Cuban choir members hit
high note for freedom
By Marina Jiménez.
The
Globe and Mail, Canada, October 26,
2005.
TORONTO -- Ernesto Cendoya-Sotomayor, a
Cuban baritone, thought about defecting
even before he landed in Toronto on a Canadian
tour with the prestigious Coro Nacional
de Cuba.
This was his first foreign tour -- and
the 27-year-old singer saw it as his one
chance to escape the repression and fear
that marks his life in Cuba, where the indomitable
Fidel Castro has ruled since the Communist
revolution in 1959, the same year the choir
was founded by Ernesto (Che) Guevara.
After a performance Sunday in a Toronto
church, Mr. Cendoya-Sotomayor saw two fellow
singers fleeing the hotel, suitcases in
hand. He knew he had to act quickly. He
called the Cuban-Canadian Foundation and
within an hour, the foundation's president
had sent a car to collect him, and two more
singers.
"It is hard to choose between your
freedom and your family. But this was my
one opportunity to escape," said Mr.
Cendoya-Sotomayor in an interview yesterday
in the home of Ismael Sambra, a Cuban exile
and the foundation's president. The singer
is so worried about the safety of his four-year-old
daughter and wife in Havana that he did
not want his face to appear in a photograph.
In all, 11 of the 41-member choir managed
to flee the hotel between 6 p.m. and 9:30
p.m. on Sunday, when Digna Guerra, the choir's
manager, discovered the absences. In an
emergency meeting, she warned the remaining
singers that the Cuban government would
retaliate against their family members if
they tried to seek asylum here, according
to Mr. Sambra.
Before this, Mr. Sambra had organized a
second vehicle to pick up several more defectors.
Others escaped with the help of Cuban-Canadian
friends, while one unlucky singer who went
back to the hotel to collect her belongings
lost her chance. All 11 who defected were
taken to the homes of Cuban exiles, including
Marta Sanchez, a senior member of the choir
and an influential Cuban musician, who rode
a bus to Ottawa yesterday morning and is
staying there with friends.
Mr. Sambra believes that six in the group
have already crossed the border and entered
the United States where they have relatives.
The United States often recognizes Cuban
refugees. The others spent yesterday at
Citizenship and Immigration offices filling
out forms requesting asylum on the grounds
of political persecution.
Mr. Cendoya-Sotomayor said the singers
did not plan to seek asylum en masse, but
instead there was a kind of "domino
effect." He said he discussed the idea
in Cuba with two other singers, but was
uncertain if it would be possible. He imagined
there were government informants within
the choir. And once they arrived in Canada
for their two-week tour, the singers were
only given $20 a day for meals, and their
performance pay was withheld, he said.
In the end, however, the other singers
helped them by not reporting them to the
manager, and in fact one of those who fled
is the delegation's deputy head, Mr. Sambra
said. "The singers who didn't escape
because they have children in Cuba helped
the others. They watched out for the security
and then said 'fight for me, good luck,'
" he added.
Amnesty International has cited Cuba for
human-rights abuses. Sixty-one dissidents
arrested in a March, 2003, crackdown remain
in jail. They were sentenced to 20- and
25-year prison terms for crimes against
the state. "For Canadians, Cuba is
a tourist paradise. But for Cubans, it is
like a big jail," Mr. Sambra said.
Mr. Cendoya-Sotomayor is living in Mr.
Sambra's house with two female singers,
aged 29 and 30. "I would like to bring
my family here and we would all like to
go on singing in Canada. We will form another
choir and call it Freedom Chorus,"
he said.
The rest of the choir, however, travelled
to British Columbia on Monday where it is
performing in various cities in the interior
and then in Vancouver on Saturday with the
Vancouver Chamber Choir. A spokesperson
for the Vancouver choir said all but 11
members of the Cuban choir had arrived in
British Columbia.
The mass defection of Cubans was the biggest
since 2002, when 24 pilgrims who travelled
to Toronto for World Youth Day sought asylum.
From 2000 until June, 2005, 1,017 Cubans
have sought asylum in Canada and the acceptance
rate has fluctuated between 66 and 70 per
cent. Some abandon their claims and go to
the United States.
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2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All
Rights Reserved.
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