BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@herald.com

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.