Violations and dangers of an
aggression foretold
• The U.S. government plans to use a C-130 military plane for radio and television transmissions against Cuba

BY MARÍA JULIA MAYORAL—Granma daily staff writer—

RADIO and television aggression by the United States against Cuba could significantly increase in the near future if a planned measure is implemented utilizing a C-130 military plane to that end.

On May 6, Roger Noriega, a representative of the Miami terrorist mafia in the U.S. government and assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, publicly announced the Bush administration decision to allocate $18 million over the next two years to fund transmissions of the ill-named TV and Radio Martí from the military plane, to be used exclusively for that purpose.

That "is an irresponsible and illegal provocative violation of international law and regulations on aviation and telecommunications," as the Cuban National Assembly warned in its July 1 statement.

The imperialist threat is part of a set of measures approved by George W. Bush in his obsessive attempt to destabilize Cuban society and end the political and economic system that our people have been building in a sovereign and independent way over for more than 40 years.

In considering the subject, it should not be overlooked that last year the White House allowed a small aircraft with U.S. registration and belonging to the terrorist organization Brothers to the Rescue to engage in television transmissions directed at Cuban territory from international waters, in spite of that being expressly prohibited by the radio communications regulations of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Later, in May 2003, regardless of the previous action being recognized as a violation, the U.S. government used a U.S. Air Force C-130 plane to broadcast a Channel 13 television transmission. That resulted in damaging interference to the Cuban television service during peak viewing hours.

It should likewise be noted that Cuban broadcasting systems that provide such services are registered with the International Frequency Register and thus internationally recognized.

The aggression planned via a military plane contravenes the ITU radio communications regulations and its Constitution, which establishes in its preamble that the purpose of telecommunications is to facilitation peaceful relations, international cooperation, and economic and social development among nations.

The agency’s radio communications regulations expressly establish that amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM) radio broadcasts and VHF and UHF band television transmissions must confine their services to cover territories within the national borders of each country. Transmissions from shipping vessels in international waters and aircraft in international airspace directed at other countries are prohibited.

Timely reporting of such plans in any scenario is a fundamental objective for Cuba, affirmed Ramón Linares Torres, first deputy minister of the Ministry of Informatics and Communications (MIC), who effected that task by presenting the case at the ITU annual council meeting.

The ITU, whose members include the United States, is a UN agency charged with promoting the utilization of those types of services "with the aim of facilitating peaceful relations."

The result of the Cuban intervention at the ITU was positive. "Our interest in the meeting was to demand respect for the norms of international law and the guiding principles of that institution, and to indicate how the sovereignty and independence of our country is being attacked," Linares affirmed.

"In the ITU, in addition to speaking at the council meeting, we met with the organization’s secretary general, Yoshio Utsumi, with Valery Timofeev and Amadon Touré, respective directors of the offices of Radio communications and Telecommunications Development, and with Sammy K. Kirui, who chaired the session. All of them expressed their understanding of the justice of the Cuban demand.

"We requested the inclusion of the issue on the agenda of the next ITU meeting in 2005, and the drafting of a report beforehand for timely distribution council members," Linares continued.

"Effecting transmissions against Cuba from a military plane is one of the most dangerous actions recommended to President Bush by the so-called Commission of Assistance for a Free Cuba," Linares affirmed. "And we know that in the United States they are ready to take the step, although to maintain it would be technically and financially very expensive, and the consequences unpredictable."

"We will use the technical means available to us in the telecommunications field, our experience and professional knowledge to respond to the actions of our adversaries. Meanwhile, and without making any concessions on principles, we will continue trying to persuade them to desist from such madness."

The invariable goals of U.S. radio and television aggression against Cuba are to subvert internal order, distort the reality of Cuban society, subtract prestige from the Revolution and its most important leaders, urge the assassination of the president, foment acts of terrorism and incite people to illegal emigration. The first aggression of that kind began with Radio Swan in 1959, after the victory over the Batista dictatorship.

Currently participating in this war from within southern Florida are six commercial radio stations with 24-hour programming and eight frequency modulation plants, which periodically insert their subversive messages, plus the failed programming of a television channel, explains Carlos Martínez Albuerne, general director of the MIC’s Control and Supervision Agency.

Currently, a total of 2,247 hours are broadcast weekly by radio over 29 frequencies, 19 of them short wave. Only the ill-named Radio Martí, created officially by the Reagan administration to attack our country, is broadcast simultaneously over four short-wave frequencies and one medium-wave frequency every day, Martínez commented.

"On May 12, another radio station located 20 kilometers north of the city of Miami broadcast a message calling on persons to commit acts of sabotage in our country and to kill President Fidel Castro and other revolutionary leaders. That’s how it has been for 45 years," he noted.

The U.S. government is not ignorant of any of those incidents. Nevertheless, it does nothing to halt them, even today – while attempting to promote itself as the great fighter against terrorism in the world – it is encouraging, planning and leading the largest escalation of aggression against our country as part of its routine state terrorism.