| From: | "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
| Subject: | Looks like a campaign |
| Date: | Mon, 25 Mar 2002 17:28:25 -0800 |
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Cuba Bans PC Sales to Public
By Julia Scheeres
2:00 a.m. March 25, 2002 PST
The Cuban government has quietly banned the sale of computers and computer accessories to the public, except in cases where the items are "indispensable" and the purchase is authorized by the Ministry of Internal Commerce.
News of the ban was first reported by CubaNet, an anti-Castro site based in Miami. According to the organization's correspondent in Havana, the merchandise -- which had been sold freely in the capital since mid-2001-- was yanked off store shelves in January.
The computer departments of the retail stores were divided into two zones: a well-stocked area for government buyers, and a smaller area where the public could buy diskettes, CDs and other such items. A store employee told the correspondent she was forbidden from discussing the move, which was also referred to briefly in a newsletter published by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
Early attempts to confirm the information independently were unsuccessful. Dozens of messages to Cuban retailers and government officials in Cuba went unanswered. Cuba's spokesman in Washington, Luis Fernandez, was consistently evasive.
"If we didn't have an embargo, there could be computers for everybody," Fernandez replied when asked this question: Are computer sales to the public banned in Cuba?
Several weeks later, a government employee in Cuba sent Wired News, through a Web-based e-mail account, a copy of a resolution mandating the ban. In an interview using an instant-messaging service, the source -- who asked to remain anonymous -- criticized the decree and said it had generated a great deal of controversy within government circles after it was unilaterally mandated by the Minister of Internal Commerce, B�rbara Castillo.
According to Article 19, Chapter II, Section 3 of the ministry's Resolution No. 383/2001: "The sale of computers, offset printer equipment, mimeographs, photocopiers, and any other mass printing medium, as well as their parts, pieces and accessories, is prohibited to associations, foundations, civic and nonprofit societies, and natural born citizens. In cases where the acquisition of this equipment or parts, pieces and accessories is indispensable, the authorization of the Ministry of Internal Commerce must be solicited."
The source's decision to send the information was especially daring in light of a gag law that mandates a 3- to 10-year prison term for anyone who collaborates with "enemy news media."
Because government officials refused to comment on the ban, the reason for the move is a matter of speculation.
The rise of independent journalists in Cuba, who published articles on the Internet criticizing the Castro regime, may have something to do with it. The correspondents, who risk jail time for their "subversive" reports, send their stories by fax, e-mail or phone dictation to supporters in Miami.
"We believe our website had something to do with it," said Manrique Iriarte Sr., who helps run the website for the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists, which launched a few weeks before the ban was passed in late December.
The economists' site offers a sharp contrast to the rosy Marxist dream proffered by Castro, including news of opposition arrests and detailed reports on the decrepit state of the island economy. The site is blocked in Cuba.
Iriarte said he visited several Havana stores in January where employees told him computer equipment was only available for "accredited state entities."
The move didn't surprise Cuba-watchers in the United States.
"This just reflects a further restriction on communications with the outside world," said Eugene Pons, of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami.
The government already requires Cubans who can afford Internet accounts -- which cost $260 a month, while the average Cuban salary is $240 a year -- to register with National Center for Automated Data Exchange (CENAI), Pons said. For those who do manage to log on, the Internet experience is limited: The government-controlled ISPs block links to certain foreign media, anti-Castro sites and pornography.
The government has also admitted to monitoring e-mail. To circumvent such spying, residents use Web-based e-mail accounts and chat services to make their communication harder to trace. Indeed, the Cuban source used a Web-based account to reply to a message sent to the person's government account.
"If I disappear from cyberspace one day, it's because they found out I was talking to you," the source said.
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The Los Angeles Times
The Web Isn't Wide in Cuba
Access to PCs, Internet Is Tightly Controlled by Havana
By ANITA SNOW
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 25 2002
HAVANA -- Jesus Garcia Leiva flashes a nervous smile at the small desktop computer and 14-inch monitor, both arranged carefully on a lace tablecloth barely hiding the crude wooden table beneath.
Wearing the kind of dark suit worn here only for solemn events, the cyber-dissident declares that the Pentium machine will launch a new computing learning center for opponents of President Fidel Castro.
"An hour from now, this computer could be gone," Garcia, a systems analyst and programmer, recently told a small gathering. Although the communist government has multiplied efforts in recent years to promote cyber-literacy in the workplace and youth clubs, it tightly controls access to computers and the Internet, restricting private use to the politically trustworthy and to foreigners.
That hasn't stopped hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Cubans hungry for Internet access from finding unauthorized and sometimes illegal ways to get online.
Authorities have seized unauthorized computers, mostly from government opponents, preventing the Internet from posing a serious political threat.
The government blames the controls on economic limitations, not politics.
"Technologically it is impossible to connect all those who are interested," said Sergio Perez, director of the government office that maintains the country's official Web site, in a rare interview.
Although Cuba has used foreign investment to expand and modernize its antiquated telecommunications grid, it still had just 4.4 phones per 100 people in 2000, half as many as Mexico.
Cuban officials have shied away from discussing the country's Internet program with foreign media, except for a few news conferences organized after reporters sought interviews.
But the government teaches millions of Cubans how to use computers, send e-mail and conduct Web searches--albeit on island-wide networks that use the same protocols as the global Internet but are not connected to it.
Cuba's restrictions are similar to those of such tightly controlled countries as Myanmar and North Korea. They are far stricter than those in China and Saudi Arabia, for example, which merely use software to block sites authorities deem objectionable.
At more than 300 government-run computer youth clubs, dozens of young people can be found furiously typing away at computers.
Castro himself champions these computer literacy efforts, often showing up at club openings to chat with young cyber-philes.
The government estimates that 60,000 of the island's 11 million citizens have e-mail accounts.[Snow should have mentioned here that the overwhelming majority of these are free]
In a country where the average monthly government salary is about $9, post offices sell $4.50 cards that provide three hours of access to international e-mail and domestic Web sites, including those of official media. [An interesting question is who has the money to buy these and where do they get it from? Certainly the disinformation crew has no trouble getting theirs on their meager salaries -- or is Miami financing this?]
But even wealthy Cubans cannot legally buy a personal computer. Nor can they sign up for one of several full-access Internet services available to foreigners for $60 a month.
What is available to all Cuban surfers are several national intranets, some with specialized content such as Infomed, which is geared toward physicians and other health-care workers.
In 1996, the first law passed to govern how the Internet would be used stated that access would be selective and granted "in a regulated manner ... giving priority to the entities most relevant to the country's life and development."
The government controls full Internet access--which depends on satellite connections to Europe and Canada--through three service providers including Infocom, which is operated by Cuban telephone monopoly Etecsa, a mixed enterprise in which Havana has a majority interest in partnership with Telecom Italia and a Panamanian consortium.
Informaticos, or Cuban Internet rebels, also can get full access to international e-mail and the World Wide Web via pirated accounts.
Scores tell of paying $40 a month to buy clandestine access to an already existing Internet account--often held by an unsuspecting foreign firm.
"We cannot find out what is really going on in the world," Garcia said. "That's what we want--not just the government's version."
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