Hollywood silent on crackdown in Cuba ***Compared with celebrity outcries over hunted whales, abused dogs, freedom for Tibet and the Iraq war, this spring's crackdown in Cuba generally is being ignored by Hollywood. After years of being charmed by Fidel Castro, prominent actors and directors have chosen to be quiet. There have been no entertainment industry rallies, vigils or full-page newspaper advertisements joining the global condemnation of the April sentencing of 75 Cuban dissidents to long prison terms and the summary executions of three ferry-boat hijackers seeking escape to the United States. ''There are many terrible issues. You make your choices,'' said movie director Robert Greenwald, who, with actor Mike Farrell, created last December's celebrity-heavy ''Artists United to Win Without War'' petition.***
Cuba: US Broadcasts a 'Provocation' in Already-Tense Relations - Platt Amendment***"As a special surprise by the Bush administration, kept like a big war secret," the transmission interrupted normal local TV programming in several Cuban provinces for two hours,
Granma reported Wednesday. Radio Martí also came on the air at several new frequencies, it added. A year ago, Bush promised the Cuban exile community in Miami that the power of Radio and TV Martí would be boosted in order for broadcasts to reach Cuba more successfully. But Tuesday's effort coincided with a new wave of blackouts in the Cuban capital and several provinces, blamed by officials at the state-run power company on breakdowns in two main generators. The power outages may have minimized the success of the U.S. broadcasts.
Radio and TV Martí, which were created in the 1980s to beam news and information to Cuba critical of the socialist government of Fidel Castro, are seen here as just one more example of Washington's continued aggression towards the island. Havana also rejects the celebration of May 20 as Cuban Independence Day, which is observed by Cuban exiles in the United States. On May 20, 1902 the Republic of Cuba was declared after three years of U.S. military intervention. Prior to its withdrawal, the United States inserted the Platt Amendment into the Cuban constitution, authorizing Washington to intervene in the country whenever it deemed necessary.
The White House special envoy for Latin America, Otto Reich, told the press that the transmission of a four-hour program Tuesday formed part of an "initial test phase which will be followed by others." With this gesture aimed at appeasing the most radical faction of the anti-Castro Cuban exile community, Bush limited his May 20 speech to expressing his "hope...for the Cuban people to soon enjoy the same freedoms and rights that we do." ***