By Ruth Morris | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
October 16, 2007
From outlawed satellite dishes to jammed radio signals, Cubans face an
obstacle course of government controls over information as their island
settles into new leadership.
This was the picture drawn Monday by panelists at the general assembly
of the Inter American Press Association, where experts discussed how
news gets in and out of communist Cuba. The forum came more than a year
after President Fidel Castro fell ill and passed the reins of power to
his brother Raul.
Castro's health is a state secret in Cuba, where officials impose tight
controls on domestic news. The Cuban government publishes the country's
main newspapers and transmits its domestic newscasts, which in turn act
as vehicles for policy announcements.
Some Cubans rely on clandestine satellite dishes to beam in foreign news
programs, along with soap operas and movies. But few Cubans own
computers and Internet access is available on a restricted basis.
"Truth is nowhere. There is no stable information. There is no reliable
press," said panelist Alberto Muller, a former Cuban political prisoner
who writes for Diario Las Americas, a Miami-based daily. Citing Cuba's
jailing of independent journalists, he accused the island's communist
government of leading its people into a "schizophrenic" state by
separating information from reality.
For its part, the Cuban government has accused dissidents and
journalists of working for the U.S. government to undermine Cuba's
communist system.
Cuban officials also bristle at the U.S. government's long-standing
effort to transmit its programs to the island via Radio and TV Marti.
The Inter American Press Association has made press restrictions one of
the focal points of its meeting this year, along with discussions on
financial challenges to newspapers and how media are adapting to digital
technology. The five-day assembly is being held in downtown Miami and
ends today.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel correspondent Ray Sanchez, who runs the
newspaper's Havana bureau, said access to Radio Marti is patchy at best.
The Cuban government, which dismisses the venue as U.S. propaganda,
blocks the signal.
Sanchez said Cubans supplement their news intake with information from
family members living overseas, which in turn spreads quickly along the
grapevine. Clandestine satellite dishes keep popping up, he said.
"It's important to note that many people who have access to this, have
it for the soap operas ... and for the diversity of programming,"
Sanchez said, and not necessarily to satisfy a demand for more news.
Muller suggested the Cuban government has stepped up repressive measures
against the flow of information, becoming "obsessed" with illegal
satellite dishes and sending out agents to dismantle them. Ever
innovative, Cubans were adapting by hiding them in pigeon coops, and by
running antennas through water pipes, he said.
Cuba only allows a handful of U.S. media to station journalists in
Havana, and recently declined to renew several journalist visas.
Regarding news of Castro's health, Sanchez said foreign journalists have
a difficult time learning anything beyond what emerges in the official
press.
For Muller, this vacuum was an example of why Cuba's independent
journalists need more support from colleagues overseas.
"The independent press in Cuba belongs to all this," he said. "In Cuba
everything is a lie. You have to find things between the lines."
Ruth Morris can be reached at rmorris@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5012.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flbpress1016nboct16,0,1631791.story
No comments:
Post a Comment