Re: Internet use restricted in Cuba for CHAS NEMO
- From: " krp" <web2457k@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:12:21 GMT
<johnjsuarez2002@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1133217835.368814.159720@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Posted on Mon, Nov. 28, 2005
CUBA
Internet use restricted in Cuba, which blames U.S.
The Internet is a luxury to the privileged few in Cuba, and the
government there says the U.S. economic embargo is at fault.
BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@xxxxxxxxxx
Oscar Visiedo says that when he helped bring the Internet to Cuba in
1992, he faced three daunting obstacles: the U.S. economic embargo,
technological shortcomings and ominous state security.
Thirteen years later, steep prices and strict government controls
largely keep ordinary Cubans from the World Wide Web, while the
island's authorities still blame the embargo as the reason the country
stalled on the information highway.
So, even while the Internet boomed in Cuba -- the government alone has
at least 200 sites -- usage remains among the lowest in the Western
Hemisphere, and the hurdles remain unchanged.
''There is a fear -- a fear that is practically pathological -- of
access to information,'' said Visiedo, who worked at the government
office that introduced Cuba to the Internet, back when nobody there
knew what it was. He now works in management information systems at
Carlos Albizu University in Miami.
While Cuba boasts that it has computers in every school, a U.N. Human
Development Report says nine of every 1,000 Cubans are Internet users,
compared with 288 in Costa Rica and 44 in Honduras. Even Haiti, with
500,000 Internet users, has a higher rate. Other reports estimate the
number of internet users in Cuba at 150,000.
PERMITS NEEDED
Private persons in Cuba cannot legally buy computers or sign up for
regular Internet service without government permits that are almost
impossible to obtain, so the nation's 335,000 desktops and laptops
belong largely to the government, state enterprises and special
individuals such as trusted doctors.
Internet cafes aimed at foreigners charge up to a month's wage -- $15
-- for an hour of surfing and ban locals. But a black market for
illegal passwords has emerged, where users ''rent'' time slots from
friends.
''We, for instance, used to have a connection between the horrendous
hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., but it was better than nothing,''
anthropologist Katrin Hansing, an associate with Florida International
University's Cuban Research Institute, who lives in Havana, said in an
e-mail.
The government blames its cyberspace inadequacies on the United States.
At an Internet summit in Tunisia this month, Cuba used the
international stage to argue that the U.S. economic embargo prevents it
from buying not only software and servers, but marine fiber-optic
cables that would allow it to plug into the Internet at higher speeds
and lower costs.
The Cuban and other delegations also pushed to break the U.S. monopoly
on Internet domain names, saying it amounts to a worldwide impediment.
`SATELLITE ACCESS'
''Our country counts on satellite access as the only Internet
connection,'' Cuban Information Minister Ignacio González Planas wrote
during an Internet forum earlier this month. ``We haven't been able to
implement plans for fiber-optic cables for international connectivity
principally because of the lack of necessary permissions needed from
the Yankee government.''
But U.S. officials and other experts say the embargo is a smoke screen
for Cuba's real problems.
''I cannot think of a single thing they need that they would absolutely
only be able to get from us,'' said a State Department official, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not cleared to speak
publicly.
'They can go to a Spanish telephone company . . . which uses Japanese
equipment and say, `Help us set up Internet.' That has nothing to do
with us.''
The real obstacles, the official added, are internal Cuban policies
that prevent ordinary people from getting on the Internet.
Earlier this month, the France-based organization Reporters Without
Borders denounced Cuba as one of a dozen nations with the most
controlled and least accessible Internet. It lumped Cuba with Iran and
Vietnam.
''The Chinese model of encouraging online activity while controlling it
is too expensive, so President Fidel Castro has plumped for an easier
way -- simply keeping the Internet out of reach of virtually all
Cubans,'' the organization said.
Visiedo said there is no question that the American embargo hampers
Cuba's efforts to buy the equipment it needs. But he said he doubts
that the government would embrace the technology even if it could.
Experts said the Internet on the island is more like an intranet --
it's an internal network of more than 200 government-run sites and
controlled access to outside sites.
Every school in the country -- even those with just one student and no
electricity -- has a computer, González said. Because the focus is to
provide collective social access rather than individual use, he added,
600 youth clubs nationwide are also equipped with Internet access.
''We are doing everything possible to extend it more every day,''
González wrote.
But only up to a point.
WEBSITES BLOCKED
The Cuban government acknowledges that it blocks websites that it
considers terrorist, subversive or pornographic. Attempts to view
blocked sites, such as the Cuban American National Foundation's, result
in generic messages such as ``This page cannot be shown.''
''Even the trusted Cubans they authorize to have [Internet access]
can't see all sites,'' said dissident writer Oscar Espinosa Chepe. 'If
they send an e-mail the authorities don't like, they get an e-mail that
says, `Hey, you can't do that.' ''
That has not restricted news sites like The Miami Herald, El Nuevo
Herald, The New York Times and The Washington Post, Espinosa added in a
telephone interview from Havana.
To get around the controls, homemade computers using smuggled parts are
growing in popularity, and government workers with legal Internet
access are selling passwords and log-on hours on the black market for
up to $50 a month.
''Like everything else in Cuba, it's resolved through friendships,''
Espinosa said. 'As we say in Cuba, `Invent as you go along.' ''
`AN ILLEGAL ACT'
The U.S. Interests Section in Havana has 46 terminals available for
free to preregistered dissidents, students and activists, a service
that the Cuban government has branded ``an illegal act.''
Visiedo acknowledges that among his first tasks in bringing the
Internet and e-mail to Cuba was to come up with a way to monitor the
new technology.
''Otherwise, I knew I wouldn't get very far, and they would prohibit
it,'' Visiedo said. ``As a technocrat, I walked a tightrope.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/13271900.htm
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