Cuba

CUBA The ideological control of the flow of information in Cuba has increased dramatically in the past six months. So has the risk to Cubans and foreigners who dare to try to communicate or practice journalism. Human rights groups have stepped up their attempts to report on their activities and ideas and those of the government in Cuba and abroad. So have foreign correspondents. In response, the Cuban government has dramatically increased its persecution, vigilance and repression of all attempts to communicate ideas and information that deviate from absolute loyalty to the state. The rise in repression by the government of the alleged "clandestine press," and the arrest and detention of citizens for simply holding a press conference or distributing a document is of particular concern. So-called acts of repudiation by mobs manipulated by the Department of State Security of writers, intellectuals and journalists have also increased in recent times, simply because of writings or declarations that annoyed the state. A dozen or so intellectuals and writers have lost their jobs in retaliation for their declarations. ExpulSions of foreign correspondents whose work has displeased the government have also increased. The Cuban government, which runs the country's magazines, newspapers, television and radio, has also stepped up the use of its media to attack and insult intellectuals and writers who have spread anti-government reports. The following is a reverse chronological summary of inCidents of open repression against journalists and writers in the last six months: On October 9 and 10, 13 writers and intellectuals were arrested at dawn in Havana. They are: Reinaldo Betancourt Alvarez, Raul Cobas Paradella, Anibal Cruz, Uizaro Loreto Perea, Jorge Julian Reyes and Ram6n ROdriguez, of the Association of Defenders of Political Rights (ADEPO); Jorge Quintana, of the Followers of Mella organization; Eduardo Cuartas, Juan Gualberto Fernandez, Manuel de Jesus Leyva and Omar López Montenegro, of the Association in Favor of Free Art (APAL); and Fernando Nunez. Maria Celina Rodriguez, who was arrested along with the men, was freed October 10 after being held for several hours. The others were charged. The Interior Ministry said Reinaldo Betancourt Alvarez, Anibal Cruz and Jorge Julian Reyes are accused of "illegal association," "clandestine press" and "inciting the commission of crimes." Lazaro Loreto Perea, Luis Alberto Santos and Ram6n Rodriguez in addition were accused of showing "contempt for the president of the state council". The charges against the rest have not been made public. These arrests and accusations are in retaliation for participation in a press conference October 7 in Havana at the home of Elizardo Sanchez Santacruz, president of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, who, together with two of his colleagues, received the IAPA Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Award last year. During the press conference, pamphlets were distributed addressed to Cuban Communist Party Congress delegates, asking for constitutional reforms and establishment of measures in favor of human rights and democratization in Cuba. Forty-five foreign correspondents, as well as a Swedish and a U.S. diplomat, attended the press conference. Pita Santos was specifically arrested for distributing the declaration of Democratic Coordination Group on trains which transported party delegates from Havana to Santiago de Cuba. On October 10, the day of the inauguration of the Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress, three Spanish foreign correspondents were expelled from the country on the grounds that they had tourist visas instead of work visas. Joaquin Ibarz of La Vanguardia of Barcelona, who had been to Cuba as a journalist 20 times, became the first Spanish journalist ever to be expelled from Cuba. But he was not the last. Fernando Orgambides of El Pais of Madrid was also expelled. Hector Algiles, a Cuban Foreign Ministry official, said three Spaniards were expelled, but did not identify the third. Spanish Embassy representative Ignacio Ruperez protested the expulsions to the Cuban government, calling the move unfair and stressing jounralists' seriousness and objectivity. On September 23, eight members of the Cuban Democratic Coalition were arrested by Havana police at the home of Omar del Pozo, where they were waiting to participate in a telephone interview with Radio Marti, the Voice of America, and the Cuban American National Foundation radio station. Ernesto Arteaga, Angela Herrera, Manuel de Jesiis Leyva, Omar L6pez Montenegro, Fausto Marti, Pablo Reyes, Gregorio Rueda Claro and Pozo himself were held 24 hours in the 10th district police station on Acosta Avenue in Havana and then released without charges. The radio interviews never took place. On September 6, two Cuban American journalists, Josefina Oosie) Goytisolo and Sergio López Miró, were beaten and attacked both physically and verbally when they tried to film and report on a demonstration by dissidents in front of the Department of State Security in Havana. Goytisolo, an independenttelevision journalist and producer, and López-Miró, of the U.S. television station Telemundo, have written. extensively about the incident. Goytisolo published an article in The Miami Herald and López-Miró in The Wall Street Journal. Both attended the demonstration and when they arrived with video cameras, they identified themselves to state security personel as journalists from the United States with permission to report, since they were participating in a government conference for CubanAmerican journalists. However, a few minutes later, members of the so-called "quick response brigade," - actually street mobs controlled by state security - attacked the journalists. López-Miró said, "They kicked us and beat us over the head; they pushed us; they broke our cameras, and when we managed to get inside a taxi, they began to beat on the taxi until we were forced to get out. They called us by the worst names possible. It was something incredible, horrible." On July 19, writer Roberto Luque Escalona, whose book on Fidel Castro was published in Mexico last year, was expelled from his home after more than 1 00 people demonstrated in front of the house in a so-called act of repudiation. Luque Escalona was in his fourth day of a hunger strike protesting the Pan American Games being held in Cuba and the presence of Fidel Castro at the Guadalajara, Mexico, summit. He was arrested when he began yelling slogans anti-government from the window of his house, in response to the cries and denunciations of the demonstrators. He is being held by the police and reported to be in poor health. On June 25, Yndamiro Restano, vice president of the Association of Independent Journalists of Cuba, was attacked by two men while a third looked on. The assault took place near the courtroom where the trial of two doctors accused of conspiracy to assassinate Fidel Castro was being held. Restano, who had tried to observe and report on the trial, had just left the courtroom. The attack took place in broad daylight on a busy Havana street in the Vedado district. Five days later, on June 30, Restano was arrested, along with 10 members ofthe Harmonic Movement organization. Several issues of La Opini6n newspaper, which had been published but not distributed, were confiscated. Restano had intended to launch the newspaper for clandestine distribution. Those arrested were released 36 hours later after signing documents called "official warnings." Six of those arrested with Restano lost their jobs a few days later in retaliation for their political involvement, and have been unable to find other employment. Those fired were Rafael Gutierrez and Alfredo Gonzalez, who lost their jobs in the Central Workers Union of Cuba, as members of the Merchant Marine and Ports Syndicate. Gonzalez was attacked while leaving a mass in Las Mercedes church, and was detained for his own "protection." Manuel Manrique and Lazaro Cuesta Collazo were also fired from their posts in the Merchant Marine Syndicate. Writer Marta Lago was dismissed from the information department of the Communist Youth Union. Rómulo Michelena lost his job as administrator of La Palma Recreational Center. On May 28, 10 dissident writers, some of them well-known "official" intellectuals until then, signed a "Declaration of Cuban Intellectuals," calling for a democratic opening and, among other things, legislative elections, amnesty for political prisoners, and a national debate on the country's political future. On June 15, Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, called the action "treason." The same day, a neighborhood Commitee for the Defense of the Revolution staged a so-called act of repudiation against Maria Elena Cruza Varela, one of the signatories of the document. The Cuban Writers and Artists Union (UNEAC) cailed the declaration a CIA plot. Ten other writers then added their names to the declaration. In other retributions against document signers, writer Hector Castaneda was attacked by unidentified assailants in Havana's Central Park on June 13; poet and writer Manuel Diaz Martinez was questioned severai times by state security officiais and was relieved of his pOSition as newswriter for Radio Enciclopedia; Nancy Estrada Galvan, journalist for Mujeres magazine, official organ of the Cuban Women's Federation, was expelled from her job on June 3. The managing editor of the magazine said Estrada could not continue to work there after signing the declaration; Angel Mas Betancourt, an actor and assistant manager of Havana's Musical Theater, was fired several days after signing the declaration; Diaz, Estrada and two other declaration signers, Raul Rivero and Bernardo Marques Ravelo, were notified of their expulsion from the UNEAC June 19; they were given an opportunity to defend their actions, but when two of them tried to appeal their expulsion in writing, they were told that they were promoting "the philosophy of desertion and capitulation to the enemy." They were expelled in any case.