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Stars
and intellectuals hit out at Castro in Paris event
PARIS, 29 (AFP) - Film stars and intellectuals
including Catherine Deneuve, Sophie Marceau, Pedro
Almodovar and Jorge Semprun attended a soiree
here supporting the Cuban people and hitting out
at repression by leader Fidel Castro.
Actress Deneuve opened the event organized by
the association Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters
Without Borders) at a theatre on the Champs-Elysees
by reading from a speech made by Castro in Havana
on January 8, 1959 just after the victory of the
Cuban revolution.
"Fooling the people will have the worst
consequences ... I shall do everything in my power
to resolve the problems without shedding a drop
of blood," the revolutionary leader promised.
Semprun, the Spanish writer and former culture
minister, charged that 40 years later "the
people are still on their knees in front of the
rifles" and spoke of "the occultations
of truth that have for so long been the prerogative
of part of the European Left."
Special homage was paid to poet and journalist
Raul Rivero, sentenced recently to 20 years in
prison at a closed-doors trial for "attacking
the sovereignty of the (Cuban) state."
His daughter Cristina Rivero took to the stage
to ask "how could a poet, one man, like a
modern Hercules divide the country?"
Actress Sophie Marceau read a poem by Raul Rivero
and Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, brandishing
a fan bearing the words "Cuba si, Castro
no" expressed the hope that Castro would
restore Cuba's freedom and get rid of dictatorship.
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