Tangle in the Web
Technological issues, government insulate Cuba from Internet threat
10/23/97
By Tracey Eaton / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA - A Pentagon expert called the Internet a menace to countries such as Cuba. “The censor's biggest challenge,” another analyst said. But the sprawling computer network, which debuted in Havana one year ago, has yet to shake Fidel Castro's 38-year-old revolution.

An outmoded phone system, a shortage of computers and scattered government restrictions have kept the Internet from gaining widespread use on the island, analysts say.

Cuban officials deny running any kind of an orchestrated campaign to deny access to the World Wide Web. At the same time, they say, they aren't about to let the global network of computers somehow undermine the country's security.

Mr. Castro's foes in South Florida's Cuban-American community send millions of bytes of anti-Communist rhetoric into cyberspace every day. Abel Prieto, Cuba's minister of culture, said the socialist regime has a duty to fend off those attacks.

“We are trying to build the Cuban of the future, people prepared to defend our values,” he said.

Toward that end, officials say they are bringing the Internet to Cuba with great care: “Gradually and selectively” is how the Communist Party newspaper Granma put it.

Internet access, for now, is limited to academic institutions, government agencies, diplomatic missions, some businesses and foreign journalists.

And Internet-related issues are handled at the highest levels of government. Leaders of the armed forces, the Interior Ministry - responsible for internal order - and the ministries in charge of science and technology, communications, news and cinema meet regularly to discuss the so-called network of networks.

“We cannot forget that the Internet can be aggressive. It can hurt you,” said Jesus Martinez, director of the Center for Interchange of Automated Information, or CENIAI, the country's sole Internet provider.

Critics of the Castro government say that it restricts Internet access for political reasons. Mr. Martinez disputed that, saying a lack of money and equipment is what prevents most people from surfing the Web.

Less than 2 percent of the island's 11 million people have computers. Many of the computers are antiquated or have poor or no phone-line connections.

The high cost is another obstacle. An Internet connection in Cuba goes for $260 per month. Few Cubans, making $10 to $20 a month, can afford that.

Even so, Mr. Martinez said, the Cuban government is keen on expanding use of the Internet on the island.

About 70 institutions employing thousands of workers now have Internet access in Havana, and some 3,000 institutions use electronic mail, he said. As the country modernizes its phone system, institutions outside Havana will also go online, he said.

“The Internet can bring many benefits to Cuba and to any country,” he said. “The Internet can show us a world of information from huge libraries and research centers. It can help us do business. And I think it can eventually be a useful tool to help develop society.”

The potential political impact of the Internet in Cuba is a matter of debate.

A July 1995 U.S. Department of Defense study said that the Internet will pose dangers to highly centralized governments, such as Cuba's.

“The Internet is clearly a significant long-term strategic threat to authoritarian regimes, one that they will be unable to counter effectively,” the study says. “News from the outside world brought by the Internet into nations subjugated by such regimes will clash with the distorted versions provided by their governments, eroding the credibility of their positions and encouraging unrest.”

Mr. Martinez said Cuban officials had examined the Internet's potential threat, concluding that they had more to gain than lose by going online. Whatever the case, he said he expects the Internet's impact to be minimal. Cubans have far greater contact with the outside world through tourism than the Internet, and the government not only remains intact, it is encouraging more foreigners to visit.

His Web site - at http://www.ceniai.inf.cu - was launched in October 1996. By then, dozens of anti-Castro groups, such as the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, had dozens of sites of their own.

Some Castro foes relay e-mail from dissidents and independent journalists in Cuba. Others sponsor Web sites that contain off-color jokes about Mr. Castro. Still others encourage debate on such issues as human rights and economic policy.

That kind of information flow - especially the e-mail - challenges governments where information is tightly controlled, said the Defense Department study, titled “Strategic Assessment: The Internet.”

“Personal contact between people living under such governments and people living in the free world . . . will further undermine authoritarian controls,” the study said. “Information about violations of human rights and other forms of oppression will be increasingly conveyed to the outside world.”

Jolyon Jenkins, writing in the New Statesman & Society, said, “Cyberspace has great subversive potential.”

“You can write a book or a manifesto and distribute it free to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. In theory, all national censorship and control becomes obsolete, so long as telephone communication exists.”

Rolling Stone magazine summed it up this way: “The Internet is the censor's biggest challenge and the tyrant's worst nightmare. ... Unbeknown to their governments, people in China, Iraq and Iran, among other countries, are freely communicating with people all over the world.”

Osvaldo Bebelagua, an official with Cuba's Ministry of Science and Technology, said the Castro government has prepared for the challenge of the Internet.

The country has tens of thousands of trained professionals, he told a group of visiting information specialists. There are nearly two scientists or engineers in Cuba for every 1,000 people, far outpacing the rest of Latin America.

But Cuba can't let down its guard, he warned.

Knowledge is power, and the island's most bitter enemy, the United States, is soaking up as much information as possible to dominate the hemisphere, he said.

On the other hand, Cubans say, the Internet can also be used to portray their vision of their country without relying on what they see as often biased U.S. newspapers and television. And that is what Cuba's tourism industry is doing.

Each week, tens of thousands of foreigners tap into the industry's Internet sites to rent cars, book tours and reserve hotel rooms on the self-proclaimed “Jewel of the Caribbean.”

“We're getting an average of 25,302 hits on our Internet site every day,” said Jose Francisco Fernandez, who runs a Web page sponsored by Cubanacan, a government tourism agency. “And most of those who visit the site are Americans.”

Cubanacan's Web site - at http://www.cubanacan.cu - touts the island as a tourist paradise, with white sandy beaches and luxury resorts. During the third week in September, Mr. Fernandez said, the site had 170,664 hits - 58 percent from the United States, nearly 10 percent from Canada, 5 percent each from Spain and Italy and the rest from elsewhere.

“Running an ad campaign in Europe can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Advertising through the Internet is much cheaper,” said Mr. Fernandez, head of multimedia projects at Cubanacan.

“We look for the good that can come from the Internet, not the bad,” Mr. Martinez said.

“I think that's the best way to make progress, to be optimistic.”

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