A debate between Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, and Jorge Mas Canosa, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, will be televised at 9 p.m. Sept. 5, a spokesman for CBS Telenoticias announced Tuesday.
The two-hour, Spanish-language telecast is expected to reach 14 million homes in 20 countries in the Americas and Europe, said Sergio Lopez Miro, the news service's public relations director.
Cuba may not be among those countries, however. As of Tuesday, it had not requested permission to show the program, Lopez said.
The debate was videotaped Friday. Alarcon spoke from Havana, through the facilities of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute; Mas Canosa was present at CBS Telenoticias studios in Hialeah, along with journalists Maria Elvira Salazar, Ricardo Brown and moderator Jorge Gray.
Topics are said to include human rights, U.S.-Cuba relations, the Helms-Burton Law, the harassment of dissidents in Cuba and the economic conditions on the island. CBS Telenoticias has released no details.
The debate will be shown unedited in its entirety, Lopez said. The program will include outtakes from the CBS Reports program The Last Revolutionary, an interview with President Fidel Castro by Dan Rather, which aired July 18.
Appearing Tuesday on the Miami radio station WQBA-La Cubanisima, Mas Canosa said the debate did not represent a change in the foundation's position toward the Castro government.
``We could not pass up an opportunity to express our points of view to a high-ranking representative of the Cuban government,'' he said. ``Reason and truth were on our side, the side of the victims.''
Speaking from Havana, Alarcon's chief of staff told The Herald that the debate did not indicate a change in policy by the Castro government.
``The encounter . . . was handled in a confidential manner,'' Andres Montes said Tuesday, ``and so far neither the government nor Alarcon has made any public statements about it.''
© 1996 The Miami Herald.