"I'm not going to be here the day after, let's say, let's make it physical, let's say, this Thursday it fell, the dictatorship fell, the regime fell on Thursday, on Friday I have a flight to Madrid and going to Madrid, it was not… I insist, because I am not very sure that it is healthy, at least the first period of time of what comes after the Cuban regime falls. Unfortunately, as we have all been able to see, it is not that I say so. We can see that at the moment the new government is not demonstrating any proposal that they will abandon the Cuban regime, the Communist Party regime, and that they will take their power in Cuba away. I, Jorge Enrique Rodríguez, do not see clearly a government proposal by any opposition organization, I do not see it that way.”
“This is my position, you sweat, I sweat, we are talking on the phone… Because whenever I am in these interrogations, they go for the same thing, it is always the same. Be careful, I have not been the target of threats, although I have been subjected to those interrogations, they present uncomfortable scenarios like 'Oh look, this or this can happen.' But they never dare to make these direct threats against me, because they know, I let them know during the first interrogation, which was in February 2018, that I cannot be forgotten. My grandmother had taught me ‘if they give you, you give them’, and I’m not talking about violence. Well, if you want to interpret it as violence, gentlemen, it is your problem, but my grandmother told me, "If they give you, you give them", so I prove her that they can't yell at me. First, I don't victimize myself, they can't yell at me. As I do not victimize myself, I do not allow them to raise their voices. As I am a very fierce person, and I also admit it. I am a person who comes from a violent world, a person who is very serious when it comes to talking. I do not disrespect anyone, therefore, I do not allow them to disrespect me. So direct threats, those that they have made with other people, they don't work for me, I tell them, that doesn't work for me.”
“The moment came when I said enough. I can't justify you anymore, I can't help you anymore, I can't call you any other way. Each one of the actions that you have been doing, and that I am seeing here, with the artists, that it was not my turn, dictatorship had the power. What you did to the villagers, what you did to the rappers, is already unforgivable, what you did to those with their fists up, what you did to everyone. With independent projects that came to talk to you as institutions, 'Endless Poetry', the OMNI [OMNI Zona Franca] project, and I don't want to, hopefully I don't forget them, sometimes I don't like to mention those so that I don’t leave anything out. I don't know why, but with all these projects, they can tell you - Michel Matos [Cuban activist and artist, founder and general director of the Rotilla festival], Amaury Pacheco [leader of OMNI Zona Franca, opponent of the communist regime in Cuba] , OMNI, Eligio [Luis Eligio, OMNI Zona Franca performer] all these projects are out there. They went to see the institution, they were going to ask the front institution, and the institution turned its back on them. The institution never accompanied them, the institution mistreated them all the time, ignored them all the time, defamed them all the time and we said enough.”
“In all the places where they give me the microphone or where they give me the opportunity to speak, I say that the main problem is that the Cuban civil society has to get rid of the dictatorship is its lack of historical memory. The first enemy of Cuban civil society, the first enemy of the opponents, the first enemy of the dissidents, the first enemy of the independent journalists, of all of us who imply the Cuban regime lacks memory. There is a very serious tendency to gravitate towards chrono-centrism, which means narrating your life from the moment you began to understand it, and not from your past. I have always refused that, and that's why I made you start with this memory of me as a child participating in everything we know as revolutionary morals today, from the Cuban educational system, from primary, secondary, technological schools and also pre-universities and universities. That has to be and stay very clear.”
Jorge Enrique Rodríguez Camejo, a poet and an independent journalist, was born in Havana in 1973. He grew up in a marginal neighborhood full of violence and alcoholism, however, he decided to take a different path and fight against the dictatorial regime of Cuba. It was during his university years, when Jorge Rodríguez approached the cultural, artistic and intellectual sphere, becoming a theater teacher. His artistic activities were balanced between supporting the ruling party and rebellious art. Jorge, a „young black worker from the Orient“ appeared as the image and example of the regime to falsely demonstrate the fight against racism and discrimination. In 2013 the relationship with state institutions worsened and Jorge and his colleagues ended their cooperation with them, an example of this is the cancellation of the cultural festival “Poetry without end” organized by “OMNI Zona Franca”. Since then, Jorge has collaborated as an independent journalist with the „Diario de Cuba“ and various digital platforms or international media. The communist regime began a chain of intimidation and arrests against him. Despite this, Jorge does not give up and continues to publish on the critical living conditions of the Cuban population.
