cuba: seeds of a free press

Ever since the Cuban revolution thirty-six years ago the Castro government has viewed the press as its mouthpiece. But that notion is being challenged by a group of out-of-work, independent journalists who were fired from their official jobs because of irreverent thinking about the revolution and its future.

They have begun to market stories in the United States and Europe about their nation via the Independent Press Bureau of Cuba (BPIC), a sort of clearinghouse that was founded by the journalist Yndamiro Restano, who was recently released from prison.

Independent journalism, even for overseas audiences, remains a dangerous task. In October, Olance Nogueras, a twenty-seven-year-old reporter working for the BPIC, was detained four times, placed under house arrest, and threatened with prison for spreading news that allegedly undermined "international peace." Nogueras's offense was writing a story that was distributed broadly by BPIC on the potential for leaks and other safety problems at Cuba's Juraguas nuclear plant. Nogueras was told to leave the country or face prosecution. He refused, and his colleagues fear that his case will be used as a test by the government as it attempts to control them.

Still, Restano maintains that Castro has given independent journalism some room to operate. "It is very small, but we must keep it open," he says. One thing that has changed, despite the danger, is the building of an esprit de corps among the journalists. In recent months they have formed or revitalized, in an effort to create a semblance of a free press, loosely organized small journalism groups with names like Havana Press and Cuba Press. And throughout the Nogueras episode, for example, Rafael Solano, who runs Havana Press, continued filing stories through the BPIC about Nogueras's situation. (Solano had been at the pinnacle of Cuban journalism, writing news for Cuba's most important radio station, when he was fired early this year.)

Restano's release from prison last June was the catalyst for the new solidarity among independent Cuban journalists. Back in 1985, Restano had challenged the concept of state-controlled media and was banished from official journalism. Forced to work menial jobs, he went on to found Cuba's first non-official journalism organization in 1987. He later founded a human rights movement seeking peaceful political change and was sentenced to prison for distributing information about it. A campaign by the Committee to Protect Journalists and other press-freedom organizations and the direct intercession of Madame Danielle Mitterrand, wife of France's former president, led to his release. Afterwards, Restano traveled in Europe and Latin America and found great interest in the little-known world of dissident Cuban journalists. At the annual meeting of the Inter American Press Association on October 15, leading Latin American and U.S. publishers accepted the journalists' application for membership. Several IAPA members he since published articles by the dissidents. "We believe that our support for their cause at this moment is elementary for their future survival," says David Lawrence, Jr., publisher of The Miami Herald and the new president of IAPA.

 Restano and his colleagues hope that eventually they will be able to launch an independent radio station or newspaper inside Cuba. "That's the goal that keeps us going," he says. Cubans in general have lost respect for state news, but the alternatives are generally not politically independent either. Most of the population listens to Miami radio stations, which are often owned or operated by hard-line Cuban exiles. Even the U.S. government-sponsored Radio Marti has as its chairman Jorge Mas Canosa, the controversial Cuban exile who opposes any opening to Cuba while Castro is in power.

Can an independent press project survive in Cuba? Restano and his colleagues believe so. "It is the only way we can help change our system from an authoritarian government to a democratic one, without violence," he says. "A free press could help keep the good things the revolution brought to our society and get rid of the bad ones."

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