FROM CUBA
Distributed by CubaNet-org.
HAVANA, December 26, 1996 (APIC).- Without a doubt, the most disinformed people in the Americas is the Cuban people. If you listen to the radio, you will only hear what Granma (official newspaper) published on that date. The same thing goes for the news broadcasts, but here it only gets worse, since when the reporter is reading the news, say of a labor strike in Spain, they play an outdated videotape, and they play it several times even as they are reading the news about the labor strike.
Another example of this is the serious problem of the students in Zaire. For more than a week they've been playing the tape, showing thousands of refugees crossing a bridge, and this video is repeated as the reporter is talking about a different matter entirely.
What can be said of all the changes in the ministries? In any normal country, the substitution of a minister is important news. In Cuba, it is more like a State secret, closely guarded, and the people get to find out, sometimes months later, because, in a news conference or in a trip through the countryside, you see a brand new minister. But nobody knows what happened to the previous one, or why he was substituted.
That's one of the reasons why Cubans listen to Miami radio stations: simply to find out what is happening in Cuba. Also, the news in the official media is so boring and poorly put together as to make it unbearable to watch.
It's all about replacement parts or triumphalist statements about the economy and having to watch, in the big screen, the gathering of farm products which are never to be found in the markets. Hence the Cuban joke which says that they are going to transfer their ration card to the ICRT (news media ministry) because there, you can find everything.