MIAMI, Florida (Aug. 21, 2000)-The conditions under which independent journalists in Cuba have to work continue to be deplorable. Operating under constant pressure from the authorities, they battle on in their attempt to report on what is happening in their country by posting their articles on an Inter American Press Association Web site that they themselves are not allowed to access.
In a series of articles posted each week on the Web site http://cuba.sipiapa.org reporters from the Cuba Press news agency keeps the world up to date on such topics as the obstacles the alternative press is facing, sports, clothes, "extra" income, the movies, what Cubans read and who has access to the Internet.
They reported that on August 9 two men believed to be State Security agents pretending to be journalists entered an apartment in Havana where Cuba Press had its office until late July and carried off documents, office supplies, books and magazines. The whereabouts of the items remains unknown.
In a similar incident, journalist Luis Alberto Rivera Leiva, who runs another independent new agency, Agencia Libre Oriental, had his baggage searched and was told to hand over his identity papers to two police officers while we was waiting for a bus at the terminal in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago. He was the only passenger to be searched.
A piece titled "Leaping into the Dark" comments on the decision of Cuban-born long-jumper Niurka Montalvo, who is married to a Spaniard and has Spanish citizenship, to compete in the Sydney Olympics in the Spanish team. Her participation in the Games, however, was put in doubt following a protest by the Cuban government to the authorities in Madrid. More than 100 Cuban athletes have defected in the past 10 years.
The vicissitudes of the average Cuban in just obtaining decent clothing are spelled out in an article titled "To Dress Up Is a Luxury in Cuba." A married couple with a young son earning the equivalent of 20 dollars a month decided to put three dollars by each month "to see if we can have a better look by 2001 and change the clothes we now have that are more than 10 years old."
"The Underground Island" is a piece that takes the reader to an underworld where the gap between shortages and access to goods disappears thanks to relatives sending money from abroad or engaging in the black market that involves supporters as well as opponents of the Fidel Castro regime. "There are a thousand and ones ways to make a few dollars discreetly every day," said one interviewee.
Cubans love of going to the movies is languishing. Old movie theaters have been shut down or have fallen into disrepair, more are likely to close in coming years and no new ones are being built. "We soon learned the lesson - when the sign "Closed for Repairs" went up at a movie house, we knew that was the death sentence," writes the author of a piece titled "We are Lost."
The novel by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa "La Fiesta del Chivo," a recent best-seller in Latin America, was brought to Cuba by "friendly hands." Raúl Rivero, author of the article headed "Reading in Cuba," will have the book in his possession for 48 hours towards the end of September. He is currently on a long waiting list. "I am number 62," he says enthusiastically. But not everyone is so lucky.
"To surf the Web is pure science fiction for the overwhelming majority of Cubans," declares the writer of "The Internet is for the Few and for Dollars." He relates, citing the obsession of young print shop worker for the Internet, how much it costs in Cuba to get outside information. He pays five dollars an hour for access, or 60 dollars a month - equivalent to several months pay.
