A Havana singer who will take part in the Juanes concert Sunday has said that exiled Cuban artists should be allowed to perform in the island and criticized the notorious jailing of a Havana man for his drunken complaint of widespread hunger as ``an awful error.''

The comments by Amaury Pérez in a telephone interview with Miami television host Oscar Haza Tuesday were surprising because of his strong support for the Castro government. In another recent interview, he said he prayed every night for Fidel Castro's health.

Pérez helped arrange and will sing at the concert organized by Colombian rocker Juanes, which has drawn criticisms from some Cuban-Americans that it will be politicized by the island's communist government and features no Cuban exile singers.

Asked if he would favor having Olga Guillot and Mike Porcel -- exile singers who have strongly criticized the government -- appear in Havana, Pérez replied, ``Of course, yes. That has been my stance all the time. . . . In that exile are many friends . . . who are dear old friends. Why not? Because we're all Cubans.''

He added that the Cuban government has met all the Juanes requests to ensure that the concert remains apolitical. ``I have never seen Cuba say Yes with so much nobility. All the times, it has been Yes, Yes, Yes.''

In another surprise, he criticized the case of Juan Carlos Gonzalez Marco, better known as Pánfilo, a Havana man sentenced to two years in prison after he appeared in a popular YouTube video drunkenly complaining of widespread hunger on the island.

``I think it's a blunder, putting Pánfilo in prison. ``It really seems to me an awful mistake . . . and I hope that is rectified soon.''

Pérez also said he often watches Oscar Haza's nightly Spanish language talk show, A Mano Limpia, on Channel 41 America TeVe through a satellite dish that he acknowledge was illegal under Cuban regulations.

``I defend, not only for myself but for all Cubans, the freedom of information and the right to the free exchange of ideas,'' he declared during the 25-minute interview.

In another part of the interview, Haza asked Pérez about a report by the Spanish EFE news agency that quoted the Cuban singer as saying that the Juanes concert would be ``a window'' for Cuba that could grow into ``a door, a gate and a tide that no one will be able to stop.''

There has been some speculation that Cuban youth, many of them known to be deeply frustrated with the island's system, might take advantage of the international focus on the concert to express their discontent.

``I meant that as an example of interchanges among peoples,'' Pérez said, ``like the fresh air of the Caribbean that goes from one place to another. It was not a metaphor.''

Five more exile groups in Miami meanwhile criticized the Juanes concert ``For Peace Without Frontiers'' in a letter made public Wednesday, saying it was an ``unacceptable joke'' to promise that the concert will be without politics.

``This will be a peace of garrote and -stay-where-you-are,'' said the letter by the Miami-based Cuban Liberal Part, the Patriotic Cuban Junta, the Association of Free Cuban Musicians in Exile, the Jose Martí Patriotic Association and the PanAmerican Institute for Democracy.

Another exile group, Mambisa Watch, announced that on Sunday evening it will use a two-ton steamroller in Little Havana to destroy CDs from the artists who will take part in the Juanes concert.

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