BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 The Cuban government ratcheted up pressure on local and foreign journalists last
 year, detaining about 40 Cubans and forcing at least 10 others and one foreigner
 to leave the island, two major reports allege.

 Foreign correspondents in Havana complained separately Tuesday of government
 attacks on them this month and a delay in official accreditation that they perceive
 as a possible threat to restrict their work.

 ``There has been a fundamental intensification of controls on reporters, Raul
 Rivero, Cuba's best known independent journalist, said in a telephone interview
 from Havana. ``It is a dark period.

 The crackdown appears to be part of a broader government campaign to muffle
 criticism that Cuban human rights activists have called the worst in a decade,
 with more than 300 dissidents detained, harassed or threatened. Details of the
 pressures on reporters were contained in a report issued today by the New
 York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and the U.S. State Department's
 annual human rights report issued Feb. 25. Both sum up incidents that occurred
 in 1999.

 ``President Fidel Castro's government did its best to stamp out independent
 journalism in Cuba this year, the journalists committee said in its report on
 attacks on freedom of the press around the world.

 About 40 of Cuba's 100 independent journalists were detained for brief periods in
 1999 by plainclothes security agents who identified themselves only by their first
 names, the committee reported.

 Many were threatened with prosecution under a 1999 law that established prison
 terms of up to 20 years for those who send reports abroad that support U.S.
 sanctions on Cuba, the report noted.

 CPJ's report said security agents also seized tape recorders and cameras from
 independent journalists -- most of them donated by foreign supporters -- and
 monitored and interfered with their telephone conversations.

 The ``constant harassment forced 10 Cuban journalists into exile during the year,
 the CPJ report said, although Rivero gave higher numbers. He said his CubaPress
 news agency alone is down to 10 journalists, from 34 in early 1999.

 Rivero also said four independent journalists are in prison, convicted of vague
 charges such as showing ``disrespect toward Castro and for ``dangerousness --
 conduct ``in manifest contradiction with the norms of socialist morality.

 The State Department report said foreign journalists in Cuba also came under
 increased pressure in 1999, ``including official and informal complaints about
 articles, threatening phone calls and lack of access to officials.

 Although Havana does not impose prior censorship on reports by about 25 foreign
 correspondents in Cuba, it uses the threat of visa and accreditation withdrawals to
 try to temper their work.

 Castro criticized several correspondents by name in televised speeches, the
 State Department report said, a clear threat in a country where the ``maximum
 leader's judgment is seldom challenged.

 Two correspondents left Havana in 1999 ``under difficult circumstances, the report
 added, and Cuban officials ``persuaded a major international news agency to
 replace its bureau chief in Havana by promising increased access to government
 officials if it did so. The State Department did not name the bureau chief, but
 correspondents in Havana identified him as Denis Rousseau of Agence
 France-Presse, singled out by Castro in several of his televised scoldings.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald