(AFP/File/Adalberto Roque) Cuba calls the broadcasts by TV Marti an attempt by the U.S. government and Cuban exiles to impose their political views.
Posted on 08/24/2003 3:52:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
(AFP/File/Adalberto Roque) Cuba calls the broadcasts by TV Marti an attempt by the U.S. government and Cuban exiles to impose their political views.
Castro said earlier efforts to thwart the Cuban government's jamming of TV Marti's signal have failed.
"Up to now, experience has shown that it has gone badly," Castro said Friday.
He commented on the new attempt by saying: "I read something about that and I was laughing. They are always inventing something."
The Miami-based Office of Cuba Broadcasting says that within days it will use a satellite located over the east Atlantic Ocean off the African coast to strengthen TV and Radio Marti signals.
TV Marti, which went on the air in 1990, broadcasts its signal from a balloon tethered to Cudjoe Key in Florida, about 20 miles east of Key West, Fla.
But because of Cuba's jamming of the signal, very few people on the island have ever seen TV Marti.
Only satellite dishes will be able to pick up the signal.
Although Cuba prohibits most ordinary citizens from having satellite dishes, as many as 20,000 families on this island of 11.2 million are estimated to have satellite antenna and reception equipment purchased illegally on the black market.
The government here has cracked down on the illegal dishes in recent months, seizing antenna and reception boxes brought in from Mexico and Miami.
The new American efforts to use satellite technology to broadcast to the island likely will result in increased enforcement against Cuban satellite-dish owners. Foreigners are allowed to have satellite dishes, but must purchase the service through a government agency.
The announcement about stepped-up broadcasting efforts comes amid criticism from Cuban-Americans that President Bush has not kept his election campaign promises to be tough on Castro's communist government.
Gen. Ruben Martinez Puente, who was then head of the Cuban air force, and pilots Lorenzo Alberto Perez-Perez and Francisco Perez-Perez were named in the indictment.
The charges against the men include murder, conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and destruction of aircraft. The penalties include up to life in prison or the death penalty.
Cuba's intent was "to terrorize the Cuban population" on the island and in Miami, U.S. Attorney Marcos Jimenez said at a news conference announcing the indictment. "These were defenseless U.S. nationals who were carrying out a humanitarian mission over international waters."
The planes of the group Brothers to the Rescue were shot down by two Cuban MiGs in Feb. 24, 1996, over international waters as three aircraft searched for migrant rafters trying to flee Cuba.
A third plane, carrying Brothers to the Rescue leader Jose Basulto and two observers, was not hit. On several flights before that day, members of the group had violated Cuba's airspace and dropped leaflets over the island supporting human rights.
Basulto called the indictment "a step in the right direction." Cuban-American activists have been lobbying for the indictment of Cuban President Fidel Castro in the attack.
"The fact that the indictment is taking place is a good measure because it's sending a signal to Cuba," Basulto said Thursday. "I expect the indictment of Castro takes place shortly because he's the one that ordered the shootdown and that is well-documented."
There was no immediate comment from the Cuban government about the indictment.
Some Cuban-Americans, including several Congress members and state lawmakers, have recently been critical of President Bush's administration for not taking a tougher stance against Castro. A group of 13 Florida state legislators told Bush in a letter that his steadfast support in the Cuban-American community could be endangered in the 2004 presidential election. Losing that support could be critical in carrying Florida, which Bush did by 537 votes in 2000, giving him the White House.
Spy ring chief Gerardo Hernandez is appealing his murder conspiracy conviction and life sentence in the deaths of the Miami-based fliers.
The spy ring conspired to lure the Brothers to the Rescue "aircraft into flying on the day of the shootdown by ensuring that the FBI would not stop the flights," Jimenez said in a statement.
The families of three of the slain fliers, Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa and Mario de la Pena, sued under the federal law and won $188 million in damages in 1997. In April 2000, a judge awarded them $38 million from frozen U.S. bank accounts belonging to Cuban telephone companies.
The family of the fourth man, Pablo Morales, could not sue because he was not a U.S. citizen.
The Cuban government has always maintained that the Cessna 337s were in Cuban airspace when they were shot down.
At the time, Havana said that the Miami group provoked the attack by repeatedly intruding on Cuban airspace for nearly two years and that the United States did little to respond to official Cuban protests.
An investigation by the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization later concluded the small planes were attacked in international airspace between Florida and Cuba, but within a Cuban-posted danger zone beyond its 12-mile territorial limits.
The Cuban MiG pilot told ICAO investigators that he made two warning passes in front of the Cessnas before downing them with missiles, but Cuban cockpit transcripts don't reflect any visual or radio warning. [End]
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Elian back in the clutches of communism.
Former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (R), Cuban boy Elian Gonzales and Reverend Lucius Walker of the U.S. sit together during a political rally at the former Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba, July 26, 2003. Today is the 50th anniversary of the assault on the military compound led by Fidel Castro that launched the revolution. REUTERS/Claudia Daut
Cuban President Fidel Castro is seen on TV during the graduation of medical students celebrated in the Karl Marx heatre on Wednesday August 13, 2003 in Havana, Cuba. Castro celebrates his 77th birthday today. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera)
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