By Deborah Hastings, .c The Associated Press
MIAMI, 21 (AP) - Next, the news. But first, a wish for the death of Fidel Castro.
Radio Mambi, WAQI-AM, is the largest Cuban-American station in Florida. It is also accused of being the most opinionated and insulting, militant even, but few dispute its power to galvanize and mobilize much of Little Havana.
There's not much that Radio Mambi won't embrace or deride. In the midst of the Elian Gonzalez maelstrom, it screams the loudest to keep him on American soil. It also plays upbeat jingles advocating Castro's death.
On Thursday, when news broke that Elian's grandmothers had obtained visas enabling them to travel from Cuba to America, news director Armando Perez-Roura lost no time taking aim.
``What I don't understand is how the grandmother of Elian acts so cold in interviews when she talks about her daughter, who not too long ago died in the ocean as tragic as she did,'' he told listeners.
Six-year-old Elian lost his mother in November, after their boat sank in the Florida Straits. Of 14 onboard, only Elian and two adults survived.
Since then, the boy has lived in a virtual fish bowl.
His great-uncle has refused to return him to Cuba, where his father waits. On Wednesday, attorneys for Elian's Miami relatives filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the Immigration and Naturalization Service from sending him home.
Meanwhile, the plight of a brown-eyed, brown-haired, little boy has become a national peep show.
Cameras flash when he goes to class. They flash again when he trudges home, pulling a school bag on wheels almost as tall as he is.
In the middle of it all is Radio Mambi and its 50,000 watts of power. Announcers recently helped push hundreds of Cubans into the streets, blocking traffic and paralyzing downtown Miami, all in the name of keeping Elian here.
If his grandmothers take him home, Perez-Roura said on the air Thursday, the Cuban government ``will use him. They will make him hate his mother. They will make him into a monster.''
Neither the station's rhetoric nor its influence goes unnoticed.
``Radio Mambi unabashedly, and proudly, gives news from a certain slant. And that is anti-Castro and anti-Cuba,'' said Dario Moreno, professor of political science at Florida International University.
``You are not listening to objective news in the U.S. tradition of journalism.''
The station has about 55,000 listeners, Perez-Roura said. Though its audience has declined in recent years, it remains the most popular Cuban radio station.
``They represent the most powerful segment of the community, and that's the political segment,'' Moreno said.
Francisco Aruca, a frequent critic of anti-Castro groups, calls Radio Mambi announcers ``fanatics.'' He favors returning Elian to Cuba and also is a talk-show host at two much smaller radio stations.
``These people are not fighting for Elian's welfare. They are fighting because they are neck-deep in a battle they didn't realize would be so difficult,'' Aruca said.
Perez-Roura makes no apologies: ``I live in a democracy where we have the right to speak our mind.''
Radio Mambi listeners are intensely loyal and unwilling to forget, particularly the revolution 40 years ago that put Castro and communism in charge in Cuba.
In Miami's Domino Park in Little Havana, old men slam green-and-white tiles on outdoor tables. Efrain Rodriguez, 72, believes every word spoken by Perez-Roura.
``The veins continue running with Cuban blood when I listen to Radio Mambi,'' he said.
What about criticism that the station is biased and incendiary?
``I don't think they push people, they are just transmitting information on what is going on,'' he said. ``It has nothing to do with Fidel being bad, bad, bad. That is the obvious.
Thursday evening, callers were eager to air their opinions of Elian's grandmothers, even though both women are strangers.
``If those grandmothers really loved him, they would let him stay,'' said one caller.
``If they take the child they will have to kill all of us old people who are going to throw ourselves into the street,'' said another.
Don't be fooled by the hyperbole. Radio Mambi does not represent all of Dade County's 780,000 Cuban-Americans.
``But when a crisis hits,'' Moreno said, ``we all listen to it.''
EDITOR'S NOTE - Associated Press writer Diana Melo contributed to this story.
AP-NY-01-21-00 0220EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |