Isabel Sanchez
February 9, 2011 - 4:05AM
For years, Cuba has blamed US sanctions for its costly, limited Internet
access. But as a massive cable rolls ashore Tuesday from Venezuela
bringing better connections, average Cubans' still will have limited
access to the web.
And with the development coming just as Egypt struggles with the
revolutionary impact of social media on political stability, the
Americas' only one-party Communist regime could find itself in suddenly
stormier seas.
A French ship will arrive in Siboney beach, Santiago de Cuba province,
870 km (540 miles) southeast of Havana, having run the cable 1,600
kilometers (994 miles) since January 22 from Camuri, in northern Venezuela.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Socialist oil-rich Venezuela is the key political and economic ally for
isolated and cash-strapped Cuba. Havana controls media and almost all of
the economy on the Portugal-sized island of 11 million.
The soon-to-arrive cable has been called one of the most ambitious
bilateral projects between the government of President Raul Castro and
his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez.
When it is switched on in July, it is supposed to allow a connection of
up to 640 gigabytes a second. That means download speeds 3,000 faster
than what Cuba has now, thanks to a cable being hailed as a boon for
telephone and Internet service in the Caribbean nation.
Since the dawn of the Internet, Havana has claimed US sanctions meant
that Cuba only could get Internet service by satellite, resulting in
costly and limited service.
Critics who charged that argument was just a tool for political control
are now outraged anew. That's because, as Cuba seems to be at its dawn
of a new Internet age, the government as ever is warning access will be
restricted.
Deputy Information Technology Minister Jose Luis Perdomo, however,
denied there was any political element to access, even as he said social
media would continue to be used -- as now -- only in academic settings
and some professional areas such as by journalists and doctors.
"There is no political obstacle," he insisted.
The cable is not a "magic wand," Perdomo said, arguing that the
government needs to invest in infrastructure before opening unlimited
Internet access to all Cubans at some unspecified point in the future.
Some Cuban dissidents and other critics of the Communist government
charge that Havana is censoring with its Internet policies and
controlling access to information and restricting it to social media
which could be used against it.
Indeed in recent years, Cuba has become a battleground for blogging
dissidents and counter-blogging pro-government detractors.
Just in the past few days, a 50-minute video was posted in which a
purported Interior Ministry official is seen charging the United States
with fomenting Internet- and social media-based based dissent.
"A network of Internet mercenaries is being set up who are not the
traditional counterrevolutionaries," the official is heard to say,
citing as one example international award-winning blogger Yoani Sanchez,
a tough government critic whether blogging or tweeting.
The official is heard to warn that "the Internet psychology is just the
same with Cuban Internet users," insofar as their acceptance (for those
who have access) of and use of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
The government says that 1.6 million Cubans have access to the Internet
out of 11.2 million. While they can surf at hotels with cards paid for
in hard currency, it is not an option for many at seven US dollars an
hour. Cubans make an average 20 US dollars a month.
"It would be logical for this cable to give high speed service and make
service cheaper for all Cubans, because we cannot afford it," explained
construction worker Yenier Garcia, 36, standing in line at a government
Internet use site to send an email to a friend in Sweden.
No comments:
Post a Comment