Daniel Freedman, 08.11.09, 12:17 PM EDT
U.S. news ''freedom ticker'' makes a mighty roar in Havana.
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The Times Square-style giant ticker that scrolled news and messages to
the Cuban people along the side of the U.S. Interests Section building
in Havana died not with a bang but with a whimper, and Fidel Castro won
the round. Or so it might seem at first glance.
Launched in January 2006, what become known to some as the "freedom
ticker" reminded the Cuban people in five-foot-high letters that another
world existed outside the country. The ticker brought the latest news
from the rest of the world, and the messages included quotes from Martin
Luther King Jr., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Eastern
European anti-Communist heroes like Lech Walesa.
What was most remarkable about the ticker was just how much it upset
Cuba's then dictator, Fidel Castro. He demanded the U.S. take it down,
and when it refused he ordered Cubans to demonstrate outside the U.S.
mission--and he personally led the demonstrations. He accused the
mission of being the "headquarters of the counter-revolution," although
he conceded, "the cockroaches are brave" because they were persisting
with their "little sign." A little sign with a mighty roar, apparently.
The U.S. refused to back down, with the top U.S. diplomat in Havana,
Michael Parmly, declaring, "We are only trying to communicate with the
Cuban people. Only a dictator would be upset." And while Castro was
outside the mission leading the demonstrations, the ticker broadcast
messages such as "No man is good enough to govern another man without
that other's consent"; "Only in totalitarian societies do governments
talk at their people and never listen"; and my personal favorite, "To
those who may want to be here, we respect your protests. To those who
don't want to be here, excuse the bother."
Castro wasn't done. He responded by building an open-air stage with a
"mountain of flags" (around 100) to block the ticker from view. From
then on the ticker was never visible again. Two weeks ago, U.S. State
Department spokesman Ian Kelly mentioned casually in a press conference
that the ticker had been turned off in June--it seemed no one had
noticed--and the Obama administration had then permanently taken it down.
Kelly noted that the Cuban people couldn't see the ticker anyway, and
that "we believe that the billboard was really not effective as a means
to delivering information to the Cuban people." Kelly added that
President Obama's decision to allow U.S. communications companies to
conduct business with Cuba would be a better means of bringing
information to Cubans.
It's true that the more "alternative" ideas and news that enter Cuba,
the harder it will be for the Cuban regime to silence them. You can
build a mountain of flags around one ticker, but it's harder to insulate
your subjects from several U.S. communications companies delivering news
and ideas from the free world.
That's the right lesson for the Obama administration to learn from the
"freedom ticker." One of our most valuable foreign policy tools against
oppressive regimes is simply telling the enslaved people the truth about
their rulers and the alternatives that exist. And the more means of
communicating those ideas and truths, the more it will undermine the
regime. Dictators understand this threat, which is why a few words on a
screen were able to bring Castro so angrily to his feet.
This principle is one that played a key role in winning the Cold War,
and is no less relevant today in dealing with dictatorships from Syria
to North Korea. As for a regime that finds the words of Martin Luther
King Jr. so frightening, wait for what will happen when they're
eventually heard and understood by the Cuban people.
Daniel Freedman is director of policy analysis and communications at the
Soufan Group, a strategic consultancy company. Previously he served as
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's senior writer, as a U.N. official and as
foreign policy analyst for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign committee.
Fidel Castro Called Us 'Brave Cockroaches' - Forbes.com (11 August 2009)
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/11/cockroaches-cuba-fidel-castro-opinions-contributors-daniel-freedman.html
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