U.S. Building In Havana Sparks Another Front In Propaganda War

HAVANA, Cuba — Dressed in tidy uniforms, Cuban schoolchildren file solemnly past a forest of flagpoles into a small meeting room, listening as a gray-haired matron describes the story behind Cuba's newest national monument.

"Our fight is not with the American people," the woman tells them. "It is a fight against the blockade (embargo) and the policies of the imperialist government."

The flagpoles, which stand directly in front of the U.S. Interests Section building in Havana, were erected last year after American officials unveiled a high-tech twist to the long propaganda war between the United States and Cuba: a five-foot tall electronic sign spelling out news and messages to the Cuban people.

The sign, which stretches across a bank of windows along the building's fifth floor, outraged Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who quickly organized a protest of more than a million people.

As Castro spoke at the rally, the sign's red letters spelled out quotes in Spanish that Cuban officials found offensive, including one from Abraham Lincoln that said, "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."

A year later, the battle shows no sign of easing, despite the much-publicized illness that has sidelined Castro for the past six month. Cuban officials plan a ceremony on Saturday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of what has been named the "Hill of the Flags."

Jose Carlos, director of the Cuban monument complex, said 138 flagpoles were erected to mark the 138 years since Cuba's independence from Spain. Their black flags with a single white star symbolize the Cubans who have died at the hands of American aggression over the years, he said.

"It's the high technology of their sign against the human force of dignified Cuban men and women," he said.

Carlos insisted the flags were not put up to block the American sign, although they do that quite effectively.

American officials say the electronic sign is not a violation of international law, as the Cubans claim. At first the sign carried messages calling for "A free Cuba," but now the focus is mainly on news.

"We decided to break the information blockade," said Demitra Pappas, deputy public affairs officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. "They don't get this information from anyone. It's what you'd see if you logged on to 'My Yahoo,' but the Cuban people can't do that."

It is also a counterpoint, Pappas said, to the Cuban propaganda billboards that dot the country, some erected near the U.S. building. The billboards rail against U.S. "imperialism" and "aggression," with some calling President Bush a "terrorist."

Cuba and America severed diplomatic relations shortly after Castro's 1959 revolution, but the countries agreed to open "interests sections" — diplomatic outposts that serve essentially as embassies — during the Carter administration. Cuba runs its office under the auspices of the Swiss Embassy in Washington, while the U.S. constructed a building on Havana's broad seaside avenue, the Malecon.

The offices mostly process travel documents. While U.S. policies effectively block most Americans from visiting Cuba, thousands of Cuban-Americans visit relatives on the island each year and a limited number of Cubans travel to America.

Castro erected an amphitheater in front of the American building and turned it into a protest site during the furor over Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who survived a 1999 raft trip to Florida and became the center of a tumultuous tug-of-war between Cuba and Cuban exiles in Miami.

Castro continued holding anti-U.S. events at the amphitheater following Elian's return to Cuba, but the facility also hosts cultural events and concerts.

Things heated up again in January 2006 when American officials switched on the electronic sign.

Since the flagpoles went up, passersby can still glimpse the American sign — which lights up only at dusk on weekends and a few weeknights — but only if they come close.

Most Cubans seem to ignore it.

"They can't even get their grammar correct," laughed Jose Antonio Gonzalez, 44, a painter who was working near the American building one recent morning. "But the Hill of Flags is of great significance to us. It represents the martyrs of American terrorism."