Sidebar: ?Cuba Sidebar Related Stories: ?Net Censors: The New Control Freaks ?Internet Censorship in China ?Censorship in Central Europe Nestor Baguer has never seen the Internet in his life, though his articles critiquing Fidel Castro's regime are frequently posted on the Web.

The gaunt but alert 76-year-old Cuban journalist runs the Cuban Independent Press Agency from his crumbling, cockroach-infested flat in the center of Havana.

Every Friday, he waits for a phone call from Miami to dictate dispatches composed on a 1940s typewriter held together with rubber bands, and minutes after hanging up, the news is whirring along the information superhighway. 'In Cuba, we're still in the age of Indians sending smoke signals,' Baguer laughs bitterly, waving his cane through the thick air. The dissident can't afford coffee, but still dreams of touching a computer, one day.

A few miles away, in the once-chic Vedado neighborhood, 37-year-old Javier proudly shows friends his modem-equipped clone computer that he pieced together from the black market. 'Jesus Christ, I love this machine so much!' says the youthful entrepreneur, hugging his $1,500 dollar prize.

A trained computer engineer, Javier vaulted up Cuba's economic ladder by working as a bouncer for a famous cabaret and pocketing tips from tourists. With the winnings he renovated his mother's elegant but crumbling house, and began renting rooms to foreigners for $20 a night. That's how he could afford the computer, which would cost the average Cuban nine years' worth of salary.

Javier's former guests send him the latest programs from abroad via e-mail. Whenever he starts his computer, Internet icons appear in the corner of the screen, as if to tease him. 'It's almost impossible for us to go on the Internet,' he says, clicking repeatedly on the icons with the desperate persistence of Aladdin rubbing his magic lamp. 'If only I could get connected, my life would change.'

In the plush diplomatic outskirts of town, in an air-conditioned booth at Havana's Informatica 98 fair, 55-year-old Fishing Ministry engineer Rafael Corufesco smiles at his good fortune. 'I'm online at least 10 hours a day,' he confesses.

The white-haired state employee is promoting the ministry's brand new 'Intrapesca' Web page, which displays information throughout the ministry's network of 255 computers regarding the fishing industry, workers' movements, weather forecasts and even some descriptions in English about Cuba's famous lobster. Corufesco spends his working days maintaining the site and surfing on the Internet, which he concedes is 'terribly exciting.' 'I know, I'm very lucky,' he says.

But back home, Corufesco -- like Javier, Baguer and nearly 11 million other Cubans -- is not allowed to even own a computer unless he declares it to the police. He is certainly not allowed to explore the Internet, and even if he was one of the lucky few given authorization by the state, he still wouldn't be able to afford it.

One Web Gateway

The Cuban government officially approves access to global information, but in a 'gradual and selective way,' according to Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist party, in one of its rare public statements on the Internet printed June 18, 1996.

That was four months before Cuba was first connected to the Web through the Science Ministry-owned access provider, the National Center for Automated Data Exchange (CENIAI), the country's only Web gateway (see sidebar). Housed in the prestigious Capitolio, downtown Havana's smaller replica of the U.S. Capitol, CENIAI's office has two dozen employees working under the watchful gaze of Che Guevara.

CENIAI currently doles out access to only 160 suscribers and provides e-mail adresses for 600 -- mostly state institutions, politically screened government officials and a handful of foreign businessmen, diplomats and journalists.

CENIAI charges a staggering $260 a month for full Web access, in dollars. Cubans typically earn around $10 a month, in pesos.

'We are the most expensive Internet provider in the world, I suppose,' says a young CENIAI employee when his visitor gasps in horror.

'I simply can't afford this,' says Stephane, a 31-year-old businessman from France who came to Cuba to run a travel agency. But like most expatriates, he reluctantly shells out the $60 a month for e-mail.

Even if a Cuban was allowed to access the Internet and could afford it, CENIAI doesn't have room right now for any more subscribers. 'Maybe in two months,' the sheepish young employee shrugs.

For now, the government of aging dictator Fidel Castro seems concerned the network might threaten Cuba's cultural values and the stability of the Communist regime. In a country where the state controls every media outlet, where journalists like Baguer don't even consider xeroxing their reports for neighbors for fear of imprisonment, and where a 61-second phone call to the U.S. costs five dollars for the few Cubans who have a phone that can dial long distance, any new window to the outside world can only be held ajar by authorized hands. The Internet tool is almost entirely used by the state -- to promote Cuba's tourism, health care and education.

Tight Control

Unsurprisingly, the few connected computers are under tight control. In the shabby editorial offices of Granma International, the door leading to the room where the paper's Web site is made bears a huge sign in red letters that looks like a warning at a nuclear plant: 'Access strictly limited to authorized people.' At the fishing ministry, Corufesco is the one trusted webmaster who does research for other ministry employees. They submit requests, he executes.

Corufesco estimates that maybe 1,000-1,500 Cubans have access to the Internet through the shared computers of ministries and other public institutions, and maybe up to 6,000 use e-mail. True, universities are offering e-mail addresses to more and more professors and students, but only the polytechnical university is connected to the Internet, and people are not free to surf.

'It's because the governement wants to have control of the situation,' says Huberto Rodriguez-Coppola, an official at the International Office of the Ministry for Higher Education. 'Good but also bad things go on the Internet, which could contaminate our society, like pornography and Nazi networks...' He pauses before adding: 'And we don't have a free press in Cuba,' His tone is the same as if he had said, 'We don't have snow around here'. 'If people had free access, they could visit any site.'

Talk about censorship with Cubans and they usually laugh at you kindly. Censorship starts with no access. Then, it's more sophisticated than a mean guy bending over your shoulder, breathing heavily on your neck while you use Yahoo. Computers are equipped with 'Net Nanny'-style content-blocking programs, explains Omar Marguez, a 26-year-old computer science student who also volunteers at Infomed, a network for scholars and workers from the Cuban health care sector.

Marguez says doctors and medical students who want to do research on the Internet have to describe in a form what they are looking for and ask Infomed for authorization. Twenty-four hours later, if the form gets stamped, they can use e-mail and Internet -- freely and for free, he says.

Yearning For Fresh Air

As frustrating it can be, restricted access is not yet a hot topic at Cuba's favorite gossiping spots at poorly supplied markets, impossibly long bus lines and under the porches of decaying homes. The economy, restricted by the U.S. embargo and mismanaged by central planners, was nearly destroyed after the Soviet Union collapsed. Cubans started losing jobs and weight, stray dogs started starving to death in the streets and the government legalized the dollar out of desperation, then sold goods such as beer for high prices in dollar-only stores.

'Most people worry about how they can buy eggs today, they don't care about e-mail,' says Emilio, a cheerful 24-year-old computer geek. 'It's only youngsters or educated people who speak foreign languages who feel concerned.'

Those Cubans are the most information-starved, yearning for any fresh air from abroad. 'Write to me, tell me about anything,' wrote a young Beatles fan, in a letter to a U.S. visitor.

Many young Cubans, at least those in Havana, have heard of the Internet in the same way they have heard of rock bands like Rage Against The Machine. Can't buy records in Cuba, or listen to rock on the radio? They always find ways to get tapes from tourists or friends who have family in Miami, and then proudly joke about their ingenuity. Can't get e-mail? With the same determination, pushy computer geeks find solutions. The most obvious one is to sneak into one of the 85 Cuban Youth Computing Clubs.

Youth Computing Clubs (YCCs), brainchild of the Union of Young Communists, are reminiscent of Bob Albrecht's People Computing Company in the U.S. and similar experiments dating back to the 1960s, according to Larry Press, a professor of computer information systems at Cal State Dominguez Hills and a specialist on Cuba's networking policies.

Like Infomed, YCC's network is linked to the Internet though CENIAI. At the headquarters in Havana, photos of Fidel Castro at the opening ceremony greet newcomers who manage to get in. The organizers look like they are constantly harassed.

'It's hard to get in and not everybody has e-mail,' says Emilio, who became a member after helping design the club's Web page. In order to get e-mail, a member must get permission from YCC's national board. 'You need to help and be trusted, make people understand you won't send bad things through the Internet and, maybe, after a while, they'll give you an e-mail address.'

Outlaw Schemes

For people too old to join the Youth Club and too subversive or too involved in the black economy to apply for a poorly paid job in a connected ministry, hacking remains a possibility. For that, they need a computer that they can only buy under the table from Cuban exiles, or from state computer store employees who skim a little merchandise off the top. Some professors, though, have received computers as presents from the government, just like other favored citizens get Russian-made cars.

Outlaws must obtain a password from a state firm linked to the Net, which is what the former engineer Javier did. He has now e-mail, but has only managed to get on the Net once. So Javier sends e-mail messages to Webmasters at selected sites around the world and asks for attachments of their Web pages. He can then download the attachment from the return message onto his Web browser, and pull up whatever he wants -- if he's not interrupted by the company he hacks.

'There are always congestion problems with the company's networks on weekends ... maybe because of other hackers,' Javier says. 'As a pirate, I completely depend on their system and I often have to wait until Monday morning for problems to be fixed.'

Odalys Moreno, 32, an administrator at CENIAI, says the state is perfectly aware of hackers but doesn't bother tracking them down. 'A few people have a computer at home and even fewer manage to get online illegally,' she says. 'We know that some people in state firms and institutions sell passwords and configurations. But we just pretend we don't know. It would be too long and costly to run after them.'

'It's probably true,' says Mark Surman of Web Networks, a Canadian association of Internet providers who helped connect Cuba. (see sidebar) 'It takes a lot of effort to track hackers, even if you have a lot of equipment and expertise. The Cubans don't have a lot of either.'

In fact, Cuban officials often site technical limitations rather than political motivation to explain the restricted Internet access on the island. 'Look: with only 600 computers with access to CENIAI, the system's carrying capacity is already saturated,' says Rodriguez-Coppola.

According to Press, even if Cuba were not politically ambivalent, network growth would be severely constrained by what is one of the worst telecommunication infrastructures in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Despite the partial privatization of the telephone company ETECSA in 1994, almost all the country's phone lines are still as bad as 1970s Eastern Europe. Connections are unreliable and slow. The only Net pipeline linking Cuba to Florida -- a 64K satellite link allowed by a special caveat in the U.S. embargo -- is jammed. Prospective clients have to wait at least until the end of spring before the infrastructure is upgraded. 'We currently have 50 lines only and we expect another 20 or 30 in the next months,' says Moreno.

What would happen if Cubans could surf the Net freely? Would they spend their time gobbling information from subversive Miami-based sites?

The Fishing Ministry's Corufesco says he plays chess. CENIAI's Moreno says she visits the Louvre museum, El Mundo and the CNN site (CNN is the only U.S. news organization permitted to operate a bureau in Havana).

And Javier, the computer geek who rents rooms, looks at naked girls.

'The single and only time I managed to surf the Internet, I visited porn sites until six in the morning,' he says. His e-mail access is so precious, he doesn't want to take chances by delving into policy debates. 'No politics, OK?' he warns his guests before generously allowing them to send an e-mail home.

But thanks to his illegal e-mail account, Javier can now resume contact with exiled family members and keep in touch with the many tourists who have stayed with him and his mother. 'We can't travel. We can never know when postal letters arrive. By e-mail, you can communicate so rapidly it becomes like a drug.'