From: ez000281@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.culture.latin-america,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,misc.headlines
Subject: Re: CUBA: TV and U.S. "Embargo" vs "Blockade"
Date: 22 Aug 92 16:02:21 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

In <9208220245.AA16565@poly.math.cornell.edu> Harel quotes:

>Interview with Gail Reed
>Havana, June 10, 1992

>Gail Reed is a U.S. journalist and correspondent for the Pacifica News
                                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Network 
(i.e., the Berkeley flat earth socialists)

and for Radio Havana, Cuba, an international broadcast service
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I would put it this way:

and for Radio Havana, Cuba, an ex-international propaganda short wave radio 
staion which nobody listens to, under the direct control of the Cuban Communist 
Party and his Secretary General, Herr Castro.

[...]

Now that we have Ms. Reed's credentials we should expect to hear her party's 
line...

>SJR:  What is the quality of television news?

>Television is revamping its format.  There is a program, Hoy Mismos
>["Ourselves Today"], that starts a 7:30 at night and goes to about
>ten.  Don't be surprised if you see "Peter Jennings, ABC News."
>They've got CNN and Echo.  It's stuff taken from national and
>international sources.  

Of course, its carefully edited to make sure that nothing that might make the 
regime tremble apears live before the few Cubans who can afford a TV and still 
have electricity.  Perhaps that's why their revamping, no fuel, no energy, no 
cameras.  As they confess...

>But to overcome the economic problems and
>the blockade, it's not an easy job.
    ^^^^^^^^^^

What blockade? I see no destroyers impeding Mexican oil from being delivered.  
She must mean, the  embargo.  Its probably the paranoia from the Kennedy days 
what worries this daughter of Goebels.

>SJR: How does the Cuban press treat the Cuban American community?

>Reed: I think its treatment has changed a lot.  There's a lot more
>sophistication not only about Cubans in Miami, but in general about
>Cuban exiles abroad.  There used to be an approach that treated
>them monolithically.  You find now a much more vaired approach as
>it becomes clear to Cubans abroad themselves that they are not a
>monolithic community.  For example, this whole fight between the
>Miami Herald and Jorge Mas Canosa [leader of the right wing, Cuban-
>American Foundation] has been reported.  

What a joke!  Diversity in Reporting the Canosa quarrel with the Herald!! This 
plays right into the hands of Castros cruzade agains the Miami exiles.  I guess 
the next "variety" to be seen on Cuban television will be Daniel Ortegas 
memoirs or a Soap opera depicting Gorbachovs disastrous politics....


>There's still a lot to be
>learned here in Cuba about that community, in terms of generational
>differences, in terms of conceptions of the past, perspectives,
>etc.  But I think they're on the right road to understanding and
>reflecting it.

>SJR:  The U.S. media calls the policy an "embargo."  Why do you and
>the Cuban government call it a "blockade"?

>Reed:  The Cubans say its a blockade in violation of international
>law because it goes beyond limits on trade between the U.S. and
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Cuba.  

What limits on trade?  The U.S. can trade with whomever it wants, and is not 
obliged to trade with Cuba.  In what "international law" do they base this 
idiociy?  Perhaps it can be found in the Codex Lenin but it would be ridiculous 
to assume that the Hauge would confirm such ridiculous argument.

>Last year the Treasury Department got $40 million more than
>they asked for to enforce it.  It must be the single case where
>somebody got more money than they asked for out of Congress.
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^

Now we know with whom Castro is siding with ^

>So
>Treasury is rolling with money to go sniping at people all over the
>world.

>SJR:  For example?

>Reed:  The United States has said that it will not buy any steel
>that is manufactured with an ounce of Cuban nickel by European and
>Candian companies.  Cuba has the second largest nickel reserves in
>the world.  Another case is that of the pediatric heart center,
>which has been importing equipment from a Swedish firm for years.
>But it has just been prevented from importing a piece of equipment
>for the children's hospital because it has small filtering membrane
>patented in the United States.  With the blockade, anything that is
>sold to Cuba that has passed through U.S. hands or been
>manufactured with U.S. technology cannot be imported by Cuba.
>Economically, the challenge is to change the oil economy.  You can
>take almost everything else away, but you've got to have the oil.


If the beaurocrats of Cuban propaganda are so worried with the poor children 
from the Hospital all she has to do is go on her candle-lit tv broadcasts and 
say.

   "Mr. Castro, the people are suffering great at the expense of proving that 
your theory of maintaining a socialist system without popular support must come 
at any cost.  We ask you for the benefit of all Cubans to hold free democratic 
elections as in Nicaragua so that all worlds simpathy and that of the U.S. 
population comes to respect our goverments intention and the embargo comes to 
an end.  All we ask of you is a free chance to prove that we will bring 
democracy to Cuba.  Thank you."

Such a "liberal" petition shouldn't be a problem for the new "liberal" media 
witing Cuba.

Edelmiro  Salas
Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc,misc.headlines,alt.politics.elections,talk.environment,alt.save.the.earth,misc.jobs.misc,sci.econ