Latin pop star surprises Havana concert by shouting 'Free Cuba!'

Latin pop star surprises Havana concert by shouting 'Free Cuba!'

A "Peace Without Borders Concert" in Cuba featuring a popular
Miami-based Colombian pop star drew hundreds of thousands on Sunday and
brought mixed emotions to Cuban exiles living in Florida, The Miami
Herald reports.

Juanes, a Grammy winner who had been criticized by some parts of the
exile community for organizing the concert, surprised the crowd by
adding a little politics to an event he had insisted had nothing to do
with politics, the paper says.

At the very end of the show, The Herald says, Juanes shouted: ``Cuba
libre! Cuba libre!'' (Free Cuba!) And then chanted, ``One Cuban family!
One Cuban family!''

Reached by phone in Havana shortly after the concert ended, Juanes said
the day was indeed about much more than music.

``There aren't words to talk about something so huge, something that's
so beyond music,'' he told the newspaper. ``This is the power of art,
the power of music. We're so happy because the people are happy, and
that's what matters to us.''

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Miami, told WLTV-Univisión
23 that the concert was a triumph for the Castro regime because no one
on the stage mentioned Cuban's human-rights violations, the newspaper says.

Granma, the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper, estimated the
crowd at Revolution Plaza at 1.1 million.

Asked for his thoughts about the concert, President Obama told
Univision, "I certainly don't think it hurts U.S.-Cuban relations, these
kinds of cultural exchanges," AFP reports.

But, he added, "I wouldn't overstate the degree that it helps."

Latin pop star surprises Havana concert by shouting 'Free Cuba!' - On
Deadline - USATODAY.com (22 September 2009)
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/09/latin-pop-star-surprises-havana-concert-by-shouting-free-cuba.html