The agenda is broad and complex, but if there is goodwill and respect solutions are possible.
Cuba has suffered during all these decades of countless forms of aggression. The blockade, beyond being a US unilateral decision, has become a permanent harassment to the Caribbean nation to prevent at all costs the development and implementation of their projects in relation to food, health and education.
The press and many specialized books testify to this; for a small country like ours is a real feat sustain quality programs of broad social reach.
Among the many forms of aggression against Cuba, the invasion of the airwaves has been and is one of the most obvious, openly belligerent characters. It is not – as has been claimed to show – the free dissemination of ideas, but an insight into Cuban territorial space, in this case radio, to spread subversive propaganda against the Cuban project.
Therefore any standardization beyond the resumption of relations invariably passes the unconditional suspension of the practice that significantly harms national sovereignty of the Cuban state.
Cuba has been and is respectful of international agreements. For the less young remember that before 1985 – before the spawn of the misnamed Radio Martí, Voice of the United States transmitting seven days a week during the hours of the morning and afternoon programming on shortwave, and in the frequency of 1180 KHz medium wave. The VOA could be heard in Cuba and it never interfered, even though part of its programming had an anti-Cuban component.
It was much later that Cuba, in the exercise of its sovereignty, decided to cancel the avowedly anti-Cuban radio broadcasts; an inalienable right to defend its airwaves.
Years after the subversive radio station began television broadcasts – which have never been seen! – And because of continuing scandals show how corrupt officials of Cuban origin have been rich by them. On more than one occasion embezzlement and financial detours starring in the Office of Cuba Broadcasting has been the subject of discussions at the request of the US Congress. In short, those transmissions to Cuba are nothing other than that: a business, combined with its interventionist essence into a sovereign state.
On Monday January 26th Betty McCollum, a Democrat representative for the state of Minnesota, introduced a bill to eliminate funding for the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, arguing that Radio and TV Marti are an obsolete method in the new context of relations between the two countries. The representative acknowledges that American taxpayers have had to bear the burden of $ 770 million to support both unviable projects. It is now up to Congress to decide thereon.
The Radio and TV broadcasts aimed at Cuba have a character of territorial occupation of similar category to the case of the Guantanamo Naval Base. Therefore a full normalization of relations between the two countries passes inexorably, for both solutions.
It is hoped that common sense gets over other interests and with the approval of the preliminary greater light the path that both countries must travel to find common respecting our differences is given.
Rightly said President Raul Castro in his speech at the Third Summit of the CELAC this January 28th in Costa Rica, which … “The restoration of diplomatic relations is the beginning of a process towards normalization of bilateral relations, but this not be possible as long as the lock, not the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base is returned, no cease radial and violate international norms television broadcasts, there is no just compensation to our people for human and economic damage that has I suffered. “
These are the premises. It’s a matter of principles, and principles are sacred.
Translated by: Daysi Olano Fernandez
