Pianist speaks out against the flagrant politicisation of El Sistema
mainGabriela Montero has spoken out forcefully against the pressures used by the Venezuelan regime to use El Sistema as a tool for its violent, corrupt and incompetent leadership and in support of its anti-US stance.
She writes:
VIDEO: The Absurdity of El Sistema today.
In this highly choreographed and expertly produced video, El Sistema musicians, dressed in the Venezuelan revolutionary flag, offer support to Chavista artists in a modified Venezuelan folk song. The words are changed to protest President Obama’s recent sanctions against certain Venezuelan officials, identified by the US government to have abused human rights or taken part in high-level corruption.
One of the singers is the daughter of second-in-command Diosdado Cabello – currently under investigation in the US for his alleged role as the leader of the “Los Soles” drug cartel.
To add to the abuse of these musicians, they are being forced to sign Maduro’s petition to President Obama demanding the lifting of those sanctions, under threat of losing their positions in the orchestra. This was revealed to me today in private by one of the distressed musicians.
And El Sistema’s Eduardo Mendez has the gall to publicly claim that El Sistema is not politicized?
The video was published on March 31 and has been seen by barely 2,000 viewers.
Gabriela, who lives in the US, has nonetheless taken considerable personal risks in speaking out against the regime. It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if El Sistema supporters in the US and Europe were to take against her as a result of her courageous stance.
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