Colombian singer-songwriter Juanes' Peace Without Borders concert, slated for Sunday (September 20) in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion, has unleashed a maelstrom of debate about the ethics of performing in the Communist-led country.

The event -- which coincides with the United Nations International Day of Peace and also features Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Olga Tanon, among others -- has been criticized by some Cuban-Americans in Miami who feel that it endorses the government of Fidel and Raul Castro. In August, Juanes considered canceling the concert after receiving what he believed were threatening messages on his Twitter account.

But the show will go on. In these exclusive commentaries for Billboard, Juanes and Tanon explain why.

IT'S TIME TO CHANGE HATE FOR LOVE

By Juanes

As a Colombian born in 1972, I've never experienced life in a peaceful country -- not for a single day, hour or minute.

Today's world is a disaster. We have as many problems as there are people on this Earth. They say we have little time left on this planet and that the children of our children's children will barely be able to breathe.

There's so much war and indifference, so much thirst for power among a few, that we've been reduced almost to our barest expression. Peace Without Borders was born as a collective of artists who want and believe in love and peace.

There are still wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The powerful continue to subdue us and do with us what they will.

Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries in the region continue to fight their own battles against drugs, poverty, inequality, organized crime and unemployment.

But a concert in Cuba offers the possibility of extending ties between countries and fostering brotherhood through art and music.

Going to Cuba is motivated by the desire to live in peace -- just like going to the border between Colombia and Venezuela -- and to experience, if only for an instant, what that means.

For the past 50 years, Cuba has been torn between life and death, isolated and enclosed.

A performance in Cuba's Plaza de la Revolucion on World Peace Day is precisely the opposite of what some think. Being there to send a message of change and hope has nothing to do with politics or with supporting a political party. It's exclusively about people, with all of us as different nations coming together as brothers with the sole objective of planting a seed of change; a seed that can grow, but only if we all tend to it.