Cuban bloggers buck system with candor
April 27, 2008
By Andrea Rodriguez - HAVANA (AP) =97 Only a month has passed since
ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government
still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access.
But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into
cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the
communist-run country that have garnered international audiences.
Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a
million hits a month, mostly from abroad =97 though she has begun to
strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer
stinging criticisms of their government.
But it isn't simple. To post her blog, Sanchez dresses like a tourist
and slips into Havana hotels with Web access for foreigners. It costs
about $6 an hour and she can't afford to stay long given the price and
the possibility someone might catch her connecting without
permission.
It's a testament to the ingenuity and black-market prowess Cubans have
developed living on salaries averaging $20 a month, with constant
restrictions and shortages.
The connections Cuban bloggers are making with the outside world via
the Internet are irreversible, said Sanchez, who this month won the
Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism, a top Spanish media
award.
"With each step we take in that direction, it's harder for the
government to push us back," she said.
On an island where many censor themselves to avoid trouble, Sanchez
says Generacion Y holds nothing back.
"It's about how I live," she said. "I think that technically, there
are no limits. I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you
know how taboo that can be."
But she added that "there are some ethical limits. I would never call
for violence, for instance."
Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in February, Raul
Castro has lifted bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, having
cell phones and staying in luxury tourist hotels.
While the changes have bolstered the new president's popularity, most
simply legalized what was common practice. In a typically frank recent
posting, Sanchez noted that many Cubans already had PCs, cell phones
and DVD players bought on the black market.
"Legally recognizing what were already facts prospering in the shadows
is not the same as allowing or approving something," she wrote. Cuba's
leaders are responding to the inevitable, "but they won't soothe our
hunger for change."
Authorities have made no sustained effort to stop Sanchez's year-old
blog, though pro-government sites accuse her of taking money from
opposition groups.
Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are
allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.
Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to
send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs,
post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the
rest of the Web is blocked =97 a control far stricter than even China's
or Saudi Arabia's.
Still, thousands of Cubans pay about $40 a month for black market dial-
up Internet accounts bought through third parties overseas or stolen
from foreign providers. Or they use passwords from authorized Cuban
government accounts that hackers swipe or buy from corrupt officials.
Sanchez said so many Cubans read her blog that fans stop her on the
street.
Generacion Y takes its title from a Cuban passion for names beginning
in Y. It offers witty and biting accounts of Cubans' everyday
struggles against government restrictions at every turn.
Some of the bloggers hew to the belief that openness is the best
answer to official surveillance.
"By signing your name, giving your opinions out loud and not hiding
anything, we disarm their efforts to watch us," Sanchez wrote on her
blog.
On a blog called "Sin EVAsion" ("Without Evasion"), Eva Hernandez
dared to mock "Granma," the official Communist Party newspaper, for
taking its name from the American yacht that brought Castro and his
rebels back to Cuba from Mexico to launch their armed rebellion in
1956.
"Cuba is the only country in the world whose principal newspaper, the
official organ of the Communist Party and the official voice of the
government, has the ridiculous name 'granny,"' she wrote. Piling on
the heat, she added that the name "perpetuates the memory of that
yacht that brought us so much that is bad."
Generacion Y is maintained by a server in Germany, and Sanchez says
the Cuban government periodically attempts to block her site within
Cuba, though the problem is always cleared up within hours.
Administrators of the "Petrosalvaje" site also claim to struggle with
government-imposed limits. A recent post called uncensored Internet
access a "virtual raft" =97 a reference to the rafts on which Cubans
flee to the United States.
The government is also into blogging =97 maintaining dozens of sites
dedicated to promoting the island's image overseas.
"Raul needs time," reads a post on Kaosenlared.net, a forum based in
Spain. "We are confident, calm and staying united in favor of the
direction of our revolution." It is signed Rogelio Sarforat and was
apparently posted from Cuba.
Reynaldo Escobar, Sanchez's husband and a former journalist for
official media, now uses his own blog to criticize the government. He
said Cuba pays sup****ters to flood the Internet with positive
opinions.
He says he knows of nobody who would spend money to go on the Web and
defend the system. "Everyone who argues in favor of the government is
paid to do so, or does so because they have been asked to," he said.
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