By Carlos Seijas Meneses
Cúa, Venezuela (EFE).- Ángel Blanco and Joen Suárez, two of the 252 Venezuelans detained in El Salvador, used music, their greatest passion, to denounce the controversial deportation process from the United States and the “terror” they experienced.
They were held at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) for four months, until Jul. 18, when they were released.
The two friends, who share the dream of becoming professional musicians, wrote a rap song together, “CECOT,” in the cell they shared in the mega-prison run by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
“We wrote a lot of music there,” said 22-year-old Blanco a few hours after returning home to Cúa, a city near Caracas where Suárez also lives, and who arrived early on Tuesday morning.
Next to a table with a chocolate cake prepared by the family in celebration of his return, Blanco presented the song he and his friend had composed.
He recounted how they had used a bar of soap on the metal plate of their bed to write it. He performed it for a small audience consisting of his father, his little brother, and his stepmother.
With a slight clearing of his throat, he began to rap and tell part of his story: “It was 4:00 am on Mar. 15, and they told me to get ready as I was being transferred. I asked why, and they said they didn’t know. I figured out that we weren’t going to Venezuela. The atmosphere on the plane remained in suspense, thinking it was the end, yet was only the beginning, as we landed in a confined prison.”
He continued reciting verses about several episodes of “the experiences of the buddies in CECOT,” among these, a hunger strike: “They want to kill us, locked in a cage like an animal. What are they going to accuse me of?”
After showing the handcuff marks on his skin, Blanco said he was still in “shock” after the verbal, physical, and mental abuse he suffered when they were accused of belonging to the Tren de Aragua criminal gang, an accusation rejected by them, their relatives, and the Venezuelan government, among others.
Nicolás Maduro has highlighted the case of this group of migrants as an example that “there is no such thing as the American dream” and that it has “transformed into a nightmare.”
A deported dream
Blanco left his home country to “fulfill his dream” of becoming a singer-songwriter, a goal he believed he could achieve in New York.
He arrived in the city in 2022 after crossing the Darien Gap and travelling on the train known as La Bestia.
“Unfortunately, there are no industry or investment opportunities in Venezuela. At least in the US, there are multiple record labels,” said the young man, who remembers that, after crossing the border river Bravo, an immigration agent told him, “Isn’t there another country to migrate to?”
Suárez, aged 23, also decided to “go on a journey to the US” with the aim of “making music.” According to him, he lived in the North American country with his partner and later with his daughter, who was born in January, a month before he was arrested alongside Blanco and another friend.
“We were just sharing a moment. We had come from work,” Suárez recalls from the day they were arrested in New York and subsequently separated.
They met again in a detention center in Pennsylvania, from where they were then transferred to Texas.
Camaraderie and injustice
They now look back on their surprising arrival in El Salvador, where they were received by riot police, as almost unreal.
According to both accounts, they were transferred from the airport to the maximum security prison with their hands cuffed and chains on their feet and waist, and subjected to blows and insults along the way.
Without their belongings, shaven, and uniformed, what the Maduro government described as “kidnapping” officially began.
Suárez expressed that it was “four months of terror,” a period during which “they suffered every day” and “the hours passed slowly.”
“I tried not to think and be as mentally strong as possible, (…) we encouraged each other among comrades, we read the Bible because they allowed us,” he said.
Blanco indicated that they were “beaten for everything,” although this decreased after a hunger strike; however, they were later shot with “pellets” during a riot carried out in response to the “injustice.”
The camaraderie they shared with each other and their fellow inmates was a balm for this “nightmare,” which ended on Jun. 18.
Suárez described his reunion with his mother on Tuesday as one of the “most anticipated.”
He was also surprised to see his partner and daughter, who were also deported, but he thought they were still in the US.
Meanwhile, Blanco expressed that, after having been “through hell,” they all “were born again.”
“We left the cemetery of the living,” he said.
Blanco says will now focus on continuing his musical career in his home country, while maintaining hope of returning to New York someday, just not under the current US administration. EFE
csm/dgp/mcd
