Billboard Raises Hackles In Havana

By CBS News Producer Portia Siegelbaum in Havana.

American diplomats looking out the windows of the U.S. Interests Section Tuesday faced a vigil by workers and students wearing black T-shirts holding up photos of Cubans they say were killed in anti-Castro violence over the past four decades.

The 24-hour vigil by pro-government forces began Monday evening right after a mourning field of 138 black banners - each with a single white star - was raised in front of the American mission. The banners partially block an electronic news ticker running pro-democracy and anti-government messages in bright crimson letters along the building's fifth floor.

Although the vigil ended Tuesday night, the Cuban Communist Party daily, Granma, says the banners will remain up indefinitely.

Rumors have been rampant ever since construction on the site began two week ago. Some critics suggested Castro was building a wall to prevent Cubans from reading messages such as "The only thing we want to provoke with our sign is the free flow of ideas and voices", which streamed by as the flag-raising ceremony took place. Other messages have clearly been intended to insult the government. For example, one was an old George Burns joke saying: the people best suited to running the country are those currently driving taxis and cutting hair.

In comments to the press, USINT chief, Michael Parmly insists that he is just continuing to apply the Bush Administration's Cuba policy, which involves breaking through government censorship. However, in a speech earlier this month Castro called the electronic sign a "gross provocation aimed at rupturing fragile relations".

"A parallel action would be for the Cuban Interests Section [in Washington] to display five-foot high photos of President Bush and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which the White House is withholding from the public," says Philip Brenner, Senior Associate Dean at the American University's School of International Relations.

U.S. embassies in other countries with alleged press censorship, says Brenner, do not "antagonize their hosts with similar signs. It is inconsistent with the behavior of a diplomatic mission to be undiplomatic."

Although clearly annoyed, Havana has not made the electronic sign put up by the Americans the focus of its street protests. Instead a march by hundreds of thousands of government supporters January 24th spotlighted the presence in the U.S. of Cuban born Luis Posada Carriles, accused of a string of bombings, including the 1976 mid-air explosion of a Cuban airliner killing all 73 on board. Castro is charging the Bush Administration of protecting Posada, who is in immigration detention for illegally entering the United States.

The banners that went up Monday "represent the nation's mourning for over 3,400 Cubans killed by U.S.-sponsored violence since the 1959 revolution," declared Carlos Alberto Cremata, whose father was the co-pilot of the Cubana plane.

Speaking at the flag-raising ceremony, Cremata noted, "They are white stars over a black background, representing the light of a people that are in pain and mourning for their children and families."

Speaking to journalists at his residence on the outskirts of Havana the day after construction began on what is now a monument to victims of terrorism, Parmly accused the media of blowing the story out of proportion. "The press has called this 'the billboard war', which I find funny and amusing, but I don't consider this to be a war. I repeat, and I'm probably going to start to sound boring, our effort is to communicate with the Cuban people."

Asked if there was a crisis in the making, CBS News Foreign Affairs analyst Pamela Falk downplayed the tension. "Relations between the United States and Cuba remain strained but the best example that Washington is not trying to provoke a confrontation is the authorization of Cuban players to the World Baseball Classic," she said. Referring to the sale of U.S. food and agricultural products to the island, she added, "And despite the difficult of the transactions and Castro's complaints about the obstacles, U.S. agricultural sales to the island are increasing." The cash sales, which take place under a congressional exemption to trade restrictions, are now up to $400 million a year.

Also skeptical about the apparent step up in the decades old conflict is Cuban American Rafael Penalver, director of the San Carlos Institute in Key West. "Both Castro and the U.S. have heightened tensions before to promote self-serving agendas. They have played with the emotions of the Cuban people so often in the past that it's difficult to determine whether this time there is more to the old familiar story," he says. "The harsh rhetoric and tough posturing might be the ingredients needed to enable each side to claim victory in an eventual accommodation," Penalver concludes.

Still, last December, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reconvened an anti-Castro panel to "hasten and ease a democratic transition" on the island. She outlined a two prong approach that would deny the Cuban Government cash and provide the Cuban people with information. The U.S. already has a more than four decades old economic and trade embargo against Cuba, which the island claims has cost it some $82 billion in losses.

Since then the Treasury Department's Office on Foreign Assets Control, which enforces the embargo, has cracked down on travel to Cuba sending letters to more than 200 Americans it believes violated the existing restrictions. Penalties range from a warning letter to $65,000 fines. It has also closed down one of the largest travel agencies in Miami offering trips to the island, as it investigates alleged violations of travel licensing regulations. The travel rules were stiffened back in May 2004 to limit Cuban American family visits to just one every three years. The "family" was also redefined at that time to exclude aunts, uncles and cousins. Virtually all non-academic educational programs and university and college programs have been eliminated.

The State Department originally denied the Cuban baseball team visas to participate in the Baseball Classic, only relenting after Castro announced that any cash winnings would be donated to Katrina victims.

Then this weekend, OFAC ordered an American-owned hotel in Mexico City to evict 16 Cuban officials, including a vice-minister, lodged there. The Cubans were asked to leave the Sheraton hotel where they were attending a conference with U.S. energy companies, including the largest U.S. oil refiner, Vaero Energy Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. OFAC rules that it is illegal for U.S. companies to provide services to Cuban nationals or entities in third countries.

By Portia Siegelbaum