Cuba Condemns U.S. Broadcasts

HAVANA, Aug. 9 -- TV satellite dishes are a "germ-filled stew" that receive subversive propaganda, Communist officials told Cubans on Wednesday as Washington increased transmissions of its TV Marti channel to the island while President Fidel Castro recovers from surgery.

The Communist Party daily Granma also alluded to Miami news programs and talk shows that have been filled in recent days with speculation about Castro's health and the island's future. The shows are received on illegal dishes, highly popular here among those who can afford them.

"In the case of Cuba, a good part of the programming received this way has content that is destabilizing, interventionist, subversive and encourages, more and more, the carrying out of terrorist activities," Granma said.

The U.S. government this week scaled up transmissions by TV Marti, which features anti-Castro programming. TV Marti's stated objective is to break Cuba's "information blockade" by offering its own current affairs shows as alternatives to state television programming, the only thing Cubans receive if they don't have TV satellite dishes.

The government's attack on satellite dishes comes as Cubans' uncertainty over the health of the man who has ruled them for 47 years begins to ease.

State-run media on Wednesday ran messages of support for Castro, who turns 80 on Sunday. Youth organizations said on the front page of the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde: "We will fight and work harder every day to maintain and cultivate the values that the Revolution has sown in us."

About 150 medical workers gathered outside a major hospital on Wednesday to express support for Castro, who announced on July 31 that he was stepping aside temporarily, granting his powers to his brother Raúl as head of the government and the Communist Party so he could recover from intestinal surgery.

Neither brother has been seen in public since then. Details of Castro's condition, his ailment and the surgical procedure he underwent are being treated as a "state secret."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called Castro "the father of this continent's revolutionaries," and expressed confidence he would fully recover.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias said Wednesday that Cubans should decide who will rule the island once Fidel Castro is no longer in power.

"After 47 years, wouldn't it be more convenient to see what the Cuban people want?" asked Arias, who received the Nobel Peace Prize as president in 1987 for his work as a mediator in Central America's civil wars.

Cuban leaders were enraged that Miami-based TV Marti beefed up its transmissions over the weekend.