With nearly 100 corpses in the streets to protest, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has provoked the unanimous rejection of bands and soloists with pretense, something similar to what happened with dictators like Pinochet or Videla in the 1970s. From the Mexican Maná to the Spaniards Miguel Bosé and Alejandro Sanz, the Colombian Juanes, Ricky Martin or that legend called Rubén Blades, the repulsion to the Cainite and totalitarian methods of Chávez’s successor has become a continuous chorus of protests without rest.
But the one that grows most acutely within the regime is that of his compatriot, Gustavo Dudamel. The conductor has been a symbol in the fight against poverty in his country. He leads the Orchestral System created by José Antonio Abreu more than 40 years ago and is a global star in the field of classical music. His last pronouncements have provoked an internal cataclysm, especially since Armando Cañizales, a viola of the orchestra, had fallen in the protests because of a shot in the head of the Bolivarian guard.
The consensus in its qualifications is already general. More than a legitimate leader, he is considered a dictator who has usurped power in his country with democratic methods and canceled the counterweights of parliament, justice and the media.
The rifirrafes are continuous. Maduro responds to some of them in a contemptuous and threatening tone. He knows that he plays with fire. And the musicians have already acquired a firm commitment that they manifest in their concerts, public appearances and social networks. Last Monday, Rubén Blades poked from Madrid dedicating a theme of trench in the fight against dictatorships: Prohibido Olvidar, composed in 1991 for his album Walking, today more than in force as a living portrait of Chavismo.
The members of Maná have shown the Venezuelan flag in their concerts as a wink to the oppression that suffers the country. In their confrontation with Chavismo, the Mexicans were pioneers. They already rejected an offer of a million dollars to play at a private party of Hugo Chavez. “No thanks,” they responded when he lived. Now, Fher Olvera, responds to THE COUNTRY when we ask for Maduro: “Ignorance generates violence,” he points out, simply.
Virulentos have been the attacks of Miguel Bosé and Alejandro Sanz. The first affirms to refuse to leave to his fate a country that has given so much to him and reproaches the warmth in the condemnations of some. “Where are the brother countries? Where are the other democracies to defend the one who has taken his? Where is the international conscience? “, Asked Bosé in public.
Maduro has responded that he vomits the lies swallowed over Venezuela. But he has not been the only one the president has thrown his darts at. Rubén Blades has also become the target of the peroratas: “That’s where the imperialist shark is going, and now you’re going to encourage him to swallow Venezuela. Rubén Blades, I regret that you deny your roots with which we educate the young people of the seventies and eighties who today make revolution in Latin America and we have not betrayed our own roots and our own convictions from where we got up, “he released as a former fan hurt by the lack of support of his idol.
Sanz has gone through the direct attack. When the news of casualties in the street began to arrive, especially of young people participating in the marches, he insulted him: “The blood of Carlos José Moreno (17 years old) is in your hands, Maduro. Coward, “tweeted on April 25. Sanz has suffered direct reprisals with a boycott of his concerts in the time of Chavez. In 2007 they suspended their performance in Caracas for criticism of the then president.