[A-List] US imperialism: psyops & Cuba

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

TV is weapon of choice in US siege of Cuba
By Richard Lapper and Henry Hamman
Financial Times: May 16 2003

Forty-two years ago, José Basulto took up arms to join the unsuccessful Bay
of Pigs invasion to topple Cuba's communist government. Today he argues that
broomsticks, coat hanger wire and kitchen plungers serve better than
bullets.

Household materials like these would allow Cubans to receive television from
the US. Like a growing number of Cuban-Americans, Mr Basulto, a
Cuban-American activist, wants the Bush administration to launch a media
blitz into Cuba.

He believes US programming would be a more effective weapon than tighter
economic sanctions in responding to the latest crackdown against dissidents
by Cuba's longtime leader, Fidel Castro.

"The graphic depiction of life outside will make Cubans realise that there
is an alternative way of living," says Mr Basulto.

As the US administration considers further action beyond this week's
expulsion of Cuban diplomats from Washington, administration officials have
been surprised by the Cuban-American community's reaction to suggested
tightening of the four-decade old economic embargo. Washington is expected
to announce on Tuesday, Cuba's national day, the results of a policy review
that could lead to a change in tack.

In the aftermath of Castro's imprisonment of 78 dissidents and execution of
three hijackers last month, US officials considered the suspension of direct
flights and a ban on dollar remittances by Cuban Americans to Cuba.

Some Cuban groups - such as the right-wing Cuban Liberty Council - are
pressing for such action, but other groups argue that remittances -
estimated at between $500m and $1bn per year - have helped sustain a growing
dissident movement on the island.

The Cuban-American National Foundation, the most significant Cuban lobbying
group, opposes measures that would cut contacts. "We have told them [the US
administration] not to over-react," says Joe García, the foundation's
executive director.

A US media offensive is not a new idea. But for years signals from TV
Marti - the station set up by the US during the Reagan administration - have
been nearly impossible to receive in Cuba.

Just under a year ago, President George W.Bush - on the last May 20 Cuban
independence day - promised a Cuban-American rally that the administration
would look "for ways to modernise Radio and TV Marti".

Last month, Mr Basulto stepped up pressure on the administration to boost
the signal when he showed it was feasible to broadcast into Cuba by doing so
from a low-power transmitter carried aboard a single engine aircraft.

Cuban-American leaders are confident that the administration is now
considering beaming in signals from the air, even though this might flout
international broadcasting rules or prompt Mr Castro to retaliate by
disrupting US radio and TV stations.

For a community where intransigence against Mr Castro has been seen to be a
matter of honour, this amounts to something of a revolution. Three factors
seem to have been decisive in prompting the change of heart. First, the long
2001 Cuban-American campaign to keep Elián González, the small Cuban boy,
out of the hands of his Cuba-based father proved unpopular in the US, and
prompted Cuban-Americans to rethink their approach.

Second, the campaign last year to collect signatures for the Varela
petition - a proposed referendum on civil liberties - has raised the profile
of the opposition to Mr Castro within Cuba itself. As Mr García puts it, the
growth of the opposition inside Cuba means that Cuban Americans now "have a
team to support on the field".

Initially, many Cuban-Americans regarded Oswaldo Payá, the main organiser of
the Varela petition, and other dissidents on the island with some suspicion,
mainly because of their willingness to work inside the system. Now
Cuban-Americans have come to realise "there's nothing wrong with helping
dissidents; there's nothing wrong with helping civil society," says Mr
García.

Recent Polls suggest Cuban-American support for the embargo is waning.
Neither younger Cuban Americans nor the waves of new migrants that have
arrived in the US since the mid-1990s regard sanctions as an article of
faith.

"The thinking of these people is that the embargo hasn't solved anything and
is keeping them away from their family," says Alfredo Durán, another Bay of
Pigs veteran who heads up the Cuba Committee for Democracy, a left-leaning
organisation.