CASTRO GETS THE COVERAGE, NOT HIS VICTIMS

by Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton


When I was taping an interview in 1994 for my first documentary of the series COVERING CUBA, Marietta Berre, a black Cuban musician, a child of the revolution who arrived in the U.S. during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, said something that defines very well the U.S. media coverage of the Castro regime.

She said, “The U.S. media coverage hasn’t been sensitive to the Cuban exiles. They don’t really cover the things that they need to be covered. They don’t do an analysis of the Cuban situation. They play into the Cuban government’s game.

“One of the things Fidel really likes is to be talked about - to be covered by the U.S. media. He gets coverage, not the issues, not the people, not the situation. He gets the coverage.”

And this has been the case for decades from the interviews of Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Maria Shriver, etc. That is why the American people are so misinformed and mislead about Castro’s Cuba. The images the media presents do not correspond to the reality of what life really is in Cuba under Castro’s boot.

But as I always thought, the obvious bias of the mainstream media blatantly inclines far to the left. The shallow, arrogant and racist views of many of these television personalities disregarding the welfare of Spanish-speaking people, has a lot do with their callous attitude.

Another ongoing Latin American event reveals the same unashamed disregard by the way the U.S. media is reporting on the situation in Venezuela. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the Venezuelans want the Castro-like Chavez out is not of concern to the U.S. media.

There is information from various sources that Castro is directly involved and meddling in the internal affairs of that nation against the will of the majority of Venezuelans.

According to these sources there are about 6,000 Cuban secret agents posing as teachers and sports instructors training the Bolivarian Circles, which are a version of Castro’s Rapid Deployment Brigades. These dreaded paramilitary brigades are used to beat and otherwise intimidate people to crush dissent in the population. Sources indicate that Castro is providing arms to the members of the Bolivarian Circles.

Sources said that there are about 400 Cuban military advisors. Their mission is to protect the Chavez regime and many of them are his bodyguards.

According to Casto Ocando in a special report for El Nuevo Herald, Venezuelan Air Force Mayor Juan Diaz Castillo, former pilot of the presidential airplane of Hugo Chavez, who recently defected to the U.S., denounced the training of Venezuelan militias in Cuba and the collaboration with the communist guerrillas in Colombia – another one of Castro’s creations.

Castillo also denounced the connections of Chavez with the Al Qaeda terrorist network, revealing Chavez’ gift of at least $1,000,000 to the Taliban and Al Qaeda shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

These are facts that generally are kept from the American public by the U.S. media.

The months of public protests against the Chavez regime and a general strike since December 2, just recently got reported by the major networks, but because it has an effect on the oil industry. The only thing they care about is oil! And to hell with what the people of Venezuela so desperately want.

This attitude of the media makes their bias clear once more. Chavez is a left wing dictator and friend of their guru Castro.

If Chavez was a right-wing authoritarian like the late Ferdinand Marcos in Philippines, Raul Cedras in Haiti, Augusto Pinochet in Chile or W. P. Botha in apartheid South Africa, the U.S. media would have raised a big stink and fostered international outrage and solidarity for the immediate ousting of the hideous regime of right-wing Chavez.

But Chavez is left-wing! Therefore, long live the left!

It’s the best thing for the little people to have an all-powerful leader surrounded by a small group of advisors and protectors making all the decisions about the lives of those little people. Not everybody is entitled to enjoy the same freedoms we enjoy in America.

And that is the same situation with Cuba. So the Cuban people are suffering with no end in sight under a constitutionally “untouchable” system of oppression, exploitation and apartheid.

The general insensitivity from the American public can be justified since the U.S. media constantly misinforms them. But since the media knows the truth and don’t tell, in my opinion they are accessory in a crime.

The cause of freedom for Cuba lacks international solidarity because the press does not want it as they continue censoring the facts and giving all the coverage to Castro and virtually none to his victims.

The latest Castro coverage-festival is thanks to “good girl” Andrea Mitchell of NBC notoriety.

Andrea gets rewarded for her sympathetic reports on behalf of Castro’s goals during the Elian affair that earned her the coveted accessibility to Cuba and the maximum tyrant. Ratings and money, that’s what it’s all about at the expense of the welfare of the little Cubans forgotten in this immoral arrangement. Oh, and Andrea’s resume.

She began her segments on December 31, 2002, on the Today Show, featuring an affable Castro, in a suit, talking and joking around. The usual, always-beneficial-to-Castro “reports” about the declared (never substantiated) wonders of Castroland. Showing the usual, tired (though freshly painted!) sites, lots of smiling, adoring faces the tyrant wants for Andrea and the American people to see and NBC graciously provides the opportunity.

Andrea is even riding in the tyrant’s jeep, not to be outdone by ABC’s Barbara Walters’ famous jeep rides. Is this journalism?

I am sure Castro welcomes her at any time. Marietta Berre in my documentary was right. I rest my case.

Of all the ethnic minority groups in the U.S., Cuban Americans is the only one that the communist engendered “political correctness” gives full approval to offend and malign with impunity. And the U.S. media is taking full advantage of it. Happy New Year!


Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation & COVERING CUBA 3: Elian (available in VHS & DVD at http://www.cubacollectibles.com/
Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the soon to be released book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell


2003 ABIP


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