U.S. sign may be blocked

Posted on Thu, Jan. 26, 2006
CUBA
U.S. sign may be blocked

By FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

The electronic billboard that displays news and human-rights messages from
the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana may be losing its audience: The Cuban
government Wednesday began building a structure that will block it from
view.
The Cuban government marched more than one million people past the U.S.
Interests Section in a protest against the Bush administration Tuesday. Just
as leader Fidel Castro began to speak, American diplomats turned on the
ticker-tape machine.
Castro called the Americans ``cockroaches.''
On Wednesday, Cuban authorities told U.S. diplomats they would no longer be
allowed to use the parking lot in front of the building on Havana's seafront
Malecon avenue, according to a U.S. Interests Section statement.
Construction work started on the adjoining property soon afterwards, the
statement said.
'The regime appears to be building a permanent structure that, we believe,
seeks to obstruct Cubans' view of the uncensored messages and information
posted on our streaming billboard,'' the statement read. ``The regime's
reaction is not surprising: building walls to isolate Cubans from the rest
of the world is what the regime knows best.''
News agencies reported bulldozers emblazoned with Cuban flags arrived early
Wednesday at the area, officially known as the José Marti Anti-Imperialist
Plaza.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/13713632.htm