Congress Threatens to Pull the Plug on Troubled TV Marti : Television: The U.S.-supported station is accused of being under the control of an anti-Castro foundation.

In the month that it has been operating, TV Marti has done little more than broadcast a few old “Kate & Allie” reruns. But the U.S.-supported station that is beamed into Cuba has created an international dispute and spurred a congressional investigation that threatens to pull the plug on the effort to expose residents of that Communist nation to a U.S. perspective.

Private and congressional critics have attacked nearly every aspect of TV Marti, from its legality to its programming. Much of the concern has focused on the control that an anti-Castro group, the Cuban American National Foundation, exerts over the station.

“What we’ve got here is a private radio and TV station run by rich, right-wing Cubans with public funds,” said a congressman who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

Three Democratic congressmen--Reps. John Dingell (Mich.), Al Swift (Wash.) and Edward J. Markey (Mass.)--have challenged the legality of the broadcast. And Dingell, the powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its oversight and investigations subcommittee, has asked the General Accounting Office to investigate possible conflicts of interest between the station and the Cuban American group, which has ties to the Republican Party.

Dingell has also asked for a GAO audit of the station’s advisory board to help the subcommittee in investigating “a number of questions regarding the expenditures and activities” of the board. The advisory board’s chairman, Jorge Mas Canosa, is also the head of the Cuban American National Foundation, a 60,000-member organization dedicated to Fidel Castro’s downfall.

Meanwhile, an arm of the International Telecommunications Union has said that TV Marti violates international treaties, and is angry that the Bush Administration has so far ignored the organization’s inquiries. The National Assn. of Broadcasters fears that Castro’s rage over TV Marti will prompt him to follow through on his threats to jam private U.S. radio stations throughout the eastern United States.

On top of all that, the TV Marti signal isn’t even getting through because of jamming by the Cubans, and Cuba is now jamming the previously unhindered Radio Marti.

Roman Popadiuk, White House deputy press secretary, said that despite the criticism, the Bush Administration will continue TV Marti broadcasting.

“Our position is that it is legal to broadcast to Cuba, both radio and TV,” Popadiuk said. “There is a need for free information in Cuba, and the President is committed to keeping the truth going into Cuba.”

Asked if the Administration is concerned about undue influence over the Cuban programs by the Cuban American National Foundation and Mas, Popadiuk replied, “I’m not going to get into that.”

In the center of the conflict stands millionaire Jorge Mas Canosa, a 50-year-old Miami businessman who is fiercely anti-communist and a major Republican Party fund-raiser. Mas counts among his friends Jeb Bush, the son of President Bush who ran his father’s Florida campaign.

Mas made headlines last year after he admitted on a Latino talk show that he instigated a U.S. Customs Department raid on the home and office of art collector Ramon Cernuda. Agents seized 259 Cuban paintings, saying they were evidence in a grand jury investigation into whether they represented a violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act.

The act makes it illegal to buy or sell anything coming out of Cuba after 1963, although such paintings are regularly listed in Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogues and have been acquired by major museums.

Mas is also chairman of the advisory board of Radio Marti. And he recently became chairman of the advisory board of TV Marti when the two boards were merged to become the Advisory Board for Cuba Broadcasting. The board’s nine members are appointed by the President.

In an interview, Mas said that he saw no conflict in his roles.

“I’m also chairman of the United Way for Miami,” Mas said. “We’d be preventing people from doing public service if they can’t do more than one thing.”

But some congressman and private critics are not so sure.

Mas and his organization worked two years lobbying Congress to create Radio Marti, which was begun in 1985 over the objections of then-Secretary of State George Shultz. The station gets approximately $11 million in tax dollars each year.

More recently, Mas and the Cuban American foundation convinced Congress to appropriate $7.5 million for a 90-day test of TV broadcasts to Cuba--tests that began March 27. The TV project also was authorized $14 million for annual operating costs before testing even began.

Some in Congress charge that the money for testing TV Marti was surreptitiously slipped through, tucked into a massive State Department appropriations bill with little notice and no debate.

“They tell me I voted for it six times,” Swift said. “But the money was so deeply buried in appropriations bills that probably not more than two dozen Congressmen knew about it.

“There was substantial debate on Radio Marti and it lost the first year, so the backers of the TV project must have decided they didn’t want to risk it, I guess.”

Steven Jacobs, vice president of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, also suggested that TV Marti seems to be more an arm of the private Cuban-American organization than a legitimate tool to bring news and cultural programming to Communist Cuba.

“A great deal of non-government decision-making has been going on,” Jacobs said. “When Congress provided the initial test money last year, we couldn’t get the engineering studies. And when we asked, we were directed to a Republican consulting firm here in Washington. I think there’s a real question as to who’s minding the store.”

The criticism was echoed by Ernesto Betancourt, director of Radio Marti until his firing last month. “The Foundation now has almost total control over the Radio and TV Marti,” he said.

Dingell earlier this month asked the GAO to “determine the nature and extent, if any, of the relationship between the advisory board and the Cuban American National Foundation.”

Dingell said that in addition to concerns about TV Marti’s legality, “The apparent links between the advisory board and the Cuban American National Foundation raise other significant questions about the board’s quality of advice. The GAO audit should expose any improper linkage that might exist.”

As to a separate Dingell request for a GAO audit of the advisory board, Mas responded, “What’s to audit? Our only expenses are transportation and secretarial.”

Mas also dismissed concerns about the station’s legality, saying legal counsel had advised that it was within international law.

But the International Telecommunications Union, headquartered in Geneva, apparently does not agree.

“The establishment of this broadcasting station is, in the view of the board, not in compliance with the intent and spirit of the regulations” set in accordance with the Nairobi convention of 1982, said G.C. Brooks, chairman of International Frequency Registration Board of the International Telecommunications Union. The treaty regulates transborder broadcasts that could invade channels already in use.

“The same regulations protect U.S. broadcasters from harmful interference,” Dingell said in a statement. “By continuing these (TV Marti) broadcasts, we may find it extremely difficult to rely upon those regulations to protect our own broadcasts from transborder interference.”