A long time ago, a Cuban—José Pardo Llada—arrived in Colombia, especially Cali, who became so deeply rooted in the city that he was about to become mayor of the most civic capital in the country, at that time, of course.
He was part of the Castro revolution, but when he realized that Castro had lied to them about his anti-communism and had surrendered his arms and feet to the bear of that time, Russia, led by a tough communist, Nikita Khrushchev, a character who gave him Castro received all kinds of aid until he confronted John Kennedy, US president, who stopped him when the Russian threatened him with some missiles arranged on the Cuban island to direct them at the gringos.
I remember Pardo for all the civic and social acts he carried out in our city, setting an example for politicians and businessmen who never cared about the development of the city, except for mayors such as Artemo Franco Mejía, Alfredo Carvajal Sinisterra, Rodrigo Escobar Navia, Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Germán Villegas Villegas, genuine citizens of the Valle del Cauca region, with a sense of belonging, who turned Cali into a paradigm of development, beauty and healthy joy.
Pardo Llada achieved the affection of the people of Cali from a radio microphone and from his famous column in this wonderful newspaper, through which he taught us to love our then beautiful capital of joy and strength, but I remember him more for his risky political decision, being already a Colombian citizen, to form a list of well-known Cali people to represent the citizens from the Cali Council. For the first and only time, this list chose eleven caleños of recognized probity and leadership.
Unfortunately, the usual bad “advisers” appeared, those politicians who sought a way to undermine the good intentions of the well-remembered Colombian-Cuban and who somehow tried to make Cali more grandiose.
Unfortunately, they were people who were not willing to face new political labels thanks to a lot of money that appeared to buy everything, until achieving that beautiful gesture of people who loved this city, were withdrawing from public affairs and, Cali, remained, like today, in a difficult situation, impoverished and forgotten.
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