From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Tue Jul 07 2009 - 00:01:39 EDT
Reporters Without Borders’ Lies about Cuba
By Salim Lamrani
Global Research, July 2, 2009
On May 20, 2009, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) published a statement on
Cuba declaring that “anyone can browse the internet…unless they are
Cuban.” To support its claim, RWB offered a videotaped scene filmed in a
hotel with a hidden camera in which a Cuban is denied internet access. The
organization goes on to assert that “in Cuba an internet user can be
sentenced to 20 years in jail if s/he publishes a counterrevolutionary
article on a website (article 91), and 5 years if s/he connects to the web
illegally.” Lastly, RWB points out that “Cuba is the second largest
prison in the world for journalists, after China,” reminding readers that
there are “19 detained … under the false pretext that they are
‘mercenaries paid by the United States.’” 1
Confronting RWB with its own contradictions is easy. In reality, at the
same time the organization asserts that no Cuban can connect to the web, it
provides a link to the blog of Yoani Sanchez, who lives in Cuba and who
openly uses the internet to oppose the government in Havana. How is it that
Sanchez manages to express herself if not via access to the internet? Her
last blog post is dated May 27, 2009. In addition, she posted on May 25,
23, 22, 19, 18, 16, 15, 13, 10, 9, 7, 6, 4, and 2 as well as on April 29,
28, 27, 26, 25, 23, and 21. Thus, during the month preceding the
publication of RWB’s statement about internet access in Cuba, Yoani
Sanchez was able to connect to the web – from Cuba – at least 18 times.
2
In publication after publication, RWB continually contradicts itself. Thus,
in a March 2008 report about independent journalists in Cuba, the
Paris-based organization emphasized that “Yoani Sanchez’s blog is on
the website DesdeCuba.com, which includes five bloggers and has a
six-person editorial committee. Its objective is simply to comment on the
country’s political situation. In February 2009 after its first
anniversary, the site claims to have exceeded 1.5 million hits, 800,000 of
which were on the Generation Y blog. Even more impressive, 26% of the
site’s visitors live in Cuba, in third position behind the United States
and Spain.” 3 How can the “26% of readers who are Cuban” visit
Sanchez’s blog if their access to the internet is prohibited? 4
At the same time, RWB used the isolated case of a hidden camera in a Cuban
hotel to generalize about a prohibition on internet access on the entire
island as well as to denigrate the Cuban authorities. Ironically, in her
post on May 23, 2009, Yoani Sanchez wrote that with “a dozen bloggers we
did a study of more than 40 hotels in Havana. With the exception of the
Miramar West, all said that they were unaware of a regulation prohibiting
Cubans from accessing the internet”. Thus, the western media’s
preferred Cuban blogger dramatically contradicted RWB’s allegations. 5
RWB claims that any person who publishes an article critical of the Cuban
government risks 20 years of imprisonment, citing as evidence article 91,
without further elaboration on the matter. So what does article 91 of the
Cuban Penal Code say? Here it is in its entirety: “Anyone who, in the
interest of a foreign State, carries out an act with the intention of
damaging the independence of the Cuban State or its territorial integrity
will incur a penalty of imprisonment for ten to twenty years or by
death.” As is evident, RWB does not hesitate in the least to blatantly
lie. The section of Cuban law in question does not prohibit in any way
internet publication of heterodox analysis. Nor does it limit in any way
freedom of expression. It does penalize acts of treason against the state.
6
This would be equivalent to accusing the government of Nicolas Sarkozy of
repression of web surfers in France by applying article 411-2 of the French
Penal Code (“handing over troops belonging to the French armed forces, or
all or part of the national territory, to a foreign power, to a foreign
organization or to an organization under foreign control, or to their
agents is punishable by life imprisonment and a fine of 750,000 Euros.”)
or article 411-4 (“The act of sharing intelligence with a foreign power,
an enterprise or organization that is foreign or under foreign control or
with its agents, with the aim of provoking hostilities or acts of
aggression against France, shall be punished with thirty years of criminal
detention and a fine of 450,000 Euros. The same penalties shall apply to
the act of providing to a foreign power, an enterprise or organization that
is foreign or under foreign control or its agents, the means to undertake
hostilities or realize acts of aggression against France.”) 7
That said, it is evident upon viewing Yoani Sanchez’s blog, which is
extremely critical of the Cuban authorities, or reading the writings of
other government opponents, that the Paris-based organization’s
accusation is unsupported. RWB also states that Cubans risk up to “five
years if they illegally connect to the web.” Here the French organization
limits itself to making a flat statement without even bothering to refer to
a section of the law which, as it turns out, does not exist. Once again,
RWB resorts to a lie.
Lastly, RWB continues in the same vein, assuring us that the “19
detained” journalists are jailed “under the false pretext of being
‘mercenaries paid by the United States.’” The organization is
incapable of coherence and rigor in its own publications. In reality, the
French language version of the same article refers to “24 media
professionals.”8 But the numbers matter little. Once again, there is a
double deception. On the one hand, one of the “19 detainees” that RWB
referred to, actually has a journalistic background: Oscar Elías Biscet.
The 18 others had never practiced the profession before joining the world
of the dissidents. On the other hand, these individuals were never
penalized for distributing subversive intellectual material, but rather for
accepting the financial inducements offered by Washington, and, as a
result, went from being opponents of the government to being paid agents of
a foreign power, thereby committing a serious crime punished not only by
Cuban law but also by the Penal Code of every country in the world. The
evidence is abundant. The United States admits that it finances Cuba’s
internal opposition and its own official documents prove it. The dissidents
admit to receiving monetary aid from Washington and even Amnesty
International admits that the jailed individuals were sentenced “for
having received funds or materials from the U.S. government to carry out
activities that the authorities consider subversive and detrimental to
Cuba.” 9
RWB lacks credibility given that its agenda is first and foremost political
and ideological. The contradictions and manipulations of the Paris-based
organization are readily uncovered and proven. Moreover, RWB can make no
claim to legitimacy given that it acknowledges receiving funds from the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which, according to a 1997 New York
Times report, is a CIA front “created 15 years ago to carry out publicly
what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did clandestinely for
decades.” 10
Article in french, Les mensonges de Reporters sans frontières sur le
Venezuela, 21 of June, 2009.
Translated by David Brookbank.
Notes
1 Reporters Without Borders, «‘Cualquiera puede navegar por
Internet...salvo los cubanos’», May 20, 2009.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=31383 (website consulted on May
20, 2009).
2 Yoani Sánchez, Generación Y. http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/
(website consulted on May 24, 2009).
3 Claire Vœux, Cuba. Cuba. Cinco años después de la “Primavera
negra”, los periodistas independientes resisten, Reporteros Sin
Fronteras, March 2008. http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Informe_Cuba.pdf (website
consulted on May 20, 2009).
4 Reporters Without Borders, «Cuba: informe 2008»,
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26080 (website consulted on May
20, 2009).
5 Yoani Sánchez, «‘Sentada’ blogger», Generación Y, May 23, 2009.
http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/ (website consulted on May 27, 2009).
6 Ley n° 62, Código Penal de Cuba, Libro II, Artículo 91, December 29,
1987. http://www.acnur.org/biblioteca/pdf/4417.pdf (website consulted on
May 24, 2009).
7 Code Pénal Français, Partie législative, Livre IV, Titre 1er, Chapitre
1er, Sections 1 & 2.
8 Reporters Without Borders, «‘N’importe qui peut naviguer sur
Internet… sauf s’il est cubain’», May 20, 2009.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=31379 (website consulted on May
26, 2009).
9 Amnesty International, «Cuba. Cinq années de trop, le nouveau
gouvernement doit libérer les dissidents emprisonnés», March 18, 2008.
http://www.amnesty.org/fr/for-media/press-releases/cuba-cinq-ann%C3%A9es-de-trop-le-nouveau-gouvernement-doit-lib%C3%A9rer-les-dissid(website
consulted on April 23, 2008).
10 Salim Lamrani, Cuba. Ce que les médias ne vous diront jamais (Paris:
Editions Estrella, 2009).
Salim Lamrani is a professor at Paris Descartes University and Paris-Est
Marne-la-Vallée University and French journalist, specializing in
relations between Cuba and the United States. He has published, among other
works, Double Standard: Cuba, the European Union, and Human Rights
(Hondarriaba: Editorial Hiru, 2008). His new book is entitled Cuba. Ce que
les médias ne vous diront jamais (París: Editions Estrella, 2009) with a
prologue by Nelson Mandela.
Contact: lamranisalim@yahoo.fr ; salim.lamrani@parisdescartes.fr