Arab rebellions worrying dictators elsewhere

These are scary times for tyrants. Some of the world's most enduring dictatorships, the ones that looked as though they would never end, have met their demise in recent months. For now, the popular revolts have spread only through the Middle East. Unelected governments in other parts of the world are trying to make sure they're not next.

In countries such as Cuba, North Korea and Burma (renamed Myanmar), unelected regimes are raising the walls as they try to keep themselves safe from the very people they claim have nothing but love for their longtime rulers.

When Egyptian protesters, fed up with 30 years of rule by Hosni Mubarak, forced the president out of power, Cuba's Fidel Castro explained the events as a revolt against America. In his column in the Communist Party daily Granma, the iconic former Cuban president wrote, "After 18 days of harsh battling, the Egyptian people attained an important objective: to defeat the United States' principal ally in the heart of the Arab countries."

Castro defended Libya's Moammar Gadhafi until the end, painting the uprising as a brutal NATO onslaught against the defenseless Libyan people, an example of colonialist Western aggression aimed at grabbing Libyan oil.

Most Cubans have little if any access to the Internet or other sources of nongovernment-controlled media. An American contractor, 62-year-old Alan Gross, was sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison after he was found to have brought equipment to allow Internet access for members of the country's tiny Jewish community.

Information is even more tightly controlled in other dictatorships. In North Korea, televisions come factory-tuned to government propaganda channels, and there is essentially no Internet and virtually no cellphone service. Even so, a report by South Korea's Institute for National Unification says the North reacted to Arab rebellions with a number of urgent measures to prevent contagion. Police stations reportedly were ordered to intensify their ideological indoctrination programs, as additional security forces were deployed to prevent any trouble.

If any significant uprising happened to occur, there's little doubt that Pyongyang, with more than a million soldiers receiving privileges from their loyalty to the state, would quickly use force to suppress it.

Burma's rulers have also shown a willingness to use force to stop protests. Long before the Arab uprisings, young Burmese took to the streets to demand democracy. It happened on Aug. 8, 1988 (8-8-88). The military killed thousands of demonstrators and imprisoned their leaders. Buddhist monks launched another protest in 2007. The government again responded with violence.

Still, the Burmese opposition lives on, and the regime has put on a democracy charade. Fraudulent elections produced a new, supposedly civilian, parliament in fact dominated by the military. The new prime minister is a former general. But opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after years under arrest, has been freed.

In an interview with the BBC, she told Egyptian demonstrators, "We're all with you." But the government says 0.8 percent of the country has Internet access. Local newspapers offer a parody of the news. Stories from Egypt during the January uprising, for example, included news of secret chambers discovered in the pyramids.

The real news, of course, is that tyrants can be toppled.

No dictatorship lasts forever. For the people who have struggled against all odds, facing imprisonment and worse for demanding democracy, the truth about what is happening to Middle Eastern dictators will slowly filter in. Their rulers already know the truth. They are watching closely, and they are not sleeping well at night.

By Frida Ghitis

Source: The Wichita Eagle

Go to Home Page

Why we're not seeing a "Cuban Autumn"

A dissident signs the letter "L" for the Spanish word "libertad" or freedom as he is detained by police during a procession celebrating Cuba's patron saint in Havana, Cuba, Thursday Sept. 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano).

Dissidents took heart at the successes of the Arab Spring, but pro-democracy protests aren't gaining traction.

The uprisings that have rocked the Middle East this year appear to be inspiring a new wave of protests on this island.

But while the Arab Spring is still in full effect in many countries, opponents of the Castro government have gained little momentum for a "Cuban Autumn."

In recent weeks, anti-government activists have staged several public demonstrations in Havana and eastern Cuba. News and video clips of the events were posted on social-networking sites and broadcast on Miami television channels.

They show small groups of activists banging cookware, chanting anti-Castro slogans and "Freedom!" until police and state-security agents arrive to whisk them away.

In some of the videos, larger crowds of Cubans stand around watching the protesters, but they do not join in.

The incidents come after a period of relative calm that followed the Castro government's move last year to release scores of imprisoned political prisoners, with the Catholic Church playing a mediating role. The amnesty briefly ameliorated criticisms by Western governments and human-rights groups of Cuba's one-party socialist system and its treatment of non-violent dissenters.

Now activists are once more testing Raul Castro's tolerance for public protest -- and whether the tactics used by tweeting insurgents in the Middle East could spread anti-government sentiment here.

So far: not so much.

One disadvantage often cited by Cuban activists is that they operate at a significant technology deficit. The island is one of the least-connected countries in the world, and though many young people have mobile phones, most lack access to Facebook, Twitter and video-sharing sites because of internet restrictions and scarce bandwidth.

Anti-Castro activists on the island are also viewed suspiciously or with outright hostility by many Cubans, even those who have lost faith in Cuba's socialist model. State media broadcasts frequently show them meeting with U.S. diplomatic officials, depicting them as "counterrevolutionaries," "mercenaries" and "opportunists" who are out to make a buck or get political asylum abroad.

Many others here remain committed to Cuba's system and its revolutionary ideals, even as the free health care, education and other benefits the government provides continue to diminish.

But dissidents also say Cuban authorities are escalating their attacks to intimidate others from joining their pro-democracy efforts. In August, police violence against peaceful protesters reached its highest level in recent years, according to the Havana-based Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation, an anti-Castro group that the tracks political arrests and detentions. Nearly twice as many activists have been detained so far this year compared to the same period in 2010, the group said, including 130 short-term detentions over the weekend.

The Cuban government has challenged those charges, accusing the group of padding its lists with fake names.

Castro opponents do not claim the Cuban government stoops to the type of methods that have been used by regimes in the Arab world, where activists are raped, tortured and murdered, and where protests are commonly met by volleys of police gunfire.

But state-security officials can plainly be seen coordinating counter-protests by government loyalists, who often surround dissidents and shout epithets at them for hours on end, sometimes accosting them physically. Security agents typically stand between the two sides to keep things from getting too rough.

When Cubans protest in public spontaneously, as some of the recent videos show, police quickly swoop in to arrest the demonstrators and haul them away, though the activists are often released several hours later.

Cuba's Catholic church, which played a central role in securing the release of more than 100 jailed activists over the past year, issued a carefully worded statement last week that condemned violence against "defenseless" people.

But Church spokesman Orlando Marquez also said in the statement that the Cuban government told the church "no one at the national level" had ordered attacks on protesters.

Cuban state television has aired footage of the protests, claiming the incidents were part of a "media campaign" against the island. It called the demonstrations acts of "public disorder" that were organized by U.S.-supported "mercenaries" and planned in coordination with American officials.

"The goal is to create a climate of tension that will justify aggressions against Cuba," the report said.

While Cuba's economy continues to struggle, there has not been the kind of broader unrest on the island that sparked street protests during the post-Soviet crisis of the 1990s.

Raul Castro has eased state control over the economy since taking over for his older brother in 2006, allowing for new private businesses and pending reforms that would permit Cubans to buy and sell homes and cars for the first time in half a century.

Castro has also encouraged Cubans to vent their frustrations -- within limits -- through established channels like workplace forums and neighborhood meetings. Criticizing state institutions and government bureaucracy is no longer taboo, but organized opposition and public protests -- like the recent demonstrations -- remain out of bounds.

Since most of the dissidents freed over the past year opted to leave Cuba for Spain as part of an arrangement with the Madrid government, the latest rounds of protests may also be an effort by activists to remain visible, particularly to supporters abroad.

Cuba's most famous online anti-government activist, Yoani Sanchez, sends out cascades of tweets from her mobile phone, including information about protests. Her blog, Generation Y, is no longer blocked on the island by the government, but many young Cubans who manage to get online aren't necessarily inclined to use their precious bytes on political sites.

A high-speed undersea data link to Venezuela completed this summer with much fanfare is supposed to come online in the next few months, increasing Cuba's bandwidth by a factor of 3,000. Its debut has been repeatedly delayed, adding to perceptions that Cuban authorities are wary of its power, even though they have already announced it will not be used to deliver private internet access to Cuban homes.

U.S. officials appear to view communication technology as the key to sparking political change on the island. In a leaked 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable that recently surfaced, the top American official in Havana, Jonathan Farrar, urged the lifting of restrictions on software downloads in Cuba, where Microsoft and other American companies have blocked access to comply with anti-terrorism statutes. Such restrictions, Farrar argued, work "directly against U.S. goals to advance people-to-people interaction."

Bringing more technology, wrote Farrar at the time, could "help facilitate Iran-style democratic ferment in Cuba."

By Nick Miroff

Source: GlobalPost

Go to Home Page

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

Go to Home Page

For Cuba Open Source Is Not A Matter Of Choice

Lack of access to commercial software makes open source the only choice for Cuba

In case you want to attend, Cuba is hosting the Latin American Festival of Open Source Software on April 9th. It seems Cuba is a big supporter of open source and is trying to have a majority of its computers run Linux. In fact Cuba has its own Linux distribution called Nova. But if you think about it, Cuba does not really have a choice but to support open source. However, that in and of itself could be a double edged sword to regime there.

For over 50 years now, Cuba has been under a trade embargo with any US goods. That means that US companies cannot trade directly with Cuba and even third party countries cannot trade US goods with Cuba either. As a result with so much of the IT industry being US based or US derived, Cuba has a very hard time getting both hardware and software in the country. For most of that time for the average Cuban it was not that big a deal. They weren't allowed to own a computer, even if they could afford one.

For the government and educational sectors computer technology was more and more necessary. For a long time Cuba relied on the Soviet Union to provide computer technology. In fact based upon that technology, Cuba was selling technology back to the Soviets. But of course that all dried up with the end of the Soviet Union. Cuba had to find another source.

Luckily for Cuba by now most of the hardware was being built in China and other areas that would sell to the Cubans. However, the software was still US based, so getting Windows, Office or even security software was a real problem. Consequently, most of the computers run pirated copies of Windows that have been smuggled in.

That represents a real problem on several fronts. It puts Cuba in the position of violating the license, subjecting them to penalties (though what penalties could there be here), it creates a black market for the pirated software (not good in a communist economy) and keeps them at the mercy of the US trade embargo. Also Cubans believe that the US CIA and other agencies have back doors into Windows and other programs which would allow them to spy on Cuba. A healthy dose of paranoia there.

As they say necessity is the mother of invention. The unique Cuban situation created a new perfect environment to rally behind open source software in general and Linux in particular. This gave Cuba legal, ready access to quality software, at prices they could afford and free of any US strings or perceived back doors. This opened up Cuba to the PC era.

But that is the rub for the Cuban government. Opening up the country to the PC era also meant the Internet. How do you stop people from seeing what their peers around the world are doing. Ask the leaders of Eygpt, Tunisia and Libya how that worked for them.

When Raul Castro took over for his brother Fidel, he made it legal for individuals to own computers. Of course going out on the Internet outside of Cuban based web sites was still illegal. But once the genie is out of the bottle, it is near impossible to put back.

Based upon the experiences of the rest of the world, I think it only a matter of time until open source and the Internet force change in Cuba the same way it is helping force change the world over.

!Viva La (Open Source) Revolucion!

By Alan Shimel


From: NetWorkWorld

Go to Home Page

Death Penalty for Internet in Cuba?

A ghost runs around Cuba: the Internet ghost. A month after the arrival of fiber optics from Venezuela to create a much faster information and telecommunications highway — some media outlets are predicting speeds three thousand percent faster — the government seems to be looking for excuses to justify why, once again, it will continue violating our most basic rights, preventing us from freely accessing information from our homes through Internet.



Until recently the government alleged it couldn’t open up Internet to the “entire population” because, as a result of the US Embargo, Cuba was accessing Internet via satellite (Wi-Fi), slowing down connection speeds. This argument has been heavily debated in diverse sectors who, in spite of not being experts, question why the country didn’t expand its contract with satellite providers and installed additional servers to diversify the possibilities and provide and widen the service offering to a larger number of users. Also, if connections are truly that slow, why not give us the possibility, just like foreigners living in the country, to pay for access in spite of its slowness? Why marginalize fellow compatriots?

It seems that the rationale of this elite — mostly “angry” (irritated and tense) — which prevents us from browsing the Web is to continue discriminating and dividing our society with its repeated practice of extortion and influence; and they use the access to the net as one of the perks they usually give grant to their hardcore followers who are employed in key positions or positions of interest for the power elite.

I share the idea of ending the U.S. “blockade” or embargo against Cuba, but I also want to end the mental blockade of those in power, who pretend to be more interested in “breaking the blockade” of independents — who dare to use our freedom of expression with “fists and pens” — and in violating the right to information of the Cuban people. Working so everyone enjoy the technological advances they enjoy and defending the access to these sources of information that is also part of our rights, as it is part of our culture and general knowledge, and enriches, complements, and consolidates the cognitive universe.

Since the announcement that we would be able to access broadband Internet, people on different television shows were optimistic about the possibility of providing the masses with that tool that frees them. They begun to expound on the importance of Internet in culture, as a research tool to find all sorts of information, as a tool for the development and diversification of economic projects, etc.

At the XIV Convention and International Fair of Informatics 2011 hosted this past February in Havana there was evidence of the natural social appetite, but apparently protests in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries have sparked fear in the authoritarian Cuban oligarchy, and again, freedom was sentenced to death by shooting.

This is why it is becoming harder for them to support the argument of the benefits and justice of the Cuban political model, the respect of Cubans’ rights, and find themselves forced to put together television programs with the same old and abused arguments.

If the Internet is a poison, the best antidote against it is democracy, and the best antivirus to detect and discern any malicious code is culture, education, and freedom. Hence, the reiterated public assertion of government leaders stating that Cuba is the most educated and cultivated country in the world is a clear contradiction that no one understands.

If we are so smart, why can’t we access alternative information sources separate from the central state? Education and culture, to be true and not just propaganda, must be divorced from censure. Many of us wonder how can some have so much power and so much fear at the same time.

We know the government erected its flags over the pillars of health and education — both things currently in crisis — in the militarization of society and excessive and efficient (for them) control. It has been an easy feat without political parties, real unions — ones that answer to the needs of workers rather than administrators or the only political party — or an organized civil society looking for real solutions to their problems and capable of organizing and facing its challenges.

It has been a model disloyal to all ethical standards of governability. How easy it was ruling without alternatives to elect, more attractive political agendas to support, or even other points of view to listen to! How angry they must be for not being able to control the Internet they way they controlled the printed press, the radio, and the TV in the 60s! But modernity and technological advances are winning the battle, and every time they repeal any of the civil rights they, they become violators in the eyes of their own fellow countrymen.

There is no need for anyone to point at the facts: they are their own defense lawyers, but also their own prosecutors. The fact of the matter is that, as usual, they need to create the illusion of a plaza under siege to justify to their followers the reasons behind a new act of injustice. It is likely that the purpose is to condemn the Internet to life in prison without right to appeal. I hope I am wrong! but if the Cuban government is attempting to switch that light off, they might get away with it for some time, but I doubt they will be able to keep censorship forever.

Rosa María Rodríguez Torrado - Translating Cuba

Go to Home Page

"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

Go to Home Page

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

Go to Home Page

Libya is no Cuba, Gadaffi is no Castro or Che

Gadaffi and Castro in the "old times".

"The only real power comes out of a rifle." Joseph Stalin

"Death is the solution to all problems - no man, no problem." Joseph Stalin

"I trust no one, not even myself." Joseph Stalin.

“I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated!” Che Guevara 1956.

A tribal dictatorship on Gadaffi’s model is vastly different from a Stalinist one on the Castro model. Gadaffi’s goons-for-pay are certainly murdering people in Libya—but it appears a haphazard and tardy affair. “A bumbling, haphazard and amateurish affair,” veteran Stalinists Fidel and Raul Castro are probably nodding to themselves. “We could have shown Gadaffi the proper remedy for these matters.”

“When even a portion of your armed forces turn against you—you’ve had it,” any Stalinist could have advised Gadaffi. “You nip these things in the bud.”

Upon arriving in Havana in Jan. of 1959 Che Guevara immediately recognized the moat around Havana's La Cabana fortress as a handy-dandy execution pit. At Babi-Yar, Hitler's SS had to dig one. Here Che Guevara and Fidel Castro had one ready-made and so they put their firing squads to work in triple-shifts.

Cuban-American Scholar Dr. Armando Lago documents 1,168 firing squad murders in the first few months of 1959. The Black Book of Communisms estimates 14,000 by the end of the 60’s.Vengeance – much less justice – had nothing to do with this bloodbath. Che's murderous method in La Cabana fortress in 1959 was exactly Stalin's murderous method in the Katyn Forest in 1940. Like Stalin's massacre of the Polish officer corps in the Katyn forest, like Stalin's Great Terror against his own officer corps a few years earlier, Che's (Castro-ordered) firing squad marathons were a perfectly rational and cold-blooded exercise that served their purpose ideally. This bloodbath decapitated – literally and figuratively--the first ranks of Cuba's Contras.

The victims were overwhelmingly military and police officers. Watching how many of these refused blindfolds and yelled defiantly at their murderers before the volley shattered their bodies show that the Cuban Bolsheviks had been diligent in rounding up the right victims. dustry" in Cuba (tourism) is run primarily by Cuba's generals. They also run the export industries. If anyone craves “stability” in Cuba, it's these high-rolling graduates of Cuba' Military Academy—but not just because of fiduciary considerations.

The Red Terror had come to Cuba.

Today Cuba's military is fat and happy -- has been for decades. They run Cuba. The only thing properly describable as an "in

Tito Rodriguez Oltmans, a former Cuban freedom-fighter and political prisoner, watched many of these men, as young cadets, perform one of the requisites for graduation from Cuba's military academy of the time. "They were all armed with Belgian .308 caliber FALs as they lined up for the firing squad," recalls Mr. Rodriguez, a prisoner in La Cabana prison in the early 1960s. "Every evening the cadets would be bused in from the Managua army base and the Mariel naval base near Havana. As darkness fell the condemned patriot -- shirtless and gagged -- would be dragged to the execution wall and bound. The cadets would line up only four meters in front of the patriot and all had loaded weapons." ... FUEGO!

A brief aside: historically and almost universally, most members of a firing squad shoot blanks, to assuage their conscience. But such assuaging would contradict the Cuban firing squads' most vital purpose, secretly named "El Compromiso Sangriento" (the Blood Covenant.) This tried and true Soviet scheme was presented by Soviet GRU agent Angel Ciutat to Che Guevara just weeks after he and Fidel entered Havana in January 1959. The scene was a meeting at Che's palatial (and recently stolen) estate in Tarara just west of Havana. Every candidate for officer, suggested Ciutat, would take his place in a firing squad and pull the trigger with live ammo.

In front of a genuine Soviet GRU agent, Che (who often signed his name Stalin II) was undoubtedly smitten and instantly embraced the idea. So let's see here: a policy suggested by a Soviet butcher and adopted by an Argentine hobo for murdering Cuban patriots, instantly became government policy in newly "nationalist" Cuba.

As recently documented by Cuban-American scholar Jose Azel, Cuba’s “Social media” is so tiny as to be essentially irrelevant. Cuba—a nation with more phones and TVs per capita than most European countries in 1958--today has fewer internet connections per-capita than Uganda and fewer cell phones than Papua New Guinea. The Stalinist regime is very vigilant in these matters.

Castro’s police state controls what its subjects, read, say, earn, eat (both food and amount), where they live, travel or work. In the mid 1990's the Catholic Human Rights group Pax Christi headquartered in Belgium, visited Cuba and (secretly) conducted a study on the status of the neighborhood snitch committees known as CDR's. Castro, under East German STASI tutelage, installed these in 1960, making a potential regime spy out of half the population. Instilling the pervasive fear and a mutual-suspicion society is essential to every communist dictatorship.

“Fear is the basic instrument of (Cuban) political control,” concludes the study. "There is one CDR for every 140 Cubans. The information at the State Security’s disposal can be used to threaten and intimidate anybody. There is no place to escape the tentacles of the State. Most ordinary Cubans reported that they remained intensely wary of CDR surveillance, even while conversing in their own homes.”

The CDRs also supervise the issuing of the monthly food ration cards to all Castro's subjects. “Food is a weapon” famously snickered Stalin's foreign minister, Maxim Litvinov during the Ukrainian Holocaust. 

Humberto Fontova 

From: TownHall

Go to Home Page

In Cuba, would soldiers pull the trigger on protesters?

Cuban police.

Nineteen eighty-nine was a good year for freedom. Only in China did the Communist Party crush the protesters who slowly took possession of Tiananmen Square from April 14 on. When the tanks and soldiers rolled in on June 3-4, there was hardly any concrete to be seen on the square. Up to 1,500 people were massacred.

Even so, Tiananmen left us an image of hope: the man who repeatedly blocked a tank while the soldier driving it never ran him over. Internet searches for “tank man” in China come up empty. One here will get you nearly nine million results. The man’s defiance and the soldier’s refusal to kill him still threaten the Chinese leadership.

In Eastern Europe, communist regimes fell like dominoes. Mikhail Gorbachev’s “Sinatra Doctrine” — Moscow would no longer intervene to prop them up — left the region’s communist leaders to fend for themselves. When citizens took to the streets, all but Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu blinked rather than give the order to fire.

Cuba had its own 1989. In June, a group of military and state-security officers were arrested and tried for drug trafficking. Four were brought before firing squads. Perhaps these men were also involved in reform efforts. No matter, it is still crystal clear that the scandal bared a regime predicament.

Fidel Castro’s demand for unconditional elite loyalty required a high degree of tolerance for wide-ranging elite behavior. Whether or not he knew about the officers’ activities, full responsibility fell on his governance style. Havana, however, blamed a few bad apples even if two of the men executed — Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa and Colonel Antonio de la Guardia — had long been close to Castro.

Today we are witnessing young people in the Middle East march for freedom. Unlike Eastern Europe, however, Middle Eastern regimes sprung from within and, in that sense, are more akin to China. Autocracies in Egypt and Tunisia withered away with little bloodshed. Not so in Libya where Moammar Gadhafi has unleashed loyal troops, foreign mercenaries and air strikes against the people. Hundreds have already died and the regime no longer controls eastern Libya.

After 1989, Cuba was thought to be next. Bumper stickers proclaiming En el noventa, Fidel revienta! (In 1990, Fidel will burst!) were widely seen in Miami. George H.W. Bush thought freedom would come to Cuba under his watch. Castro, however, stood fast and survived to transfer power to Raúl in 2006.

Be that as it may, the elder Castro’s leadership style is still the heart of the matter. Fidel always preferred governing on his own than through even undemocratic institutions. It took Raúl Castro a while to put the house in order. Now he and his elderly cohorts are trapped.

On the one hand, the thought that they would be the ones to lose power keeps them awake at night. On the other, they are committed to saving Fidel’s legacy which is also their own. Still, Castro’s unwillingness to put the interests of ordinary Cubans at the center of his rule has made Raúl’s task all the harder. Too much time has been lost and the costs now are even steeper.

Cubans are facing layoffs to the tune of 1.8 million over four years. Though there are conflicting reports on whether the first round of 500,000 has even started in earnest, the mere announcement of layoffs suggests a new social contract. “You’re on your own,” the leadership is, in effect, saying.

What’s happening in Libya might be especially troubling for the Cuban leadership. Fidel Castro and Gadhafi once had close relations. We don’t know how much Cubans know about Libyan developments. Elites in the military, the state and the party, however, are well aware of the defections among their Libyan counterparts.

Would young Cubans be willing to risk the regime’s wrath by taking to the streets? Would the regime give the order to fire on them? Would the officers and soldiers pull the trigger? These aren’t idle questions. Incipient reforms are already shaking up Cuban society, and that’s the place to look for change.


Marifeli Perez-Stable

From: KansaCityStar

Go to Home Page

In Cuba, Castro Marks an Anniversary By Unleashing the Hounds

As Muammar al-Qaddafi clings to power by ordering his troops to shoot on their Libyan compatriots, across the globe in the Caribbean one of his last remaining global buddies is doing his best to keep the lid on his own victims. Fidel Castro, presiding over the wreckage of what was once the thriving island of Cuba, stepped up repression today, the first anniversary of the hunger-strike death of a dissident leader, lest others take to the streets.

Castro’s political police are imprisoning Cuban dissidents to prevent them from marking the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a simple bricklayer who was sent to prison on March 20, 2003, for “disobedience” (yes, an adult person can be so charged in Castro’s Socialist paradise for speaking his mind) and died on Feb. 23, 2010 -- after two months on hunger strike.

Blogger Yoani Sanchez, one of a handful of dissidents in Cuba to have access to Twitter, has been sending Tweets all day detailing who has been held under house arrest.

According to Sanchez, such opposition figures as Jose Urbino, Zaldivar Maria Antonia Hidalgo, Caridad Caballer and Luis Felipe Rojas have been surrounded by government goons in the city of Holguin.

Even the “Ladies in White,” a group of spouses of political prisoners who meet and march through the streets, their dignity held high in the face of heckles and punching by government goons, are being blocked from meeting today, according to Sanchez. She quotes Lady in White Berta Soler as saying that 13 of her fellow Ladies are being held by police inside a house and that other dissidents have had their ID papers taken away by police.

In an afternoon tweet, Sanchez described how she had called blogger Katia Sonia and could overhear a government-organized crowd sent to Miss Sonia’s home in order to intimidate her. But don’t let anyone think that Cubans have even the few rights their Middle Eastern counterparts have.

Indeed, the differences are telling. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, Twitter, Facebook and mobile phones played a key role in organizing the protests, but in Cuba the vast majority of people are denied access to these modern-day means of communication. Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali and Qaddafi were in power for three decades, an obscene length of time by democratic standards. But they’re pikers when it comes to Cuba’s self-described Maximum Leader, who has clocked five decades and counting. And, of course, while Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans have lived in political oppression, they at least have private property and the right to sell and buy it. Cubans, however, live in totalitarian communism, with no right to own anything.

“Leftist tyrannies are the worst of all tyrannies,” the dissident journalist Jose Antonio Fornaris Ramos told The Heritage Foundation on the telephone. “They own your house, all your goods, your place of employment and all you’re given to eat. They’re absolute. Everyone is afraid, and they’re right to be afraid.”

Wednesday’s house arrests, he said, “are a violation of our constitution, which says very clearly that only courts can hold you under house arrest.”

Commenting on the protest in the Middle East, he said: “What it shows is that democracy is man’s best invention. The real statesmen left power voluntarily, like George Washington and Nelson Mandela. Those who hang on to power are dictators.”

By Michael Gonzalez

From: Fox News

Go to Home Page

Qaddafi's Friends in Cuba

A friend in need is a friend indeed?

With the unrest in Libya and particularly with his recent public relations debacles, leader Muammar Qaddafi is rapidly losing any remaining fans. Yet down in South America, apparently, a few stalwarts remain.

Fidel Castro penned a column in Cuba's Granma, warning of Libya's appeal to the United States because of it's vast petroleum reserves. "For me it is absolutely evident that the United States is not worried about peace in Libya, and will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade this rich country maybe in a matter of hours or very few days," he wrote. Perhaps tellingly, though, while the two leaders have been allies at times, Castro was reticent with outright support for Qaddafi, noting that "we have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."

In a look at the history of Qaddafi's relationship with Venezuela, Caracas daily El Universal reported that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proclaimed his support for Qaddafi in 2009, claiming that "Qaddafi is to Libya as [Simon] Bolívar is to us." Simon Bolivar was involved in the liberation of much of Latin America from colonial rule. The superlatives didn't end there, Chavez calling Qaddafi a "revolutionary soldier," "a leader of of the Libyan revolution," and a "leader of all of Africa as well as Latin America."

Chavez and Qaddafi, both leaders of oil-rich nations, have had an unlikely relationship blossom between them in the past few years. El Universal reports that Chavez has visited Libya five times. Libya awarded Chavez with the "Qaddafi Human Rights Prize" in 2004. In March 2009, Qaddafi named a football stadium in Benghazi after Chavez. On his end, Chavez made Qaddafi the special guest at a conference between African and Latin American countries held on Venezuela's Isla Margarita later that year, where he also presented Qaddafi with a replica of Simon Bolivar's sword. Rumors were swirling as recently as last night that the Libyan strongman had made his way to Venezuela to seek shelter.

By Eli Rosenberg

From: The Atlantic Wire

Go to Home Page

The Protests in Cuba Are As Feared As in Egypt

One of the posters calling for the uprising in Cuba.

Protests in Egypt and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak has raised concerns that Cuba would follow suit, which has moved the government of the Caribbean nation to increase the repression, according to a report released last week. The report of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies (ICCAS by its initials in English), from the University of Miami, says that in recent weeks the security forces of Raúl Castro's regime have increased arrests and repressive actions against the Cuban people.

Titled “Increased repression in Cuba” the report quotes arrests, temporary detentions, beatings and intimidation of at least 34 activists and independent journalists, and also fines and jail therms for those who build or trade antennas and satellite television receivers. Among the cases is the dissident Lobaina Nestor Rodriguez, leader of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy (MCJD, initials in Spanish), who fears for his life and was placed with ordinary prisoners in the prison of  El Combinado de Guantanamo, where he is intimidated and threatened, reported his wife Daneysi Galvez Pereira.

Black Spring Independent journalist, Adolfo Paul Borraz, was arrested for 10 hours at his home in Centro Habana, interrogated and threatened for his journalistic activities. Jorge Luis Antunez reported that more than 12 members of the Central Opposition Coalition were beaten by members of  the Castro's repressive apparatus in the city of Placetas and arrested later.

Stirring to start a social media revolution in Cuba, organizers of a Facebook group calling for a popular uprising on the island have called for Cubans to gather for a demonstration on Feb. 21 in Havana.

The protest will be to "demand the freedom and democracy that have been taken from us," states a message on the group's Facebook page.

The message calls for Cubans to gather at 5 p.m. outside the old presidential palace in Havana, which is now the "Museum of the Revolution."

In Cuba, as in Egypt, Iran and elsewhere where this kind of activity is not well received by the autocrats in power, this is a dangerous business, making it vital for those of us who share the same ideals of freedom, do our part to support them.

Facebook page for the popular uprising in Cuba







Pamphlet guide to revolution in Egypt: How to protest intelligently

The San Francisco Indymedia site (www.indybay.org) has published a translated nine page Guide to intelligent protesting, which was distributed widely on the streets of Egypt. The guide shows how to non-violently defend yourself from riot police. As this Blog article states, we shouldn't just be cheering on the Egyptian revolution but learning from it. This was one of the biggest non-violent uprising's in history and given that we are all facing the same neo-liberal policies and all governments inevitably turn to batons and beatings to keep us down, these tips will definitely come in handy. 

From the Egyptian Revolutionary Guide

Below is an excerpt from the article Tactical Gems from the Egyptian Revolution outlining some creative democratic ways of operating with mass crowds.

"How to make demands from a giant crowd: Now that Tahrir Square has proclaimed itself an “autonomous republic,” and demands are flying from every corner of Egyptian society, not to mention every foreign government, the crowds whose effort has made change possible are trying to articulate their demands. Here’s how:

In Tahrir, the square that has become the focal point for the nationwide struggle against Mubarak’s three-decade dictatorship, groups of protesters have been debating what their precise goals should be in the face of their president’s continuing refusal to stand down.

The Guardian has learned that delegates from these mini-gatherings then come together to discuss the prevailing mood, before potential demands are read out over the square’s makeshift speaker system. The adoption of each proposal is based on the proportion of cheers or boos it receives from the crowd at large.

Delegates have arrived in Tahrir from other parts of the country that have declared themselves liberated from Mubarak’s rule, including the major cities of Alexandria and Suez, and are also providing input into the decisions.

“When the government shut down the web, politics moved on to the street, and that’s where it has stayed,” said one youth involved in the process. “It’s impossible to construct a perfect decision-making mechanism in such a fast-moving environment, but this is as democratic as we can possibly be.” (“Cairo’s biggest protest yet demands Mubarak’s immediate departure,” Guardian, February 5)

The article has some other good tips too. Check it out. Bring on the GLOBAL revolutions. Down with all the tyrants who only serve the big business, the IMF and Washington. Don't forget that Wikileaks showed us recently that our politicians take orders straight from Washington too!

Source: CoffeToday and The Wire

Pictures from Egypt showing some protester's "equipment" for self protection.

The plastic bottle helmet.

Brick-hat, very strong.

Bucket-helmet.

Cooking armor.

The box-helmet. Not very strong, but light.

The pita helmet. Wonderful!

Go to Home Page

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

Go to Home Page