Associated Press claims debit card controlled by company run by Castro's military is "popular." Not exactly true.

Company card, with fees, for a store that marks up prices is not popular but a bitter necessity pushed on Cubans by the Castro regime to take more of their hard currency.  

The Associated Press (AP) long ago jumped the shark on its Cuba coverage, but it still continues to surprise. On September 28th Andrea Rodriguez of the AP made the claim that "a debit card backed by remittances" had "recently became popular in Cuba because people can use it to buy home appliances, food and replacement parts." When other options are chocked off by the communist bureaucracy does not make what remains popular, but the only alternative.

American International Service (AIS) cards are produced by AIS, a company registered in Panama,  but controlled by Fincimex, one of the companies in the Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A., or better known by its acronym GAESA.  

They receive transfer fees through AIS and FINCIMEX and keep the hard currency while dispensing local currency that has no value outside Cuba, or issues debit cards loaded with international currency for accounts it alone controls. For example if you transfer 100 Euros then you pay a "transfer fee" of 7.50 Euros.  GAESA is a conglomerate of the Castro regime's military that is able to funnel those funds into maintaining the repressive apparatus on the island, or also use it for repressive forces in Venezuela that have been training Maduro's military and security forces in psychological and physical torture techniques.

This reality is left out of the AP's reporting, but also everyday Cubans are also getting a raw deal.

Like a company store, the state owned, or more often and accurately termed "military owned stores" mark up prices on badly needed products, but have no competition. In the Miami Herald  Emilio Morales, president of The Havana Consulting Group, reports that "the Cuban military, which controls remittances, the tourism industry, and several chain stores, has benefited from remittances to the island, appropriating nearly 74 percent of every dollar sent by the Cuban exiles. Morales, who has been tracking the money sent to Cuba over the years, estimates that since 1993, Cuba has received around $46.8 billion in remittances. Almost $20 billion passed through the hands of the Cuban military."

The AIS cards are the latest manifestation of the Castro dictatorship's desire to vacuum up hard currency in Cuba, and leave Cubans with worthless paper and products that they have had to purchase at an exorbitant price.

U.S. sanctions placed on FINCIMEX to restrict hard currency to the Castro regime's repressive apparatus is a positive step, and at a time when the dictatorship is in need of hard currency, it has proven to be more flexible in its policies due to external pressure. It is a nonviolent tactic and can fit within an overall strategic nonviolent approach.

The AP has ignored this pattern of government behavior that stretches back decades that demonstrates when pressured, despite the hostile rhetoric, the dictatorship seeks accommodation to relieve pressure and survive.

It has also ignored how appeasing Havana time and time again cost lives, not only in Cuba, but also the United States.

Fact checking the AP for errors of omission on 21 US diplomats harmed in Cuba

What was left unsaid about the mystery in Cuba.

Fact checking the Associated Press for errors of omission

 
The Associated Press (AP) has released a remarkable article today titled "Cuba mystery grows: New details on what befell US diplomats" on what they described as the "least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery."  The AP story then quotes Fulton Armstong, without providing any context into his background beyond "a former CIA official who served in Havana long before America re-opened an embassy there" who went on to claim that there was no "reasonable explanation" and that it was "just mystery after mystery after mystery."  This ignores a long history of harassment and violence against diplomats over the years, including during prior efforts of normalizing relations not to mention outlaw international behavior. The question that arises is how could someone who was in the CIA get the Castro regime so wrong?

What the AP forgot to mention
 
Fulton Armstrong, a harsh critic of U.S. pro-democracy programs suspected of leaking and spinning information to the Associated Press to compromise them was also a close confidante of Ana Belen Montes, a long time agent of  the Castro regime at the Pentagon. Mr. Armstrong has sought to undermine USAID's pro-democracy programs in Cuba and was caught red handed in 2014 fabricating information with a pro-regime spin. U.S. spy catcher Chris Simmons offered the following assessment at the time on his blog:

Armstrong is well-known for consistently minimizing Cuba’s ability to threaten U.S. interests and its continued support to terrorists. In one interview, Scott Carmichael – the senior Counterintelligence investigator for the Defense Intelligence Agency – said Montes was “on a first name basis” with the Armstrong. In fact, Montes and Armstrong confided in one another by phone into the final stages of her investigation.

There has been a decades long obsession in the U.S. establishment to cozy up to the Castro regime that achieved its first concrete achievements in 1977 during the Carter Administration, followed later on in 1993 during the Clinton Administration, and finally full normalization during the Obama Administration in 2014 despite numerous setbacks against U.S. national security. Fulton Armstrong, a former staffer to Senator John Kerry, has been an advocate for these efforts.

 The Associate Press has a pattern that stretches back years of publishing pro-Castro regime spin and self-censorship while at the same time seeking to minimize and marginalize Cuban democrats. In 2014 Yoani Sánchez  warned foreign news agencies of this practice: "Caution foreign news agencies! Your representatives in these lands are always in danger of becoming hostages, first, and then collaborators of the rulers." Sadly the Associated Press has not only been guilty of this in Cuba, but today in North Korea and and also in Nazi Germany until 1941.

Readers beware if you want to get spin free news on Cuba go elsewhere or read the AP articles with the same caution and skepticism that you read Castro regime publications.

Dangerous Spin: AP reporting Cuba official propaganda on Zika as news

Reason for concern: Cuba has a poor record on timely reporting of epidemics due to politicized healthcare claims

Soldier carries fumigating machine into a Havana home (AP/Desmond Boylan)

The Associated Press not only engages in self-censorship to maintain their Havana bureau but also continues to report Castro regime propaganda as news. This is nothing new but the latest episode on September 2, 2016 "Cuba reports remarkable success in containing Zika virus" should raise concerns for perspective travelers to Cuba because it contains numerous claims about the Zika virus by Cuban officials.

"Six months after President Raul Castro declared war on the Zika virus in Cuba, a militarized nationwide campaign of intensive mosquito spraying, monitoring and quarantine appears to be working.
Cuba is among the few countries in the Western Hemisphere that have so far prevented significant spread of the disease blamed for birth defects in thousands of children. Only three people have caught Zika in Cuba. Thirty have been diagnosed with cases of the virus they got outside the island, according to Cuban officials.
Many are now watching to see whether Cuba is able to maintain control of Zika or will drop its guard and see widening infection like so many of its neighbors.

On August 25, 2016 this blog outlined a number of concerns arising from the reporting on Zika and Cuba and the possible danger it poses to travelers:

• Past aggressive responses hyped by the regime such as dengue by 1997 involved the arrest of at least one doctor for enemy propaganda who correctly warned of a Dengue outbreak sentenced him to eight years in prison then forced him into exile after an international outcry.  Eventually when the bodies started to pile up and it was no longer possible to cover up the epidemic the regime admitted they had a problem. 
• In 2012 a cholera outbreak went unreported at first and later was under reported. A Cuban independent journalist who broke the story on cholera spent months arbitrarily detained and was recognized as an Amnesty International prisoners of conscience.
•  With Zika the Castro regime can fall back on a tried and true method that it has also used to reduce infant mortality rates and that is the aggressive use of abortion, even without the mother's consent. The dictatorship will be able to cover up cases of microcephaly with abortions.

Consider that 3.5 million people visited Cuba in 2015 and tourism to the island in 2016 so far is 15 percent higher than last year. The crisis in Venezuela is impacting Cuba economically making tourism a priority source of hard income. In the past the regime has demonstrated a resistance to reporting or it has under-reported on the outbreaks of diseases in the island.

Shouldn't the Associated Press mention any of this in its unquestioning reporting of what Cuban officials are saying today about Zika? This may mean little for Cubans on the island, but the spread of the virus will pose a danger to tourists visiting the island who not being advised of the danger may return home as asymptomatic carriers of the virus spreading it in their country unknowingly.

However there is also a failure on reporting on how Cubans are being treated versus foreign visitors at healthcare facilities in Cuba.  Translating Cuba has a report from Juan Juan Almeida "Zika Reveals the True Character of the Cuban Health Service" on the differing treatment facilities and standards of care that should be newsworthy but goes unmentioned in AP's reporting. Cubans receive far inferior healthcare in their own country compared to treatment meted out to foreigners..

However, even foreigners have had nightmare experiences with Cuban healthcare. Not that the Associated Press will report on it.

Revealed: How Associated Press cooperated with the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in Cuba and North Korea

"[T]here is no distinguishing between good or better dictatorships; between left-wing or right-wing dictatorships; they are simply dictatorships." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas,“Fifty Years without Freedom” January 2, 2009

How AP news bureaus cooperated and continue to with totalitarian regimes

The desire to maintain a press bureau in a totalitarian regime on at least three occasions resulted in self-censorship and stories that advanced the dictatorship's official narrative at the time. The Guardian in Berlin reported on how this practice was carried out in Nazi Germany and the compromises made to maintain the news bureau open in the Third Reich until 1941 when the AP was kicked out of Germany with U.S. entry into WWII.

In an article published in academic journal Studies in Contemporary History , historian Harriet Scharnberg shows that AP was only able to retain its access by entering into a mutually beneficial two-way cooperation with the Nazi regime. The New York-based agency ceded control of its output by signing up to the so-called Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law), promising not to publish any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home”. This law required AP to hire reporters who also worked for the Nazi party’s propaganda division. One of the four photographers employed by the Associated Press in the 1930s, Franz Roth, was a member of the SS paramilitary unit’s propaganda division, whose photographs were personally chosen by Hitler.

In North Korea the pattern continues today and Donald Kirk in the 2013 article "The AP Plays Defense on North Korea" offers a detailed analysis of the AP news bureau in the Hermit kingdom:

Paul Colford, director of media relations for the Associated Press (AP), has the unenviable task of publicizing the AP’s bureau in Pyongyang, opened in January of last year with a reporter and photographer hired from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) comprising its local staff. While the AP boasts of having the first western news bureau in the North Korean capital, AP publicity does not acknowledge that the bureau operates under constraints that raise questions about whether it’s a real bureau. The lone North Korea reporter does not file often, and, when he does, generally confines himself to material from KCNA that’s already been quoted by the AP and others routinely monitoring KCNA in Seoul and Beijing. Jean Lee, the AP’s Korea bureau chief, based in Seoul, goes to Pyongyang via Beijing from time to time, but she’s not able to fly in and out whenever she pleases. Moreover, she has to be accompanied by a North Korean guide or minder when she ventures outside her hotel in search of news and features.[1] Under these difficult circumstances, Colford sometimes finds himself defending an operation whose coverage would appear at variance with the gutsy reporting that often distinguishes the AP in conflicts and crises elsewhere, including South Korea. Thus he fired off an indignant email to The Christian Science Monitor (The Monitor) protesting my story on February 4. At issue was a reference to “AP coverage from North Korea that scrupulously avoids such issues as the North’s human rights record or abuse of political prisoners.”[2]

In Cuba the pattern repeats itself with the Associated Press coverage on the Castro regime. Mike Gonzalez in his oped essay titled "Cubans still suffer, but media looks away" explained that coverage is skewed because journalists in Cuba have ample reason to fear being expelled having seen colleagues such as Chicago Tribune's Gary Marx, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs and Cesar Gonzalez-Calero of Mexico's El Universal all expelled in 2007 from Cuba for offering reporting that although bending over backwards not to offend still ran afoul of the regime.

However the Associated Press went further than other press agencies in reporting that: 1) Leaves out critical facts to advance lifting sanctions and providing credits to the dictatorship. 2) Describing common sense precautions by foreign based NGOs as a "clandestine operation" in language used by the regime while also engaging in the same practices themselves. 3) Consistently providing coverage that portrays the democratic opposition in a negative light repeating the Cuban dictatorship's talking points with the most recent example being on January 8, 2015. 4) Not providing context of the totalitarian nature of the regime and the "demonstrators" bussed in by the political police to attack pro-democracy activists on International Human Rights day.

Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez of Generation Y on August 12, 2014 warned: "Caution foreign news agencies! Your representatives in these lands are always in danger of becoming hostages, first, and then collaborators of the rulers." In a 2014 interview with Hank Tester, I told the NBC6 journalist that Associated Press reporting on Cuba "read like communist Cuban propaganda."

Andrea Rodríguez, the correspondent of the Associated Press in Cuba, is a worse case example of all the above practices and was challenged by the late Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas after one of her biased filled articles. On September 20, 2011 the Cuban human rights defender released the video he had made of his interview with Andrea Rodriguez because he believed that what he had told her was not fairly reflected in the article she had written. He provided a transcript along with the video of the interview and in it challenged the false narrative peddled by the Associated Press stating:

"Where in the world does a woman dressed in white walking down the street constitute a provocation? Only in a fascist-communist regime like this. Therefore the victim gets criticized because no one dares to criticize the executioner. There is a real “moral inversion,” in what the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, diplomats and politicians are doing against the people of Cuba and against the dissident right now. They judge the persecuted, the poor, those who are silenced, but they do not dare to judge the government. And what the government needs to be told is what we say in “the People’s Path”. Hold free elections; change the law so Cubans can express themselves, so they can choose. But what they want is to keep their privileges while they say that everything has been agreed upon. This joke will go very wrong because the people of Cuba are not stupid, and the majority are still poor and distressed. But the worst is that the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, and entire states are accompanying the Cuban government in setting up this fraud, this joke that will bring only confrontation and pain to Cubans, and that is keeping the majority of the Cuban people silent and gagged while this virtual scenario for change is being created."

Sadly, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was killed on July 22, 2012 and all the evidence points to an extrajudicial execution carried out by the Castro regime's security services. However on July 22, 2012, despite the misgivings of Oswaldo's family, the AP correspondent in Havana over twitter echoed the official position of the Castro regime.

These AP press bureaus in North Korea and Cuba are not centers of journalism because in order to remain open in these totalitarian dictatorships the bureaus have crossed a line. They have become propaganda outlets that cooperate with outlaw regimes who incidentally also cooperate with each other smuggling tons of heavy weapons.

Yoani Sanchez on how foreign press in Cuba can transition from hostages to collaborators

The controversy over the "reporting" of the Associated Press in Cuba has served as an opportunity to revisit the techniques and tactics of the Castro regime in muzzling foreign news agencies in Cuba. Yoani Sánchez's August 12, 2014 article offers an important insight by an independent journalist who lives in Cuba.

Big Brother stands as judge of journalistic “objectivity.” [The text says that CPI can temporarily or permanently cancel press credentials for “lack of journalistic ethics… or objectivity.’” Minrex is the Foreign Ministry]

Reporting is the Least of It

By Cuban independent journalist, Yoani Sánchez, in 14ymedio:

A few years ago I met a foreign correspondent based in Cuba who related an absurd and revealing anecdote. The International Press Center (CPI) had called him in to warn him about the content of an article. Receiving the summons didn’t surprise him, because warning calls like that were a common practice of this agency in charge of registering and controlling foreign journalists living on the Island. Nor could he refuse to appear, because he depended on the CPI for his credentials to report on a nature reserve and even to interview a government minister. So there it was.

The reporter arrived at the centrally located building on 23rd Street, where the CPI is headquartered, and was led to an office with two annoyed looking men. After bringing him coffee and talking about other things, they got to the point. They reproached the journalist for a report where he had referred to Cuba as “the communist Island.” This was a huge surprise to the correspondent because previous warnings he’d received were for “reporting only on the bad things about the Cuban reality,” or “not treating the leaders of the Revolution with respect.” But he never imagined that this time he would be scolded for the complete opposite.

But yes, the censors who minutely examine the cables written by foreign agencies had not been at all pleased with the use of the adjective “communist” to characterize our country. “But the Communist Party governs here, right?” asked the incredulous reporter. “Yes, but you know the word looks bad, it doesn’t help us,” responded the higher-ranking official. The man stood there in shock for a few seconds while trying to comprehend what they were saying to him and think of a response other than laughing.

The correspondent knew that annoying the CPI could bring more than just a slap on the wrist. Also in the hands of this institution is permission for foreign journalists to import a car, rent a house and—at that time—even to buy an air conditioner for their bedroom. The dilemma for the reporter was to give in and not write “the communist Island” any more, or to engage in conflict with the institution, where he had everything to lose.

The mechanisms of control over the foreign press go far beyond warning calls from the CPI. Should a correspondent get married on the Island, start a family in this land, his objectivity comes into doubt. The intelligence organs know how to pull the strings of fear to cause damage or pressure to a loved one. Thus, they manage to temper the level of criticism by these correspondents “settled” in Cuba. The perks are also an attractive carrot to keep them from touching on certain thorny issues in their articles.

I know one foreign journalist who, every time she writes a press release about the Cuban dissidence, adds a paragraph where she declares, “the Government considers this opposition to be created and paid from Washington”… But her texts lack the phrase she could add to give the readers another point view, briefly communicating, “the Cuban dissidence considers the Island’s government a totalitarian dictatorship that has not been subjected to scrutiny at the ballot box.” This way, those who consult the press release could draw their own conclusions. Sadly, the objective of correspondents like her is not to inform, but to impose an opinion framework that is as stereotyped as it is false.

Press agencies need to strengthen and carefully review their codes of ethics when dealing with Cuba. They should control the time their representatives spend on the Island, because as the long years pass here emotional bonds are created that the regime can use for blackmail and pressure. An objective examination—every now and again—wouldn’t be a bad thing, given the possible coercion and Stockholm Syndrome their employees might suffer. The credibly of an information giant sometimes depends on whether a new imported car, or a beautiful young Cuban partner, is valued more than a commitment to journalism.

Take care foreign press agencies! Your representatives in these parts are always in danger of becoming hostages, first, and then collaborators, of the ruling regime.

English translation courtesy of Translating Cuba.

AP in Cuba: When misreporting news becomes the news

Caution foreign news agencies! Your representatives in these lands are always in danger of becoming hostages, first, and then collaborators of the rulers. - Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, August 12, 2014

Associated Press in Cuba crossed the line on journalistic standards

 Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas,on September 20, 2011 videotaped his interview with Andrea Rodriguez of the Associated Press and released it because he believed that what he had told her was not fairly reflected in the article she had written.  In the interview he described how victims in Cuba are criticized because no one dare criticize the executioner and offered a critique that Ms. Rodriguez did not publish:

"There is a real “moral inversion,” in what the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, diplomats and politicians are doing against the people of Cuba and against the dissident right now. They judge the persecuted, the poor, those who are silenced, but they do not dare to judge the government."

Both in Cuba and North Korea the Associated Press has jumped the shark in its coverage becoming a pale imitation of its more formidable former self. It appears that the news agency has gone beyond self censorship of the news, to avoid being kicked out of these countries, into what amounts to biased reporting that is a violation of the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists which in broad strokes are: 1) Seek Truth and Report It. 2) Minimize Harm 3) Act Independently 4) Be Accountable.

The Inter American Press Association Report on Cuba in 2011 described the process whereby press agencies can cross the line into biased reporting through something akin to Stockholm syndrome:

The Cuban government wages a policy of the carrot and the stick against foreign correspondents accredited in Havana. If the correspondent becomes too raucous in his criticism, all sorts of problems are created for him until his presence in Havana turns into a torment, or else they denounce him in the official press to the point that he leaves the country. If, on the other hand, if he behaves nicely, they let him work and even facilitate contacts and interviews for him. This brings about permanent self-censorship and even reports with a touch of sympathy for the regime.

The Committee to Protect Journalists in a report that identified Cuba as the ninth most censored country in the world described how "Government supporters sometimes gather outside the homes of critical journalists to intimidate them. Officials grant visas to foreign journalists selectively."

Mike Gonzalez in an oped essay titled "Cubans still suffer, but media looks away" speculates on why the media remains silent as the Castro regime beats up on women and children attending mass and peacefully demanding that their loved ones be freed. They'd just been brutalized the day before on July 17, 2011 . He offers two possibilities: "they’re either so afraid of being expelled, or have so bought into the regime’s propaganda." Journalists in Cuba have ample reason to fear being expelled having seen colleagues such as Chicago Tribune's Gary Marx, the BBC's Stephen Gibbs and Cesar Gonzalez-Calero of Mexico's El Universal all expelled in 2007 from Cuba for offering reporting, that although bending over backwards not to offend, still ran afoul of the regime.  

Unfortunately, it appears Oswaldo Payá was extrajudicially executed by state security agents along with Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012. Since his death the moral inversion that he described in 2011 has expanded beyond Cubans and dissidents to endangering visitors by not reporting epidemics in a timely manner and now targeting and misrepresenting international human rights and pro-democracy activists visiting the island. The Associated Press, for example, has described common sense precautions as a "clandestine operation"  while also engaging in the same practices themselves.

In January of 2013 one had to learn about a Cholera epidemic by following the twitter feeds of independent activists and journalists in Cuba because the international press with news bureaus there preferred to remain silent in order to avoid being expelled from the island. The Cholera outbreak had reached Havana and the reason we knew it was thanks to independent journalists. Journalism in Cuba that seeks to report the truth independently and minimize harm become prisoners of conscience. Amnesty International described the circumstances under which one reporter was arrested:

Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias works for the unofficial news agency, Let’s Talk Press (Hablemos Press). He was arrested in Havana on 16 September 2012 by the Cuban Revolutionary Police (Policía Revolucionaria de Cuba) at José Martí International Airport in Havana. He had been investigating allegations that medicine provided by the World Health Organization to fight the cholera outbreak (which began in mid-2012) was being kept at the airport instead of being distributed.

The non-governmental organizations (ngos) targeted by the Associated Press in a "gotcha article" have pushed back and are criticizing the reporting. The Costa Rican NGO, FundaOGI, released a statement that criticized the twisted nature of the article calling it completely false:

"Information published by AP is distorted. Information was manipulated to try to make it look like FundaOGI had instructions of generating cultural and artistic activities to covertly achieve destabilizing ends, which is completely false. FundaOGI developed, artistic, educational, cultural, health and human rights activities for young people because it is part of its model of organizational performance.  Activities such as these FundaOGI has carried out not only in Cuba but in several countries, including Costa Rica. And the organization has done it simply because it is an efficient mechanism for working with youth, raising awareness on the issues of Human Rights, Environment, Collaborative Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship and helping them solve problems of their immediate context through social action and volunteerism."

The Washington Free Beacon quoted a second NGO targeted by the Associated Press in a August 8, 2014 article titled "Human Rights NGOs dispute AP report on Cuba Democracy Program":

The group’s members said they were not “spies” that sought to “destabilize” the Cuban government, and they accused the AP of publishing “false testimonies,” violating the anonymity of sources, and subjecting one of its members to “harassment.”

The Associated Press story went public on August 4, 2014 and four days later Felipe Cuevas, a Chilean student opposition leader, was detained in Venezuela accused of "trying to overthrow the government of Maduro." The reality of the situation was that he was visiting Venezuela to meet counterparts in political parties and attempted to attend the trials of imprisoned non-violent democratic opposition leaders. Thanks to a rapid mobilization in the social networks and the Chilean government's ambassador intervention the young man was released after being held more than 24 hours and was able to return to Chile.

Felipe Cuevas: First victim of AP's latest propaganda piece?

 This is not the first time that the Associated Press has engaged in reporting that misrepresents the facts on the ground and the objectives of the USAID program. Back in April 2014 the AP created another tempest in a teapot about Cuban twitter. More ominous was the distorted story they produced on Alan Gross, a U.S. citizen held hostage in Cuba since 2009 as a bargaining chip by the Cuban government to pressure the U.S. government to release a Cuban spy who had planned terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and was found guilty of a capital offense who is currently serving a life sentence.

Meanwhile, businessmen from Canada and Europe are rotting in Cuban prisons under questionable charges, but it also goes unreported by the foreign news bureaus in Cuba. Stephen Purvis spent 15 months in a Cuban prison and in a letter to the Economist in 2013 raised some interesting points:

 I spent time with a number of foreign businessmen arrested during 2011 and 2012 from a variety of countries, although representatives from Brazil, Venezuela and China were conspicuous in the absence. Very few of my fellow sufferers have been reported in the press and there are many more in the system than is widely known. As they are all still either waiting for charges, trial or sentencing they will certainly not be talking to the press. Whilst a few of them are being charged with corruption many are not and the accusations range from sabotage, damage to the economy, tax avoidance and illegal economic activity. It is absolutely clear that the war against corruption may be a convenient political banner to hide behind and one that foreign governments and press will support. But the reasons for actively and aggressively pursuing foreign business are far more complicated.  Why for example is the representative of Ericsson in jail for exactly the same activities as their Chinese competitor who is not? Why for example was one senior European engineer invited back to discuss a potential new project only to be arrested for paying technical workers five years ago when he was a temporary resident in Cuba?

This is not a story that the Associated Press and other news agencies in Havana are following because they dare not judge the Cuban government but prefer to be its lapdog targeting dissidents and human rights defenders while remaining silent before the systematic repression and violence of the dictatorship.

Eight decades ago Walter Duranty, an employee of the New York Times assisted in covering up the crimes of Josef Stalin. He was The New York Times's man in Moscow. To avoid being expelled from the Soviet Union, he regurgitated Stalinist propaganda and downplayed the atrocities taking place there. Duranty received the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and only decades later would the world finally learn the truth that more than 10 million people had died in a genocide in the Ukraine despite the efforts of the New York Times reporter in covering it up. Although Stalin's surviving victims sought to have the prize revoked, the Pulitzer Prize board refused to do it.
  
Today, with twitter, e-mail and the social networks it is more difficult for someone to get away with such an outrageous propaganda operation.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has made public a report that found that audiences are abandoning news outlets because of the decline in quality of coverage. Looking at the reporting done by the Associated Press in Cuba one begins to wonder why there is not an even larger decline.

Maleconazo at 20 years and the Associated Press

"Freedom did not come that August, but nothing would be the same."- Regis Iglesias, spokesperson, Christian Liberation Movement

On the Avenida del Puerto in Havana shouts of "Cuba Si, Castro No!"and "Freedom!"

 20 years ago today, a thousand Cubans marched through the streets of Havana chanting "Freedom!"and "Down With Castro!" They were met with brutal repression, including regime agents shooting at unarmed demonstrators. Little has been reported on this, but the images and sounds remain. After things were under control the dictator Fidel Castro appeared on the scene and opened the borders. Before that announcement fleeing refugees had confronted snipers and grenades. The end result was another mass exodus of Cubans.


It appears that the Associated Press for example has had other priorities than to report on this important anniversary and its significance for Cuba. Over the years numerous journalists have been expelled from the island for accurately reporting on the situation there but Andrea Rodríguez doesn't seem to have that problem with the Cuban dictatorship. For example the Associated Press didn't have time to report on the Maleconazo because it was on its third major "story" spinning news in a favorable light for the Cuban government that has met with skepticism in some quarters in Cuba.

Plainclothes state security agents with their guns out and pointed at the protesters on August 5

What happened?
Five hundred of the Cubans had arrived at the Havana sea wall (El Malecon) to board a launch that was rumored was going to be taken to Miami.  These people were not seeking to overthrow the dictatorship but did want to live in freedom. They were met by the Castro dictatorship's state security agents using force who told the crowd to disperse. Instead of diffusing the situation another 500 Cubans joined in and  they began to march along the Malecon chanting "Freedom!"and "Down With Castro! After marching for a kilometer, a hundred Special Brigade members and plain clothes police confronted the protesters. 

Police and plainclothes in Cuba detaining a demonstrator on August 5, 1994

 What is amazing is that 20 years later and the full details of what transpired remain unknown the pictures of regime officials pointing their handguns at the demonstrators combined with reports of the sounds of gun shots and wounded protesters have echoed down through the years in anecdotal stories about that day. 

Ignacio Martínez Montero: Present at Maleconazo

Eyewitness account  
The testimony of Ignacio Martínez Montero posted on la voz del morro allegedly gives a first hand account of what happened that day:

Then came the year 94 One hot August of that year's day, I'd arrived at my mother in laws home in Cuba and Chacón in the heart of Old Havana, near the Malecón, for that reason alone, after visiting my mother in law, I sat , like many, on the wall of the bay, very close to where still today the famous Casablanca launch travels in and out. That year was turbulent, constantly talking about boats diverted to Miami, and the tugboat. Maybe that's why the special brigade trucks arrived and attacked all of us who were sitting. 

Our response to this aggression was only to clamor for freedom. It has been said that we threw stones; but all that is a lie, the truth was that we were tired of so much aggression and without agreeing to we began to walk together screaming, Enough, Down with the revolution ... And before reaching Hotel Deauville, a battalion waited for us that attacked us with sticks and iron rods. It was they who made the big mess. They broke my left eyebrow and left me semi-lame. Yes, there were assaults and the aggressors had guns, but not among the civilians. One of the boys who went with us, who was called the Moor, even while handcuffed, they shot him in the torso and it was a miracle that he did not die. Who do you think paid for that? No one. 

They put us in a truck where they received us with beatings only to convince us to scream "Viva Fidel." They took us to the police station located at L and Malecon. Hours later I was taken to Calixto García hospital. There they attended to my foot and I treated the eyebrow wound; the medical certificate, never appeared. From there we boarded another bus and were taken to the prison 15/80, I could say "kidnapped" because nobody knew where we were. Some kids and nephews of my dad, who were with us, were released immediately. A boy could not take it and ended up hanged. No one learned of this; but we are many the witnesses who know what really happened that August 5th 1994, the day of Maleconazo.

Twenty years later and the Castro regime remains firmly in power terrorizing, beating, torturing and murdering nonviolent dissidents, but at the same time the dictatorship's state security apparatus has been extremely effective at using its agents of influence to downplay its brutal nature and distract international attention. For example on the 20th anniversary of the largest anti-Castro uprising in the past half century there were only two stories referencing the Havana uprising of August 5, 1994 and sixteen that mentioned the Maleconazo compared to 12,600 results for USAID and Cuba thanks to the Associated Press and its well timed release of this questionable story.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who it appears was extrajudicially executed by state security agents along with Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012 less than a year earlier on September 20, 2011 had videotaped his interview with Andrea Rodriguez of the Associated Press and released it because he believed that what he had told her was not fairly reflected in the article she had written.He provided a transcript along with the video below of the interview. It is still extremely relevant today. 

Oswaldo spoke truth to power while maintaining at all times his nonviolent and principled stand while denouncing those advocating a fraudulent change that did not empower Cubans in their own country and is demonstrated in the excerpt below:

"Where in the world does a woman dressed in white walking down the street constitute a provocation? Only in a fascist-communist regime like this.
Therefore the victim gets criticized because no one dares to criticize the executioner. There is a real “moral inversion,” in what the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, diplomats and politicians are doing against the people of Cuba and against the dissident right now. They judge the persecuted, the poor, those who are silenced, but they do not dare to judge the government. And what the government needs to be told is what we say in “the People’s Path”. Hold free elections; change the law so Cubans can express themselves, so they can choose. But what they want is to keep their privileges while they say that everything has been agreed upon. This joke will go very wrong because the people of Cuba are not stupid, and the majority are still poor and distressed.

But the worst is that the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, and entire states are accompanying the Cuban government in setting up this fraud, this joke that will bring only confrontation and pain to Cubans, and that is keeping the majority of the Cuban people silent and gagged while this virtual scenario for change is being created.

We are trying to draw attention to this but also demanding and saying that, after 52 years of totalitarianism, we want what all peoples want: freedom, rights, and free elections. The opposition is focusing on that direction: fundamental rights so citizens can organize and express themselves, and free elections."

 Today, as we observe this historic cry for freedom on the streets of Havana, Cuba that was heard around the world. We must remember that it was due to the courage of those who succeeded in video taping and photographing what took place and getting it out to the rest of the world. What is worrying is that 20 years later reporters preferring not to be expelled from the island might think twice before documenting and reporting on such an important story. Instead it is left to independent dissident journalists, who risk prison, to report on what is really happening including breaking the story on the first cholera epidemic since colonial times in Cuba. The independent journalist who broke the Cholera story was imprisoned for seven months and recognized as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

Twenty years later the spirit of freedom lives on in Cuba and one day Cubans will win back their country and their freedom from the dictatorship currently in power despite what the Associated Press reports.

Tempest in a Teapot: "Cuban Twitter"

When news reporting becomes the news

Unfortunately the Associated Press seems to have crossed a line from non-reporting of what the Castro regime does to human rights defenders and editing conversations with dissidents that seek to downplay their role in the struggle for Cubn freedom to producing an article with inaccuracies and an editorial slant in line with that of Castro's official news agency Granma.

In an interview with Hank Tester, John Suarez told the NBC6 journalist that the Associated Press report "read like communist Cuban propaganda" and that:

"It seems to be a tempest in a teapot. You had a project that was around for less than three years, maybe 2 and a few days which the purpose was to provide uncensored content to Cubans, providing avenues to express themselves is a positive thing that requires no apology."

While disagreeing with David Shipley at Bloomberg View on his views towards sanctions in Cuba, he does offer an excellent analysis of the "Cuban twitter" non-controversy: 

First, this was not some kind of super-spooky deal. Not many “covert operations” get reviewed by the Government Accountability Office: As it noted last year, the U.S.'s efforts to promote democracy in Cuba “have included a greater focus on information technology, particularly on supporting independent bloggers and developing social networking platforms.” The GAO found nothing unlawful about the program.
Promoting democracy and human rights is squarely in USAID’s bailiwick -- it's right there on its website, on a page titled "Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Strategy." The idea that USAID is some kind of vestal virgin dispensing surplus wheat and well pumps ignores the “U.S.” before the AID.
None of this is to say that humanitarian aid programs should be used as a cover for intelligence programs. What the Central Intelligence Agency did in Pakistan -- use a vaccination program to try to locate Osama bin Laden -- was outrageous and wrong. But USAID’s democracy assistance programs are designed to strengthen the ability of citizens to peacefully resist and undermine authoritarian and abusive governments. In Cuba -- which has an aggressive intelligence service that actually had an agent within USAID -- a certain amount of subterfuge is necessary for those programs to be effective and to protect their intended beneficiaries.
The biggest weakness of USAID's Cuba program was that the agency wasn't prepared for its success. When the messaging platform began growing beyond easy control, the agency's concerns about disclosure and cost led to its shutdown. Maybe the agency should have put some of those government lawyers to work creating a less ad hoc structure that would have provided stable financial support while maintaining a more formal arms-length separation from the U.S. government.

 Sad to see how far the Associated Press, in this article departed from its fundamental values and its "abhorrence of inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions."

Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas: I Say Freedom!

"We say that what you have to do is give the vote to the Cuban people." - Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas

Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas

The following is a response by opposition leader Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas to an Associated Press article that appeared on September 23, 2011 titled Cuba's opposition tries to plot fresh course. It coincides with a blog entry analyzing the same article by Cuban dissident blogger, Miriam Celaya, which is critical of the news bureaus based in Cuba. It appears that Paul Haven and Andrea Rodríguez hit a nerve. Oswaldo Paya's response is important and should be paid close attention because he is offering an overview of the situation in the island that is speaking truth to power. It is also implicitly and at times explicitly criticizing all who are too timid to speak out. Sadly, this appears to include some who should know better.

On September 20 the reporter, Andrea Rodriguez, of the Associated Press agency, visited me at my house for my opinion on the subject of the dissidence. During the conversation the journalist gave her own opinions and carried out five questions. Days later the AP published the information on the subject in which only appear a few references to sentences emitted by me in that conversation.

The conversation in my house was filmed with the consent of the visiting journalist with a camera of my family.

The subject is topical and important for the nonviolent opposition and for Cubans. I believe it is of interest to international public opinion. It is my right to publish my own opinions made on that occasion but the full extent to which the public can truly know and not just a micro sample as published by the Associated Press.

This written transcript and edited video made public only contains my words and not the questions and opinions of the journalist. Thank you very much. Speaking to you was Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas.

Edited Transcript:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: What you just said is the description of the doctrine of disqualifying the dissidents based on those alleged changes, it is as if the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa continued today, but it seems that it makes no sense.

Anyway, in order to answer the question of what the situation of the dissident movement is we need to talk about what the people’s current situation is. There is a majority of poor people who are increasingly poor, a majority of exploited people in a country where the monthly salary only buys you three meals and there is no chance to improvement

A Cuban citizen cannot enter and leave the country, cannot express himself freely in the street. Why do you talk as if there was no communism or the CDR and the state security services did not monitor citizens, or there was no syndicated or communist party in each work center and academic institution in order to control and threaten people, or there was no discrimination in the access to power based on political and ideological grounds? Can the Cuban people finally freely choose their leaders in elections where there are several candidates for congress or the government?

What are we talking about? Is Cuba already a democracy? People have not heard about that.

Have economic changes already taken place in Cuba? Which ones?

While the poor sell discs or fried food, the heirs of the regime who own luxurious restaurants and live in beautiful palaces. There is a subclass generated by the oligarchy and its members have no future.

Let’s talk about the prospects for the people of Cuba, who do not know what is going to happen with their oil or with the development of the strip of the Mariel, and their growing distress because nobody can make life plans.

Therefore, the dissident community, although silenced, although victims of many maneuvers against it in which many sectors participate to silence it, and say “you´re not worthy anymore”. There are political prisoners in Cuba; the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the sole reason of being the son of a MCL member. His name is Yosvany Melchor Rodriguez and he was artificially condemned in Santiago de Cuba on November 30, 2010, after his mother was threatened by state security forces for not wanting to cooperate against us.

Therefore, the culture of fear has not disappeared, the order of the absence of civil and political rights. What is the change we are talking about? So far there is a promise that people are going to be able to buy and sell cars, but that is only a promise. Who is going to be able to buy and sell cars? Those in the upper class, not the majority of people. They are selling a virtual reality as if it was real change, and that is fraud. It is outrageous.

In Pinochet’s Chile, even in Batista’s times we could buy and sell cars, maybe even in South Africa during apartheid.

What do they mean? That we cubanitos just need the promise, not the fact, that one day we will be able to buy and sell cars, sell fried food or discs? And they say that change has already started in Cuba.

Look, that’s a source of tensions, that’s a joke, a mega-fraud for the Cuban people. We, Cubans, have the right to have rights. Our movement, along with many other dissidents, launched “The People’s Path,” where we say that changes are rights and not “maneuvers” and rights mean changes in the law in order to guarantee freedom of expression, the right to travel, to own companies, to freely express opinions in the media; those rights that are being claimed in many countries around the world by the people and by the new generations.

And the right to free elections. Why are there not free elections?

What do they mean? Were these people born to be ruled for 52 years by Fidel Castro and now 50 more years by Raúl Castro, the new oligarchy and their descendants? That’s the source of inequality, the poverty of the majority, the separation of families, the anxiety and fear that the Cuban people suffer.

The people of Cuba are entitled to live in dignity and to build their own projects.

What are they going to tell us now?

Why the dissidents?

For this, look at Cuba and tell me if the dissident movement is necessary or not. That’s why they want to silence it, because we are the only ones who are radically demanding rights, freedom and free elections, in a context where everything is set up to hand Cuba out as a cake; to give it away and auction it to the new oligarchy, who says that you have to give a vote of confidence to Raúl Castro. We say that what you have to do is give the vote to the Cuban people.

We had never faced such danger, such outrage and humiliation, and that’s why the dissident movement makes sense.

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: That is a misconception, we do have a project. I think you can find the Varela Project in the AP files, and the Transitional Program must be in the AP files as well.

There is a plot to say that the opposition has no project. You received “the people’s path”. How can you say that we don’t have a project? We have a project, we have proposals, and we have proposed changes in the electoral law, in the law of associations. In “The people’s path” we proposed a national dialogue and a road map which signifies dialogue in a spirit of reconciliation and changes in the laws. For instance, the creation of an electoral commission constituted by representatives from the opposition, the government and the Church, and a similar commission to regulate and facilitate access to the media.

Yes, we do have a project, we do have proposals. You don’t see us more openly because they repress and persecute us. Give us 15 minutes on Mesa Redonda. Let’s have the foreign press in Cuba do this more often. Don't just take our opinion. Travel across Cuba and you will see how there are repressed activists, who are persecuted and beaten up. We are in the midst of fierce repression and it is very unfair to say that the dissident movement is invisible. The dissident movement is out there and people know it, they know it in every neighborhood, in every town, in the countryside.

There is tremendous interest in saying that there is no dissident movement, that it is fragmented, divided, that it has no program. But that is false.

That is what the government needs to sustain the idea of the conspiracy against the people of Cuba at this moment.

Now that the military oligarchy, with the complicity of most states—European, North American and from Latin America—decide to give a vote of confidence to Raúl Castro. That’s why the dissident movement is so bothered, because we are saying that which is radical, and that is: Cuba continues to be a state of “no rights”, a state where citizens’ dignity is not respected and where the poor have no voice even to say they are poor.

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: Are you sure that during the Chilean military dictatorship the dissident movement did not have air time on the Catholic radio? I know they did. Besides, there was a time when international society pressured the regime and was supportive as it has never been with Cuba. In Cuba, they are looking for justifications to disqualify the dissident movement.

First of all, there are not three ways. There is only one way, and that’s how we have established it in “The people’s path.” Those who demonstrate in the streets signed the “The People’s Path,” the most important bloggers also signed it. There are different styles, different dimensions but you cannot say they have no project, no.

Talk to José Daniel Ferrer Garcia, who is encouraging demonstrations in Santiago de Cuba with great courage. He does have a project and I know it well.

It is easy to say that they are a trail of people. But no, they are people who have the courage and the dignity to take to the streets at the expense of much suffering for his family. That’s why they are persecuted.

What do we need to ask ourselves is why are they beaten up?

Where in the world does a woman dressed in white walking down the street constitute a provocation? Only in a fascist-communist regime like this.

Therefore the victim gets criticized because no one dares to criticize the executioner. There is a real “moral inversion,” in what the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, diplomats and politicians are doing against the people of Cuba and against the dissident right now. They judge the persecuted, the poor, those who are silenced, but they do not dare to judge the government. And what the government needs to be told is what we say in “the People’s Path”. Hold free elections; change the law so Cubans can express themselves, so they can choose. But what they want is to keep their privileges while they say that everything has been agreed upon. This joke will go very wrong because the people of Cuba are not stupid, and the majority are still poor and distressed.

But the worst is that the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, and entire states are accompanying the Cuban government in setting up this fraud, this joke that will bring only confrontation and pain to Cubans, and that is keeping the majority of the Cuban people silent and gagged while this virtual scenario for change is being created.

We are trying to draw attention to this but also demanding and saying that, after 52 years of totalitarianism, we want what all peoples want: freedom, rights, and free elections. The opposition is focusing on that direction: fundamental rights so citizens can organize and express themselves, and free elections.

They are telling us that we don’t connect with the people. Who does connect with them? Let’s ask the people in a referendum.

And those 15 minutes on television or ten minutes on radio are indeed important, that’s why we don’t get them, because they are scared of the truth. And that’s not because we are ourselves the possessors of the truth, but the truth that the people want a different life and we want to tell everyone who has relations with Cuba (and I say this with great responsibility) that cooperating with this lie and fraud does not help Cubans, it just helps them sink.

Some people make comparisons with Libya and Egypt, and they wonder why Cubans do not go out on the streets. I will never call on Cubans to take to the streets because I am convinced that Cubans will never go out on the streets because someone tells them to do so, and I am convinced that the day they go out in the streets no one is going to put them back in their homes with fear or terror.

But while we are demanding people’s rights, we do not want intervention for Cuba; neither do we want to become a new Libya, nor allowing the slaughter of Cubans so they can then come and bomb and make a pact with a repressive general.

Look, we want this “people’s path,” which is peaceful, transparent, and addresses the root of the problem by providing the solution: let’s give Cubans rights and voice, let’s launch a national dialogue, let’s hold free elections. But let’s avoid the convergent roads that are communism, the mega-fraud, the lie and the outrage that the Cuban people are suffering while an oligarchy which are the new rich makes pacts with the rich of the world, and of the savage capitalism that will eventually lead to a confrontation because they are marginalizing and doing to the people of Cuba what they did in 1898. I am saying this passionately because that’s how I feel.

As a Cuban, I am not a tourist or someone who is living in a glass case, I eat in a workers’ canteen, I relate to doctors, nurses, patients. My coworkers, whom I love and I’m proud to work with, despite having the state security watching me. I walk down these streets with my colleagues and friends, my neighbors. I know how Cubans feel, and they want a new life, they want freedom, they want rights. Unfortunately, they can only think of getting out of Cuba, no matter how—as a missionary, collaborator, visitor, invitee or refugee. But why? Exile has always been a punishment to Cubans.

I am not going to make a speech, I’m just telling you that up until now we have suffered totalitarianism, but now we are suffering the biggest attempt of fraud in all this time, which is imposing an image of change without real rights. We will not allow it; we will continue to demand rights, even if they say that the dissident movement, the opposition, does not exist.

But we claim...

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: In the first place, the state security is a machine of terror against the citizens, you know what Cubans commonly call state security – place your ear – here comes the Gestapo, and this is a popular word, they know that I did not invent it, but in something it seems. State security is a factory of lies and it is ridiculous and in addition rather mediocre professionally, lying, catch a crook or agent, infiltrate him in the opposition, in independent journalism to tell lies, to sabotage civic work, for bad information and then to say that this is what the dissidence does.

They did not have nor wanted the delicacy to do this well, that’s to say that the actual state security invents an independent journalist and he is a liar under the guise of an independent journalist, the liar is state security two times over, for inventing the fake independent journalist and for making that journalist tell lies, this is what they are used to and this is what they do.

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: In the dissidence, a face, frankly none, not one because what they are saying is the weakness that the regime has, to be able to discredit us; they must invent figures, groups and situations that are not found naturally in the dissident movement.

It is a revelation of mediocrity, of falsehood and even more, immorality without shame. Why instead don’t we talk about the Varela Project and why not talk about the Heredia Project on television? Why do we not talk about the People’s Path? Why are we not permitted to explain to the citizens what we actually believe and want? I know, because the people when they read the Varela Project, when they read the Law of National Reconciliation and Against Discrimination, they will have the courage or not of signing it, additionally we respect them, but they say this is what should be, and until the revolutionaries say it, the soldiers say it, because the regime has trapped the whole country, they have trapped up to those who are ministers and generals and us with passion but with no class hatred and no hate of any class, with a very profound peace, we are saying to them, don’t act against history any longer, let the next generations have their own lives, have your own life, we forgive and look forward to build a new society, keeping that which is positive, but with free men and women.

They are infatuated arrogant people who in continuing to maintain the people as if they were their property, after having devoured the lives of three generations. Enough, enough, and I believe that this is a cry that is in the hearts of many Cubans, many Cubans that do not want Cuba to be a Libya, the majority, that don’t want an intervention, but that do not want to continue living like this, we want a new life, and listen to me, if we are looking for a word for this new life, I would say it is freedom!