Radio/TV Marti defends funding for Cuba program

Posted on Monday, 04.07.14

Radio/TV Marti defends funding for Cuba program
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

The U.S. government's Radio/TV Martí stations said Monday there is
nothing "subversive," as the Cuban government alleges, about a platform
for cheap group text messages among Cubans run by the broadcasters.

"The Piramideo system provides for a free flow of information in a
country where the media is controlled by the government," said Carlos
Garcia-Perez, director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), which
runs the Miami-based broadcasters.

Cuba's official Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported Sunday that
Piramideo was part of a "gigantic subversive campaign against Cuba"
financed by the U.S. government in an attempt to undermine the island's
communist government.

The allegation came on the heels of an Associated Press report that a
Twitter-like system for Cubans called Zunzuneo and run by the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) sought to subvert the
government. U.S. officials said Zunzuneo, which closed in 2012, was a
"democracy promotion" effort.

USAID's link to Zunzuneo was not public until the AP report. But
Radio/TV Marti announced Piramideo last summer during a public
presentation on how it was using novel ways to get around Havana's
censorship, including USB drives made of paper.

Garcia-Perez said the program's development and operational costs stand
at about $300,000 over the past two years, and that about 8,500 people
have signed up for the service and can drop out at any time.

Piramideo allows users to create groups, such as relatives or baseball
aficionados, through a facility in Spain. Members can then send one
message to the entire group at the cost of one text message. Text
messages in Cuba cost nearly $1 each.

Juventud Rebelde quoted Hilda Arias, director of mobile services at the
state-run telecommunications monopoly, as saying that the company has
warned about foreign companies that provide text message services that
it would take unspecified action if they send unsolicited messages to
Cubans.

Radio/TV Marti use several "proxy servers" to get around Havana efforts
to block access to the broadcasters' Web pages, many of them named after
Cuban food. One of Radio Marti's proxy site last year was named
yucaymojo.info, and TV Marti was vacafrita.info. Piramideo used
flandecoco.info.

Cuba has about 2 million cell phone users, who have access to text
messaging but not to data transfer systems. It also has the lowest
Internet access rate in the Western Hemisphere.

Source: Radio/TV Marti defends funding for Cuba program - Cuba -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/07/4045133/radiotv-marti-defends-funding.html