CUBA: Access to Internet to be Slow and Selective

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jun 18 1996 (IPS) - Cuba has all the conditions necessary for connection to internet, but access will be achieved in a gradual, selective manner, said official sources, Tuesday.

Granma, the official Communist Party newspaper, said the connection will be made “in line with national priorities.”

According to discussions held during a specialist meeting recently, the island now has all the technical conditions needed to enter the world information network and the necessary legal framework for its regulation.

The Cuban request to join the Internet was accepted on Jan 12, 1995, and since then the authorities on the island have been working on formulas to guarantee their control over access to the network.

Jesus Martinez, director of the Centre of Automised Information Exchange (CENIAI), confirmed early this year that the rules of connection and information security being developed did not include private users.

Although computer ownership is relatively limited outside the island’s institutions, the measure will fall hardest on the determined intellectuals who have managed to assemble a personal computer to further their work and are now interested in getting connected to the Internet.

With the island gripped by a publishing crisis since 1991 and lacking any other form of specialist information, this sector has become the main potential growth market for Internet on the island.

However, the exclusive nature of the connection process came as no surprise to the islanders, who are used to centralised state control over the media.

Sources close to the CENIAI told IPS some 20 e-mail systems were already operative on the island, but that a normal Cuban has no way of receiving or sending information.

“Contracts are freely available, as long as the person comes in the name of a State institution or a duly legalised non- governmental organisation,” said one expert who asked to remain anonymous.

The new information system was founded during the sixties as part of the military experiments carried out in the US Pentagon, but it first became publically available from 1985 onwards.

The network offers information on issues ranging from economics, politics and culture to technical, recreational and even pornographic multimedia materials.

This system is now accesible from 130 nations of the world, with 16,000 interconnected networks, 30 million users and the daily processing rate of 35 billion pages.

For workers from the most diverse backgrounds, Internet means access to specialist information and much needed information exchange for scientific development, and above all to encourage the new industries Cuba aims to develop, like biotechnology.

“The full access of Cuba to the global data transmission network will offer us the chance to make the most of its advantages,” said Cuban vicepresident Carlos Lage in a seminar on access to Internet.

Local observers interpreted the presence of Lage at the meeting as a demonstration of the priority the Cuban authorities are giving to internet. Their keeness is attributed to the fact that this will allow both for information to be obtained, and for the official view of the Cuban situation to be disseminated.

It seems the access regulations are the only element keeping Cuba on the internet waiting list with Paraguay, Haiti and Belize – the only Latin American nations still without the service.

The cost of connection to the network is also way beyond the reach of most Cubans, as they need equipment costing more than 2,000 dollars, with a connection fee and monthly charges on top.

According to Granma, the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers recently approved decree 209, which created an interministerial commission responsible for organising and evaluating all issues related to Internet connection.

The newspaper gave no details of the decree, nor did it stipulate the regulations included in the already approved legal framework on the access of Cubans to the Internet.

Rosa Elena Simeon, minister of science, technology and environment, said in January that Cuba needed to “use the capacities and applications of Internet, while reducing its risks and disadvantages as far as possible.”

“Otherwise, the first world could take advantage of the chance to introduce points of view acting to the detriment of ethical and cultural values,” she warned.