US Legislator Submits Bill against Anti-Cuba Radio and TV Transmissions
HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 29 (acn) US democratic representative for Minnesota, Betty McCollum, this week submitted draft legislation to eliminate the funding by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) of US anti-Cuba radio and TV Marti transmissions.
According to local Miami media, McCollum issued a communiqué describing both radio and TV stations as an obsolete method in the new context of US-Cuba relations.
She said that Radio and TV Marti are outdated artifacts of Cold War times. The legislator, who presented a similar bill in 2011, stressed that US taxpayers should not be financing such propaganda and instead they should back efforts so that the US people can get directly in touch with the Cuban people.
Radio Marti was set up in 1983 and TV Marti in 1990 with the aim of maintaining subversive transmissions against the Cuban government. The two stations are send their anti-Cuba propaganda from Miami in Spanish, but they have been successfully jammed by Cuba, so far from having an impact on the island, they are just a hole in the pockets of US taxpayers, observers say.
The legislator also said that over the past 30 years Radio and TV Marti have cost 770 million dollars to US taxpayers.
Representative McCollum recently welcomed in her facebook page the announcement by US President Barack Obama to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba and added that she would continue to work to lift the over-50-year US commercial, economic and financial blockade of the island, which US authorities insist in calling trade embargo.
The budget allocated to the Office for Cuba Broadcast in 2014 reached 27 million dollars, according to statistics cited by local Miami media.
