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“Cold Cultural War” on Cuba Denounced in Spain

CUBA, August 11, 2009. On the Spanish August edition of the French Journal “Le Monde Diplomatique” , renowned journalist Pascual Serrano, denounced the millions that European governments and institutions put into the “cold cultural war” waged against Cuba since 1995.

He specifically targets the magazine Encuentro (Spanish for Encounter). This magazine is published in Madrid. It was created at the request of high ranking officials within the Spanish Administration that had close ties with the United States; like former Spanish Ambassador to the US Inocencio Arias and former Spanish Defense minister,
NATO Secretary General Javier Solana.

In his article, Serrano denounces that for a magazine that only publishes 4 issues a year, they get way too much money. For instance, from 2000 to 2007, they got 1,033,135 dollars from the American foundation National Endowment for Democracy, known by its acronym NED.

Serrano points out that there is a clear connection between the NED, the US government and destabilizing campaigns implemented through out the years.

Another donor for the Encounter magazine is the Ford Foundation which gave it 600,000 dollars in 2006 and another 400,000 in 2008. Also on the list of donors billionaire George Soros´s foundation The Open Society Institute.

On the other hand the Spanish Agency of Cooperation gave 500,000 Euros in 2008 for the web page of the Asociacion Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana (in English Cuban Culture Encounter Association), and a similar portal gets 1,000 Euros a year.

Serrano draws attention to the fact that this is way too ouch money for an institution dealing with Cuban issues, based outside Spain.

Pascual Serrano has just published a book entitled “Disinformation” where he analyses the way in which the media has presented international events occurred over the past few years. (Cubaminrex- RHC)

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