Cuba Observer

Welcome to Cuba Observer, published monthly and distributed by the electronic information service of the Cuba Transition Project (CTP) at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS), University of Miami. The report is written by Juan O. Tamayo, former Foreign Editor and Chief of Correspondents at The Miami Herald and now a Research Associate at ICCAS.

Cuba Observer is a publication of ICCAS and no government funding has been used in its publication. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICCAS and/or the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

• Earlier this month, Cubans were offered a new service called “Granpa,” no doubt named as a counter to the Granma newspaper, Cuba's official Communist Party paper. The service claims that anyone who signs up -- no charge -- receives on their cellular phones, up to five headlines a day from the El Nuevo Herald newspaper and Cuba Encuentro, a Spain-based web site. It’s not known who runs the service, www.granpa.info.
  
  
• Last month, Cuban bloggers and independent journalists began complaining that hotel business centers, citing government orders, were no longer allowing Cubans to access their internet centers or buy pre-paid internet access cards. Some of the more savvy Cubans managed to “resolve” the impasse -- foreign friends bought the pre-paid cards, they dressed up like tourists, took their laptops to hotel lobbies and used the wi-fi systems to access the internet. And by early this month, some Cubans were reporting they could again buy the cards and access the internet at the hotels. “I may sound a bit boastful, but I think that if we had not raised a ruckus in recent days … we would have been deprived of our ability to connect. Yes, they cede when you push back” wrote Yoani Sanchez, whose Germany-based Generation Y blog receives a reported 11-14 million visitors per month. The blog is blocked on the island, though savvy Cubans know how to get around the block.
  
  
• Several Cubans report a recent spread in the use of a little-known system for exchanging digital information anywhere on the island -- by having their personal computers call other computers on dial-up telephone lines. Not going through the Internet, they say, makes it much harder for State Security to intercept their exchanges.
  
  
• A few of the illegal satellite dishes that Cubans use to view foreign television programs -- estimates range from 10,000 to 15,000 on the island -- may do more than simply receive TV signals. According to a sat-tv technician in Miami, some are also equipped with satellite signal transmitters, giving their owners full and independent access to the Internet for an initial equipment cost of about $200 and a monthly fee of about $50 – usually paid for by relatives in the United States or Europe.
  
  
• Shortly after the 10th Havana Bienal art show ended in April, a Cuban artist carried out a daring bit of “performance art” -- by posting online dozens of sections from what she said were State Security reports on the previous Bienal in 2006. Artist Yeny Casanueva said she obtained the reports “accidentally” when a State Security agent visited her in March and asked to see the presentation she planned to submit to the art show. She told him the materials were in her computer, and the agent told her to copy it to his USB flash drive. Somehow, Casanueva said, the contents of the flash drive wound up on her computer -- at least eight lengthy State Security reports from the previous Bienal. Cuban intelligence defectors who have seen the documents say their format indicates they are legitimate. They add that Cuban state security and intelligence agents are strictly barred from using portable memory devices in their work. “Too many chances for accidental loss of information,” said one.
  
  
• Just last week, Miamian Luis Dominguez revealed that he had tricked Fidel Castro’s son Antonio, team physician for the national baseball squad, into a lengthy online flirtation by passing himself off as a Colombian woman. Dominguez said he wanted to break the “myth” of the impregnability of Cuba’s security systems. Antonio Castro revealed no extraordinary secrets in his chats with “Claudia,” but there’s little question Dominguez lifted a small corner of the blanket of secrecy that normally covers the Castro family’s private lives.

The CTP, funded by a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), can be contacted at P.O. Box 248174, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3010, Tel: 305-284-CUBA (2822), Fax: 305-284-4875, and by email at ctp.iccas@miami.edu.