CUBA:
US Broadcasts a 'Provocation' in Already-Tense Relations

Dalia Acosta


HAVANA,(IPS) - While U.S. President George W. Bush avoided announcing new sanctions against Cuba in a recent message to the Cuban exile community, a special airplane sent by the Pentagon flew within range of the island to broadcast Radio and TV Martí signals -- which apparently had limited reception.

The attempt to break through Cuba's jamming efforts Tuesday -- the same day Bush gave his speech -- was described as a ''provocation'' by Havana.

An editorial in Granma, the daily publication of Cuba's governing Communist Party, stated that the plane flew very close Tuesday to the northwestern coast of this Caribbean island nation beaming the signals of the U.S. government-financed station.

''As a special surprise by the Bush administration, kept like a big war secret,'' the transmission interrupted normal local TV programming in several Cuban provinces for two hours, Granma reported Wednesday.

Radio Martí also came on the air at several new frequencies, it added.

A year ago, Bush promised the Cuban exile community in Miami that the power of Radio and TV Martí would be boosted in order for broadcasts to reach Cuba more successfully.

But Tuesday's effort coincided with a new wave of blackouts in the Cuban capital and several provinces, blamed by officials at the state-run power company on breakdowns in two main generators.

The power outages may have minimised the success of the U.S. broadcasts.

Radio and TV Martí, which were created in the 1980s to beam news and information to Cuba critical of the socialist government of Fidel Castro, are seen here as just one more example of Washington's continued aggression towards the island.

Havana also rejects the celebration of May 20 as Cuban Independence Day, which is observed by Cuban exiles in the United States.

On May 20, 1902 the Republic of Cuba was declared after three years of U.S. military intervention. Prior to its withdrawal, the United States inserted the Platt Amendment into the Cuban constitution, authorising Washington to intervene in the country whenever it deemed necessary.

The White House special envoy for Latin America, Otto Reich, told the press that the transmission of a four-hour programme Tuesday formed part of an ''initial test phase which will be followed by others.''

With this gesture aimed at appeasing the most radical faction of the anti-Castro Cuban exile community, Bush limited his May 20 speech to expressing his ''hope... for the Cuban people to soon enjoy the same freedoms and rights that we do.''

Last year, the U.S. president had presented what he called his plan ''for a new Cuba'' to the Cuban exile community in Miami.

Among the measures that Bush was expected to announce, and which sparked some debate within the U.S. government, was a proposal to halt the remittances sent by Cuban immigrants to their families on the island, as well as suspending all direct flights between the two countries.

Representative Lincoln Díaz-Balart, of the governing Republican Party, said that Washington had not finalised its review of policy towards Havana in response to the imprisonment of 75 members of the Cuban opposition, including many journalists.

Tensions between Washington and Havana heated up when the Castro government rounded up dissidents -- some with close ties to the U.S. Interests Section in the Cuban capital -- in March and subjected them to summary trials in April, handing down long prison sentences.

Then came the Apr. 11 execution of three men who had hijacked a passenger ferry and attempted to emigrate illegally to the United States.

Last week, the United States expelled 14 Cuban diplomats. Seven were accredited delegates to the United Nations headquarters in New York.

According to Granma, with these latest ”provocations” Washington is attempting to accelerate events ”that would serve as a pretext to attack” the island. Official U.S. sources affirm that an invasion of Cuba has been ”contemplated”.

In the opinion of Cuban dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa, of the Socialist Democratic Current, the official Cuban reaction is ”disproportionate”, but the latest actions by the United States are also condemnable.

”The only thing to be achieved with an increase in resources for TV and Radio Martí and with the expulsion of the 14 Cuban diplomats is to further fuel the tensions between the two countries,” he told IPS.

Washington should make ”a dramatic turnabout” in its policy towards the island and ”and admit once and for all that only we Cubans -- with no need for a protectorate -- can resolve our own political disputes.”


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