By Pedro Rioseco* / Contributor to Prensa Latina
Radio is the most universal means of communication. Fidel Castro Ruz and Ernesto “Che” Guevara understood this very well when they created Radio Rebelde in the Sierra Maestra in 1958 and inaugurated, on May 1, 1961, 65 years ago, the first Cuban shortwave radio station: Radio Havana Cuba.
The leadership of the Revolution understood the need, once victory was achieved, to create a radio station with sufficient reach to broadcast the truth about the Cuban revolutionary process to all countries of the world in the face of disinformation campaigns and harassment from the United States.
In January 1959, following the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s tyranny, US news agencies launched a fierce smear campaign against Cuba, distorting reality, spreading disinformation, and striving to isolate the Revolution from its Latin American and Caribbean context.
For this reason, Operation Truth was carried out in mid-1959, and more than 300 progressive journalists from around the world agreed to propose to Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro the need to create an international news agency and a radio station with international reach.
Thus, from the hands of Fidel and Che, the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina was born on June 16, 1959, and on February 24, 1961, with the provisional name “Cuban Experimental Shortwave,” the station that would later be called Radio Havana Cuba (RHC) went on the air with a small transmitter and its first programs in Spanish for Central America.
On April 16, 1961, the station’s signal was broadcast worldwide, transmitting the words of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro at the farewell ceremony for the victims of the bombings that preceded the mercenary invasion at Playa Girón, an occasion on which he proclaimed the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution.
By broadcasting the victory celebration at Playa Girón, held in Revolution Square on May 1, 1961, the shortwave station Radio Havana Cuba (RHC) was officially inaugurated. It was born out of the Cuban Revolution’s need to break the information blockade, disseminate its popular achievements, and support progressive forces around the world.
RHC’s first transmitting equipment was acquired in Switzerland and consisted of two 10-kilowatt transmitters, two 100-kilowatt transmitters, and several antenna systems.
The transmitting station was located near the town of Bauta, on the Ariguanabo Lagoon, and telephone and ultra-high frequency links were installed using the studios of Radio Progreso Cadena Nacional.
Currently, the station has its own studios in a building located on Infanta Street, in the Central Havana municipality, which it shares with a national station, Radio Progreso.
Its broadcasts now reach the world in seven languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Creole, Arabe and Esperanto. It broadcasts more than 30 hours of programming daily, primarily news, although it also dedicates significant airtime to the most representative of Cuban musical production and boasts a sound archive of extraordinary heritage value.
The programming is distributed through its international shortwave broadcast bands reaching the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as via the internet through its website.
In 1992, Radio Havana Cuba began disseminating information on social media when its English department started collaborating with websites in the United States, sending them daily news updates, both national and international, written in English.
On May 1, 1997, Radio Havana Cuba launched its first website, commemorating the station’s anniversary.
That same year, the station created its website, based in Cuba, with the domain www.radiohc.cu, featuring new sections, services, and live audio streaming over the internet, making it accessible from anywhere in the world.
Radio Havana Cuba and its dedicated team of managers, excellent journalists, translators, announcers, technicians, and administrative staff have always been at the forefront of the Cuban Revolution’s struggles, and its voice, the voice of Cuba, has resonated throughout the world for the past six and a half decades.
*Chief correspondent for Prensa Latina in Nicaragua and concurrently in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for 10 years; chief correspondent in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Bolivia. He founded and directed Editorial Génesis Multimedia, which produced the Encyclopedia Todo de Cuba and 136 other titles. Previously, he was the director of the Sierra Maestra newspaper in the former Oriente province, an aide to the Minister of Culture Armando Hart, and head of the International Desk of Bohemia magazine, with international coverage in more than 30 countries. He is the author of the book Electronic Commerce, the New Conquest. He directs the UPEC’s Visión magazine and is president of its Advisory Group.
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