Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00and they named it after their neighborhood, San Isidro, that's where it comes from. But understand
00:00:03this, the origin is artistic, no,
00:00:07initially, it's it's a cry
00:00:10for artistic freedom. The San
00:00:13Isidro movement, not political at that
00:00:16you to leave the country. How do you interpret it, which time, is against this decree, of
00:00:19with the opposition, with the people of course, the demonstration is in in the sense of
00:00:22Undoubtedly, what disobedience against this decree,
00:00:25this law, no, at that time it was a decree, now a
00:00:28law. Alcántara was already famous at that time for his
00:00:32performance acts, he spoke about the project in
00:00:352018.
00:00:39We want to achieve a project, a unique
00:00:42project where we can talk about culture, we can talk about contemporary
00:00:45Cuban reality
00:00:47without it being seen
00:00:51as a threat to national security.
00:00:55But well, it seems that things were not
00:00:59interpreted this way by the
00:01:01people have. The people who work in regime, it gained special notoriety after a song was
00:01:04released in February 2021. The title
00:01:08turned around a slogan that the
00:01:10be carried out and when the Cuban regime had been using since 1960, "Homeland or
00:01:12Death," no, it's like the motto, the slogan of the
00:01:16regime. In the song they turn it into "Homeland and
00:01:20Life." In the video clip he appears with the
00:01:23acronyms of his movement painted on his chest and a Cuban flag in his
00:01:27hands. 10 months later, that...
00:01:30song that criticizes of course the lack of freedoms on the island and that
00:01:34became an anthem for the historic protests of that
00:01:37year won
00:01:39question. The two Latin Grammys including
00:01:42what was missing, what Song of the Year. In official
00:01:44media, he has been called a mercenary, and even
00:01:48worse epithets. Mercenary is the
00:01:51least of it, but Tero Alcántara sought to
00:01:54break with what he called the
00:01:57myth. Listen.
00:02:00break a little with the myth built during 60 years
00:02:04that doing something independent that comes from oneself separate
00:02:08from the state, is the devil, is demonized,
00:02:11you understand, or it's counter-revolution or you are against the achievements of the
00:02:14revolution like health and
00:02:15medicine,
00:02:19and and all that was, all that was for the
00:02:21regime, of course, an old acquaintance of the
00:02:25authorities. Even before the
00:02:28was to plant in emergence of the movement, they had already detained him. According to him, he has documented it and
00:02:32intensely since 2018. They continued
00:02:35to detain him, to which illegal searches of his
00:02:38home, interception of communications, abuses by the
00:02:42authorities in relation to his artistic activism in
00:02:46favor of human rights, in short, they persecuted him, so you understand. On July
00:02:5011, 2021, he left his house in San Isidro for a protest
00:02:54in progress, he was going to join that protest that was in progress to demand
00:02:57freedom, but but he never arrived.
00:03:135 years later, 5 years later,
00:03:16a maximum security prison,
00:03:18uh, a closed-door trial for charges
00:03:22of contempt and public disorder that he always
00:03:25rejected, and a phrase that stuck to his name like a...
00:03:29second identity, he said, "I'll die
00:03:32here, let them do what they want," he said
00:03:36in January 2022 during a hunger and thirst strike also in the
00:03:39Guanajay prison. His
00:03:42uncle, who brought him the message that the regime offered him freedom in
00:03:45exchange for exile,
00:03:48amplifier of but at the beginning of 2023 he accepted exile as the only way to be able to
00:03:51continue his work as an artist and activist, after having
00:03:54endured all the repression, according to a message published in July on his
00:03:59What Facebook account, there would still be three years until his arrival in Miami, to receive a special
00:04:02permit from the United States government. The Cuban regime never
00:04:06commented on Tero Alcántara's case, but the United
00:04:10States was already preparing the ground and yet,
00:04:13well, this is a reality today, tonight
00:04:16he is here, he is in the United States,
00:04:19he is free,
00:04:22exiled, alive. He spent
00:04:265 years, 5 years learning from within
00:04:29a cell where they never managed
00:04:32to distance him from art and now, now he
00:04:35is here to talk, to talk with me. I'm going to give him a
00:04:42the prison, and that's that term welcome,
00:04:44and the welcome is for Luis Manuel Lotero Alcántara, Cuban
00:04:48dissident and artist or artist and Cuban
00:04:51dissident, I don't know which, I don't know what order Luis Manuel
00:04:55gives to these words, but both things are
00:04:58a reality. Welcome, Manuel. Thank you, no, no, thank
00:05:02you for the invitation and for amplifying our
00:05:04voices.
00:05:08please. It's Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara who Hey, Luis Manuel, 5 years later, today you are here, eh,
00:05:12and and... and I ask you
00:05:15if it is a forced
00:05:17exile, that is,
00:05:20uh, it's not that you achieved
00:05:23freedom, but that they forced
00:05:29of the two is the version you feel
00:05:32you are living today?
00:05:35I am living is an exile, a banishment, because
00:05:39when I left, when the...
00:05:42sanction that the regime imposed on me was fulfilled, which is a totally arbitrary
00:05:45sanction, the regime made it clear to me that I would not walk on
00:05:49the streets in Cuba, that the only option was to remain in
00:05:52prison or that exile,
00:05:55that banishment. And at that moment I could have made the decision to
00:05:58remain in prison,
00:06:01but I felt that I had things to
00:06:04say, things to contribute to the reality of Cuba from this
00:06:08new freedom. Today in Cuba, the levels of influence that
00:06:13social media, the influencers, is is giant,
00:06:17and I felt that that imprisoned body had already
00:06:20demonstrated enough resistance to
00:06:22prison, to the yoke of the dictatorship, and
00:06:26that I needed to use things that I had in my head to contribute to
00:06:30freedom, and that's when this
00:06:33banishment
00:06:34came about.
00:06:38You achieve, of course, I say since the San
00:06:41Isidro movement. Beyond your art, yes, as an
00:06:44activist, I think you achieve great moral authority,
00:06:48uh, uh, that gives you, I don't know if more
00:06:51strength or more guarantees of being
00:06:55heard. What do I mean by this? For
00:06:59you, these five years have been an investment to
00:07:02achieve greater coverage with your
00:07:05voice, or has it been a waste of time, or have they
00:07:08kidnapped this activism during these 5 years? Because
00:07:13depending on how you look at it, it has given
00:07:15you great strength or
00:07:19it has taken it away, no? What do you think? No, first of
00:07:22all, during the 5 years I continued doing activism, I continued making
00:07:25art, eh, in defiance of the dictatorship,
00:07:29eh, in fact there are many works of mine that range from
00:07:33paintings to performance and
00:07:36gestures that I, public events, public
00:07:39actions with which I continue
00:07:43to be present within Cuban society, inside and outside
00:07:46Cuba. Eh, they were not five
00:07:49years in vain, although
00:07:51undeniably I also understood that the
00:07:55presence of the individual, including your vision as an artist,
00:07:59activist, cultural manager or politician, has a force,
00:08:02that is, it is the individual's
00:08:05action and his vision, that sometimes you see things that people don't
00:08:09see, eh, it was important, and that's why I said. I decided
00:08:13to leave prison, in fact there is a work in prison that
00:08:17I called "Portrait in charcoal of Schrödinger's
00:08:20cat" where I sold my time, where I put
00:08:23on the table the value of time
00:08:26invested in the struggle, especially from the exercise of resistance
00:08:30of being imprisoned and resisting the dictatorship, the prison, because the
00:08:33prison is a design, it is designed to fracture your
00:08:37mind and fracture your body, and from the beginning I always projected
00:08:40the idea of being healthy, the idea of
00:08:44getting out healthy mentally to
00:08:47continue fighting for freedom, and that exercise of resistance is an
00:08:49example for the Cuban people, for activists who often
00:08:53don't even want to put themselves out there, they want to write a
00:08:56lot, talk a lot, but they don't really put their skin in the
00:09:00game, and people need people, the people of Cuba
00:09:04need those examples for them to also put
00:09:07themselves out there and set an example. If the leaders who at a certain moment
00:09:11assume the... were born with empathy to amplify the
00:09:15voice of the other, because one has the charisma, one has the tools to amplify
00:09:19the voices, but it's not only about amplifying the voices but also putting your skin in
00:09:22the game, and and at that moment then, eh, people are also
00:09:26capable of sacrificing themselves for you and for their own future. So I don't think
00:09:30it was in vain, I think it was an example of resistance, it was an example that
00:09:33we came out alive, I came out alive, we were an example of friendship because my
00:09:37friends, we talked on the phone, eh, twice a
00:09:40week and they were always there supporting the works that I produced, the performances, the
00:09:44public interventions that I did during these 5 years, my friends reproduced them,
00:09:47we even made the state security nervous, eh, during the 5
00:09:51years because we continued to produce things despite
00:09:54of resilience that is that
00:09:57space from despite being in the
00:10:00worst of places, the place with the least possible mobility, we continued to create and
00:10:04we continued to push Cuban reality and and thanks to that the dictatorship will last
00:10:08one less time in power.
00:10:10It
00:10:13is very important what you said, that's why I told you it has given you great moral
00:10:17authority because you don't fall for anything, you were
00:10:21inside, you faced them, you resisted them, and you are.
00:10:25And outside, eh, you are not a cardboard
00:10:28figure in the resistance,
00:10:31you are a figure who has gone precisely through persecution,
00:10:35detention, and the abuses that may have been committed along the way
00:10:39to continue today with your voice,
00:10:41but you said it, inside
00:10:44they seek to break you, they seek to break you both mentally and
00:10:48physically, what, what was the most difficult moment, Luis
00:10:52Manuel, in which you saw yourself
00:10:55close to breaking, either mentally or
00:10:58physically, what was the most difficult moment, what was
00:11:01happening to you when you were in
00:11:04captivity? First, there is a, uh, the
00:11:08previous question, I want to add something, that right now I come out with an
00:11:12experience of suffering that I know what it's like to be
00:11:15imprisoned, and of course the level of empathy increases for
00:11:19political prisoners and especially for prisoners, eh, who are the
00:11:23Cubans who have been eh eh 60 years in that
00:11:26prison. Right now I'm coming out to this exile to live the experience of exile and to be able to
00:11:30live and be able to tell from my experience, but above all that
00:11:34generates much more empathy eh about the
00:11:37phenomenon of political prisoner prison, and I can't sleep
00:11:41knowing that more than a thousand political prisoners remained in Cuba,
00:11:44my brother Michael Osopo remained and other brothers of the struggle who are political
00:11:48prisoners remained, because if the dictatorship does not fall, there will continue to be political
00:11:51prisoners. So prison also helped me to understand their
00:11:55suffering from the skin, from the broken bone, from
00:11:58the suffering, from the anxiety that confinement gives you. Here
00:12:02I answer this
00:12:04most difficult moment in prison is all the moments. Prison for
00:12:08me, for political
00:12:09prison,
00:12:12eh, had several stages, but living away from my son, not being able to see
00:12:16his adolescent growth, becoming a young man, eh,
00:12:19living away from my daughter who lives in Europe, eh, not being able to
00:12:22eat what I wanted or... for example, drinking a glass of
00:12:26cold water, the simple fact of drinking a glass of cold water when you are
00:12:29tremendously hot and you can't drink it there, that is an extremely
00:12:33difficult exercise. There you understand, you also start to give
00:12:37value to things that you used to underestimate but for you were normal, like drinking
00:12:41a glass of cold water, but prison, confinement, seeing
00:12:44yourself locked in a cell and you see how the place
00:12:47shrinks, how anxiety, sadness,
00:12:51depression, eh all these feelings that confinement gives you.
00:12:55Imagine that the world lived COVID for 2 years and
00:12:59people came out traumatized, people who later had to go to therapy and were in their
00:13:02homes, eh, with their family, with food, watching
00:13:06Netflix, watching whatever they wanted. Imagine that in a
00:13:09cell with people you don't want to live with, with murderers, with people who have
00:13:13committed the worst crimes for 5 years, but just the confinement
00:13:17in a cell that is 3 meters by 4 meters, that you can't
00:13:20move, generates feelings that you even try
00:13:23at some point, this crosses your mind, suicide, and you have to
00:13:27sit down and be responsible with your body, responsible
00:13:31with, eh, where to take the message, especially
00:13:35with, with, with the responsibility that God gave you, life or the spirits or whatever,
00:13:38of being able to save things, of being able to amplify voices
00:13:42through a work of art, change the, change the
00:13:46reality that surrounds you. So,
00:13:49prison as a structure, being locked in a place of 6
00:13:53meters by 2 meters, because 4 meters is one of the most
00:13:57difficult experiences. I have said these days, if prison were not difficult, it would
00:14:00not be the cruelest
00:14:03exercise that one human being imposes on another human being, it would not be the worst
00:14:07punishment for the worst crimes. In this case, they
00:14:10imposed it on us for the simple fact of wanting to change reality and wanting another
00:14:14political project, another economic project or wanting to see options of projects
00:14:18in a single country.
00:14:21Yes, yes, you say it, you say it well, if not, if not
00:14:25they wouldn't use it. It's difficult to hear you also say that at
00:14:29some point you even considered suicide because of that
00:14:32pressure and that depression. Eh, it's
00:14:36it's something unimaginable. Well, to see you like this today, well, to hear
00:14:40you like this today. I'm going to take a break, Luis Manuel, and I'll ask you a question and
00:14:44you answer me after the break, eh, a very important
00:14:47struggle at that time, the San Isidro movement.
00:14:51I remember covering it here, eh,
00:14:55everything indicated that it could completely change the
00:14:58history of Cuba, no, and suddenly it was
00:15:02dismantled, they were forced to leave, of
00:15:06course, some fleeing, others
00:15:08like you imprisoned, and and finally the movement has remained as
00:15:12that, as just an artistic movement. What was missing,
00:15:15what failed or why,
00:15:19why couldn't the San Isidro movement achieve the objective
00:15:22that many? At that time, it was going to
00:15:26be achieved, this time it was going to be achieved, but it was not
00:15:30so. I'll hear you when we return, if you
00:15:33accompanies me, Cuban dissident, artist now in freedom here
00:15:37in the United States in Miami, Florida.
00:15:39I'll be
00:15:43right back. The full story with Anderson Cooper, the best
00:15:46CNN journalists share deeply
00:15:50documented stories.
00:15:54If I was to take up sports batting, what would your advice be
00:15:57to me? You believe the civil government should be guided
00:16:01and dictated by biblical law, right? How in the world did you survive
00:16:04this? The full force of that technology is...
00:16:09The full story with Anderson Cooper, Sunday on
00:16:12CNN. News doesn't stop
00:16:15and CNN is always present to bring you the
00:16:18most relevant information. Now, on
00:16:21weekends, follow Rey Rodríguez, who leads the
00:16:25World View team, your reference point to find out what
00:16:28is happening in your city, in your country and in the world,
00:16:32stay with CNN to get accurate and
00:16:36timely information. Victories of the moment, World
00:16:39View, Saturdays and Sundays on CNN.
00:17:43You have to stay home and respect social isolation
00:17:47from 6 PM until 5 AM
00:17:50in order to avoid this global pandemic that is affecting the
00:17:54lives of many people, to work for
00:17:57Peru.
00:18:00It's important to have a clear perspective of what's happening in the world, to know
00:18:04the different angles of a single event. We
00:18:07take you to the key places where news
00:18:10happens, we interview the central characters of the
00:18:14stories. It's a program where we offer you a broad and
00:18:17objective view of the world in which we live. Join
00:18:21me and learn about all the perspectives. Perspectives
00:18:23with Mario González, Monday to Friday on
00:18:27CNN. Would you like to have a healthier life?
00:18:30Join me to discover new tips, advances in
00:18:34science and current methods that can help us improve.
00:18:37Our mind and body in a consultation with Dr. Huerda, a
00:18:41CNN podcast.
00:21:10The fight on this occasion consists of the
00:21:14administration wanting a strong cut in interest
00:21:17rates to achieve
00:21:21to boost the economy, but the Fed, which has as one of its two
00:21:24mandates price stability, to defend us from
00:21:28inflation, believes that if it does that, if it makes a
00:21:31strong cut, it would trigger
00:21:34inflation, and a scenario with growth
00:21:37problems and at the same time inflation, that is, what is called
00:21:41stagflation, that is precisely what the
00:21:44Fed of Powell of Jerome Powell
00:21:48wants to avoid.
00:22:05I'm back with Luis Manuel Lotero Alcántara who joins me, Cuban dissident
00:22:09artist now in the United States in Miami, eh, already
00:22:12in exile, in freedom, and I was asking him about the San
00:22:16Isidro movement, of course, eh, first to understand that it was seen
00:22:20as the great opportunity for the San Isidro movement to
00:22:24achieve an objective that to this day has not been achieved, which is basically a change
00:22:28of regime, eh,
00:22:32failed as an opposition, as a movement, Luis
00:22:35Manuel, to achieve the objective? Because at some
00:22:39point, and I say this perhaps personally, but at some point
00:22:43we all believed that history would be different this time, and it was not so.
00:22:46What do you think failed?
00:22:50But I don't think anything failed, I think history was
00:22:53different, history is different today,
00:22:57eh, five years have passed and in 5 years young people, Cubans
00:23:00continue to take to the streets, continue to protest, it's a phenomenon that in Cuba had not
00:23:04happened 20 years ago. I believe that the San
00:23:07Isidro movement was a civic movement, a cultural movement, a political
00:23:10movement that Cuba's greatest, whose greatest
00:23:14victory
00:23:18people's minds
00:23:20the possibility that in their hands was the freedom of
00:23:23Cuba, eh, San Isidro, we were
00:23:26eh men, women, young people,
00:23:29artists, cultural managers, politicians who came
00:23:33from, who walked in the streets, who came out of the streets and
00:23:36committed to the people, and the people saw that commitment,
00:23:40learned to be more civic, learned to
00:23:44lose fear, and that's when several things were seen, including July 11 was not
00:23:48the peak of the protest, but there were protests, for example,
00:23:52outside the Ministry of Culture like 2 months, 3 months before
00:23:55or four or five months before July 11.
00:23:59There was a protest by the LGTBIQ community in
00:24:02Prado, there was a protest by
00:24:04environmentalists, there were many movements, there are still
00:24:08several movements and
00:24:11for me, the, for me, the overthrow of the dictatorship in
00:24:14Cuba is, was and will be a path, a
00:24:18process until... the point where people take control of
00:24:22their lives, take control, especially at a civic level, so that they feel
00:24:26that they cannot go out for rice, for beans and for electricity, they have
00:24:30to go out to seek the freedoms that are needed, and the San Isidro movement
00:24:33was a promoter, it was an
00:24:38freedoms, teaching people that we could
00:24:42have freedoms. At that time there were Muslims, there were Catholics, there were Christians,
00:24:46there were Babalawos, there were Santeros, there was all kinds of
00:24:49ideologies, there were even right-wingers who think they are left-wing, who
00:24:53think they are right-wing, and all of us coexisted for the sake of
00:24:56cultural freedoms. We were an example, and political freedoms,
00:24:59we were an example that people learned. We are animals that function by
00:25:03imitation. You suddenly have a way of dressing and
00:25:06you establish a certain aesthetic, and there are people who will follow
00:25:09that. Then we used the media, social networks,
00:25:13which luckily appeared at that time when we
00:25:16were being born as a movement, being born as a cultural
00:25:20and political family, and that amplified our voices, and
00:25:23many people imitated us, then came, they imitated us in the good sense,
00:25:27November 27 came, several cultural and political movements
00:25:31came that are still alive, that are still resisting from exile today,
00:25:34but that exile is also part of that Cuba that needs
00:25:38to be educated in function of a common point, which
00:25:42is the freedoms of Cuba. I don't believe in freedom, I believe in freedoms,
00:25:46the sum of many freedoms will lead to the overthrow of the dictatorship, but...
00:25:50it has been said that it is a process, we have been working for more than 10
00:25:54years, there was a peak moment which was July 11 where people
00:25:57saw that cliché that the dictatorship would leave, it would
00:26:01happen of course. But it is in the hands of the Cuban
00:26:04people, it is in the hands of the people, the 9 million, the 4 million who
00:26:08are outside, it is in the hands of all of us, to overthrow that dictatorship and
00:26:12to agree eh many
00:26:14sectors, connect many people, because another thing is
00:26:18to connect the people who walk in the streets
00:26:21culture, with the intellectuals, all that connection was achieved by San Isidro
00:26:25and it is still present in Cuban reality, San Isidro
00:26:29today is still a movement, it is still a family.
00:26:32with interests, of course, in a new struggle, which is to survive the
00:26:36exile, use the tools of exile to continue
00:26:39educating the people, the Cuban people. We are civically
00:26:42illiterate, we don't know what democracy is, we don't know what
00:26:45freedoms are, we don't know what it is why we go out into the streets, we
00:26:49go out intuitively for electricity, bread, rice,
00:26:52beans, eh, and no, we educate and
00:26:56we will continue to educate people, the Cuban people inside
00:26:59and out, what freedoms are, because even here in Miami, in
00:27:03exile, there are people who don't even know what freedoms are, they don't even
00:27:06know what freedom is. Well, then it's a process, it's a process that will
00:27:12moment comes when people are prepared, when the moment
00:27:16comes, it will happen. It could be in a month, it could be in 15 days, it could be in a year, it could
00:27:19be in two years. I have faith that we will continue working and work is what will
00:27:23truly solve the problem of getting out of the
00:27:26dictatorship.
00:27:28And, and besides, Luis Manuel, with this I'm going to another break and you answer me.
00:27:32Beyond the San Isidro movement, there
00:27:35is a movement, of course, that we cannot fail to mention,
00:27:39and that is the pressure that the United States is exerting and how it is doing it, especially
00:27:42with the energy issue. And what do you think? Do you agree with this
00:27:46strategy? Do you think it works? Should they continue? Is it completely
00:27:50wrong? Do you support it? Tell me what you think
00:27:53about what President Donald Trump's
00:27:57with respect to the regime, of course, the
00:28:00participation of Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. Who knows the structure
00:28:03best, but tell me if you support it or if you are
00:28:07against how it is being worked after the break. Luis Manuel Lotero
00:28:11Alcántara, the Cuban dissident
00:28:14exile in
00:28:15Miami, accompanies me.
00:28:22Here at CNN, the news is first.
00:28:24I'm going with Jonone Molinares to the Capitol.
00:28:28The funds are ready
00:28:32for the Department of Homeland Security. When there's a lot at stake,
00:28:35we cut out the noise to inform you clearly
00:28:37about the issues and policies that impact you, from decisions
00:28:41made in Washington to their
00:28:44repercussions throughout the United States, Latin America, and the
00:28:47world. What is the status of relations with the United States? Relations
00:28:51between the United States and Cuba have always been
00:28:54abnormal. Direct US is that window
00:28:58through which you can enter the United States and see what is happening in this
00:29:02country. We follow the story from all angles
00:29:06to bring you the facts directly. Pro-immigrant groups
00:29:09filed a lawsuit. From our studios in
00:29:13Washington, I'm Juan Carlos López. Join me on
00:29:17Direct US, Monday to Friday on
00:29:19CNN. I am Mexican-British.
00:29:23I have been practicing journalism for 20 years
00:29:27in Mexico City, in the United States, and now in Miami for
00:29:31CNN. America is a multiplatform
00:29:34program where you will have information from all
00:29:38areas that will allow you to understand the world from the angle you are
00:29:42looking at it. In those three hours, you will not only
00:29:45have information from a political
00:29:48and economic perspective, but also health, from a women's
00:29:52perspective, but above all, it is a space where we can have
00:29:55conversations, not to polarize, but to integrate
00:29:59society.
00:30:02excites me the most is to inform,
00:30:05inquire, investigate the why of things, go to the bottom
00:30:08of the facts. Here you will see what makes news and everything that
00:30:12impacts your daily life. CNN America with Rebecca
00:30:16Kelly, Monday to Friday on CNN.