CHAPTER 6: US RADIO-ELECTRONIC AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBA

Background to a silent war

At the beginning of the 20th century, then-infant American imperialism began using state-of-the-art transmission equipment in support of its policies of propaganda, interference and intervention. In this first stage of imperial penetration and domination, radio played a role of first importance. The process began with the first US transmissions to Cuba, under the auspices of the Pan American Union, on May 25, 1924.

Incompatible interference in medium-wave transmission between Cuba and the United States dates back long before 1959. In the 1930s, Cuban radio stations with their inefficient, low power aerials were affected by interference in their territories by US stations with more powerful transmitters and highly efficient aerial systems.

In 1937, Havana was host to the Regional Conference on Radio Communications, at which the 16 nations represented there set up the Inter-American Radio Communications Office (OIR) and assigned frequencies across three different zones of the American continent. US interests were behind the holding of the conference and negotiated from positions of strength to impose a technological infrastructure designed to perpetuate the privileges enjoyed by the American stations, both within and beyond their territories.

The documents signed in Havana on December 13, 1937 included the Inter-American Convention on Radiocommunications, the Inter-American Radiocommunications Arrangement and the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA).

The last-mentioned document regulated medium-wave broadcasting in the region defined as North America, comprising Canada, Cuba, the United States, Haiti, Mexico, Newfoundland and the Dominican Republic.

The agreement defined 105 broadcasting channels, divided into clear channels, regional channels and local channels. These were shared out as follows: Canada 14, Cuba 9, United States 63, Haiti 1, Mexico 15, Newfoundland 2 and the Dominican Republic 1.

Thanks to its more developed broadcasting media, the United States obtained control over 50% of the entire waveband under this agreement, mostly represented by stations in the 'clear channels', which meant an interference-free service over wide areas of both the broadcasting country and its nearest neighbors.

This distribution obliged the signatory countries to provide protection for large service zones defined by the US Trade Secretary's technical personnel.

In Cuba's case, further development of its national broadcasting network was hamstrung by the financial burden implied by the need to install complex, expensive networks of directional antennae to comply with the protection terms in the regional agreement, by curtailing signals transmitted towards the United States. Only very small, low-power local stations with a consequently much-reduced service area could be installed, with simple, low-cost antennae.

Following several postponements, on September 13, 1949, the third regional conference was held in Montreal, Canada. It continued without a break until 8th December of that year, on which date it was suspended because an agreement could not be reached between Cuba and the United States.

The conference re-convened in August of the following year to review the allocation of frequencies, power levels and station locations, and was attended by the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. The event concluded with the adoption of the NARBA, involving the allocation of a total of 3,085 stations.

The United States received 80% of these (2,402). Cuba obtained 116, representing just 3%. Allocations within the US were distributed among the 106 available channels. Cuba had access to 81 channels.

The key aspect of the new agreement was the grossly unequal distribution of precedence (the protection rights relating to the broadcasters' service areas).

Under the 1950 NARBA agreement, the United States secured virtual dominance of the medium wave in the area, and hence the ability to launch radio-wave assaults on Cuba and other nations in the region.

The case of Voice of America and Radio Swan

As the Cuban government has revealed in a wide variety of international fora, successive US administrations have deployed their vast economic and technological resources in attacking Cuba by radio and electronic means, ever since the victory of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. First by means of illegal radio transmission and later by television broadcasts as well, America has constantly invaded Cuba's airwaves with programs specifically designed to overturn the constitutional order established by the Cuban people. No other country in the world has been subjected for so long by a foreign power to such a barrage of lies and incitement to destruction and hatred.

Planned, equipped and financed by US power centers that never gave up hope of reestablishing their neocolonial domination of Cuba, in conspiracy and collusion with the terrorist mob of Cuban origin based on the superpower’s territory, aggressions by radio and electronic means is a key element of Washington's policy towards the Cuban people of hostility, blockade and aggressions.

These illegal radio and television broadcasts use false accusation, distortion and scurrilous propaganda in attempts to sow doubt and discontent with their Revolution among the Cuban people, inciting disobedience to the nation's constitutional order and confrontation with their authorities, as well as illegal emigration by Cubans, putting their lives at risk. In short, they are trying to promote an artificial crisis to serve as a pretext for launching military intervention and a war of conquest on Cuba.

The use of radio as a weapon of war and subversion has been a routine practice of the US State Department since the end of the 1950s, when Leonard Marks and Frank Shakespeare, noted anticommunist ideologists, were put in charge of the US Information Agency (USIA).

The aggression by radio on revolutionary Cuba began officially on March 21, 1960, with a new, Spanish-language broadcast by the Voice of America (VOA). The VOA is one of the USIA's key agencies for propaganda, manipulation and psychological and ideological warfare.

The new programming was aimed at Cuba, although it was cynically described as for 'the whole continent'. Its content reflected the growing hostility of the US administrations of the day towards the revolutionary transformations that were taking place in Cuba.
As an official US station, the Voice of America suffered from certain limitations as a vehicle for the propaganda needs and expectations of applying the policy of undeclared war on the Cuban Revolution. It was undesirable - since it would provide evidence for charges against the US authorities - that the VOA should broadcast a certain type of material about Cuba, such as direct incitement to rebellion or instructions for carrying out terrorist operations.

So on May 17, 1960, a commercial, subversive radio station - Radio Swan - was launched, to broadcast material designed to encourage and guide the terrorists then operating on Cuban soil.

Radio Swan was launched on a frequency carefully chosen to penetrate all parts of Cuba and interfere as little as possible with the other US stations. It was a clandestine operation and, as such, was never recorded on the register of frequencies maintained by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)87.

According to documents made public in 1980, Radio Swan cost the CIA between $400,000 and $500,000 a month, putting out programming in three sessions: morning, evening and night-time, with an average total daily airtime of 8-12 hours.

Shortly before the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Radio Swan was equipped with an additional transmitter in the international 49-meter shortwave band, which operated at 6,000 kHz and was also directed towards Cuba.

The content of Radio Swan's broadcasts became more and more openly aggressive, involving incitement to various forms of terrorism, including economic sabotage, destruction of administrative and services facilities, assassination of the key revolutionary leaders, etc.

On April 17, 1961, at the start of the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs organized, funded and directed by the US government, Radio Swan broadcasts began to provide direct support and guidance to the counterrevolution and the aggressors.
Following the resounding victory of the Cuban people over the mercenary invaders at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA decided to change the name - 'Radio Swan' having been totally discredited - to Radio America, "the Voice of Truth for the whole Continent". It continued to broadcast anti-Cuba propaganda until cuts in the Agency's large budget for operations against Cuba caused its demise in the mid 1960s.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States stepped up the use of radio as a weapon of psychological warfare against Cuba, via the "Jacobs Plan". This entailed the urgent installation of two new medium-wave transmitters - respectively using the frequencies 1,180 and 1,040 kHz - in the southern Florida Keys.

These installations marked a new stage in the assault on Cuba by radio, by attacking directly from US territory in the medium waveband, in the expectation of considerably enlarging its Cuban audience.

The ill-named Radio Martí

The rise of the Reagan administration and the upturn in hostility and aggression towards the Cuban people were accompanied by a renewal of official broadcasts specifically aimed at Cuba.

On May 20, 1985, in a serious affront to the dignity and historic and patriotic heritage of the Cuban nation, - this same date in 1902 a system of neocolonial control was imposed on the Cuban people by the then rising US imperialism, -the station responsible for these broadcasts designed to further the perennial aim of annexing Cuba, was given the name of none other than Cuba's national hero, José Martí, by the representatives of the imperialist government.

The broadcasts of the Special Programs Service of the Voice of America: Radio Martí have remained, from their beginnings, a key component of the psychological, ideological and propaganda war waged by successive US administrations on the Cuban people.

The hegemonic superpower's victory in the Cold War - which some dubbed 'World War III' - in particular the collapse of so called 'real socialism' in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, misled the triumphant Empire's strategists into believing that the methods of ideological warfare used against socialism in that part of the world would be equally effective for destroying the Cuban Revolution.

With all the technological know-how and the number of skilled highly qualified and skilled personnel for this dirty warfare, the anti-Cuban showdown in terms of radio and TV broadcasts was reinforced, reaching in September 2005 the number of 2.267 hours a week of transmissions in 29 radio and TV frequencies.

Of the 17 stations that put out subversive programs targeting the Cuban Revolution, 11 are directed specifically at Cuba. Three of the latter are owned by the US government: the program Ventana a Cuba (Window to Cuba) of the VOA and the ill-named Radio and Television Martí.

Several of the stations are owned by or serve organizations backed by or otherwise directly linked to terrorist elements residing in, operating and acting with total impunity against Cuba from US territory, whose activities have been denounced in various UN fora concerned with combating terrorism, and officially to US government.

The document known as 'Santa Fe I', which became the Republican Party's program platform, clearly states the motives for setting up the ill-named Radio Martí (originally planned to be called 'Radio Cuba Libre'):

“(...) Havana must be held accountable for its policy of aggression against sister nations in America. Among other measures, the United States will be openly responsible for setting up Cuba Libre radio, which will broadcast objective information for the Cuban people…if propaganda fails, a war of liberation against Castro must be waged (…)”.

What impartial observer with an elementary knowledge of the events of the last hundred years would believe that the United States - master of disinformation and lies - would spend a single dollar on broadcasting "objective information" to the Cuban people? What chance is there that they would do so, these political mouthpieces of an empire that with its genocidal blockade denies the Cuban people the opportunity of exchanging information and ideas, which visits to Cuba by American tourists would bring? Isn’t this incredibly cynical and hypocritical, given that these same political forces, now riding high in the Bush administration, have increased the obstacles and prohibitions affecting educational, cultural and scientific exchanges between Cubans and Americans?

The ill-named Radio and Television Martí do not broadcast information, on the contrary, they falsify and distort it. They have no interest in values such as objectivity or adherence to the truth. They broadcast deliberate, premeditated falsehoods with the aim of inciting hatred and destruction.

Article 30, Section 1, No.2666 of the 1990 edition of the ITU rules, as amended in 1994, stipulates that AM broadcasting should be envisaged as a national, high-quality service within the borders of the country concerned. This means that even from the technical and operational point of view, the ill-named Radio Martí's broadcasts infringe the relevant internationally-accepted standards. Its transmissions at 1,180 kHz are illegal, crudely and damagingly invading Cuba's broadcast territory.

Radio Martí's short-wave broadcasts - on 13 frequencies - are also illegal, in that their content contravenes principles enshrined in the ITU Constitution and Convention, which include the statement in its Preamble that ¨the short-wave broadcasts should facilitate peaceful relations and international cooperation among peoples¨.

While trying to convince the unsuspecting of a bogus purpose for their ideologies - by attempting to 'universalize' the patterns and dogmas of a doctrine designed to serve the interests of hegemonic domination by imperial circles of political, economic and military power -, the US government squanders millions of taxpayers' dollars in order to impose a permanent climate of hostility and the threat of war on the Cuban people.

One could not say, based on the experience of the Cuban people over the last ten years that the Cold War has ended, it has merely been 'tropicalized'. With the aggravating factor of the emboldening and arrogance of the superpower, the hostility and aggression of the Bush administration towards Cuba have exceeded the limits of "Lukewarm War", with its repeated and escalating threats of reaching boiling point.

Invisible television

Shortly after the revolutionary triumph in Cuba, the United States began to lay plans for using television to support its assault on the Cuban Revolution, based on the progress made in introducing television in the country and their complete technical knowledge of the equipment installed here (made in the US).

In 1962, the USIA drew up an anti-Cuba propaganda plan involving the use of two DC6 aircraft flying at 18,000 feet, very close to Cuban airspace. The project was shelved, but was revived during the Carter administration, when Prof. George Chester of the University of Maryland, proposed the variant of transmission from Key West via an unused Cuban channel.

Under the Reagan administration, the US Congress considered for the first time a plan for feasibility studies on TV broadcasting to Cuba for the purposes of political, ideological and propaganda-based aggression. The Miami-based Cuban-American terrorist mob actively participated in the lobbying for and support of this enterprise.

In 1989, the House and the Senate each passed important resolutions giving the go-ahead for the TV station once transmission testing had been satisfactorily concluded.

The variant chosen was a captive balloon carrying a transmitter of some 10,000 watts, to be maintained at 10-14,000 feet in the Cudjoe Key area.

The TV signal would be generated in Miami and transmitted to a ground station on Cudjoe Key and relayed to Cuba via the transmitter in the balloon's gondola.

Well in advance and by every available channel, Cuba did everything in its power politically and diplomatically to dissuade the US government from this new escalation in aggression of this type, including writing a letter to the President of the UN Security Council. Cuba indicated its willingness to negotiate an agreement covering the exchange of television programs and broadcasts.

On March 27, 1990, the assault by television began. The signal was neutralized within 10 minutes of reaching Cuban television sets. The attack has been repelled every day since then, although the time during which the signal is observed has declined from ten minutes to sixty seconds.

The United States tried to register the blimp-based radio station in the Master International Frequency Registry of the ITU, which was denied by the International Frequency Registration Board arguing that these blimp-based transmissions contravened the provisions of the Radio-communication Regulations.
On July 27, 1990, the Bush (Sr.) administration submitted a report to Congress on Tele Martí's 'trial period'. It included the fact that Cuba was succeeding in systematically jamming the broadcasts, that the international authority for frequency registration had certified he illegality of the measure and that international reaction had been unfavorable to the United States. President Bush (Sr) ordered that the broadcasts continue nevertheless.

The United States tries to disguise its shameless aggression towards the sovereignty and dignity of the Cuban people by claiming that its TV broadcasts do not result in interference in Cuba because they go out at a time when the Cuban television is off the air. They cynically conceal the fact that our transmitters are licensed to provide service round the clock.

It is not only that America targets Cuba with television programming full of lies, distortions of history and of the current situation, deeply offensive to the Cuban nation's aspirations for independence and justice, but it also tries to curtail the exercise of the people's right to self-determination by preventing it from freely administering its radio frequencies - like any other country - and deciding the basis and schedule for radio and television services within its borders.

Radio- and television-based aggression towards Cuba demonstrates not just the insanity of their policy of hostility and aggression towards the Cuban people, but also the US government’s utter contempt for the rules and principles of international law which regulate relations between states.

The US war on the Cuban people by radio and electronic means directly contravenes the letter and spirit of the following international accords:

• The purposes and principles enshrined in the UN Charter and in numerous international treaties, notably those relating to equality of sovereignty among all states and non-interference in the domestic affairs of other nations.

• The Declaration of the Principles of International Law regarding relations of friendship and cooperation between states, under Resolution 2625 (XXV) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1970.

• The International Telecommunications Treaty and the ITU rules on radiocommunications, specifically number 23.3 restricting TV broadcasting beyond national boundaries.

• Article 1 of both the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, passed by the UN General Assembly in December 1966.

• The declaration of the basic principles for contribution by the mass media to strengthening peace and international understanding, promoting human rights and the campaign against racist, apartheid and incitement to war, proclaimed at the 20th meeting of the UNESCO General Conference on November 28, 1978.

• Resolution 37/92 of December 10, 1982 of the UN General Assembly, which defined the principles governing nations' use of artificial satellites for direct international TV transmission.

A qualitatively new stage in TV-based aggression began on November 20, 1997, with the start of broadcasts by the ill-named Tele Martí in the UHF waveband. The Cuban people again responded effectively, neutralizing the subversive signal within a matter of minutes.

Repeated attempts to use the surprise factor by changing channel or transmission times have not been of the least benefit to the aggressor.

On February 24, 2003, the US Government allowed TV transmissions on US radio amateur frequencies from an airship belonging to one of the Miami-based terrorist and anti-Cuban mob, “Brothers to the Rescue”. This is a serious violation of the Radiocommunication Regulations which establish the prohibition of radio signals in international waters or air space.

After a number of FCC statements acknowledging and warning that such signals violated international laws, on May 20, 2003 an airship from the Armed Forces transmitted the signals from the US air space.

In September 2003, TV Martí began to re-transmit its signals through the HISPAST satellites, simultaneously with the NSS-806 system. Transmissions have run 24 hours a day ever since.

That same year, the VOA started broadcasting a half an hour long program, “Ventana a Cuba” (A Window to Cuba)
The escalation of US aggression towards Cuba by radio and electronic means promoted by President Bush

On May 6, 2004, President Bush took new steps to escalate US aggression towards Cuba by radio and electronic means and the campaigns of disinformation and incitement to subversion in Cuba, announcing the allocation of an additional $18 million to the ill-named Radio- and Tele-Martí's broadcasts targeting the Cuban people, from a C-130 military plane, to be assigned exclusively for the purpose.

The sum mentioned complements the funding under the 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act and which increased the total governmental financing to unprecedented levels.

In November 2005 upon the adoption of the Science, and State Department, Justice and Commerce Appropriation Act for 2006 an additional sum of 37.7 million was added for Radio and TV Martí. It is worth noticing that this figure means an increase of 10 million dollars as compared to 2004.

This increased complies with a Bush Administration’s request to Congress aimed at purchasing an aircraft that can permanently ensure TV Martí transmissions to Cuba. This aircraft would replace the C-130 of the Solo Command that has been in used in the ill-famed mission since August 2004.

Cuba has denounced the weekly flights of the C-130 at the ITU’S Radiocommunication Regulation Board, in its meetings 34, 35, 36, and 37. The issue has also been tabled at the ITU Councils in 2004 and 2005.

The board concluded at its 37th meeting of 2005, that both daily transmissions from the blimp and the weekly C-130 signals were a cause of harmful interference to the Cuban TV services registered in the Master International Frequency Registry and requested the US Administration to urge the cease of these interferences. In blatant disregard of the ruling of the relevant international entity, the US authorities have refused to put an ed to the illegal transmissions against Cuba.

In less than a year, -between August 2004 and July 2005-, 46 transmissions from the aircraft were counted, while maintaining the daily broadcasts from the aerostatic globe.
With this aggressive, provocative measure, the US compounds not only its systematic contravention of the ITU rules, but also that of UN General Assembly Resolutions 110 (II) and 127 (II), both adopted in 1947 (just two years after the end of World War II).

General Assembly Resolution 110(II) condemns "all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”, while No. 127(II) calls on all nations to combat " the diffusion of false or distorted reports likely to injure friendly relations between States”

Chronology of the radio-TV aggression against Cuba:

 March 21, 1960, VOA’s first time in the air against Cuba.

 May 17 1960. Radio Swan began its transmissions.

 October 1962. anti-Cuban radio stations Cayo Marathon (1180khz) and Sugar Loaf (1040 khz) began their broadcastings.

 October 23, 1962. Some 10 US commercial radio stations started to re-transmit to Cuba the content of the VOA.

 July 1st 1974. The VOA supplement “Cita con Cuba” was suspended.

 Geneva, 1979. World Administrative Radiocommunication Conference. The Republic of Cuba stated not to recognize the notification, registration and use of frequency by the US Government in the part of the illegally –and against the Cuba people’s will- occupied territory of Guantanamo, a US Navy Base.

 March 10, 1980. Buenos Aires, Argentina. IV Plenary Session of the Regional Radiocommunication Conference on ITU mid waves. Cuba again denounced the problem posed by radio transmissions from the illegal Guantanamo Navy Base.

 July 1981. the ITU International Frequency Registration Board submitted a complaint to the US Federal Communication Commission on Miami, short wave, illegal radio transmissions to Cuba.
 September 22, 1981. President Ronald Reagan signed executive order 12323, creating the “Presidential Commission on Broadcasting to Cuba.”

 November 1981. Cuba denounced the NARBA Agreement.

 December 1982. The project of the ill-named Radio Martí is defeated at a an extraordinary session of the US Congress.

 September 13, 1983. The US Senate adopted the creation of the cynically named Radio Martí

 May 20, 1985. Radio Martí aired for the first time as VOA’s service to Cuba.

 May 1986. Sen. Lawton Chiles (Fl.) requested the USIA the opening of an investigation on the possibilities of creating a TV system for Cuba.

 August 7, 1987. the Resolution requesting the creation of the ill-named Tele Martí was introduced to the Foreign Relations Committee of the House.

 March 27, 1990. the US Government submitted a report to Congress, assessing the so-called trial period of Tele Martí. Despite the fiasco, President Bush (Sr.) ordered to continue the TV aggression.

 November 20, 1997. A new escalation in the TV aggression, with the opening of the ill-named Tele Martí. It failed again in its attempt at imposing the reception of its subversive signal.

 February 24, 2003. the terrorist and anti-Cuba mob organization “Brothers to the Rescue”, with the green light of the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) sent illegal transmissions to Cuba, from an aircraft flying in international air space near the Island.

 May 20, 2003. The US used a C-130 from the Armed Forces of that country to send TV signals to Cuba between 18:45 and 20:45 hrs. They used the frequencies of Channel 13 (VHF), registered at Cuba’s name in the ITU’s International Frequency Registry. With its TV aggression, it affected Cuba’s national programs in different parts of the country.
 May 6, 2004. President Bush adopted new measures aimed at escalating the radio-electronic aggression and misinformation campaigns and encouragement to subversion in Cuba. It assigned 18 million dollars more to ensure Radio and Tele Martí transmissions from a C-130 military aircraft.

 August 21, 2004. Between 18:00 and 22:00 hrs., a violation similar to that of 2003, had place. This time, the intentional interference, harmful to the normal performance of Cuban radio and TV stations, took place amidst the recovery works after the devastating hurricane Charley, thus hampering the dissemination of the information for all the Cuban people.

 December 12, 2004. Radio Martí initiated its FM transmission. Additional tests in other mid wave commercial frequencies.

 April 30 and May 7 and 14, 2005. Three exploratory flights with RC-135 aircraft at the same time that the EC-130J broadcast to Cuba, with the possible intention of testing the effectiveness and the parameters of our response to the aggression.

 July 13, 2005. Five days after Hurricane Dennys, the USAF, relocated two EC-130J from the 193 Special Operation Wing in Pennsylvania in the air and navy base of Key West, Florida. One of the aircraft flew successively in July 15, 16, 18, 20 and 23, in another provoking and aggressive escalation of the anti-Cuban transmissions.