“With Canel coming to power, Díaz Canel [President of the Republic of Cuba since April 2018], signs Decree 349, one of the first decrees he has signed. There was no persecution yet. This tells you a lot about the despair that he has. And the tactical 'fail' of touching culture again. He touched the culture and the culture woke up. Why? Because previously [culture] did exist, there were festivals, there was also what I was talking about earlier, there was the whole phenomenon of the 'Ardians', which culturally ignited the whole country. The majority of the country was Arianist, a duo with a group of people behind singing and telling the truth ... How does the country wake up? And one realizes that the cultural space is the space in which we can really better challenge the Government ”.
We entered to take over the house. We were looking for a place to stay, because life in Iris’ house was complicated with the parents. And so we decided to do the admirable step and occupy the house. Nobody has this in mind, but here, if you occupy something, it’s the beginning of a revolution. We entered this house, this house had its peculiarities, because it was inhabitable. In reality the window was broken, everything was broken, the only thing that was closed was the door and the window of the room had a very complicated hole and people entered there. But by luck we managed to enter the house that had something peculiar. It was a house that was in legal limbo. The house was not confiscated by the Government, and at that time if a person left the country, they lost the house. That is to say, the house was in this territory ”
“When we started, I already told you, that if you’re an activist or an artist, you’ll get to a point when you’ll hit a wall, that everyone hits and it’s no longer reversible. That is a wall of intolerance, surveillance, persecution, for having a different topic. And since the Omni Zona Franca until the end, we are the persecuted ones, controlled. And then more persecuted. The festival moved to the houses. I am talking about 11, 12 years of the festival plus 2 or 3 or 4,5 in the houses. And after that experience with Omni Zona Franca, we were pretty sure what was in front of us, what was it that we wanted and how to achieve it.”
“I connected so much that I thought that we have to form a group, we have to create something. I looked for Juan Carlos Flores, because I knew he was a poet there, a poet with recognition, and he was respected among many other poets. And so I talk with him, we have a conversation. We meet in the “Fallas a Mí” gallery and it’s one of those nights. Because I have always lived this way, through signs, symbols and mysteries, and sitting there with him talking. I was reading Vallejo. I had readings that were never taken away from me, I still have them, I always have them. I reread them, talking with him by the door of the gallery, I tell him about the projects and other things and suddenly a salamander falls between us. Boom. Just imagine. I was into all the occult sciences and the salamander has a real symbolic value in magic and therefore everything means something. And that’s when Carlos and I clicked. We already did a couple of, damn it, you are the one connected to poetry, and that’s when we connected and formed a group.”
Amaury Pacheco del Monte, a co-founder of the San Isidro Movement and a human rights activist in Cuba, was born in 1969. During his military studies he realised that it was not the career that he wanted to pursue. In 1997 he and a Cuban poet Juan Carlos Flores founded a socio-community artistic organization, consisting of artists of different disciplines, called Omni Zona Franca. On the basis of this cultural platform Amaury for almost 15 years organized “Endless Poetry” festivals, to guide the expression of Cuban society and dialogue. However, when Raúl Castro came to power, the persecution and threats towards the members of the group intensified and in 2016 they were forced to cancel all the activities and festivals. A year later, in 2017, he met an artist and an intellectual Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, with whom they created a new cultural and artistic movement in the alternative field previously prepared by Omni Zona Franca - Movimiento San Isidro. Amaury fights against the communist regime, trying to reduce its cruelty and aggressiveness through poetry and dialogue. He hopes that one day the dialogue will allow the Cuban nation to be renewed and to restore democracy in his country.
