TV and me
By Varela
Telemundo’s Channel 51 in Miami has something against me.
It is not MegaTV’s Channel 22 or AmericaTeVe’s 41, which are considered little local channels, but a national network, the competitor of Univisión. We’re talking of a station that – for Hispanics in South Florida – is as important as CNN or FOX.
On Monday the 13th, I got a phone call from a Channel 51 reporter, Ana Cuervo, who told me they wanted to interview me because an article had come out (I don’t know where) saying that I was a Granma spokesman.
Granma is the spokespaper of the Cuban Communist Party, so I would be the spokesman for a spokespaper. No such thing. At most, I might work for or contribute to Granma, and neither statement is true.
Let me tell you that I have every right to work for or contribute to any newspaper I please, whether I live in China, Zanzibar or the Galapagos Islands. Even in Miami, you’ll find people who contribute to Granma and Juventud Rebelde, but I don’t.
The trauma with that channel and my caricatures or Internet writings is not new. It goes back several months, when I was interviewed by Marilys Llanos (another reporter) who asked me five questions because presumably I – “a person very beloved and well known by the exile community” – was now attacking it. That’s how I was introduced in an interview that was never aired.
First, I’ll tell you about the questions and answers between the Llanos woman and myself, spoken in my living room, in the presence of a cameraman (a friend of mine, as it happened) and an assistant.
LLANOS: They say you’ve become associated with people who do business with Cuba. Is that true?
VARELA: I was told I was in the United States, a country where people have the right to freely associate with others, without the need to give any explanations. If the standards of the United States are not observed in Miami, I’ll move to Fort Lauderdale.
LLANOS: I ask because you followed one line in The Herald and now you follow another on the Internet.
VARELA: My line didn’t begin in The Herald in 1993 but in the weekly ¡Éxito! in The Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, a Chicago Tribune newspaper, in 1991.
It was an alternative publication with a point of view that was different from the traditional position of the exile community on subjects like homosexuality, abortion, local politics, dialogue with Cuba and other issues that were “hot” in the community, issues that the establishment press (i.e., The Herald) conveniently ignored because they created a conflict of interests with its advertisers or turned off its readers.
For El Nuevo Herald to hire me was a policy decision by the newspaper to balance its journalism and an element to promote a rapprochement with Cuba, because in the 1990s the paper sought to open a bureau in Havana.
But the drawings you saw in El Nuevo by me were only what got past the censors, an edited version. Of every ten sketches I made, seven could not be printed. Finally, I broke convincingly with The Herald’s line. I didn’t do it by resigning in a normal way but by taking over the newsroom and stating my points of view to the press who interviewed me that day. Not everything came to light, but that was because of an out-of-court agreement.
LLANOS: They say that today you attack the situation in Miami more than you did then.
VARELA: Not more but more freely. I’ve never attacked the Cuban who came to work, to raise his children and educate them, to make them good citizens, to help his family on the island, to make a living based on sacrifice and loyalty to friends.
I have criticized the phony, the thief, the influence peddler, the fraudulent politician, the extortionist, the freeloader, the man who pockets the money collected for the fight against Castroism, the man who has spent half a century without overthrowing Castroism and wants to continue to profit from that, at the expense of the U.S. taxpayers’ money.
For example, I now contribute to an online alternative publication called Progreso Weekly. It was an alternative outlet 19 years ago but no longer is. There are other alternatives and that’s why some people consider my work different or harsher.
LLANOS: But now you also attack Cuban dissidents on the island. Don’t you believe that that helps the Castro regime?
VARELA: When I criticize something, I don’t care with whom I agree. Otherwise, I’d never criticize anything. At one point, I criticized three U.S. administrations – the two Bush terms and Clinton’s – without worrying whether I agreed with the enemies of the United States or whether they were Republicans or Democrats.
It was my right as an editorial cartoonist and I railed against unpopular decisions, senseless wars and personal scandals, never against political parties. In every party, there are people with whom I agree and others with whom I disagree.
LLANOS: Well, at the end, aren’t you afraid? To criticize such things here suggests an antagonism that raises a certain adverse reaction.
VARELA: The last and only time I felt fear was 30 years ago, when I came on the Mariel boatlift one stormy morning with 14-foot waves. And I commended my life to God.
Marilys Llanos thanked me and told me that the interview would be aired the following Friday. The station advertised it until Thursday.
But the interview was not shown on Friday. I called Llanos on her cell phone and she told me she was sick at home and didn’t know what had really happened but said that when she called the channel she was told there had been a last-minute decision to cancel the presentation.
Now I ask the readers: Should I grant Channel 51 another interview?
