By Jan McGirk, Latin America Correspondent.Independent News . UK, 9 February 2001
The American slide guitarist Ry Cooder, who talent-scouted all the elderly
Cuban musicians who found international fame performing on his 1997 Buena Vista
Social Club album and the subsequent movie, is now mired in US political
bickering over trading with the enemy.
Five years after his first trip to Cuba, Cooder returned last weekend from
Havana with a new recording of 1950s hits with the guitarist Manuel Galbn. He
plans to go back next month to jam with the vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer, aged 73.
Just two days before his presidential term ended, Bill Clinton pressed a
reluctant State Department to issue Cooder a visa and he also urged the US
Treasury to issue a licence for royalty-sharing with island musicians.
But the new Bush administration in Washington is unhappy with Cooder's
blatant embargo-breaking.
Hardliners opposed to the visits suggest that the guitarist has more than a
cultural exchange with Cuba in mind, and complain that his motive for
rejuvenating the careers of these Grammy-winning musicians is pure profit.
Others point to Cooder's $10,000 (£6,900) donation to the senate
campaign of Hillary Clinton last autumn, and imply that his special visa was
expedited through political favouritism.
The musician's lawyer, Candice Hanson, objects to alleged smear campaigns in
the press and maintains that Mrs Clinton was uninvolved in the visa application.
She said: "This should have been about the music."
US law does not forbid Americans from entering the communist island, but the
40-year-old Trading with the Enemy Act restricts them from spending money,
including paying for a ticket on a Cuban airline.
Scores of American tourists get round the restriction by flying on non-Cuban
airlines, such as Mexican charter flights from Cancun. To purchase goods and
services legally, US citizens travelling in Cuba require a Department of
Treasury licence, issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control on a case by
case basis.
More than 20 years ago, as part of a cultural exchange programme, Cooder
toured Cuba with other American jazz musicians and collected piles of records.
He said: "I was too young and uncertain to know what to do about it; I
couldn't just go up to someone and say, 'let's record,' so I went home and
thought about it."
© 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. | 