Cuba inches into the Internet Age

Cuba inches into the Internet Age
As more access is granted to a citizenry that's been left behind, users
are well aware that they're being watched.
Havana
November 19, 2006

This article was written by a correspondent not authorized by Cuba to
report there.

Havana — In this most literate of Latin American nations, where free
higher education is one of the proudest achievements of Fidel Castro's
revolution, Cubans are being left in the dust as the rest of Latin
America surges ahead on the Internet's information highway.

The Cuban government has long sought to shield its citizens from outside
sources of news and other information. Cubans are prohibited from having
personal computers at home without official authorization, and PC use is
closely monitored in schools and workplaces.

Less than 2% of the country's 11.4 million citizens have Internet access.

But in apparent recognition of the risks of being left on the sidelines
of the global cyber-revolution, the state-owned telecommunications
monopoly in recent months has expanded Internet access points, allowing
broader use of the Web, or at least its ideologically vetted venues.

Internet cafes, called Correos de Cuba, have cropped up in busy
districts of the capital, allowing those who can afford the minimum
$1.70 for an hour of slow-speed e-mail access to at least get acquainted
with computerized communication. For a little more than $5 an hour, an
international connection can be made, allowing the user to browse most
websites, though Big Brother may be watching.

"I just use it to send simple personal messages: 'I'm fine.' 'The
weather is terrible.' 'Kiss the children for me,' " said Ricardo, an
artist whose emigre son procured his e-mail address for him outside the
state-supervised system. "You don't go into details or talk about
anything sensitive. You don't know who is reading what you write."

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based journalism advocacy group,
conducted an undercover survey in Cuba of Internet restrictions from
mid-August to mid-September. Freelance reporter Claire Voeux visited
dozens of Internet cafes and business centers, experiencing a
contradictory array of blocked sites and security warnings.

She concluded that the government's means and methods of detecting what
it considers subversive couldn't be deciphered in any reliable detail.

"Internet surveillance seems to be fairly haphazard, with the level of
vigilance varying from hotel to hotel and from computer to computer,"
Voeux wrote in a report published last month.

Access for a price

Access and expense also vary widely, with some Internet centers
requiring ID and registration ahead of each session. Others are under
the supervision of state employees who let friends use the computers
anonymously for a lesser payment under the table.

In upscale tourist hotels such as the Parque Central, guests and foreign
visitors to the business center can buy an hour of Internet time for 12
so-called convertible pesos, known as CUCs, about $13.50. At the Havana
Libre hotel, an hour's use costs 9 CUCs and no record is kept of the
Cuban or foreign customers logging on to the half a dozen computers.

Voeux and other journalists who have used hotel-based computers report
that certain words and names appear to trigger government-installed
spyware. Voeux recalled several instances in which she typed the name of
a dissident or sought to read news reports about the apparently
declining health of Castro: A warning flashed on the screen and the
website shut down.

Even with the recent expansion of public access to the Web, global
marketing surveys such as Internet World Stats estimate the number of
Cubans regularly using the Internet to be only 190,000, or 1.7% of the
population. That compares with a Latin American average of almost 19%.
Cuba is at the bottom of the heap in many surveys.

Cuban officials blame the 46-year-old U.S. embargo of their nation for
the snail's pace in Internet growth.

At a United Nations forum this month in Athens, Juan Fernandez of the
Cuban Commission for Electronic Commerce told the global gathering of IT
specialists that the embargo prevented Cuba from obtaining the latest
technology and equipment and forced it to build its system through
expensive third-country purchases.

"I'd like to remind you here that the main obstacles to access to
Internet is hunger, lack of education, discrimination and exclusion,"
Fernandez said in response to other participants' criticism that Cubans'
access was hampered more by the government's censorship than economics.

The National Assembly moved to control the Internet as soon as it was
grudgingly allowed into Cuba a decade ago for use by foreign investors.
A 1996 law designates the Internet as a resource to be used "to
contribute to the nation's life and development" and forbids the
exchange of any information that would violate unspecified moral
principles or jeopardize national security.

To obtain a legal Internet address, a Cuban must apply to the government
and submit to reviews by the national telecommunications company and a
panel of the local branch of the Committees for the Defense of the
Revolution, the Communist Party's neighborhood watchdog group.

Avoiding roadblocks

As with most state efforts to sever Cubans from the world, however, the
regulations appear to be broadly circumvented. Laptops brought in from
abroad or computers pieced together from purloined or homemade
components can be seen in the homes of Havana professionals with access
to dollars. Cubans with authorized Internet connections sometimes rent
out their sign-on information to others.

Internet access has become an issue of concern for younger,
technology-savvy Cubans, as well as among dissidents and independent
journalists demanding the right to communicate with the global community.

Guillermo Farinas, a 43-year-old psychologist, journalist and human
rights activist, launched a hunger strike in January to demand
unrestricted access for all Cubans. Each time his health became
precarious, authorities forced him to a hospital.

Sources in the dissident community say Farinas suffered kidney and heart
ailments and was compelled by the state's repeated interventions to give
up on his proclaimed campaign to fight to the death. He recently resumed
writing articles for his Cubanacan news service, which he files in a
distinctly 20th century manner: He dictates by telephone to Cubans
abroad, who then post them on the Internet.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fg-cubanet19nov19,0,3795392.story