US Radio Marti: Still Transmitting Anti-Cuba Propaganda

[Judi Lynn]

Published 13 February 2017


In 1981, former President Ronald Reagan signed executive order 12323, creating a "Presidential Commission for Broadcasting to Cuba," which analyzed the creation of a new radio service directed specifically against socialist Cuba. One of its members was Jorge Mas Canosa, president of the counter-revolutionary and terrorist organization, the Cuban American National Foundation.

The CANF, based in Miami, got approval for an official U.S. radio station, overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, aimed at the destabilization of Cuba in 1985 and it was inappropriately named Radio Marti, after the Cuban liberator who fought for the poor and marginalized, something antithetical to the Cuban right wing.

In violation of international agreements and costing U.S. taxpayers about US$25 million per year, the station was denounced by Cuba, but the island nation has been unable to block its transmission, which arrives via AM and shortwave radio and actually interferes with the state-sponsored Radio Rebelde. In 1990, the U.S. added TV Marti to its propaganda arsenal, but the Cubans have been able to interfere with and block its broadcast.

. . .

The transmissions are part of the worldwide apparatus of Voice of America, which many scholars, commentators and activists consider a form of propaganda. The International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. agency, stated in Radio Regulation 428A in 1971, that states are required to reduce “spillover broadcasts” into other countries “to the maximum extent practicable” unless a previous agreement is established between the countries.

More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Radio-Marti-Still-Transmitting-Anti-Cuba-Propaganda-20170213-0015.html