Colombian rocker Juanes says that despite the political firestorm surrounding the concert he has planned for Havana next month, he is only seeking to connect with the Cuban people and to promote change with his music.

``This is not about politics,'' he told The Miami Herald Tuesday of his decision to play a concert in Cuba in the historic Plaza de la Revolución in Havana on Sept. 20.

``Nobody called us, nobody invited us to Havana,'' he said. ``I am not a communist. I am not aligned with the government. I'm not going to Cuba to play for the Cuban regime.

``Our only message is one of peace, of humanitarianism, of tolerance, a message of interacting with the people,'' he said.

Juanes sells millions of albums, fills arenas across the Americas, has a shelf full of Grammys and is widely admired for his humanitarian work in his native Colombia.

CONTROVERSY

His stature has made his decision to play the Sept. 20 concert -- entitled Paz Sin Fronteras (Peace Without Borders) -- a potential turning point in the sometimes hostile relationship between Cuba and the exile community, even as it has unleashed a storm of controversy in Miami and beyond.

For some, a star like Juanes playing in Cuba lends credibility to a dictatorial government and ignores the plight of political prisoners and dissidents.

``He is playing the game of those assassins,'' says Ana Margarita Martinez, well-known locally for unwittingly marrying a Cuban spy who infiltrated the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. ``He is going to a place where there are no human rights. . . . I'm insulted.''

Juan Carlos Espinosa, an associate dean of the Honors College at Florida International University, says Juanes has every right to perform in Cuba, but ``what I object to is that he says his performing in Cuba is not a political act. Choosing to perform in Cuba, where everything is politicized and a military regime has ruled for 50 years, is in and of itself a political decision.'' Sitting in his sun-filled home in Key Biscayne on Tuesday, Juanes said the concert is a way to go beyond politics, and to inspire both sides to reach out to each other in a different way.

``I cannot give answers to all these questions people are asking me'' about politics in Cuba, he said. ``It's not my strength. It's not something I can control. . . We are musicians, not politicians.

``It seems to me that Cuba is a country that's been isolated for many years, for historic reasons that we all know,'' he added. ``I respect that profoundly. I know that what has happened has been hard. But we're talking about now, the present, today.''

Juanes says what matters is that he will be playing for an expected audience of more than 600,000 Cubans who almost never have the chance to hear musicians outside the island.

Juanes will be joined by pop singers Miguel Bosé of Spain, Olga Tañon from Puerto Rico, and by the Cuban artists Silvio Rodríguez and Los Van Van. Unlike previous concerts featuring foreign pop stars -- a 1979 event with Billy Joel and one in 1999 with Bonnie Raitt and members of The Police -- there will be no restrictions on who can attend, he says. They will perform in front of the National Library, the same location where Pope John Paul II gave a Mass in 1998, instead of in front of politically controversial monuments to Che Guevara and Jose Martí.

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