Government and Media Fantasies About Cuban Politics

[Judi Lynn]

Government and Media Fantasies About Cuban Politics
by Matt Peppe / April 13th, 2015


The historic meeting between President Barack Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba at the Summit of the Americas in Panama over the weekend could be interpreted as a stepping stone toward the end of U.S. subversion and economic warfare relentlessly carried out since the success of the Cuban revolution 55 years ago. But it is questionable whether President Obama intends to transform relations, treating the government of Cuba as a sovereign equal and recognizing their right to choose different political and economic models, or merely to continue the same decades-old policy with a more palatable sales pitch – the way he has done with drones and extrajudicial surveillance. U.S. media, however, appear to have fully embraced the propaganda line that Washington is acting in the best interests of the Cuban people to liberate them from political repression. The New York Times weighed in the day before the Summit by claiming that most Cubans identify not with the sociopolitical goals advanced by their country’s government, but rather with those supported by Washington.

In an editorial titled “Cuban Expectations in a New Era” (4/7/2015), the New York Times advances the proposition that engagement between the two governments will lead to Cuba’s integration (at least partially) into the global capitalist economy. This in turn will create increased financial prosperity as Cuba grows its private sector and turns away from the failed model the government has imposed since the start of the revolution.

The New York Times portrays the Cuban government as intransigent, stubbornly holding its citizens back from the inevitable progress that would result from aligning itself with Washington. The Times claims that the Cuban government maintains a “historically tight grip on Cuban society.”

They insinuate there is a Cuban version of the U.S.’s political police, the FBI, who for decades spied on nonviolent activists representing African Americans, Puerto Rican nationalists, the anti-war movement, animal rights and environmental groups to prevent social change through political action. Many of the activists illegally targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program still remain incarcerated as political prisoners. But the Times doesn’t mention any such Cuban equivalent, likely because none exists.

More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/government-and-media-fantasies-about-cuban-politics/

[flamingdem]

1. Historical blindspots or intentional blinders

Hard to tell the difference sometimes. At least the current leaders seem to have some respect for one another.

[geek tragedy]

2. It seems foolish to deny two things:

1) Cuba's socialist system is a tremendous system and extremely popular in Cuba. It's not perfect--no system ever is--but there's zero reason to think people want predatory capitalism;

2) that Cuba's political system is engineered to prevent and delegitimize any ideological dissent that causes discomfort for those currently in charge.

So, when this says that no monitoring of dissidents occurs within Cuba, that's blatant nonsense. Cuba is a surveillance society that relies on neighbors spying on and informing on one another rather than the NSA. Moreover, freedom of expression and information does not exist there--the government censors the internet--as well as making sure that no one can use the Internet without Big Brother watching every key stroke--as well as any broadcasting to make sure they're scrubbed of 'subversive' content and cracking down on those who do dissent.

[Judi Lynn]

3. The article addresses "spying" on dissidents:

They insinuate there is a Cuban version of the U.S.’s political police, the FBI, who for decades spied on nonviolent activists representing African Americans, Puerto Rican nationalists, the anti-war movement, animal rights and environmental groups to prevent social change through political action. Many of the activists illegally targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program still remain incarcerated as political prisoners. But the Times doesn’t mention any such Cuban equivalent, likely because none exists.

The New York Times argues that the Cuban dissidents attending sideline events at the Panama Summit deserve to have regional leaders “amplify their voices.” They claim that such dissidents “have struggled for years to be heard in their own country, where those critical of the Communist system have faced repression.”

There is no evidence presented that the dissidents have struggled in Cuba because they have been repressed, rather than having struggled because most of the population simply does not agree with their ideas or sympathize with them.

In a presumptuous attempt to delegitimize the Cuban government, the Times claims it is actually the dissident contra-revolution that represents the majority of the Cuban people: “The government will have to reckon with the fact that many of the dissidents’ aspirations are shared by most Cubans.”

Again, there is no evidence that this is actually the case anywhere other than in Washington’s fantasies. The dissidents’ aspirations are not even stated. One assumes this refers to the objective of repealing socialism and instituting capitalism, also the official policy of the U.S. government. Supporting changes to Cuba’s economy within the socialist structure is not a dissident position. Such changes and improvements are proposed and debated at all levels of Cuban politics, and have been openly embraced by Raúl Castro since he assumed the Presidency.

That the majority of the Cuban people share the dissidents’ political views is a bold claim. People familiar with Cuba have reached the opposite conclusion. Victor Rodriguez, a professor in the Ethnic Studies department of California State University Long Beach, recently returned from a visit to Cuba and had a different outlook.

“I spoke with at least 50 Cubans of all ages and walks of life,” he said. “Themes were that sovereignty, health care, and education are non-negotiable.” Rodriguez said that Cubans did have complaints about their system, with many stressing the need for higher salaries.

Unlike dissidents in the United States, who cannot start a political organization or journalistic enterprise without concerning themselves with how it will impact their ability to pay for health care, a mortgage, food for their family, and education, dissidents in Cuba do not have any of these worries. They enjoy a robust safety net that covers every single citizen, regardless of their view of the Cuban political system.

[geek tragedy]

4. this is really bad propaganda. While it's no doubt true that the dissidents' views are unpopular

in Cuba, it's also blatantly true that Cuba stifles any expression of dissent.

They don't even allow people to use the Internet unless they get a permission slip from the government. Cuba outsourced its internet spying technology to China.

http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rapport_gb_md_1.pdf

Cuba has a very, very long way to go before its people are as free of government censorship and surveillance as those in the United States are.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Many of us have known for MANY years RSF has a real thing for Cuba. Unbiased? Not exactly.

Bias claim against reporters' group

International body denies being part of 'neocon crusade'

Duncan Campbell
Thursday 19 May 2005 02.13 EDT

International body denies being part of 'neocon crusade'

The international journalists' organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has been accused of receiving money from the US state department and Cuban exile groups and of pursuing a political agenda.

The claims of political bias, published in a report in Washington this week, were denied by the group yesterday.

RSF was set up in France in 1979 by Robert Menard, who still heads the organisation. It monitors abuses of journalists and has offices throughout the world.

Its website highlights countries where journalists are killed, jailed or intimidated as a result of their work, and currently features stories on Uzbekistan, Gambia and Ukraine.

The attack on RSF came in reports published by the Washington-based non-profit organisation the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and the US Newspaper Guild journal. Both were written by journalist Diana Barahona.

She claimed that RSF was failing to follow the non-partisan example of Médecins sans Frontières - Doctors Without Borders - and suggested that it was part of a "neocon crusade against the Castro regime". The reports suggested that RSF had highlighted Cuba rather than countries that were more dangerous for journalists, such as Colombia.

Barahona also claimed RSF was "on the payroll of the US state department" and had received money from the Centre for a Free Cuba, an exile group. The reports suggested that Mr Menard had campaigned to have Cuban government accounts at European banks frozen in the same way as "the bank accounts of terrorists".

. . .

A spokesman for the National Union of Journalists in London said yesterday: "It is very dangerous when press freedom organisations get themselves politically compromised by accepting payment from any government. It is really vital that all such organisations are truly independent."

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/may/19/pressandpublishing.usnews

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Sourcewatch:

Funding Sources

Robert Menard, the Secretary General of RSF, was forced to confess that RSF's budget was primarily provided by "US organizations strictly linked with US foreign policy" (Thibodeau, La Presse).
NED (US$39,900 paid 14 Jan 2005)
Center for a Free Cuba (USAID and NED funded) $50,000 per year NED grant. Contract was signed by Otto Reich
European Union (1.2m Euro) -- currently contested in EU parliament
Rights & Democracy in 2004 supported Reporters Without Borders-Canada [1]

"Grants from private foundations (Open Society Foundation, Center for a Free Cuba, Fondation de France, National Endowment for Democracy) were slightly up, due to the Africa project funded by the NED and payment by Center for a Free Cuba for a reprint of the banned magazine De Cuba." [2]

Principal focus of RSF activities
Cuba
Venezuela
Haiti

. . .

Otto Reich connection

"The man who links RSF to these activities is Otto Reich, who worked on the coups first as assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, and, after Nov. 2002, as a special envoy to Latin America on the National Security Council. Besides being a trustee of the government-funded Center for a Free Cuba, which gives RSF $50,000 a year, Reich has worked since the early 1980's with the IRI.'s senior vice president, Georges Fauriol, another member of the Center for a Free Cuba. But it is Reich's experience in propaganda that is especially relevant." [4]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Reporters_Without_Borders#Otto_Reich_connection

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Wikipedia:

Criticisms of RWB[edit]

Otto Reich[edit]

Lucie Morillon, RWB's then-Washington representative, confirmed in an interview on 29 April 2005 that the organization had a contract with US State Department's Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere, Otto Reich, who signed it in his capacity as a trustee for the Center for a Free Cuba, to inform Europeans about the repression of journalists in Cuba.[74] CounterPunch, a critic of RWB, cited Reich's involvement with the group as a source of controversy: when Reich headed the Reagan administration's Office of Public Diplomacy in the 1980s, the body partook in what its officials termed "White Propaganda" – covert dissemination of information to influence domestic opinion regarding US backing for military campaigns against Left-wing governments in Latin America.[74]

Cuba[edit]

RWB has been highly critical of press freedom in Cuba, describing the Cuban government as "totalitarian", and engages in direct campaigning against it.[75] RWB's campaign includes declarations on radio and television, full-page ads in Parisian dailies, posters, leafletting at airports, and an April 2003 occupation of the Cuban tourism office in Paris.[74] A Paris court (tribunal de grande instance) ordered RWB to pay 6,000 Euros to the daughter and heir of Alberto Korda for non-compliance with a court order of 9 July 2003 banning it from using Korda's famous (and copyrighted) photograph of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in a beret, taken at the funeral of La Coubre victims. RWB said it was "relieved" it was not given a harsher sentence.[75][76] The face had been superimposed by RWB with that of a May 1968 CRS anti-riot police agent, and the postcard handed out at Orly Airport in Paris to tourists boarding on flights for Cuba. On 24 April 2003, RWB organized a demonstration outside the Cuban embassy in Paris[77]

RWB in turn has been described as an "ultra-reactionary" organization by the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma.[75] Tensions between Cuban authorities and RWB are high, particularly after the imprisonment in 2003 of 75 dissidents (27 journalists) by the Cuban Government, including Raúl Rivero and Óscar Elías Biscet. An article by John Cherian in the Indian magazine Frontline alleged that RWB "is reputed to have strong links with Western intelligence agencies" and "Cuba has accused Robert Meynard [sic] the head of the group, of having CIA links".[78]

RWB has denied that its campaigning on Cuba are related to payments it has received from anti-Castro organisations.[79] In 2004, it received $50,000 from the Miami based exile group, the Center for a Free Cuba, which was personally signed by the US State Department's Special Envoy to the Western Hemisphere, Otto Reich.[74] RWB has also received extensive funding from other institutions long critical of Fidel Castro's government, including the International Republican Institute.[80]

Journalist Salim Lamrani has accused Reporters Without Borders with making unsupported and contradictory statements regarding Internet connectivity in Cuba.[81]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders#Criticisms_of_RWB

[geek tragedy]

6. Just to be clear, are you arguing:

1) that Cuba does not have extreme restrictions on Internet freedom and privacy; or
2) that it's perfectly okay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with Cuba's extreme restrictions on Internet freedom and privacy?

Also, check out RSF's work on the United States and tell us whether they tow the US line.

http://en.rsf.org/united-states.html

An example:

http://en.rsf.org/etats-unis-domestic-reality-does-not-match-02-11-2011,41324.html