Cuba Condemns U.S. Broadcasts
Anti-Castro TV Programming Expanded Since Leader's Illness
A scene from "La Oficina del Jefe," which airs on Miami-based TV Marti. The station has increased its transmissions into Cuba from one day a week to six.
(By Alan Diaz -- Associated Press)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Thursday, August 10, 2006
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.
