Cuba is worried the US will use the internet to foment uprising on the
island.
By Nick Miroff
Published: February 14, 2011 06:26 ET in The Americas Cuba internet
HAVANA, Cuba — If the internet is the new battlefield in the long,
simmering standoff between Cuba and the United States, then jailed
American contractor Alan Gross is the conflict's first POW.
The basic facts of his case are not in dispute. Gross, 61, was arrested
in December 2009 and has been held at a high-security Cuban prison ever
since. Posing as a tourist, he came to Cuba to set up laptop-sized
satellites that would deliver unrestricted internet access as part of a
broader U.S. government program to spur political change to Havana's
one-party rule.
Though Cuba is the least-wired country in the Americas, it does not
allow foreign governments — particularly the United States — to install
unlicensed communication equipment on the island. Prosecutors said this
month they will charge Gross with "Actions Against the Independence and
Territorial Integrity of the State," and seek a 20-year prison sentence.
A trial date has not been set, but the Gross case, along with several
other web-related developments this month, has offered the best insight
yet into the Castro government's evolving views of the internet, as
Cuban authorities cautiously attempt to introduce modern technology
while pushing back against U.S. efforts to wield it against them.
As the Gross charges were announced, a video of a purported Cuban
intelligence briefing began surfacing on anti-government blogs and
websites, laying out Gross's alleged crimes as well as Cuba's strategy
to counter American plans. Cuban officials have not disputed the video's
authenticity, and several analysts have even suggested the 53-minute
briefing may have been leaked deliberately.
In it, a young Cuban intelligence official depicts Gross as "a
mercenary," tasked with carrying out a U.S. plot to establish
unsupervised communication networks on the island that could help foment
and facilitate an uprising.
"It's just like the (1961) Bay of Pigs invasion," the intelligence
official claims, "but this guy came with other arms. He didn't come on a
boat and didn't disembark with a gun in his hand, but it's the same story."
The idea, "is to create a technology platform outside the control of
Cuban authorities that would permit in some way the free flow of
information between Cuban citizens — not any Cuban citizen, but those
selected by them, opponents, bloggers, those they have chosen — and
between those citizens and the world," he alleges, drawing comparisons
to the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the 2009 Green Revolution
in Iran (the video was allegedly filmed last June, before the popular
revolt in Egypt).
"It's all part of a strategy," he continues, "if I put the technology
platform [in front of you], the people who can generate the conflict are
the same ones who are going to report this very conflict abroad." And if
the U.S. furnishes those government opponents with independent internet
access, the official explains, Cuban authorities would not be able to
shut them down.
Since Gross's arrest, U.S. officials have characterized him as a kindly
development worker who was simply trying to provide Cuba's small Jewish
community with better internet access. They've urged Gross's immediate
release, warning that a long prison sentence will ice up the Obama
administration's incipient efforts at improved relations.
"This is a matter of grave importance to us," said Gloria Berbena, a
spokesperson for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana. "We have used
every available diplomatic channel to call for his release on
humanitarian grounds."
"He should be home with his family now," she said.
Gross is likely to plead guilty at his trial, then receive a pardon from
the Cuban government, according to Western diplomats cited by
international news organizations on the island. But others believe
Havana may not give up Gross so easily.
Still, the Cuban government's case against Gross isn't the only element
of the video that has caused a stir. The segment also shows the young
Cuban official encouraging his colleagues to embrace 21st-century
technology and set aside their fears of social media sites. "Technology
by itself is not a threat," he says. "The threat is what someone who is
behind the technology can do."
"They have their bloggers and we have our bloggers," he continues. "We
will fight to see who is stronger."
That fight is likely to intensify later this year. Cuba has long blamed
its web restrictions and abysmal connection speeds on the low-bandwidth
satellites links it relies upon, claiming that American trade sanctions
have deliberately isolated it from the rest of the world. But a
much-anticipated undersea fiber optic cable plugging the island into
Venezuela was finally put into place Feb. 9, and it will increase Cuba's
bandwidth by a factor of 3,000 when it becomes operational this summer.
Cuban officials have sought to temper expectations, saying that priority
will be given to schools, research centers and other government
institutions — not private home use — while insisting that those
restrictions aren't political.
Cuba's Deputy Minister of Information Jorge Luis Perdomo insisted at a
technology conference that "there is no political obstacle" to web
access in Cuba, just as the $70 million cable was being completed.
As if to prove the point, the government stopped blocking access to the
site of opposition blogger Yoani Sanchez the next day.
However, other anti-Castro sites remain inaccessible from the island.
Tags
* Cuba
* Technology
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/cuba/110213/cyberwar-alan-gross-internet
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