To Cuba, Gifts Are Arrogant Meddling

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service

PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba -- Victor Rolando Arroyo has a brand-new shortwave radio. It's a powerful little thing that allows him to pick up programs from all over
the world, including his favorite: Radio Marti, the anti-Fidel Castro station funded by the U.S. government.

Best of all, it was free. Vicki Huddleston, the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, handed out 39 radios to Arroyo and other dissidents when she visited this city 100 miles
southwest of Havana in February.

"For 43 years, we've only had one side of the story," said Arroyo, 50, an independent journalist who has spent 2 1/2 years in jail for anti-government activities.
"These radios give us more of a chance to get both sides, so people can decide for themselves what the truth is."

The Cuban government is angry about the program, which has placed more than 1,000 radios in the hands of Cubans from one end of the island to the other.

"This is sheer intervention in our internal affairs," said a Cuban government official. "They did that in Eastern Europe, and they think they have a right to do it in Cuba.
We won't allow it. This is another proof of the arrogance of the U.S. government."

Radio diplomacy is causing an uproar in relations between Washington and Havana, which have been particularly prickly lately. After a period of relative calm after
Sept. 11, ties have been going downhill since January, when Cuban exile Otto Reich, one of the loudest anti-Castro voices in the United States, took over the job of
running President Bush's Latin America policy.

A "top to bottom" review of Cuba policy, led by Reich, will soon be complete and some people who have been consulted about the review said they expect it to
recommend more aggressive support for Castro's enemies inside Cuba. Bush said in January that he was "determined to encourage and deepen our outreach to the
Cuban people, especially those brave and independent activists for democracy and human rights."

Bush cited "innovative" steps already underway. That means, in part, the radios, which are part of a "public diplomacy" effort in Cuba that officials say has been
sharply stepped up since last summer.

In embassies around the world, U.S. diplomats distribute literature, video and audio tapes, and sometimes even satellite dishes, to help "build bridges" with the United
States. At the U.S. government office in Havana, Cubans have access to American magazines, newspapers and even a couple of computer terminals with Internet
access. U.S. diplomats regularly deliver such materials around the country, including the small independent library Arroyo runs here.

Huddleston said the radios are simply an extension of that program. She began by giving out 500 radios as party favors at her residence July 4. She said they were
bought by the U.S. government and delivered to Cuba by a U.S. nongovernmental agency that she refused to identify.

"People in this society want information about what is going on around the world, and they also want entertainment," Huddleston said. "I'm not sure what the Cuban
government is so afraid of."

Said another U.S. official in Havana: "It's ironic that the Cuban regime, which prides itself on waging a battle of ideas, is so concerned about a few radios coming into
the hands of average Cuban citizens."

Huddleston said the pocket-size radios are legal gifts that give Cubans more options for information than the two state-run television stations and state-controlled
radio.

The radios, wrapped in clear plastic gift-bags covered with stars, come with four AA batteries and a charger (helpful in a land where many can't afford batteries),
earplugs and a booklet of sayings by Cuba's most beloved author, Jose Marti, whose name inspired the radio station.

Huddleston has handed them to kids riding by on bicycles and to teenagers sitting on their front steps. She's passed them out to dissidents like Arroyo. She said she
gives them out every opportunity she gets.

"I think it's a terrible idea," said Wayne Smith, a Cuba specialist at the Center for International Policy in Washington. "Passing out these radios can only look like
subverting Cuban internal affairs and trying to undermine the government." Smith said it was counterproductive for Washington to deliberately antagonize Cuba.

Huddleston said the radio giveaway is similar to "robust" efforts by Cuban diplomats in the United States. But the Cuban official here said it was completely different.

"Our diplomats meet with your people to try to normalize relations," he said. "We are not trying to undermine your government. We are not trying to change your
constitution. We are not trying to subvert internal order. But that's exactly what your people are trying to do here."

For Rene Oñate, 42, whose family lives in a bare concrete house with a derelict roof, the radio debate has more to do with economics than diplomacy.

"I don't have any money to buy a radio," said Oñate, who has one of Huddleston's radios. Oñate was fired from his job as an art teacher several years ago because
he supported dissident causes. He can't find another job and had to sell his car to help feed his two teenage sons.

Oñate said shops in this pretty 17th-century colonial city have few shortwave radios for sale. And they cost $15 to $30 -- two or three months' wages for many
people. He said the old radios most people have are not strong enough to pick up anything but state-run stations.

"I always had to ask other people what the news was," he said. "So this radio is like independence for me. It lets me hear what's going on, right in my own house."

The Cuban government says the radios, in addition to being insulting, are unnecessary. The official interviewed acknowledged that Havana jams the signal of TV
Marti, the sister of Radio Marti. But he said the government does not attempt to block Radio Marti or any other radio transmission.

Residents of Havana, where fairly good radios are available in many shops, have no trouble picking up Radio Marti, which is broadcast from Miami. But here in
Pinar del Rio, when Arroyo tunes his old radio to the Radio Marti frequency all he can hear is a loud "thump-thump-thump," like the sound of a helicopter's rotors.
Arroyo said that's the government jamming signal. When he uses his new radio from Huddleston, the station can be heard clearly over the interference.

Sitting in the front room of his modest office, Arroyo recalled that when Huddleston was here in February, she gave a radio to a young boy riding by on his bike. As
soon as she left, he said, state security agents took the boy's radio.

"We are trying to influence events here, but peacefully and legally," Arroyo said. "That's why the government is afraid of a few radios."

                                               © 2002