Miami's Cuban Connection

UN: Cuba's Human Rights Situation Still Dismal

   GENEVA -- (AP) -- Cuba has failed to improve its human rights record, a U.N. expert said Monday, citing censorship, the imprisonment of political activists, and restrictions on rights campaigners as particular concerns.

   "The situation doesn't seem today to be anything that could be described as improved, and I'm putting it mildly," Christine Chanet told the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council.

   Cuba immediately slammed the report as libelous, and accused Chanet of double standards, selectivity, and political manipulation.

   Chanet, a French lawyer who reports to the council on a mandate carried over from the discontinued Human Rights Commission, said she had been hampered in her work by the Cuban authorities' refusal to cooperate with her.

   However, Chanet said that by working with other experts, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, her mission had been able to gather enough information to be able to make recommendations.

   These include stopping prosecution of opponents of the communist regime, lifting laws on freedom of expression and movement, and allowing rights organizations to enter and work in Cuba.

   Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Juan Fernandez Palacios, responded to the report by saying that the greatest contribution Chanet could make to human rights in the future would be to quit her post.

   He accused her of ignoring the effects of the U.S. embargo on the island state, saying the U.N. expert was "serving the interests of a fascist clique."

   In fact, Chanet had explicitly criticized in her report the ‘‘severe restrictions caused by a disastrous embargo, exacerbated in 2004 by unbearable restrictions on the movement of persons and goods."

   The United States has had economic sanctions against Cuba since President John F. Kennedy imposed them in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power.

   Chanet's report prompted strong criticism from the envoys of China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Belarus, Algeria, and Zimbabwe, all of whom accused the rights mission of double standards and called for the practice country-specific reports to be scrapped.

   Only the European Union, the United States and Vietnam thanked Chanet for her report, prompting Havana's envoy to retaliate by accusing the EU of helping maintain secret prisons for the CIA, and Washington of committing "barbarous acts'' at its detention center in Guantanamo.

   Both of which, said Palacios, precluded them from being able
to criticize the Castro regime.

Radio/TV Marti Director Calls for National Debate on Conflicts of Interest

Office of Cuba Broadcasting Director Pedro Roig, who oversees TV and Radio Martí, said Thursday that he runs his operation ethically and wants to start a national debate on whether journalists who work for news companies and also freelance for the government have a conflict of interest.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15578390.htm

Herald Publisher: A Free Press is Crucial

In order to have democracy, a country must enjoy freedom of the press. The past week has been painful for many in the Cuban community and for employees at The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. Many have questioned the motives behind the dismissal of two El Nuevo Herald reporters and a freelance writer who did a significant amount of work for us while simultaneously working for and being paid by Radio and TV Martí.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/15539355.htm

Ana Menendez on the Price of Silence

Here we go again.

One crisis and we Cubans set upon each other like a pack of rabid dogs, scratching and snarling to the amusement of the few outsiders who still give a damn about Cuba.

Forty-seven years and what have we learned? Our history demanded the difficult work of self-reflection. Instead, we've poured our many talents into the business of self-destruction.

Three journalists were fired from El Nuevo Herald. It was sad. They were fired too quickly and their bosses were left unscathed. Fine. Anywhere else it might have been just a controversial personnel issue. But no, here in Miami it becomes part of a worldwide communist conspiracy, complete with Castro agents, dark plots and wild accusations. Anyone who dares agree with the dismissals is not just wrong: he's a degenerate, communist puppet of the evil and malevolent prince of darkness.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/ana_menendez/15536684.htm

Citing a Conflict, Newspaper Yanks Reporter from VOA

After questions were raised about his being paid by the government, The Courant's Washington bureau chief will no longer appear as a panelist on the Voice of America.

As part of an arrangement approved by The Courant, Washington Bureau Chief David Lightman had appeared frequently on "Issues In the News," a weekly radio show on the U.S. government-sponsored Voice of America. For each appearance he received $100. According to the VOA's website, his most recent appearance was Sept. 3.

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-novoa.artsep16,0,6058269.story?track=rss

Ana Menendez: Don't Confuse Propaganda With Journalism

By ANA MENENDEZ, Miami Herald Columnist

Last week, two reporters and a freelancer were fired from El Nuevo Herald after The Miami Herald's Oscar Corral reported they were paid for pearances on Radio and TV Martí.

The dismissals have invigorated the opinion industry and subjected the people of this town to higher than usual doses of hypocrisy. The most amusing response comes, as usual, from Cuba, where the official press has been gloating about proof that the ''Miami Mafia'' and its journalists are  bought and paid for by the U.S. government. It would be a compelling argument, except for the fact that in Cuba, government hacks are the rule, not the exception. Of the small group of Cuban journalists who don't draw a government salary, many are, sadly, polishing their prose in jail.

The El Nuevo three were fired for entering into the sort of arrangement that defines journalism in a totalitarian state. Which brings us to more hypocrites: all the exile patriots who attack Corral for reporting the truth while simultaneously defending El Nuevo Herald's journalists for taking money from propagandists.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/ana_menendez/15504456.htm

Editorial: U.S. Only Hurts Itself by Paying Journalists

From Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Two weekend stories, tucked inside the nation's news pages amid a flood of news, analysis and features about the 9/11 anniversary, demonstrate once more how important it is for the U.S. government to act within the principles and values it espouses worldwide. Indeed, these seemingly unrelated stories -- one from Sudan, one from Miami -- show how mixing U.S. propaganda with journalism can have life or death impacts.

Let's start with Miami. Through a Freedom of Information request, the Miami Herald Media Co. learned that two of its journalists and a freelancer who wrote for its Spanish-language paper, El Nuevo Herald, were among 10 Miami journalists who have been paid by the U.S. government for doing broadcasts on Radio and TV Marti, American propaganda stations aimed at Cuban citizens. One was paid nearly $175,000 since 2001, the Herald reported.

The Herald immediately, and correctly, fired the staffers and severed its relationship with the freelancer. Any reporter should know that you can't do American-style journalism and government propaganda at the same time.

But what about the government's response? Pedro Roig, the director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and TV Marti, said he was "very satisfied" with the practice of hiring Cuban exile journalists as "contractors," and that it was each journalist's responsibility to follow his or her own ethics.

This response shows shortsighted, even dangerous thinking, because using mainstream journalists instead of government employees not only creates a journalistic conflict of interest but also furthers the too-common notion abroad that American reporters are actually CIA plants or otherwise working for the government.

Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who has frequently charged that some Miami journalists were paid by the U.S. government, questioned one of the newly unmasked TV Marti reporters to that effect just two months ago. At an appearance in Argentina, Miami Channel 41 TV reporter Juan Manuel Cao asked Castro a pointed question, and Castro yelled back, "Who pays you?" In fact, TV Marti paid Cao $11,000 this year.

It's hard to maintain the high ground when Fidel Castro is proven correct in his cynicism. That does concrete damage to both U.S. government credibility and that of mainstream media. But let's go to the related story of the weekend, one that had a very scary plot before its happy ending -- and one that shows a serious long-term effect of such practices. ..

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/670113.html

Fired Writer: The Herald Knew of U.S. Govt. Payments

A journalist whose freelance contract with El Nuevo Herald was severed last week says the newspaper's managers have known for years that she got paid by the U.S. government for Cuban cultural shows she hosted for Radio Martí. She said managers never made an issue of it before.

Freelance writer Olga Connor was among three well-known El Nuevo Herald writers -- the others were full-time reporters Pablo Alfonso and Wilfredo Cancio Isla -- who were dismissed or had their contracts severed Thursday for having violated the company's ethics policy for their work for Radio and TV Martí. The government-financed broadcasts are aimed at bringing news, information and entertainment to the communist island in an effort to undermine Fidel Castro's 47-year-old regime.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/15496237.htm

Journalist to Donate U.S. Pay to Charity

From Helen Aguirre Ferre, Diario Las Americas

A Sept. 8 Miami Herald article questioned the acceptance of a small honorarium for my appearances on TV Martí. I believed that the honorarium was appropriate as an expense stipend from a news organization and, therefore, did not consider it a conflict of interest to have accepted such payments.

Upon further reflection I realize, in light of the government's role in Radio and TV Martí, that the receipt of such payment may raise questions from members of our journalism community whom I respect and hold in high regard.

I do not wish for any action that I have taken to cast into question my journalistic integrity, although I know that my integrity and objectivity were, in fact, never compromised.

As such, I have decided to contribute the honorarium to La Liga Contra el Cáncer, which is dedicated to the care of patients for their treatment of cancer.

It is my desire to put this matter behind me as my conscience is clear that there is no price for my opinions.

HELEN AGUIRRE FERRE, Opinion page editor, Diario Las Américas, Miami

Carlos Alberto Montaner on U.S. Govt. Payments

From Carlos Alberto Montaner, syndicated columnist

I have learned, via the Internet in Madrid, that I have been included in a story over an alleged conflict of interest that involves local journalists in Miami who work for The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald and who simultaneously contribute to Radio-TV Martí. All of those people, to be sure, have a well-earned reputation for honesty and probity and would never sell their pens to anyone.

Why was my name included in that report? I don't live in Miami, and I don't work at The Miami Herald or El Nuevo Herald, nor am I subject to their regulations. I'm not even a free-lancer for these publications. The Herald, like 60 other publications in Europe, the United States and Latin America, among them some radio stations, buys my column from Firmas Press, the agency that distributes my writings.

Some years ago, Radio Martí, like any other communications outlet, became interested in my column and in the topics I analyze, and they hired me to do a 20-minute commentary by telephone once a week for Cuban listeners without access to a free press nor to my column that appears in the McClatchy newspapers. For those commentaries, they would pay $100, which is the official and obligatory stipulated amount of remuneration. This is almost a symbolic figure, well below the amount paid by others who publish the column. Of course, there wasn't the slightest condition or suggestion, and if there had been I wouldn't have accepted it. I would have, and I have, as much freedom as I exercise in my weekly column.

Contributing to breaking the boycott on information that exists in Cuba, far from being a conflict of interest, is the duty and responsibility of any Cuban journalist who truly loves liberty. To use the phrase of [TV reporter] Juan Manuel Cao, more than a conflict of interest, it is a coincidence of interests. Radio-TV Martí wants Cubans to be freely informed. So do I. Where's the problem?

The way in which the information was presented, as if some dark criminal plot had been uncovered, suggests that my honesty as a writer has been compromised by those commentaries I write for the Cuban people. That is something unfair, ludicrous, offensive and false, as if someone had claimed that my opinions on social and economic issues should not be taken into account because I have sold out to big money and the bankers.

Thank you for publishing this letter. I owe this explanation to my readers because my honesty and credibility, the basic elements of the profession to which I have devoted my life, have been unfairly called into question.

CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER, syndicated columnist, Firmas Press, Madrid, Spain