Miami's Cuban Connection

Radio/TV Marti Face A Congressional Investigation

Congress early next year will investigate allegations of mismanagement and political cronyism at taxpayer-funded Radio and TV Martí, a ranking Democrat said Tuesday.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. -- slated to chair the oversight and investigations subcommittee for the House International Relations Committee -- said he will move to hold hearings on the Martís in late January or early February. His comments came a day after Radio Mambí, WAQI-AM (710), and Azteca América, WPMF-TV 38, each began carrying an hour of Martí programming daily for payment.

''This will be a priority,'' said Delahunt, who was in Cuba this week as part of a congressional delegation. ``There's mismanagement . . . that really demands a thorough review.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/16278442.htm

Radio and TV Marti to be Aired Locally

Taxpayer-funded TV and Radio Martí are spending $377,500 to air select programs on South Florida broadcast stations over the next six months, using loopholes in a law that prohibits the propaganda channels from distribution within the United States.

The deals appear to be the first of their kind between the Martís and private commercial stations with mostly U.S. audiences. The stations -- Univisión's Radio Mambí 710 AM and WPMF-TV 38, the Azteca América affiliate owned by TVC Broadcasting -- technically can reach Cuba.

The agreements come at a time when Fidel Castro, Cuba's longtime leader, is thought to be dying. The Cuban government jams Martí transmissions directly to the island, but experts said the signal from a South Florida AM radio station can get there, very clearly at night. And WPMF-TV, an over-the-air station, can be seen by Cubans with satellite dishes.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16270804.htm

Martis Still Dogged By Problems

Almost four years ago, an Inspector General's audit ripped TV and Radio Martí bosses for improper hiring practices. The director resigned under a barrage of criticism for cronyism and patronage. Programming needed an overhaul to curtail bias, a separate study concluded.

Miami's powerful Cuban-American congressional leaders looked to local lawyer Pedro Roig to turn the operation around.

Today, many of the problems that have dogged the Martí broadcasters for two decades remain. A miniscule number of people in Cuba hear or see the broadcasts. The Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees the Martí operation, is once again beset by scandal -- a top executive was indicted last month on a kickback-for-contracts scheme.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16270587.htm

WLRN Interview on Radio and TV Marti

Click on the audio link for Ronda Victor's WLRN interview with me for the Marti stories:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16263845.htm

Unheard Messages: Radio and TV Marti Struggle to Find Audience in Cuba

Inside a heavily guarded, three-story building in an industrial section of West Miami-Dade, Radio and TV Martí spent $37 million this year to crank out news and entertainment that few Cubans on the communist island ever hear or see.

U.S. funding has remained generous despite Cuba's persistent jamming of TV Martí signals, plummeting numbers of listeners for Radio Martí and two federal audits -- in 1999 and 2003 -- that found a repeated history of cronyism and ''inappropriate and inadequate'' hiring practices at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which oversees the operation.

OCB has spent $250 million in the past 10 years to reach Cuban listeners and viewers -- by far the largest expenditure per listener or viewer among U.S.-government financed broadcasts.

''As a taxpayer and as a government official, the money has not been well spent [on TV Martí],'' said Otto Reich, former Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, who stressed he supports Radio and TV Martí's mission because if the U.S. broadcasts could reach more Cubans, they could help spark Democratic change.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16263845.htm

Alleged Castro Agents to Plead Guilty

BY JAY WEAVER

jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

A Florida International University professor and his wife are expected to plead guilty on Tuesday to new charges that replace an indictment that had accused them of being unregistered Cuban agents, according to several sources familiar with the deal.

Longtime FIU academic Carlos Alvarez, 61, held in federal custody for almost one year, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to be an unregistered agent for the communist government of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, sources said.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16249998.htm

Chicago Tribune On Herald Controversy

Culture clash puts media in spotlight

Miami newspaper's handling of journalists with links to Marti shows 2 worldviews

By Andrew Zajac
Tribune national correspondent
Published December 14, 2006

MIAMI -- El Nuevo Herald, a Spanish-language newspaper published by the Miami Herald Media Co., triggered a community-wide furor in September when it fired two reporters and severed ties with a freelance writer for working part time for U.S. government-run Radio and TV Marti.

The journalists eventually were reinstated, but the dismissals and their aftermath laid bare a cultural dissonance between how journalism works in the U.S. and how some journalists from Latin America perceive their roles.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0612140144dec14,1,5857923.story

Chicago Tribune: Trouble At Radio/TV Marti

TRIBUNE SPECIAL REPORT

U.S. broadcast efforts in Cuba worth the cost?

Radio and TV Marti receive major taxpayer support but have a shrinking audience

By Andrew Zajac, Tribune national correspondent. Tribune foreign correspondent Gary Marx contributed to this report from Havana
Published December 14, 2006

MIAMI -- As Cuban President Fidel Castro battles serious illness and the nation he has ruled for more than four decades braces for change, the taxpayer-financed media outlets that the U.S. government counted on to communicate American values to Cuba find themselves invisible or ignored on the island.

After 20 years and more than $530 million, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting operates a radio station that by the U.S. government's own estimates has suffered a precipitous drop in listenership and a television station that may never have been seen by anyone in Cuba for more than a few minutes at a time.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0612140145dec14,1,6251140.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Cuba Facing Population Crisis

By MIAMI HERALD STAFF

cuba@MiamiHerald.com

• Cuba population statistics

HAVANA - Regla, a 38-year-old security guard, is precisely the type of married woman the Cuban government is worried about: She had a baby 17 years ago and called it quits.

Money is tight and so is housing, so she had an abortion each of the four more times she got pregnant. Her teen daughter terminated a pregnancy last year, too.

''With this economic situation, who can have more children?'' Regla said. ``We're in the special period that never ends. Abortions are free and have no stigma attached. Everybody does it. Everybody.''

Regla's attitude is not unusual. In a nation faced with chronic shortages of everything from housing to food, more and more women are choosing to have just one child -- or none at all. A country with one of the hemisphere's highest life expectancy rates and lowest birthrates finds itself with a dwindling population -- one that in just 13 years will see the number of retired people outnumber the labor force.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/16181571.htm

Exile Groups: Let Cubans Travel and Send Cash

An umbrella group of influential Cuban exile organizations has joined the growing chorus of Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits calling for the United States to ease restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba.

About two dozen exile organizations, speaking in unison under the umbrella group Consenso Cubano, or Cuban Consensus, will release a report today calling for the Bush administration to ease travel restrictions. The groups say U.S. policies that restrict Cubans from visiting family members and that limit remittances and other humanitarian aid ``violate fundamental rights of Cubans, damage the Cuban family, and constitute ethical contradictions.''

The announcement underscores a growing rift between hard-line exile leaders who want to preserve the sanctions, and more moderate Cuban Americans in Miami and dissidents in Cuba who feel that increasing interaction can help promote a peaceful transition to democracy.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16157915.htm