By Stephen Gibbs, Correspondent, News, Havana, 28 September 2004

"Of course your flat is bugged," a Canadian businessman told me shortly after I arrived here. "You’re the BBC correspondent in Havana, for God’s sake. Prime target."

I still don’t know whether he was right or not but every day I glance up at the smoke detectors, which were fitted throughout my home when I moved in, and remind myself that I must take one apart.

There are currently 142 resident foreign journalists accredited in Cuba. I often think that is a huge number. The fact that we are all allowed to live here strikes me as proof that Cuba actually doesn’t mind, and maybe quite likes, us being here.

We do, after all, serve a function – to give the country attention.

It may not be grabbing the world’s headlines in the way it did 45 years ago, but it is doing its best.

A pretty free rein

Several times a week, all of us in the foreign press corp are urgently called to be briefed on things like the forthcoming visit to Cuba of the San Marino minister for foreign affairs or a new collection of photographs of Fidel Castro.

A roll call is taken and the conference begins with the sombre announcement that x number of journalists from y countries are represented.

The possible downside for Cuba is that it has all these foreign journalists wandering around who are likely to go beyond the ‘what does the discipline the Cuban people showed in the face of hurricane Ivan tell us about the strength of the revolution?’ line of questioning that the national press adopts.

To be fair, we are given a pretty free rein. I’ve never had to submit questions in advance before interviewing ministers. There is no censorship of my work before broadcast. I am free to travel wherever I want.

But there is an effort to control us, sometimes subtly, sometimes not.

The key restriction is that every interview with any official has to be cleared with the international press centre, a division of the foreign ministry. Requests are rarely turned down, but the ‘yes’ is often given weeks, even months, after all interest in the story has been lost.

Recording in the bathroom?

The quieter form of control comes in the hints we all occasionally get, designed to let us know that we are being watched.

I remember once chatting in a field to a functionary from the sugar ministry. He asked me how I had found working in Israel. I hadn’t told him I’d been there. But someone else had.

Then there are the e-mails that arrive hours after they are sent. No doubt there is often an innocent explanation. But messages with subject lines like ‘Fidel death plans’ or ‘Cuba dissidents’ seem to stop off somewhere on their way here.

Most delayed of all are those from my predecessor Daniel Schweimler. The functionary reading them must have been intrigued by my query "where is the jack for the Panda", a reference to the Fiat I bought from Daniel.

If the end result of all this is that I think a little more carefully before I do or write anything to make sure that I’m being fair to Cuba, maybe it’s not a bad thing.

As one American journalist friend of mine said: "Who cares? As long as they aren’t recording me in the bathroom, I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of."

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