BBC News Online May
28, 2001.
Cuban radio defiant 40 years on
Sunday, 27 May, 2001, 09:19 GMT 10:19 UK
A thorn in the side of its powerful neighbour and adversary, Radio Havana
Cuba recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.
According to the head of the Cuban parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, the
country's international radio station still maintains its "revolutionary
desire to change the world".
Mr Alarcon says it will continue to provide "a voice for all
dispossessed and downtrodden peoples" throughout the world.
Bay of Pigs
The station was born shortly after the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in
April 1961.
In an address at the funeral of victims of the failed, US-backed venture,
President Fidel Castro announced: "Do they believe they will be able to
hide it from the world?... No, Cuba already has a radio station which is
broadcasting to all Latin America... being heard by innumerable brothers and
sisters in Latin America and the world over."
Shortly afterwards, on 1 May 1961, Radio Havana Cuba began broadcasting in
Spanish and English for two hours daily.
Now it broadcasts 30 hours daily, having added French, Arabic, Creole,
Portuguese, the South American Indian languages of Quechua and Guarani, and
Esperanto to its original two languages.
Another source of US-Cuban tension
Radio Havana Cuba's output is a blend of national and foreign news, praising
the country's achievements with little or no criticism of its shortcomings while
taking an internationalist, often anti-US line in its reporting of world
affairs.
It is quick to highlight the shortcomings in its giant neighbour and
adversary to the north west. Much emphasis is placed on the economic and racial
inequalities in the United States. Much of its venom is reserved for the current
White House incumbent, George W. Bush.
A recent broadcast quoted Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque as saying that
"Cuba has outlived 10 US administrations.
"Felipe Perez Roque said Bush's incoherent and senseless anti-Cuba
speech last week was merely an effort to thank those in Florida for his
fraudulent electoral victory and to try and guarantee the re-election of his
brother, Jeb Bush, as governor of Florida," the radio said.
Hardly the type of language designed to win over the present White House
incumbent.
Tit for tat
The United States in turn targets Cuba with Radio and TV Marti, a
government-funded service which exhorts Cubans to rebel against the "repression
and human rights abuses" in the country and fight for a US-style democracy
- an unsubtle call for Cubans to overthrow the Castro government.
Station director Milagros Hernandez says her radio was founded "to let
the world know what was going on in Cuba and especially to broadcast to the poor
countries of the Third World", and there is as much need for that now as
ever.
Ms Hernandez says it aims "to disseminate the best of Cuban and Latin
American culture", particularly music and sports, and is planning to
improve programming, with more in-depth coverage of Third World issues,
especially on Africa.
BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and
translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the
internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages..
Cuban children teach Bush a lesson
Friday, 25 May, 2001, 22:55 GMT 23:55 UK
The authorities in Cuba have resorted to an unusual tactic in their campaign
against the United States.
They have recruited the nation's children to help teach President Bush about
Cuban history, after he misquoted the nineteenth-century Cuban independence
leader, Jose Marti.
Already more than 150,000 members of the Pioneers, the communist party's
children's movement, have penned letters to the White House.
A selection published in the Cuban press politely addressed Mr Bush as "Mr
President", or simply "Sir", and signed off with "A kiss and
an affectionate hug".
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service | 