Yoani Sanchez issues plea to We Have A Dream summit of dissidents

Yoani Sanchez

Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban dissident and world-renowned blogger, called on the phone from Havana today to address the We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution:

Fortunately for me and many Cubans, technology has permitted us to project our voice both inside and outside the island, to be able to reach those places where our government does not permit us to travel.

But the path to end the censorship and the state monopoly over information is still a very long one for us. Precisely on that topic I want to speak to you today — of the personal civic drama that signifies not being able to significantly access the new technologies and especially the internet.

We are a nation locked in the 20th century; we are still unable today to navigate in cyberspace. We need to pass through an ideological filter, or pay a very high price that is inaccessible for our salaries. Only the very reliable functionaries, the foreigners in our country, or the communicators from our official sector, can have access to internet from their homes. The rest of the Cuban citizens are condemned to an information blockade.

And for that reason, today, at this forum, I want to denounce the crimes against connectivity that the Cubans are suffering, in not permitting us to gain access to other information…the citizens of this country are being victimized by a crime against journalism and mafia.

It is a violation of our rights to be denied knowledge of what happens outside and inside of our national frontiers. Nevertheless, despite these restrictions, human rights activists, non-conformist citizens, and non-conformist artists are finding the way to express and spread their voice.

The magnificent tool of blogs and Twitter have served us as a substitute to the free press that we do not have. From the small country in the east of the country, from the places where no one has ever seen a computer connected to the internet, through cell phones, Cubans are able to tell our story. Messages going out through Twitter are like an SOS, a call for help that is able to leap over the wall of control.

Technology has protected us. We have avoided in many cases that the repression would be excessively harsh with us. Each minute that passes that we Cubans are not permitted the massive access to the technologies, are years and years that we remain behind professionally and as citizens.

International community: please, pressure Cuba, so we could feel like individuals of this millennium, and interact with the citizens of the world on an equal basis. To get information today is to get democracy for tomorrow.

Source: UN Watch

Speech by cuban blogger @yoanisanchez from #Cuba

 

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Cuba: A Pretend Paradise

Cuba has become Canada’s beloved vacation destination and unofficial 11th province.

Nobody travels more to Cuba than Canadians — about 600,000 of us head there every year. With affordable non-stop flights and unbeatable all-inclusive packages, even middle-class families can afford to play in paradise.

But beyond the shoreline, the oasis turns mirage.

As we casually sip our mojitos and work on our tans, dissident journalists are silenced and jailed every day for speaking out against Castro’s island “utopia.”

Popular Cuban author and blogger, Yoani Sanchez, is the most recent victim to endure Castro’s silent treatment.

Her crime? Publishing a tell-all book that dispels the fantasy of Cuba as a model for socialized government. Her shipment of books from the publisher were seized by the government and never made it into the country.

For her practice of free speech, she is also prohibited from leaving Cuba.

Through telephone interviews and her blog site, Generation Y, she manages to find ways to loosen the invisible chains of communism that bind her.

Others like Sanchez convicted of dissidence are sentenced anywhere from five to 25 years in prison — many of them locked up with violent criminals, subject to the worst possible treatment. All this is happening just miles from our sheltered sandy resorts.

For the adventurous traveler who dares to enter into the “real Havana,” the charming portrait belies the truth, as no local will ever speak of the reality of their circumstances.

Despite his failing health, Castro’s grip on public perception remains as powerful as ever.

Jimmy Escobar is an author, frequent visitor to Cuba since the ’90s, and a major supporter of the Cuban people.

“Loyalists to the government are planted within the tourism industry,” Escobar warned over the phone. “The regime would never allow any worker in contact with vacationing Canadians to speak ill of the government.”

If we were to sanction every destination that violates basic human rights, we’d be left with few options. However, how is Canada — a country that considers itself a human rights leader on the world stage — able to reconcile propping up a government through tourism, which jails its non-violent critics?

Sure we do a necessary dance with China, one of the greatest offenders of human rights, but the billions of dollars in trade is the easy justification.

But how necessary are Varadero vacations?

While thousands of Canadians save up their hard-earned paycheques to get into Cuba, thousands more Cubans risk their lives to flee on float vessels to freedom; many are turned away by U.S. officials in the Caribbean Sea, countless others drown.

The irony that our beloved vacation spot is a hell they’re trying to escape is one that cannot be ignored.

Previous talks of bringing Turks and Caicos into the Canadian fold as the 11th province sound inviting. But why not start a real revolution — and welcome in the warm island of Cuba?

That way we wouldn’t have to continue to duck under our beach umbrellas at abuses we would never tolerate here at home — all because of the lure of some cheap sunshine and a good cigar.

RIKKI RATLIFF

Source: Toronto Sun

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The Cuban Way

Part I: More Government, Less Food

A Cuban beggar.

When was the last time you wondered if you would be able to feed your family?

Fortunately, for the majority of Americans, that thought never occurs, or is rarely a problem. If mom can’t cook the meal, there is always the local grocery store, fast food joint, or sit-down restaurant. Not so in Cuba.

Yoani Sanchez, a Cuban blogger and author, has dedicated herself to shedding light on the day-to-day trials and tribulations in Cuba. Her newest book, Havana Real: One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth about Cuba Today, lifts the veil on everyday life in Havana, painting a vivid picture of the hardships of life under the Castro regime.

One of the biggest struggles in Cuba is the government-inflicted food shortage. According to Sanchez, Cubans have an obsession with food. Not like America—where people can eat three hamburgers in a sitting or an entire pizza in one meal. Nor does this obsession include fine wine and perfectly seared steak. Instead, it is merely the dire necessity to have something to eat.

Sanchez says that a Cuban meal often consists of rice with a beef or chicken bouillon cube. One little cube, she reflects, “make[s] me believe that my rice contains a tasty rib or a piece of chicken.” This simple bouillon cube is almost a delicacy in a market where spices and meats frequently run out.

Why the shortage in food? The Cuban government promises to take care of every social need—including food. From cradle to grave, the Cuban government rations out food to its people, allowing only miniscule portions per family. Sanchez noted, “[I]f the 66 million pounds of rice they distribute every month, through the ration, were available to the free market, prices in the latter would go down.” But the government monopoly leaves prices high and food out of reach of hungry Cubans.

In fact, the government-issued wages rise in accordance with increases in food prices. Since both prices and wages are set by the State, an increase in wages is generally offset by an increase in food prices.

The state micromanagement of the Cuban agricultural sector causes the island to import 80 percent of the food it rations. Government rationing has been in place since 1962, and, “Contrary to popular belief, the Cuban ration system does not provide Cubans with ‘free’ food…Rations are limited to a paltry amount of a meager number of pathetic food-stuffs.” This forces many Cubans to find roundabout ways to acquire food.

Another fact of Cuban life under socialism: Everyone except the upper echelon of the government heads for the black market.

Purchasing from the Cuban black market is not done out of a desire to buck the system, but out of pure necessity. Sanchez wrote, “I can’t live a day without the black market.” Since the government refuses to provide certain services, such as repairing a washing machine or fixing the oven or shower, Cubans are forced to use or become underground workers. Sanchez noted that obtaining products as basic as eggs, milk, or cooking oil require a visit to the black market.

A popular joke says Cuban communism has solved all but three problems: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In reality, this is no joke. Life in Cuba is not easy, and it forces many to take extreme measures just to maintain their existence. But the Castro regime holds its citizens in the jaws of a dilemma where they “cannot both survive and comply with [Cuban] law, at the same time.”

Want to see a government that promises to care for your every need? You don’t need to look farther than 90 miles south of the Florida Keys.


Part II: Big Brother’s Repressive Hand

Castro often uses thugs to repress the opposition.

Big Brother of George Orwell’s 1984 still lives, and he’s right in our backyard. Yoani Sanchez has documented how Big Brother works through her depiction of the Cuban government in her new book Havana Real: One Woman Fights to Tell the Truth about Cuba Today.

Cuban repression often takes the form of a group of thugs rather than the organized police. It targets people who are outspoken and harbor anti-regime opinions. Even Sanchez and her friends were kidnapped and beaten because of their blogging and their opposition to the Castro regime.

Sanchez wrote, “How can I describe the despotic faces of those who forced us into that car [or] their visible enjoyment as they beat us.” Bruised and in pain, Yoani and her companions emerged from the kidnapping with emotional and mental wounds. The message is clear: Against us you have no rights; our power is limitless.

Beyond kidnappings, Cubans are frequently imprisoned without warrant:

Over the years, hundreds of prisoners of conscience have been imprisoned in Cuba for the peaceful expression of their views.… Harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention and criminal prosecutions, all continue to be used to restrict the expression of views critical of the government.

Government regulation of the Internet has severely limited Cubans’ ability to communicate with each other and the outside world. Twitter, Facebook, and even Sanchez’s blog, Generation Y, are blocked by Cuban authorities. Access is highly restricted as well. In Havana, many native Cubans must resort to dressing as tourists or speaking foreign languages just to get past the guards in Internet cafes.

So what does Big Brother want? He wants a cadre of true believers who will run the party, the state, and the army as organs of repression. He wants worker bees who will labor for the glory of the hive. He wants other Cubans to remain apathetic and fatalistic.

As Sanchez notes, “The person who complains or demands his rights is seen as ‘some kind of weirdo.’” Sanchez further observes a general malaise that can be seen through the Cuban choice of language. She says that phrases like “Don’t sweat it,” “You’ll give yourself a heart attack,” “Just ignore it,” and “That’s not going to accomplish anything” are sayings frequently heard in Cuban culture. Reflected in the language of many in Cuba is a worn-out spirit that has lost its will to fight for what truly matters: freedom.

This the way the Castro brothers want it.

By Olivia Snow

Source: The Foundry

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Activists, Bloggers on the Cuba Money Project Vimeo Channel

For anyone interested in United States (US) policy, human rights activism, or the problem of free expression in Cuba, there is a new must-see channel on Vimeo. It belongs to the Cuba Money Project.

Last December, journalist, blogger, and Flagler College professor Tracey Eaton began the Cuba Money Project (CMP), a non-profit research and reporting initiative that aims to investigate and bring greater transparency and accountability to US federal spending on “pro-democracy” programs in Cuba. With the help of a grant from the Washington-based Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Eaton has employed a blend of traditional and new media techniques in his work.

In addition to an active newsfeed and blog, the CMP website includes data visualizations of spending details, a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) tracker, and spaces where readers can contribute their own knowledge.

US funding in Cuba: ‘Pro-democracy’ or anti-government?

Despite sanctions against spending US dollars in Cuba, the US government has spent millions of dollars over the last five decades on an interventionist policy towards Cuba. Since 2007, Congress has allocated between 13 and 45 million USD per year to be spent on “pro-democracy” programs in the country.

These programs have grown out of a US-Cuba policy framework that once sought to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. US ire for Cuban leadership began decades ago with Fidel Castro’s declaration of the socialist character of the revolution, and his refusal of economic aid from the US, and Cuba’s subsequent alliance with the Soviet Union.

Today, the rhetoric has shifted: the stated goal of US policy in Cuba is no longer to bring the downfall of the government, but rather to support Cuban citizens’ efforts to improve their lives through the restoration of human, civic, and economic rights. Yet regardless of how the US chooses to represent its efforts, the “pro-democracy” programs that it supports are, by nature, anti-government, or at least fall in opposition to some part of the Cuban system as it currently stands.

Diverse opposition

The 24 interviews on CMP’s Vimeo channel feature Cuban human rights activists, traditional dissidents, bloggers, and government workers and supporters, along with policymakers from Cuba, England, and the US. I recently had the chance to interview Eaton about this impressive archive.

Eaton’s goal is to get representative views from across the spectrum of opinion and influence on these issues:

People have passionate views. I want to help them tell their story without taking sides. Letting them talk into the camera is a great way to do that. […] Video [allows] people to speak directly to the [viewers] without any intervention from me. I ask questions, but I don’t filter what people say. I try to let them tell their story. I edit the videos very lightly, if at all.

He says that the archive is far from complete, and that he is determined to get more Cuban government supporters and workers to participate.

The videos do not form a cohesive narrative about activism and US involvement in Cuba; rather, they show the truly diverse range of ideas and goals espoused by Cuban political activists and by those in the US who influence US-Cuba policy. As dissident leader Martha Beatríz Roque says:

[l]a ideología dentro de la opposición es diversa. […] No somos partido único—partido único es el partido comunista.

Ideology within the opposition is diverse. […] We are not one sole party—the communist party is a sole party.

One important difference between activist groups that is all but indecipherable in mainstream coverage of Cuba is that which separates “old guard” dissidents, whose primary aim is to bring about the downfall of the Castro regime and the Cuban socialist project at large, and those who advocate for human rights in Cuba.

While leaders like Roque, who is connected with anti-Castrist leaders in Miami, believe that more US government money could make a meaningful change in dissident work on the island, Oswaldo Payá, leader of the famed 1990s Varela Project, is not so sure of this:

El dinero de los Estados Unidos no va a decidir el cambio en Cuba. […] La esencia del problema es que el gobierno cubano no reconoce los derechos de los ciudadanos cubanos en Cuba. […] El problema está en Cuba, y la solución está en Cuba, y entre cubanos.

Money from the United States is not going to drive change in Cuba. […] The essence of the problem is that the Cuban government does not recognize the rights of Cuban citizens in Cuba. […] The problem is in Cuba, and the solution is in Cuba, between Cubans.

Unemployment among opposition activists

Eaton has interviewed several members of the women’s opposition group, Las Damas de Apoyo, who advocate for the end of politically-motivated incarceration in Cuba. They work in support of the Damas de Blanco, a coalition of women whose husbands and sons have been imprisoned for political reasons. Each of the women interviewed described how she had lost her job, and was unable to find work, because of her political beliefs:

Unemployment and underemployment among members of Cuba’s political opposition is widespread…[They] are in a difficult spot…They have to do something to get by. I can understand why a dissident might accept help from a non-governmental organization.

But, he says, “It’s a risky proposition. Accepting support from a US-financed NGO can set them up for possible arrest or jail time.” And doing political work costs money:

If dissidents from Havana need to travel to another town to meet with other dissidents, it costs money…Internet access and phone calls are extraordinarily expensive…Simple things can be tough to accomplish in Cuba, especially if you are strapped for cash. You can’t just walk to a Kinko’s on the corner to make copies.

Opposition leaders in various camps described the problems that money can create for their cause, particularly when coming from the US. Aleida Godinez, a state security agent, believes that when US money stops coming in, the dissident movement will end. When asked about US support for pro-democracy initiatives in Cuba, Godinez notes an important problem that many Cubans perceive within this paradigm:

Los promotores de los valores de la democracia, de la libertad, son norteamericanos. No entiendo por que razón no permiten que un país como Cuba no puede elegir su propio sistema social. […] [Demuestra] una falta de respeto para el pueblo cubano.

The people who promote the virtues of democracy and freedom are North Americans. I don’t understand why they cannot allow a country like Cuba to elect its own social system. […] It [shows] a lack of respect for the Cuban people.

 

“Dissident bloggers” or just bloggers?

Eaton has interviewed three of Cuba’s most prominent anti-government bloggers, Claudia Cadelo [es], Laritza Diversent [es], and Yoani Sánchez [es]. I asked him what he thought of their involvement with opposition initiatives, and how he saw them fitting into the larger landscape of pro-democracy activism that CMP seeks to better understand.

Eaton calls Cuba’s bloggers a “diverse bunch.” “[T]hey shouldn't be lumped together with political dissidents,” he told me. “Some Cuban bloggers support the socialist system. Others rebel against it, but don't consider themselves to be dissidents.”

“Many bloggers want change, but steer clear of politics,” he told me:

When I talked to blogger Claudia Cadelo last year, she…didn't seem too interested in politics. She wants change. She wants an expansion of basic freedoms. But I wouldn't consider her to be a political dissident.
[…]
Some bloggers purposely avoid the U.S. Interests Section in Havana because they don't want to be linked to American efforts to undermine the Cuban government.

Indeed, many of the island’s most widely read bloggers advocate for change, but do not engage directly with politics. Even Yoani Sánchez did not begin blogging with a particular political agenda, though unlike many, she has since become a vociferous advocate for particular political changes in Cuba.

If there were a political platform for bloggers, Eaton says it would be advocacy for free expression and open Internet access for all Cubans:

My impression is that a key issue for many Cuban bloggers is freedom of expression. They want Internet access for all. They want it to be affordable. They want to network with other people and they want the freedom to use technology without someone looking over their shoulder. […] Outside Cuba, there are many bloggers and democracy activists who are eager to see change on the island. Many are Cuban exiles who have no plans to return to Cuba while the Castro brothers are in power. They are quick to support many of the bloggers, and sometimes pull them into the swirling currents of the U.S.-Cuba grudge match whether the bloggers want that or not.

Projects like Eaton's might well serve as a counterbalance to the common assumption by many activists groups that all Cubans who criticize their government are alike. No matter what side they're on, anyone interested in the complex political world of Cuba today should check out the Cuba Money Project Vimeo channel.

Written by Ellery Roberts Biddle 

Source: Global Voices

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Viva La Internet Revolución in Cuba

Egypt.

After seeing how mobile and social networking technologies led to popular revolutions in places like Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, is it possible that we’ll soon see a similar type of revolution in our own backyard? On May 9, Raul Castro and the Cuban Communist Party released over 300 new measures designed to loosen control over the state. For the first time in more than 50 years, Cubans will be allowed to buy and sell houses and new automobiles, as well as travel abroad as tourists more freely. More importantly, Cuban dissidents are increasingly turning to the Internet to share their thoughts about everyday life in Cuba.

For now, the ability of everyday Cubans to leverage the Internet as part of a grassroots revolution is marginal at best. With only 10% of its citizens having access to the Internet, Cuba is the country with the lowest Internet usage in the northern hemisphere. Connections are slow, and at a rate of $2/hour, the Internet is incredibly expensive in a country where the average income is $20/month. Moreover, the sale of computer equipment is strictly regulated, Internet access is widely filtered, and e-mail is closely monitored. The Cuban authorities carefully control the news that reaches its citizens and ruthlessly cracks down on "counter-revolutionary" journalists. Sounds a lot like Tunisia or Egypt, right?

Despite these obstacles, a brave band of Cuban bloggers led by Yoani Sánchez have already made progress. Sanchez, named by TIME Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2008, has created an Internet-powered dissident movement that continues to attract new adherents. Last summer, the New York Review of Books brilliantly outlined how these brave voices are trying to effect change on the island nation by cobbling together makeshift Internet connections and relying on supporters outside of Cuba. (In some cases, the extent of censorship is so great that these bloggers have never actually even seen the blogs they have created!)

The loosening of rules on buying and selling goods in Cuba is a nice first step. Certainly, similar types of thaws under the Soviet regime eventually created the pre-conditions for Gorbachev’s perestroika and the end of Soviet-style Communism. However, real change needs to leverage the power of mobile technology and social networking connectivity –- and that requires bandwidth.

There's good news on this front as well. The current issue of Monocle points out that Cuba’s Internet capacity is set to increase by 3,000% thus summer (no, that’s not a typo!), as the result of a new 1,600 kilometer-long fiber-optic cable between Cuba and Venezuela. That’s a lot more bandwidth capacity to carry photos, voice and images of life in Cuba. By the time the cable is finished, it will stretch from Cuba to Venezuela to Jamaica.

What remains to be seen is whether the increase in connectivity will represent greater freedom of expression and change the dynamic of the public debate over Cuba. Over a nice round of Cuba Libres and music by the Buena Vista Social Club, U.S. policymakers should consider whether the current U.S. embargo – in effect for almost a half-century – is actually doing anything to bring about democratic freedom to this island nation. Many Cuban bloggers actually make the point that the embargo hurts – not helps – their cause. At the end of the day, making the Internet and mobile technology more widely available to the average citizen in Cuba could be far more effective than a nationwide embargo in preparing people for revolutionary change.

Dominic Basulto

Source: Big Think

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"Better to live in a slum" than in Cuba

Either you’re a part of the Castro clan and their hangers on or you don’t have a chance, says Cuban dissident Yoani Sánchez.

Yoani Sanchez in her apartment in Havana, Cuba.

Since the fall of Communism in 1989, the Czech Republic has made helping dissidents in repressive regimes a foreign policy priority with Cuba and Belarus front and center; the first Cuban political prisoner granted political asylum in this country, Rolando Jiménez Posada, arrived with his family and relatives in October 2010.

Independent Cuban journalist Yoani Sánchez, 35, didn’t want to become a dissident. She was more the technical type, with an interest in computers, and after earning a degree in philology left for Switzerland to study computer science. The strict Cuban authorities gave her permission to travel and return home afterward — which shows that the regime didn’t consider her to be a threat or likely dissident.

After returning home to Havana, however, Yoani set up the magazine Consenso and has since become probably the best-known writer of electronic samizdat in the island nation. She also writes the blog Generation Y, which has earned her several international awards; she wasn’t able to accept them in person as the Cuban authorities have confiscated her passport.

Last year, Yoani was kidnapped by Cuban agents and mentally and physically abused for several hours. But that didn’t stop her from writing, and at the end of February the official Cuban media began to get publicly engaged in her struggle, making the general public aware of her. She has been twice quoted and accused on television and she was once in the state daily Granma.

Sánchez points out that her entire island nation has been virtually cut off from the Internet since the start of the unrest in Libya — most likely because the Castro family is worried that Cubans will start an uprising similar to those in the Arab world — and the following interview was interrupted several times due to disruptions the connectivity.

Q: What is lacking for a revolution similar to the one in Egypt taking place in Cuba?

 

A: In Cuba the situation is most like that in Libya rather than the other Arab countries that are undergoing unrest. Our system and country is also dependent on one charismatic and popular leader.

Q: But Raúl Castro is the complete opposite of his brother. Fidel got all of the charisma genes, leaving nothing for Raúl …

 

A: Of course that is why all Cubans that disagree with the regime secretly wish that “our beloved” El Commandante was not among us because Raúl would find it difficult to keep in charge. The older generation, despite not being satisfied with the regime, still respect Fidel for what he did when he took over. That is why they don’t want to topple him, so as not to disappoint him. I’ll give an example: Grandpa paid for our education; although he is now unintelligible and conservative, he is still our grandpa.

Q: But considering Raúl’s age, it is not impossible that he may die before Fidel. Are they secretly grooming a different heir?

 

A: Ever since the mid-1990s, everyone has had the feeling that Castro is preparing Felipe Ramón Pérez Roque, who started off as Fidel’s personal assistant and worked his way up to minister of foreign affairs. But in 2009, Castro publicly criticised him for loving power too much. This led to Roque’s fall from grace and the public eye.

Q: So who will come after Raúl?

 

A: There are two options being talked about. The first is that a military junta will take power, or, more likely, that Raúl’s daughter Mariela Castro, is getting ready. First, she has held a public position for several years; second, she is endeavoring to be known abroad as a defender of gay rights. This gives her the appearance of a modern person interested in human rights, which makes her more acceptable. I must add that homosexuals in Cuba are still persecuted, despite her efforts to change this.

It is interesting that Castro himself has apologized for his conduct toward homosexuals in the past. As is typical of totalitarian systems, his speech must be part of a strategy, otherwise he wouldn’t say it. In addition, Mariela has one indisputable advantage. Since she is a likeable, “young” (48) woman, it will be much more difficult to attack her directly because she just doesn’t look like a dictator. Despite this, she will inherit all of her uncle’s and father’s power, thus keeping it in the family. This is not communism, it’s nepotism.

Q: Doesn’t that more or less ruin your hopes for a democratic Cuba?

 

A: It’s a good plan as far as the regime’s image abroad is concerned, but it won’t cure our chronic problems. Free education and health care mean little when you have no more than two liters of milk a week for an entire family, or that it takes half a year to find a light bulb and candles are not for sale. Or you have to use the state daily as toilet paper.

In the first decade or two of the path to a communist ‘Eden,’ you can overlook such matters, but after half a century all we have, in comparison to the rest of Latin America, is free education and health care and then half a million state employees lose their jobs, well that is sufficient reason for unrest and a fight for liberty. I’d like to add that if the official figures mention half a million unemployed, the reality is more like 700,000 to 800,000.

Q: A lot of people abroad feel that Cuba has probably the best possible system within Latin America and that its fall would lower the standard of living to that of Honduras or Ecuador.

 

A: I am sure that almost every Cuban would prefer to be at liberty to decide how to earn money, even if it was less, than to carry on living as a thrall to Castro’s nobility.

Q: Isn’t it better to be poor in Cuba than live in the favelas [slums] that are so ubiquitous in Latin America?

 

A: No, because there is always a chance of getting out of a slum. We don’t have that. The former Brazilian president, Lula, came from the slums. So did several other South American leaders. Here it is more like a monarchy: Either you’re part of Castro’s family and their loyal lackeys or you don’t have a chance.

Moreover, Lula managed in just two terms to get 30 million people out of poverty. In 50 years, Castro’s family hasn’t managed to get the 11 million Cubans out of poverty at all. All he’s managed to do is get rich while the rest of us flounder in destitution.

Fabiano Golgo

From: Czech Position

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Cuba: enemy of the Internet

The Cuban regime, more wary of bloggers than traditional dissidents, decided to expand its online presence to combat them. Now that Venezuelan fibre optic cable is available on the island, the authorities have what they need to improve connection speeds and lower costs. There are fewer and fewer excuses for maintaining censorship or keeping the population away from the Web. Are we witnessing signs of a Web Springtime, now that the journalists persecuted during the Black Springtime of March 2003 have all been released from prison?

Fibre optic cable in Cuba: Unprecedented potential for growth?

According to the authorities, nearly 10% of Cuba’s population is connected to the Internet. That does not necessarily mean that they have access to the World Wide Web. Two parallel networks co-exist on the island: the international network and a closely monitored Cuban intranet consisting only of an encyclopaedia, email addresses ending in “.cu” used by universities and government officials – a sort of “Cuban Wikipedia” – and a few government news websites such as Granma.

Outside of hotels, only a few privileged individuals have a special permit to access the international network. Yet even the latter does not escape censorship, which is mainly directed against dissident publications on foreign websites, but has been relaxed to some extent since early February 2011.

The regime does not have the means to set up a systematic filtering system, but it counts on several factors to restrict Internet access: the exorbitant cost of connections – about 1.50 U.S. dollars per hour from the points of access to the state-controlled intranet, 7 U.S. dollars per hour from a hotel to access the international network (even though the average monthly salary is 20 U.S. dollars), and lastly infrastructural problems, particularly slow connections.

These obstacles explain why the number of Internet users and the time spent online remain limited. Most cybernauts try to just read their emails and answer them. They do not have the time to navigate the Internet or surf websites. For years, the regime has been blaming the American embargo for the lack of a good Web connection on the island, claiming that it prevents the country from accessing international networks. That problem is about to be solved, thanks to the ALBA-1 fibre optic undersea cable which has been linking Cuba to Venezuela since February 2011, thereby increasing 3000-fold Cuba’s capacity to connect to the rest of the world. It is scheduled to be put into service in July 2011.

Until then, international network connections will continue to be made via satellite, at immoderate costs.

Theoretically, fiber optic cable should lead to lower Internet access prices and improve connection speeds.

It is unlikely, however, that Internet access will be democratised and made available to the general population.

The authorities are cautious when commenting on this new development. In February 2011, Cuba’s Vice-Minister of Information and Communications, José Luis Perdomo, pointed out that cable “is not a ‘magic wand,’” and that granting Cubans access to the Internet will require a substantial investment in its infrastructures. He also said that there is “no political obstacle” to offering such access. For the time being, this access to the Web will remain reserved for “social use” by institutions, universities and certain categories such as doctors and journalists. He stated: “Our priority is to continue the creation of collective access centers in addition to strengthening the connections in scientific, university and medical research centers.”

Resourcefulness

A genuine black market has been prospering in Cuba in which offers are made to buy or “rent” passwords and codes used by the few individuals and companies whom the incumbent party has cleared for Internet access.

Navigating the Net costs 50 U.S. dollars per month and receiving/sending one email message costs 1 U.S. dollar in some “hacker centres.” Illegal users find it safer to connect only at night.

Some international network connections can be accessed from foreign or private residences.

Certain dissidents tweet by sending SMS via foreign-based accounts, while others insert foreign SIM cards into their cell phones to access the Net. While netizens will stop at nothing to pass on information, it can come at a high cost. Freelance bloggers do not have direct access to their websites, which are not hosted on the island. They are have to rely on friends abroad to publish their articles and posts. They do that by following a well-tested procedure: they prepare their content in advance, copy it onto a USB flash drive, and send it by email from a hotel or other location, because dissidents are more and more frequently denied entry into tourist hotels. USB flash drives, which are also being passed from hand-to-hand, are the new vectors for freedom of speech in Cuba – the local “samzidats.”

Demonising bloggers and social networks: A digital cold war?

In 2009, the regime became wary of the growing popularity of certain bloggers, notably Yoani Sanchez. The latter has been repeatedly assaulted, interrogated and targeted by genuine slander campaigns, while other bloggers, such as Luis Felipe Rojas, have been arrested several times.

Cuban dissident and cyberjournalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (“El Coco”),  winner of the 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament, was arrested three times in less than 48 hours in January 2011. His only wrongdoing is that he has been militating in favour of the right to inform and to circulate news freely.

The legal arsenal used against online opposition to the regime remains particularly harsh and dissuasive. Cuban netizens risk punishment of up to twenty years in prison for posting an article deemed “counter-revolutionary” on an Internet website hosted abroad, and five years for illegally connecting to the international network.

The problem is becoming increasingly urgent as the authorities fear the social networks’ mobilisation power even more after witnessing Tunisian and Egyptian examples of it. Some U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in December 2010 revealed that the Cuban regime is more afraid of bloggers than of “traditional” dissidents.

In a 15 April 2009 telegramme, dissidents were described as forming “a movement as old and out of touch from the lives of ordinary Cubans as the regime itself.” A cable dated 20 December 2009 stressed, to the contrary, that bloggers are “a much more serious threat” to the Cuban government. The United States views the reporting by Cuban netizens of their arrests and mistreatment as an invaluable political tool, because the latter represent “a group which frustrates and scares the Cuban government like no other.” “The bloggers’ mushrooming international popularity and their ability to stay one tech-step ahead of the authorities are causing serious headaches for the regime.” The U.S. diplomat concluded: “We believe that it is the younger generation of ‘non-traditional dissidents’ that is likely to have a greater long-term impact on post-Castro Cuba.”

Another telegram noted that “Younger individuals, including bloggers (…) are much better than traditional dissidents at taking ‘rebellious’ stands with greater popular appeal” – an assessment that Cuban leaders seem to share. Since February 2011, a one-hour or so video has been circulating on the Internet (vimeo.com/19402730) in which an unidentified Cuban expert explains in detail how the American enemy is funding Cuban cyberdissidence.

Using as an example blogger Yoani Sanchez, he asserts that “she is organising a virtual network of mercenaries who are not traditional counter-revolutionaries.” The expert urges that these new forces be neutralised, stressing that “being a blogger is not bad. They have their bloggers and we have ours. We’re going to fight to see which of the two turns out to be stronger.”

Government reprisal: Occupy the field

The authorities are now striving to expand their presence on the Web: an official Cuban bloggers association was formed in 2009. The number of “pro-government” bloggers is said to be constantly rising, and may be as high as several hundred. In February 2011, the Reuters press agency reported that Cuba had some 1,000 “official bloggers.”

Any possible links between the Havana government and hackers who target Cuban websites and blogs hosted abroad, among others, are under heavy scrutiny.

Since the regime’s strategy is to “drown” dissident bloggers in a flood of pro-government bloggers, the government no longer needs to keep such a tight rein on the former, and can afford to make some concessions. Since 9 February, forty-some opposition blogs and Internet pages, among them Yoani Sanchez’s Generación Y, are accessible again from the island for those who can connect to the international network. According to this blogger’s statements to the foreign press, Cuba may owe this breath of fresh air to the 14th Informática - International Convention and Fair, held in Havana from 7 to 11 February. What remains to be seen is whether this deblocking will last.

The authorities’ negative track record with regard to censorship accounts for dissidents’ doubts that the Internet will ever be accessible throughout the island. According to Yoani Sanchez, “the cable optic fibres are already engraved with the name of their owner and its ideology. This undersea connection seems destined more to control us than to link us to the world.” However, with this cable, “it will be more difficult to convince us that we cannot have YouTube, Facebook or Gmail,” she pointed out, specifying that “no one will prevent us from using this cable to do something very different from the plans of those who bought it.”

For the middle or long-term, some people are banking on Chinese-type progress: Web growth for economic reasons, with more access for the population, while maintaining political control. A glimmer of hope remains: Cuba has announced that it wishes to switch from a Windows to a Linux operating system. This initiative may enhance the technical expertise of Cuban IT specialists, who will then be in a better position to circumvent censorship.

From: RSF

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Cuba: Cyberwar? Video Sparks Debate, Anger, Skepticism

A video posted February 1^st on Vimeo features a 52-minute presentation on new information technologies and a “ciberguerra” allegedly being waged on Cuba by the United States government and US-based NGOs. The man delivering the presentation has since been identified as Eduardo Fontes Suárez, a cyber security official at Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior (MININT). Initial reports called this a classified government video that had been leaked, but some bloggers (on and off the island) are questioning this assertion.

La Ciberpolicia en Cuba

You can watch the video here or go directly to: 
La ciber policia en Cuba on Vimeo.

The full transcription in English is available at Translating Cuba.

Posted by Coral Negro, a Vimeo account holder who offers no profile information of any kind, and has posted no other material, the video has ignited an international debate about its origin and its content. An original transcript of the video can be found at Café Fuerte [es], and an English translation can be found at Translating Cuba. The presentation provides a detailed description of US government efforts to establish unauthorized Wi-Fi connection spots on the island, with the help of dissidents and representatives from US-based NGOs, mainly the International Republican Institute. Fontes indicates that Alan Gross, the jailed USAID worker who was arrested in December of 2009 for illegally distributing IT equipment to Cubans, was involved with Washington’s project to establish these hot spots.

He describes bloggers such as Yoani Sánchez as counterrevolutionaries who, with the support of the Spanish and US governments, are attempting to use new technologies in order to spark a popular uprising against the Castro government. He also discusses the Cuban government’s latest plans for ICT use on the island, and the benefits of certain technologies, remarking on Hugo Chávez’s use of Twitter as a political tool.

Penúltimos Días [es], a Cuba-focused blog based in Spain, reposted the video, and soon thereafter a former (and now exiled) high school classmate of Fontes’ identified him and posted photographs of Fontes as a teenager in the late 1980s. On Cuban exile community blogs such as Babalú [es], readers seemed to delight in ridiculing Fontes, calling him a “cíberesbirro” or “cyberthug.” Fontes’ Facebook page has been deactivated since he was identified on Penúltimos Días. His Twitter account remains active, but he has not tweeted since December of 2010.

It is clear that Fontes is a real official of Cuban intelligence. What remains unclear is whether his presentation and the leak were “real” as well.

Regina Coyula, a former employee of the counterintelligence unit at MININT who is now the author of La Mala Letra [es] believes the video is authentic, and has denied another blogger’s accusation that she herself leaked the video. She reasons that the video contains far too much information about the power of ICTs to be a fake. She writes:

[L]a conferencia [es] un tanto didáctica. Así me entero de unidades satelitales wi-fi de alta velocidad como parte de un módulo que incluye blackberries y notebooks destinadas a blogueros…y contrarrevolucionarios tradicionales; me entero de que a través de ese servicio cualquier persona de pronto pudiera tener en su pc el mensaje de estás conectado; [Fontes] reconoce que es peligroso que la gente se conecte por la libre, y admite que nadie beneficiado va a quejarse ni a averiguar.

[T]he conference [is] quite didactic. Through it I learn of high-speed Wi-Fi satellite units as part of a module that includes blackberries and notebooks intended for bloggers…and traditional counterrevolutionaries. I learn that, through that service, any person could suddenly get the “You are connected” message on their PC; [Fontes] recognizes the dangers of people’s freedom of Internet access, and admits that nobody who benefits from this will either complain or inquire about where the connection came from.

Yoani Sánchez [es] was unequivocally certain that much of what Fontes said was untrue. But she wondered whether it was he, or someone above him, who was responsible for this misinformation.

¿Usted es de los que fabrica las mentiras o de los que se cree las mentiras? Me gustaría hacerle esta  pregunta al ponente que despliega una complicada teoría de la conspiración en este video. Si se trata de alguien que sólo transmite un mensaje, entonces la respuesta es sencilla: la falsedad se cuece más arriba y él es apenas un emisario. Pero me temo que parte de lo que expone frente a esos adustos militares –que exhiben una constelación de estrellas en sus uniformes– es de su propia cosecha, se ha gestado en su interior.

Are you one of those who fabricates lies? Or one of those who believes them? I would like to ask this question to the speaker who deploys a complicated conspiracy theory in this video. If it’s someone who is just sending a message, then the answer is simple: the falsehood is concocted higher up and he is just the messenger. But I fear that part of what he is expounding in front of those grim soldiers — with a constellation of stars on their uniforms — is  his own production, cooked up by himself.

Sánchez also pointed out that Fontes' description of social media platforms reflected a limited understanding of their applications. Reinaldo Escobar (who blogs at Desde Aquí), wrote in an article on Diario de Cuba [es] that the content of the presentation had to have been fabricated. He referred specifically to Fontes’ claim that bloggers like Yoani Sánchez (Escobar’s wife) have been “created” and supported by the US government.

Si [Fontes] miente por iniciativa propia de presentarse como…imprescindible ante sus jefes, o si miente cumpliendo estrictas orientaciones de una mano tenebrosa, eso no puedo saberlo. Pero sé que miente. Me consta. La blogosfera alternativa cubana no es una creación del imperialismo norteamericano sino fruto de una conjunción de factores entre los que se destacan el fracaso del sistema socialista, la inconformidad ciudadana, especialmente entre los más jóvenes, y el desarrollo de la tecnología a nivel mundial.

Whether [Fontes] lied on his own initiative, […] wanting to appear talented and indispensable before his bosses, or if he lied to satisfy the strict demands of a dark hand, I can’t tell. But I know he’s lying. I know. The alternative Cuban blogosphere is not a creation of U.S. imperialism, but the fruit of a [combination] of factors among which are the failure of the socialist system, public discontent — especially among young people — and the worldwide development of technology.” [Translation courtesy of Translating Cuba.]

The Cuban Triangle’s [en] Phil Peters believes that the video was created and intentionally released (under the guise of a leak) in order to send a message. He reasons that, unlike a typical leak, the video appeared to have been edited thoroughly, and was conspicuously devoid of information that could harm the Cuban government.

There is nothing in the briefing that is remotely inconvenient to the Cuban government; nothing that compromises an operation or breaks an important secret…[M]uch of the video conveys messages that Havana would probably want to present to international audiences. The cachet of a “leak” from the heart of a communist security apparatus ensures that those messages fly farther and wider than would words on paper.

Whether or not the video is “real,” US officials and IRI have firmly denied Fontes’ claims regarding WiFi connection spots. But regardless of whether it is entirely true or not, the message Fontes communicates here is clearly aligned with recent ICT policy directives of the Cuban government, which have focused closely on the nation’s “ciberguerra” against the United States.

A coincidence?

The Cuban novelist and blogger Zoe Valdés, who now lives in Paris, shares Peters’ contention. It is not a coincidence, she suggests, that the video surfaced at the height of the popular uprising in Egypt, given the critical role of social networks and ICTs in the movement. News from Cairo has prompted many journalists and bloggers to wonder whether, given the gradually increasing number of ICTs in Cuba, Parque Central could become the next Tahrir Square.

Valdés also points to “Por un levantamiento popular en Cuba,” a Facebook group created last week by members of the Cuban exile community in Spain, urging Cubans to follow the example of Egypt and rise up against the Castro government.

Valdés writes that while this is troubling, she believes that the Cuban government chooses to openly condemn bloggers because they are an easy target.

[E]llos prefieren a disidentes cibernéticos …frente a justicieros callejeros que podrían multiplicarse por miles en mínimo tiempo. Los primeros no son considerados peligrosos, los segundos sí, y mucho. La propia Yoani Sánchez ha declarado que su blog no se ve en Cuba,* así que muy poca gente lee sus crónicas dentro de la isla.
[…]
Ese video, entonces, forma parte de la nueva estrategia del raulismo light, ignorar a los que son realmente dañinos a la dictadura ha sido siempre la elección de los castristas. Ellos saben que mencionar es reconocer, y que ignorar es desaparecer, fulminar, borrar.

They prefer cybernetic dissidents to those who fight for justice in the streets, who can multiply by miles in little time. The first group is not considered dangerous, the second is, and very much so. Yoani Sánchez herself has declared that she can't see her blog within Cuba,* so few people read her chronicles on the island.

[…] That video, then, forms part of the new raulismo light strategy. Ignoring those who are truly harmful to the dictatorship has always been the way of Castrists. They know that to mention is to recognize, and that to ignore is to disappear, to fulminate, to erase.

Her point about “raulismo light” does well to elucidate important intricacies in how Cuban state intelligence works. But while Valdés implies that there lies a clear distinction between dissidents in virtual and real space, the powerful online presence of dissident groups like the Damas de Blanco and the OZT Yo Rechazo movements disprove this—they demonstrate how this distinction is increasingly blurry, if not indecipherable.

In sum, it seems that whether or not the presentation was “real,” and whether or not it was a true leak, the video (if not entirely truthful) gives the world a rare, intimate window into the thinking and dialogue on ICTs and blogging that is happening within Cuban intelligence. However uncertain its origins, it holds valuable information for all those who have a stake in the future of ICTs in Cuba.

*Sánchez's blog became accessible in Cuba on February 8, 2011.

By Ellery Biddle

From: Global Voices

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Cuba fights latest U.S. "invasion" — on the Internet

It is 50 years since the last U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba but the island's communist leaders believe another one has begun — not on the shores of the Bay of Pigs as in 1961, but in the virtual world of the Internet.

Cuba fears "cyberdissidents" could use Twitter, Facebook and other online social networks to undermine the government. Its concern has taken on added significance since the same communication tools were used by protesters in Egypt to help topple longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak last week.

A leaked video recently posted on the web shows a Cuban intelligence Internet expert telling interior ministry officials that the new cyber opposition is a more serious threat than the island's traditional dissidents.

The authorities are worried about people like Claudia Cadelo, a frail-looking 27-year teacher of French who created Octavo Cerco, one of about 30 blogs critical of the government written inside Cuba.

"Social networks have become a new weapon for civil society," she told Reuters in an interview. "They don't want the social networks to spread because they are aware of the danger that poses to a totalitarian government which hides the truth from its people.".

Given Cuba's low rate of Internet connectivity, the tweets Cadelo types into her mobile phone don't reach many Cubans. But that could change as Cuba gains access to broadband Internet and mulls the pros and cons of granting wider access.

After initially blocking public access to some critical websites, the Cuban government has switched strategy and unleashed an anti-dissident counter-attack by a legion of some 1,000 pro-government "revolutionary" bloggers.

From his office in the headquarters of Cuba's state telephone company ETECSA, journalist and blogger Manuel Henriquez is on the front lines of that official offensive.

"There is evidently an intention to attack Cuba through the Internet. And of course Cuba has the right to defend itself," said the 47-year-old author of the blog Cambios en Cuba.

"It is an old war and this is its latest expression. What these (opposition) bloggers are looking for is to demonize the country, create an image of a repression that doesn't exist and later on allows justifying laws and blockades."

Bloggers like Henriquez take aim at Cuba's cyberdissidents, led by prominent critic Yoani Sanchez and her Generacion Y blog. They accuse the critics of being financed by the U.S. government, Cuba's ideological foe, and often post damaging rumours about their personal lives.

LOW CONNECTIVITY

Experts say the Internet is offering Cuban dissidents unprecedented room for political debate, but that the transforming potential of Twitter and other social networks depends heavily on connectivity levels.

In Tunisia, the cradle of recent protests that have rocked the Arab world, 19 per cent of the population was on Facebook, but Internet access in Cuba is restricted by the government.

"It's worth asking what per cent of Cubans have regular Internet access. Access to mobile phones. If those numbers are low, it's unlikely these are the most effective organizing channels," said Ethan Zuckerman, senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Wilfredo Cancio, a Cuban exile journalist who publishes a Cuban affairs web site Cafe Fuerte in Miami sees a "Cold War" mentality in the Cuban government's declared digital offensive against cyber opponents.

"I think the government is betting on winning this battle, above all from the control perspective," he said.

Cuba, the Caribbean's biggest island, has a population of 11 million, and last reported 1.6 million people online, but they mostly only have access to a government-sanctioned intranet that does not permit links to Twitter or Facebook.

Mobile telephony has grown dramatically since it was legalized three years ago, but costs are high for ordinary Cubans. Cadelo says she pays the equivalent of $1 every time she tweets by sending a text message to a number in Britain.

A fiber-optic submarine cable hooking Cuba to its socialist ally Venezuela could soon increase the island's data transfer speed by 3,000 times.

Cuba's government says the long-standing U.S. embargo has been the main obstacle to Internet penetration and that there are no "political obstacles" to opening up the Internet to the broader public. But they say for the time being they cannot afford to install the needed wider infrastructure.

Ted Henken, a Cuba analyst at City University of New York, thinks Cuban authorities may try to emulate the Chinese model of opening up the Internet while controlling information flow.

"Using these technologies to spark antigovernment protests is impossible now given the low penetration, access and use . . . But this is likely to change in the future as the government tries to benefit economically from broadband," he said.

On the leaked government video, the Cuban Internet expert said the United States was smuggling satellite phones into Cuba to provide dissidents with unrestricted access to the web.

Alan Gross, a U.S. government subcontractor held in Havana and accused of introducing such devices into Cuba, is awaiting trial and faces up to 20 years in jail on charges of "crimes against the security of the state."

In the video, the Cuban official called Gross a "mercenary", comparing him to the CIA-backed Cuban exiles who invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961.

Henriquez, the pro-government blogger, says the United States is trying to export a cyber rebellion model promoted in places like Iran. "But it isn't going to work whether there is Internet or not. A Twitter message isn't itself a reason to mobilize," he said.

Cadelo, however, says it is just a matter of time. "The Internet is going to get to the people. They can't avoid that. A war against the Internet is a lost war," she said.

Esteban Israel

From: The Gazette

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Cuba "fears Internet, social media"

Cuba fears the United States is encouraging dissent through social media such as Facebook and Twitter with the goal of toppling the government, according to the video of what appears a meeting of Cuban officials posted on websites this week.

The 50-minute video apparently is a presentation given by an Internet expert to officials of Cuba's Interior Ministry last June.

A link to the video at http://vimeo.com/19402730 was posted on several blogs, including that of Cuban anti-government blogger Yoani Sanchez, and on the website of the Miami Herald. It is not known how the video was obtained.

The expert, whose identity is not disclosed, told the officials the United States is promoting use of Facebook and Twitter to foment dissent similar to ways it was used in insurrections in the Ukraine in 2004 and in Iran in 2010.

He also said the US government is financing the introduction into Cuba of satellite communications equipment to create secret points of WiFi access.

In communist-led Cuba, Internet access is limited and content largely controlled by the government.

The lecturer mentioned US aid contractor Alan Gross, who has been detained since December 2009 on suspicions he illegally supplied satellite phones to Jewish groups for Internet access. Gross is described in the video as a “mercenary.”

“The idea is to create a technological platform away from control of Cuban authorities that permits the free flow of communication between Cuban citizens selected by (Cuban enemies) and the world,” he said.

Cuba said on Friday that Gross, 61, will face trial soon on charges of crimes against the security of the state and that prosecutors would seek a 20-year sentence in the case that has been a stumbling block for US-Cuba relations.

The lecturer said the US-supplied satellite equipment seeks to spread the voice of a new wave of anti-government bloggers such as Sanchez.

“A virtual network of mercenaries is organizing that are not the traditional counter-revolution. We are talking about young people, people who can have an attractive discourse, young people who hang out with our children and our brothers,” the expert said.

He said the United States is dedicating more money to finance “cyber dissidents” than to the island's traditional opponents.

According to a US State Department cable obtained by WikiLeaks and published in December, Washington is losing confidence in the older dissidents and giving more credence to bloggers and intellectuals.

In the video, the expert said Cuba should try to neutralise the dissident bloggers by countering with its own.

“Being a blogger is not bad. They have their bloggers and we have ours. We're going to fight to see which of the two turns out stronger,” he said.

by Esteban Israel

From: Independent Online

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Yoani Sánchez meets Julia Styles

The net equals People 2 People Power and it brought together two women who might otherwise have never heard of each other.

One of them is Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez.

In 2008, “On a recent morning”, she “took a deep breath and gathered her nerve for an undercover mission: posting an Internet chronicle about life in Fidel Castro’s Cuba,” p2pnet quoted the Wall Street Journal as saying, going on:

“To get around Cuba’s restrictions on Web access, the waif-like 32-year-old posed as a tourist to slip into an Internet cafe in one of the city’s luxury hotels, which normally bar Cubans. Dressed in gray surf shorts, T-shirt and lime-green espadrilles, she strode toward a guard at the hotel’s threshold and flashed a wide smile. The guard, a towering man with a shaved head, stepped aside.

” I think I’m able to do this because I look so harmless,’ says Ms. Sánchez, who says she is sometimes mistaken for a teenager. Once inside the cafe, she attached a flash memory drive to the hotel computer and, in quick, intense movements, uploaded her material. Time matters: The $3 she paid for a half-hour is nearly a week’s wage for many Cubans.”

Named by Time as one of the top 100 most influential people, she was awarded the Ortega and Gasset prize for digital journalism, one of Spain`s top journalism awards, said the Havana Journal, going on:

“Spanish newspaper El Pais, which awards the prize annually, said Sanchez won it for her ’shrewdness’ in overcoming hurdles to freedom of expression in Cuba, her ‘vivacious’ style and her drive to join the ‘global space of citizen journalism’.”

The other is American actress Julia Stiles of the The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Supremacy (among others) fame.

“The snack bar on 13th between F and G — that afternoon on December — is full of security agents and admirers”, writes Yoani in her Generation Y blog, continuing:

The first are the ones who follow this restless blogger, like a tragicomic troupe that dances around my body, my house; the second pursued the radiant face of the actress Julia Stiles, with her laugh from the full-color big screen. Enormous confusion, when they watched the girl who plays the role of Nicky Parsons sitting at the same table with the author of Generation Y, and chatting affectionately. But yes, the famous New Yorker reads my virtual diary, is interested in scratching below the surface of the picture postcard images that export our reality. She barely wanted to talk about herself, although I wanted to know more about her professional life, or even stoop to ask for an autograph.

Julia and I are of that generation of American and Cubans who have been separated and faced with the rhetoric far from our own desires. Descendants of the Montagues and Capulets who tried to pass on to us their grudges and hatreds. But looking objectively, they didn’t manage it, and the result has been quite the opposite. Close, but separated, similar and yet set at odds, like many young people from here and from there we are tired of this outdated “cold war” and its consequences in our lives. So the meeting with Julia had the character of a reconciliation, as if in the middle of combat two opponents approach each other and begin feel each other out, to embrace.

No one in the cafeteria heard the noise of arms being tossed aside, not even those who were there to watch us saw how we dismantled the walls separating us. In the end, the smiling girl from the movies and the girl from Havana who should have been the “New Man” hugged each other and said, “See you later.” Each went to her own side, returned to her life, in front of the cameras or in front of the keyboard, in the Big Apple or in a Yugoslav-model building.

“But since that afternoon, whenever I hear the television seething against our neighbors to the north, I recall Julia, and it is a kind of therapy to remember her laugh and the little armistice we managed that da”, adds Yoani on Generation Y.

From: P2P

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Quo Vadis Fidel? Where are you going?

The enormously talented and courageous woman, Yoani Sanchez, summarized the meaning of the forthcoming April 2011 Conference Guidelines for the Communist Party’s Sixth Congress in her biting blog called Generation Y. On November 9th, 2010, she wrote “not a single line refers to the expansion of civil rights, including the restrictions suffered by Cubans in entering and leaving our own country. Nor is there a word about freedom of association or expression, without which the authorities will continue to behave more like factory foremen than as the representatives of their people.”

However, other than castigating the “bloodsucking character” of the thirty some odd pages of text containing economic proposals, “more appropriate for the Ministry of Finance than for the compass of a political party,” she treads lightly on the bureaucratic contradictions that drive the Cuban Communist Party at this critical point in time. The emotional turmoil of present day Cuba she gives voice to as a “detective of the unexpressed.” She rarely is excelled by anyone in an overseas context. However the political economy of the moment remains fair game for foreign policy analysis.

Other than those who remain dedicated to the cause of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, I suspect that most serious analysts would correctly claim that the forthcoming assembly can only seek to preserve and protect the Communist party apparatus. To expect it to declare itself out of business and defunct is too much to imagine from a single party that monopolizes every organ of public opinion and political mobilization. But this very domination of politics is a source of deep weakness; it demonstrates the absence of legitimacy in the Castro brothers’ regime. It may rotate leadership elites, but it can not change the course of totalitarianism.

In a system of dynastic communism, practiced to a fine art in North Korea, but mocked everywhere else, its impact beyond the 800,000 members of the Communist Party ranges from negligible to indifferent. The decision of the Communist Party to reform the economic system from within is faced with a cul-de-sac from which it cannot readily extricate itself. Reduced to a political faction of less than ten percent (closer to seven percent) of the population, and faced with a variety of cultural distancing from the regime-ranging from rebellious youth to religious revivalism as a mobilizing device-the system at the level of ideological superstructure is a ghost of what it was in earlier periods of Cuban communist history.

Turning toward the political economic base, the system seems even more vulnerable than in the past. The natural history which transpired in 2010 augurs poorly for a party conference scheduled for late spring 2011. Even the supposition that the actors in this drama will remain the same is dubious. Leaders in their eighties cannot presume immortality.

1. First, there is the strange September 8, 2010 interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, the National Correspondent for The Atlantic in which Fidel Castro admits plainly that “The Cuban [Communist] model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Castro’s post-interview shifts and qualifications hardly constituted damage control.

2. The government apparatus of Raul Castro declares a reduction in the size of the central bureaucracy by at least 500,000 to 700,000 individuals. The size of the public sector was thus reduced from 85 percent to somewhere between 75-70 percent.

3. The problem is that there is no private sector available to absorb such a huge exodus from government employment. Not only is this population redundant within the bureaucracy, it has little tooling or educational retraining in the largely pyrrhic private sector.

4. Often overlooked is that the culture of communism strongly discourages business skills and private sector initiatives. Those who engaged in such practices in earlier decades were rapidly forced to surrender its activities; or failing that, pay exorbitant taxes for the privilege of embracing the private sector as small time entrepreneurs.

5. The swollen public sector exiles thus must turn to the black market or gray market in order to survive. Already rife with a myriad of widely reported illegal activities in the black market, from stealing of any moveable parts, to services rendered “off the books” in repairs and services, the situation is grim.

6. The currency situation created by the new edicts will do little to strengthen the value of Cuban currency, certainly neither abroad and probably not within Cuba itself. What it is likely to accomplish is the further flight from the Peso Cubano (moneda nacional) into convertible currencies such as North American dollars and European euros.

7. The trade unions mandated by the government now stand exposed as the ideological voice of the Communist Party and its edicts, or must face the prospect of opposition to the regime itself. This is a situation strangely parallel to Poland during the founding of Solidarity in the Gdansk shipyards in September 1980 where Lech Walesa and others formed a broad anti-Soviet social movement ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church to members of the anti-regime Left.

The larger, external macroeconomic factors for Cuba offer little comfort-dependency on Venezuela or at least on Hugo Chavez parading about as the savior of the island for providing petroleum products at reduced rates and bartering professional personnel in exchange for such assistance. This offers little succor to either the Party or its leadership. The declining markets for sugar and tobacco produced as a result of stiff competition from other nations and regions also have become part of the permanent Cuban landscape. The island is unable to compete, and even less able to revitalize established industries much less institutionalize new technologies that have become routine even in less democratic parts of the world. The pressures from the embargo by the United States (which are real, despite Fidel’s repeated past blaring that they counted for little) do weigh heavily on the regime. Add to this Russia’s loss of support on a variety of finished products, the Castro brothers are faced with impossible choices. Not even Chinese good will can bail out the system.

The Castro entourage would be wise to retool the getaway airplane used by Fulgencio Batista, and try for January 1, 2011 as a fine one-way departure date. And so might this prove to be the peaceful end of the Communist regime in Cuba: not in a thundering manifesto of historical absolution, but as a quiet departure of a frenetic politburo that should have taken place years ago. The Cuban people will have to figure out who to punish and how to move beyond more than a half century of authoritarian rule. They will also need to examine options and alternatives before them in the torturous road of re-entry into hemispheric civilities and global economics. But this upcoming event — Proyeto de Lineamientos de la Política Económico y Social — far from alleviating the situation will only exacerbate matters. It will focus attention on systemic failures, and add substance to Fidel’s off-handed remarks in the Atlantic interview. In this way, Fidel may yet prove a prophet of doom, rather than a harbinger of the future.

By Irving Louis Horowitz

From: Eurasia Review

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Castro misreads WikiLeaks, Washington misreads Castro

Courtesy: Alfredo Pong

WikiLeaks poses an interesting dilemma for governments that share Julian Assange's hostility to Washington, but not his enthusiasm for information. Case in point: Havana. Cuban dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez offers a glimpse:

"I remember the first mention of Julian Assange's site in our official media was accompanied by a certain complicity on the part of the article writers, a hint of laughter anticipating the damage that the publication of these classified documents could cause the U.S. Government. But when the name of Cuba began to appear along with reports about the interference of Venezuela and the testimonies of coercion against their own medical personnel, the enthusiasm of the newspaper Granma turned to annoyance and the initial applause gave way to silence. Not even the Maximum Leader referred to Wikileaks again."

She's presumably referring to this cable from the Caracas embassy, which alleged that Cuban medical personnel were being forced against their will to work in Venezuela. Aside from old-school communist credibility, medical expertise is the main export Cuba has to offer Venezuela, which under Hugo Chávez has become an essential trading partner and oil supplier for Fidel and now Raúl Castro's government.

Speaking of which, a February cable published Friday -- one of only a couple to emerge from the U.S. interests section in Havana, signed by Jonathan Farrar, the top official there -- offers a sweeping view of the crumbling Cuban economy: Chávez's support is the only thing keeping Cuba from falling back into the deprivations of the Special Period, Farrar reports, and the country is defaulting right and left on its trading partners. But the cable also suggests that American diplomats badly misread the seriousness of Raúl Castro's economic reform agenda:

"Despite how badly Cuba needs them, significant economic reforms are unlikely in 2010, especially with the continued delay of a policy-revising Communist Party Congress... . The [government of Cuba]'s direction and leadership remains muddled and unclear, in great measure because its leaders are paralyzed by fear that reforms will loosen the tight grip on power that they have held for over 50 years. Faced with political uncertainty regarding future Cuban leadership and relations with the United States, the Cuban people are more likely to endure a slow erosion of state-subsidies than a much-needed radical restructuring."

Less than a year later, a radical restructuring may in fact be on the way.

Charles Homans

From: FOREIGN POLICY

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