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Technology in Cuba
Can the internet bring around a silent revolution on the island state?
In August 2011, the news of Alan Gross' remainder in custody of the Cuban Government led to efforts by the USA to have him freed.
His crime? Bringing satellite equipment for internet access to Cuba's tiny Jewish community in a hope to help them communicate more easily through his job as a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
A few months later, on 9th November, Mariella Castro, daughter of Raul Castro, the current Cuban President, started micro-blogging on Twitter. Her debut was met coldly by dissident blogger, Yoani Sanchez. She welcomed the Castro daughter to the service by saying “Here no one can shut me up or deny me permission to travel", referring to her own successive travel bans preventing her from receiving international journalism awards.
These two news pieces reflect a growing concern for Cuba- how to conciliate an archaic, rusting dictatorship with the possibilities of modern technology? Indeed, the internet has made it difficult for undemocratic regimes across the world to restrain their citizens. Lacking the money that regimes such as Iran and China can throw behind their censorship, Cuba is unable to completely muzzle its own native opposition.
Since Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista's regime in 1959, Cuba has been a thorn in the foot of the USA, and indeed, the free world at large. When Fidel delegated the presidency to his brother, Raul, in 2006, much was hoped of the latter as some hailed him as the next Gorbachov.
Yet, the harsh reality of the regime endured by Cubans has changed little. And what changes have occurred have more been through lack of choice than reform-mindedness. People often forget that Raul, far from being a more moderate, tempering hand to his brother Fidel's revolutionary instincts, used to be the more 'trigger-happy' of the two. His eagerness to eliminate 'reactionaries' and 'counter-revolutionaries' during the revolution era earned him the nickname of the 'Butcher of Cuba'.
In a similar vein, much too often young idealists and socialist-leaning youths reverse idolise the Castro brothers and their fellow revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevera. Usually, the main reason for this enthusiastic and all too common an ideology is the fact Cuba incarnates the opposite of the USA and has 'resisted' its influence since the early sixties.
This utopianism flies directly in the face of reason and human rights. Cuba has the third highest rate of imprisoned journalists in the world, after China and Iran. Cuban bloggers, journalists, political activists and opponents to the regime all share a common thing: the war of silence waged upon them by the government.
Cuba is an island and is therefore much easier to lock down than even North Korea. Land borders have the annoying habit of being porous and no matter how well policed they are, the outside world always manages to be smuggled through (ask Kim Jong-Il!).
The Cuban government, however, has total control over modern technology on the island, including the mobile phone network and the internet. Dissidents are often harassed and beaten by the Ministry of Interior's goons and barrio (neighbourhood) police. But their tasks are often delegated to units called 'Rapid Response Brigades'. A co-authored UNHCR-Canadian Government document describes their duties as to “stop any public dissent of demonstrations against the government. “ Consisting of neighbourhood volunteers, these Brigades publicly humiliate and repudiate dissidents as being 'imperialist scions'.
All this contributes to making Cuba's seat on the UN Human Rights Council and its signing of the UN Declaration of Human rights little more than a sham. Its re-election for the fourth consecutive time to the four-year Council seat of the ITU even more so. But the internet, a democratising tool and a beacon of freedom, is now challenging Cuba's authority.
According to ITU statistics, for a population of 11.2m, Cuba only just reached a little more than one million mobile phones users versus just under 839,000 residential landline users. Internet and computer usage statistics are even more dismal: 159 internet users per 1,000 people. The sole telecommunications of the island is the Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba (ETECSA).
ETECSA is, of course, a state-run entreprise and citizens must apply for special permission from the Ministry of Interior to gain internet access or mobile phone access. Like permissions to travel, this is never granted to dissidents under the umbrella-threat of 'dangerousness' to the state.
Failing that, the sheer cost of the internet would bar most Cubans from using it. Cuban citizens feel the weight of the US embargo and the crumbling of the former Soviet network of economies. Technology remains unaffordable to the majority of Cubans. They therefore can only access the internet through government-run hotels and internet cafés. These cafés charge the exorbitant sum of US$1.5 per hour of usage for the government's 'intranet' and US$6-7 per hour for the heavily censored 'international internet'. The average monthly wage is only US$20.
Until now, Cuba's internet nearly solely depended on satellite connections, rented from third-party nations. In February 2011, a new fibre optic cable was finally connected to Cuba from Venezuela, also an increasingly despotic regime. It will not represent a significant increase of access to Cuba's tech-hungry youths as much of the bandwidth will be reserved ‘collective use', meaning universities, hotels and cybercafés. Centralising the access also means it is easier to monitor and the prohibitive prices do the rest to restrain numbers.
But like for everything else in Cuba, a black market has sprung up. It offers hacked account logins from rubber-stamped customers in exchange for hefty prices. Some bloggers still resort to dictating their articles on the phone to friends abroad who then upload the content to the internet.
Cuba's ageing regime is right to fear the internet. It helped spark the Arab Spring, catalysed the Iranian opposition in 2009 and daily flouts Chinese censorship. Its position is greatly helped through the island geographical isolation and the iron lid the Government maintains on all communication. Yet it is not as hermetic as the Government may think.The daily heroism of Yoani Sanchez and the countless bloggers who fight for their freedom of expression incarnate the very essence of the internet: a horizontal weapon of mass communication and information.
Mariela Castro's use of Twitter is an insult to all those who have braved torture and repression to express their views in Cuba and abroad. Her 140 character messages are written with the blood of those whose voices are silenced in the dead of night by the Ministry of Interior for the sake of an 'equal society'. It is only to be hoped than in the coming years, her own Twitter feed and the regime that fuels it will be silenced amidst the echoes of Cuban citizens enjoying free speech once again.