HAVANA, January 25 (Oswaldo de Céspedes, CPI) - Three members of the Rapid Response Brigades went up on the roof of the house of María Cristina Silverio Sánchez, took down her UHF antenna, threw it on the floor, and after destroying it, confiscated it.
The three paramilitaries, two men and a woman, were traveling in a truck belonging to the Cuban Telephone Company (ETECSA) along with several police ready to arrest those who resisted the confiscation of the TV antennas.
Faced with the need of obtaining information and of evading the saturation coverage in the national media of the Elián González case, Cubans have taken to antennas that can pull in foreign channels and movies recorded on cassette, rented by clandestine rental agents at five pesos
per movie. The government has reacted to this situation by issuing a call against "ideological diversionism," and taking measures against any elements that draw attention away from the official programming, confiscating parabolic antennas and the stock of video tape rental outlets, stating
these are spreading violence, vice and pornography, not in accordance with a socialist society.
Pedro Castro Ponce de León, vice president of the Liga Cívica Martiana, explained that this has been going on since December, and only reflects the intolerance of an obsolete system that manipulates information as a means of misinforming the people.
Ponce de León added: "Undoubtedly, channels 23 and 51 out of Miami by now have a wider audience than the domestic channels, and there anyone can see the truth about Cubans in exile, about capitalist society and about international politics, which the regime wants to cover up at any
cost.
People are tired by now of speeches by Castro, (National Assembly President) Alarcón, (Foreign Minister) Pérez Roque and Communist Party spokesmen.
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