Read it and rejoice, Comrades!
http://www.cadenagramonte.cu/english/index.php/show/articles/18796:aero-marti-a-subversive-platform-that-proved-the-ineffective-us-anti-cuba-policyThursday, July 10, 2014
Aero Marti, A Subversive Platform that Proved the Ineffective US Anti-Cuba Policy
Havana, Cuba, Jul 10.- The closing of Aero Marti, a platform to beam subversive radio and TV transmissions to Cuba has confirmed the failure of a US strategy to topple the Cuban Revolution.
The so-called Radio and TV Marti, which have operated since 2006 from US territory, have been the object of denunciation at international organizations by the Cuban government given their illegal and subversive nature.
A report issued this week by the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors revealed the results of an audit at the Office for Cuba Broadcasting which indicated that the Office is plagued with low morale, lack of transparency and the absence of effective communication with the employees.
The audit proved the inefficiencies in the work of the Office, which was set up in 1990 as a crucial element in the US’s anti-Cuba policy.
According to the report, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting has management weaknesses in terms of personnel hiring, human resources, tax control, property management and trips. These problems surfaced when government inspectors interviewed a considerable number of employees, between September and November 2013, which proved that many workers would not dare speak with the inspectors for fear of reprisals by their superiors.
Radio and TV Marti had been criticized for their high cost and poor effectiveness, since different studies confirmed that their presumed audience was practically non-existent.
Radio and TV transmissions from the United States to Cuba constitute a violation of international law and run against the norms of the International Telecommunications Union, which stipulate that radio and TV broadcasts must be conceived as a national and high-quality service within the limits of a given country. Shortwave transmissions must facilitate peaceful and cooperation relations among the nations, the legislation also stipulates.
Washington has tried the most diverse and modern technology to have radio and TV Marti be received by the Cuban people. They used a static balloon up to 2005, the Hispasat and Direct TV satellites, planes, and local radio and TV transmitters in South Florida.
In August 2006, a new Gulfstream-1 aircraft joined the TV transmissions and the initiative was called Aero Marti.
Since October 2006 up to the fall of 2013, the subversive program had cost the US government some 35, 67 million dollars according to the report by the Inspector General and then it was closed due to the impossibility to pay for the fuel, following automatic cuts on the federal budget.
And this is the way the story of US subversive radio and TV goes my friends, in the meantime, Cubans keep working to improve their socialist system.(ACN)