitrariness.

We want to do our exercise in our land, invest and earn doing what we do, our personal business, our party, and our festival. That right, which we demand, but do not have, is just and necessary.

The Rotilla Festival team invites anyone who identifies with or adheres to our cause to disseminate this speech by any means at their disposal. This way we can build today, the solidarity of tomorrow.

We hope that this statement is received with the same respect that we intended to print it. It is our intention to discuss reform, to grow and succeed, to build a nation for all where everyone has their own space to grow as confident and capable individuals.

Let there be no doubt that we will continue demanding the right to carry out our festival in the coming years, it is our legitimate right.

MATRAKA PRODUCTIONS - ROTILLA FESTIVAL