TV Mart
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
On July 29, El Nuevo Herald published an article titled "TV Martí draws criticism," in which the author, Havana-based AP reporter Laura Wides-Muñoz, said that "a draft report by the State Department" written in June said the use of an airplane to broadcast TV Martí into Cuba "is the best exercise" to overcome Cuban interference.
I won’t say that that practice violates existing international accords and agreements to which the United States is a signatory. For the past 46 years, the State Department or other government institutions may have written documents similar to the one quoted by the reporter. But there’s no need to look for them. Walking with a pebble in the shoe is more eloquent.
Back in 1959, when Cuba still had privately owned newspapers and radio and TV stations, the U.S. initiated broadcasts directed specifically at the Cuban people. Before then, such broadcasts did not exist.
But the ascent to power of a revolutionary process that effected basic social and economic changes required a different "informational" agenda.
For example, enacting the Agrarian Reform Law demanded "informative" answers that would safeguard the latifundio, or big estates. The law was contemplated in the 1940 Constitution but, because it was never implemented, no information was needed.
From Havana Read Spanish Version
TV Martí can be watched. The question is by whom and where.
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
(The Spanish version was published in Ramy’s blog, Aug. 12, 2007)
On July 29, El Nuevo Herald published an article titled "TV Martí draws criticism," in which the author, Havana-based AP reporter Laura Wides-Muñoz, said that "a draft report by the State Department" written in June said the use of an airplane to broadcast TV Martí into Cuba "is the best exercise" to overcome Cuban interference.
I won’t say that that practice violates existing international accords and agreements to which the United States is a signatory. For the past 46 years, the State Department or other government institutions may have written documents similar to the one quoted by the reporter. But there’s no need to look for them. Walking with a pebble in the shoe is more eloquent.
Back in 1959, when Cuba still had privately owned newspapers and radio and TV stations, the U.S. initiated broadcasts directed specifically at the Cuban people. Before then, such broadcasts did not exist.
But the ascent to power of a revolutionary process that effected basic social and economic changes required a different "informational" agenda.
For example, enacting the Agrarian Reform Law demanded "informative" answers that would safeguard the latifundio, or big estates. The law was contemplated in the 1940 Constitution but, because it was never implemented, no information was needed. Nor were any materials that might create an opinion favorable to the enactment of such a law. Silence was the equivalent of opinion: nothing about agrarian reform.
The dynamics of the confrontation of interests led the U.S. authorities to favor (directly or indirectly) radio broadcasts to Cuba for the purpose of "adequately" informing the island’s inhabitants.
It also began to create them. I cite one instance: the CIA established Radio Swan, which took the name of a desert island near Honduras that was covered with bat guano. Thus began the radio battle directed by CIA officials well trained in psychological war, such as David Atlee Phillips, who became chief of the CIA’s Western Hemisphere bureau and a person closely linked to terrorist activities and assassination plans in Cuba and elsewhere.
If we looked at the official documents of that period, we would surely find that someone described Radio Swan as "the best exercise" to defeat the Cubans.
Radio Swan was really something. It achieved an incredible miracle — it changed the geography of the city of Bayamo, which has no coastline, into a nonexistent landing in a port the city does not have. That’s how Radio Swan announced the failed invasion of Bay of Pigs (Girón Beach) in April 1961. A clear example of how veracity of information corresponds to specific needs, in this case, military operations.
I believe that, to any moderately objective observer, the broadcasts to the island began with a clear political-subversive commitment. In communications terms, this means providing biased information and half-truths, all of them shaken into a cocktail sprinkled with opinions. That’s how the program was born, and it has still not been baptized in a way that will redeem it from its original sin.
In terms of radio confrontation, the CIA made a leap in quality when it created Radio Martí in 1985 under an umbrella of government agencies. Later, a marvelous achievement: in 1992, it flew "Fat Albert," a tethered balloon, not on an island like Radio Swan, but on Cudjoe Key in South Florida, to take the so-called TV Martí into Cuba.
While the balloon was up, no TV Martí broadcasts were seen by Cubans, who were the intended targets of programs that sought to convince them to stage a popular rebellion against "the Castro regime."
In 2005, Hurricane George blew away the balloon, a favorable tragedy because it enabled the operation of a C-130 aircraft costing $10 million a year. (By then, operations had amounted to nearly $100 million. The cost apparently is not important, because it comes from the taxes paid by U.S. citizens.)
Now, the government is using TV Azteca to broadcast its programs at a cost of $20 million a year, also funded by U.S. taxpayers.
Are the broadcasts made through the C-130 or TV Azteca seen in Cuba? The AP article in El Nuevo Herald says that Cubans who arrived recently in Florida "stated that while the U.S. government’s Radio Martí is heard throughout the island, TV Martí is seen only rarely."
"I tuned in on a clear day, but even so I could barely see it," said Efraín Ramos, 56, who arrived in Florida on June 29 from Havana. "The islanders who don’t live in the capital have no access to TV Martí." Others who opine the same are Cubans who left the island barely a couple of months ago.
Some time ago, I wrote in my column, "From Havana," interviews with numerous people who live in areas where foreign TV stations can easily be seen. One of these areas is Havana East, a city on the seashore, barely 10 kilometers from the capital. After reading the Herald article, I went again to Havana East for other opinions.
"Here, the signal from Cuban channels frequently fades away and many channels from Miami and Florida come in. But I’ve never tuned in to TeleMartí," says Leovigildo, 45, an engineer, who lives in a fifth-floor apartment. His antenna is mounted on the balcony, as most others are.
"Sometimes we get Mexican TV, but the station that carries TV Martí I have never seen. Miami broadcasts, yes," he says. And he leads me to the apartments of other residents in the building and nearby homes. The answer is the same, although some, "out of curiosity," have tried unsuccessfully to tune in to TV Martí. "Not visible," answer 21 persons.
The opinions of those who arrive in Miami and those who live on the island coincide. However, there is an aspect that’s important to highlight: If Radio Martí can be heard clearly throughout the island, why does the U.S. Interests Section in Havana distribute radios especially tuned to Radio Martí? Could it be that there is a relationship of interests with the suppliers of those devices?
This is not an idle question. Business and Washington’s anti-Cuban policy have been closely linked.
About content, who sees it and where
The article points out that "several journalists, active and retired," as well as numerous "experts […] question the quality of the programming and the pyramidal style of management that punish […] the dissidents," adding that those people refused to give their names for fear of losing "their jobs." I must point out that those people live in the United States, not in Cuba.
In other words, not only are the programs not seen but they are also questioned by their makers, who are unhappy because the State Department released a survey done in January that allegedly showed an increase in the number of Cuban viewers who watched the programs.
Their doubts were based on the fact that the survey company is owned by Herb Levin, who "has often been hired to improve the programming." This man watches TV Martí through his wallet.
Another man who watched TV Martí with remarkable clarity is José "Chema" Miranda, former programming director for TV Martí. He recently admitted to accepting $112,000 in bribes from TV Perfect Image, a production company to whom he assigned programs in exchange for kickbacks. "Chema" received as much as 50 percent of the money TV Martí paid the production company.
But there are many more who watch that channel through their wallets and bank accounts, such as the dozens of journalists at El Nuevo Herald and TV channels who have received money for their contributions to Radio and/or TV Martí.
Our readers surely remember the scandal created by that practice, which was described in Miami as a lack of professional ethics. Oscar Corral, the journalist who uncovered the list of "contributors," was in fear of his life (See "I am not a communist," Progreso Weekly, Aug. 2-8)
Working for a government station, covering the same topics on which the reporters work in the private media, bespeaks a homogeneity of thought. That’s totally contrary to the diversity of opinions touted and demanded by journalists and "experts" who work in Radio and/or TV Martí.
We can extract several conclusions from the above. First, that TV Martí can be watched through the wallet or bank accounts. If someone doesn’t have such equipment, he will miss the juicy programs.
Second, that money and those sinecures ("botellas," in Cuba) emanating from the millions of dollars devoted to overthrowing Castro are part of the local political machine and the deals made through "benefits."
Third, somehow, the previous two observations have impacted Cubans and other Hispanics in Florida (Miami-Dade County in particular) so most of them are registering as independent voters. (1) That is the first step to creating a conglomerate that will give its vote to whoever really reflects the people’s interests, no matter what party they favor.
Manuel Alberto Ramy is Havana bureau chief of Radio Progreso Alternativa and editor of Progreso Semanal, the Spanish-language version of Progreso Weekly.
(1) Read in El Nuevo Herald for Sunday, Aug. 12: “Los Votantes Hispanos se Distancian de los Partidos”
<http://www.elnuevoherald.com/182/story/77302.html> (in Spanish)
<http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/200191.html> (in English)
