A Call from Radio Marti

Dmitri Prieto

HAVANA TIMES — A few weeks ago I was in the hospital accompanying my father, who was hospitalized for an operation. Suddenly my cell phone rang and an unfamiliar voice came into my world. “Hello Dmitri, this is NN, from Radio Marti,” it said.

NN was interested in hearing my opinion about a supposed call by the Critical Observatory Network (of which I’m a part) for people “not to vote in the Cuban elections.”

Puzzled, what I told NN (firstly) was that I didn’t know what he was talking about (the OC has never called for anything like that), and (secondly) that it was a bad time to talk because I was in a hospital, and (thirdly) that I didn’t want to make any statement through that media source.

Later I learned that Radio Marti was referring to a particular call by some OC members (not the network at large) who wanted to express their desire for democratic change in Cuba by asking people to write a “D” (for democracy) on their ballots.

Still, this wasn’t exactly “not voting” as claimed by Radio Marti.

In any case, I wasn’t interested in making comments on that station because it belongs to a government (the US) whose conduct with Cuba is inhumane, counterproductive, and dates back to the Cold War (something that rubs me the wrong way).

Hopefully its policy will change. I also hope, of course, that the changes we’re going through here in Cuba will lead to a society with more freedom, more solidarity, and more possibilities for human self-realization (personally and collectively).

But — and I’m saying this while interpreting several key moments in our joint history: 1898, 1933, 1959, 1960 to 1962 — the US government’s meddling in Cuban affairs has never contributed to the type of changes I want.

What I’m thinking of in particular is the interference that helped to abort the ultra-democratic project of Jose Marti (1892-1898), the 1933 revolution, as well as when the US helped to install the dictator Batista in power, and especially the conditions created by the US that compelled Cuba — after 1959 — to replicate the “Soviet” system.

This is why I don’t think that Radio Marti — basically a service of the US government — is the ideal way to promote any positive “change” in Cuba.

We’re in another era. Still, I ask those at Radio Marti not to spend the money of US taxpayers on trying to establish contact with me. The Cuban left has its own media for expressing itself and doesn’t need their “services.”

I should add that I don’t think the name of that station fits. Jose Marti was against imperialism and in favor of a system of democratic self-government rather than the system that helped to install a US-backed military administration in Cuba during the 1898-1902 occupation.

Dimitri Prieto-Samsonov

Dmitri Prieto-Samsonov: I define myself as being either Cuban-Russian or Russian-Cuban, indiscriminately. I was born in Moscow in 1972 of a Russian mother and a Cuban father. I lived in the USSR until I was 13, although I was already familiar with Cuba-- where we would take our vacation almost every year. I currently live on the fifth floor of an apartment building in Santa Cruz del Norte, near the sea. I’ve studied biochemistry and law in Havana and anthropology in London. I’ve written about molecular biology, philosophy and anarchism, although I enjoy reading more than writing. I am currently teaching in the Agrarian University of Havana. I believe in God and in the possibility of a free society. Together with other people, that’s what we’re into: breaking down walls and routines.

8 thoughts on “A Call from Radio Marti”

  • Don’t blame the poor reporter. He’s paid to act this way – it’s just the modus-operandi of the Marti Network.

  • Unbelievably stupid and irresponsible conduct by the Radio Marti reporter. Just the latest example of official US policy toward Cuba being the gift that keeps on giving from the point of view of the Castros.

  • So Griffin, how does it feel to be Her Majesty’s subject?

  • Luis wrote “The sovereign people of Cuba is the one who’ll decide their future ”

    That’s odd… I don’t recall the Castros ever asking the Cuban people what their sovereign opinion is…

  • I’m not afraid of anything. The sovereign people of Cuba is the one who’ll decide their future – not the US State Department and its mouthpieces.

    And yes, I do hate the Imperialist nature of the US State. The Monroe Doctrine. The Big Stick. The arrogant way they push the whole world to follow the ‘American Way of Life’, which by now is only but a dream.

  • Let’s assume that there are a lot of Dmitris in Cuba. Clearly, he would support a progressive, leftist socialist style form of government. So let’s put it to a vote. Why are the Castros afraid of letting the people decide for themselves. Why are you? By the way, it sounds like you really don’t like the US as a whole, not just our foreign policy.

  • Excellent response, Dmitri. I am so proud of you.

    Imagine the nerve of those anti-patriotic rats, employed by the head of the snake of imperialism, hoping to use a patriot like you in their subversion of Cuba’s sovereignty. Yuk!

    Thank you for sharing your encounter with the grossly mis-named Radio Marti.

  • Bravo, Dmitri. You said it all. Don’t ever collaborate with a deliberate source of lies from the biggest terrorist – yes I said that – state in the world, that historically has contributed for the sacking of not only Cuba, but the whole Latin America in the 20th century.

Comments are closed.