MONTERREY, Mexico -- The Mexican company that runs Cuba's telephone system says it is investigating charges of systematic wire-tapping and denial of telephone services to independent journalists in Cuba, and that it may ask the Cuban government ``to correct any irregularities.''
Grupo Domos, which owns 49 percent of Cuba's 250,000-line telephone monopoly ETECSA and is the largest foreign investor on the island, has been under attack by foreign press and human rights groups for its alleged complicity with Cuba's state security in meddling with the telephone service to the island's fledgling group of independent journalists.
Top Grupo Domos officials said in an interview at the company's headquarters in this northern Mexico city that they have no knowledge of denial of basic telephone services to nongovernment journalists because Domos only runs the administrative side of Cuba's telephone company. The technical side is run by the Italian telephone company STET.
But the Domos officials say they have requested their Italian partners and the Cuban government at a board of directors meeting in Havana Oct. 3 to look into the charges by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. A preliminary report is to be presented at the next board meeting in early November, the Domos officials said.
``We told them we are against such practices, and asked them to look into it,'' said Reginaldo J. Cepeda, director of Domos' legal affairs' office. ``If we discover instances of tapping, denial of lines, or that we have no access to all [telephone] installations, we will tell the Cuban government at the ministerial level that we would like to correct any irregularities.''
There are at least 30 Cuban journalists who define themselves as independent and -- because of the Communist Party's total control of the Cuban press -- are seeking to work for foreign media. Over the past year, more than half a dozen of them have become regular contributors to U.S., Latin American and European newspapers.
But in recent months, there have been growing numbers of complaints by the journalists that their lines are being interrupted or disconnected. Foreign news organizations have offered to pay for installation of new lines for modem or fax machines, but the journalists have not succeeded in obtaining new lines.
In addition, government tapping of their lines is often done openly, with security agents breaking into conversations, the journalists say.
Domos' owner Javier Garza Calderon responded with two letters over the next two months. In his second letter, Aug. 21, he stated that ``I am in the best disposition to support your organization so that journalistic work is not obstructed for any reason.''
The exchange of letters came as the U.S. government singled out Domos as one of the main offenders of the U.S. Helms-Burton law, which punishes foreign companies that do business with confiscated American properties in Cuba. Garza Calderon, Cepeda and other top Domos officials have since been denied visas to travel to the United States.
Garza Calderon, who is simultaneously facing a hard time getting funds to complete his $750 million investment in Cuba, says that he is being unfairly punished by the U.S. government.
``We are working in favor of [Cuba's] opening, of human rights, of international integration,'' he said, referring to the substantial increase in phone calls between Cuba and the United States since he purchased his share in the Cuban telephone company in 1994.
William A. Orme Jr., head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said his group does not rule out a positive outcome of its pressures on Domos.
``If the Cuban government wants to take the policy step of systematically denying telephone lines to journalists, then they should do it openly,'' Orme said. ``If any private investor is going to be complicitous in those kinds of totalitarian controls of freedom of expression, they should expect to be criticized for this.''
Copyright © 1996 The Miami Herald