Fidel Castro, Internet News Junkie

pickens writes "The LA Times reports that 84-year-old Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web. In a recent interview he called Web communication 'the most powerful weapon that has existed' and extolled its power to break a stranglehold on the media by 'the empire' and 'ambitious private groups that have abused it' adding that the Internet 'has put an end to secrets.... We are seeing a high level of investigative journalism, as the New York Times calls it, that is within reach of the whole world.' Well, not the whole world. Cuba has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere (lower than Haiti), plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest, norms of good behavior, the integrity of the people or national security."

Comments

There are few things more annoying

[JoshuaZ]

There are few things more annoying than finding something impressive or good about someone I dislike and consider responsible for a lot of people suffering. I'd love to hear about how Castro hates the internet and considers it to be a series of tubes filled with lies. But using it to keep track of the news in detail across the globe? That's something that many people his age simply cannot or will not do. Stupid facts messing with my preconceptions again...

Re:There are few things more annoying

[odies]

Uh, first of all he is ex-president. What threats of his powers are you talking about? Secondly, the cuban laws are about spreading (ie. writing) information that harms the social norms or national security. Ah, national security. Isn't that why US also wants to take down Wikileaks?

Being a non-american and having lived in many different countries, it's sometimes really weird how US people so often think every other country is the root of evil and only US is good. You know, it's of course impossible that US government might want to paint a worse picture of their enemies than what they actually are! It's not even only Cuba.. It's China, Russia, North Korea, whatever country with different views, culture and society.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[JoshuaZ]

Being a non-american and having lived in many different countries, it's sometimes really weird how US people so often think every other country is the root of evil and only US is good. You know, it's of course impossible that US government might want to paint a worse picture of their enemies than what they actually are! It's not even only Cuba.. It's China, Russia, North Korea, whatever country with different views, culture and society.

And being an American, it is sometimes really weird how non-Americans have this strange view of Americans that makes us into a monolithic hive mind with views that actual Americans generally don't have. Yes, most Americans probably consider the North Korean government to be evil. That's a government which systematically abuses and starves its residents. Most Europeans probably have similar attitudes about North Korea. And I'm pretty sure that most Americans don't see Russia or China as at all in the same category as North Korea. And the notion that Americans think that there's something deeply wrong with "whatever country with different views, culture and society." I doubt that Americans think that about most European countries or Japan or India or Brazil or many other places.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[hey!]

Rope and tree? Hard to say. Maybe if the government is overthrown by Cuban expats living in the US, but not surprisingly these are the most extreme critics of Castro. Cuban residing in Cuba might be sick of the regime, but it is unlikely they hate it as much as US expats do. The proportion of people who have a positive view of Castro is bound to be higher in Cuba than in US, which is a haven for the regime's most bitter enemies.

In any case, you have to look at the specific nature of the overthrow. If it were a military coup, Castro's fate would depend on what is most useful to the junta: co-opting Castro or castigating him. If the government were to fall apart under popular unrest, chances are Castro would spend the balance of his retirement in Venezuela.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we be honest about something here?

Here's something I'd like to see some statistics on.

1. How many deaths is Fidel Castro responsible for?
2. How many deaths is George Bush responsible for? Or even, your average US president?

I have a feeling you're not going to like the answer. Why is it always that when some "other" guy (maybe someone who pissed off powerful American businessmen in the late 1950s) is a tyrant, a violent thug, and when we do it, we're heroes?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[_Sprocket_]

And the notion that Americans think that there's something deeply wrong with "whatever country with different views, culture and society." I doubt that Americans think that about most European countries or Japan or India or Brazil or many other places.

Cultural uniqueness is not an excuse for all behavior. If your culture has unique customs and traditions - please let me study them. If it has unique foods - please share some with me (I enjoy regional food even more). But if your culture is wrapped up in behavior that I find detestable, even within my own country, then I'm going to have a problem with it. And I'm entirely unapologetic for that.

I find one of Cuba's most influential political figures talking about how open the Internet is while having set up a system that limits access to that freedom to his own people entirely hypocritical. I have the same problem with that attitude in the US. A spade is a spade. But I didn't buy in to the "freedom fries" thing when France refused to help deal with Iraq - in fact, I was rather bemused by a lady at a local grocery store who noted that I shouldn't be buying French brei during the time (whether the French were motivated by a desire for peace or fear of losing their investment in arming Iraq is another conversation). If that makes me an Ugly American, then so be it. Although I would consider myself a different breed than those who would, say, demonize Japan because of their sushi or because they don't (as a nation) worship the right god.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[ultranova]

I'd love to hear about how Castro hates the internet and considers it to be a series of tubes filled with lies. But using it to keep track of the news in detail across the globe? That's something that many people his age simply cannot or will not do. Stupid facts messing with my preconceptions again...

If Castro was stupid or unable to adapt he'd never been able to take power, much less keep it against constant attempts of the US to oust him. Most people his age are not former victorious guerillas.

Your problem is confusing ability and character.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[VanGarrett]

Cubans used to grow very strong tobacco, and a great deal of their cigar rollers regarded themselves as artisans-- since they took a great deal of pride in their work, they produced very well-rolled cigars. Combine that with good tobacco with an unusually high nicotine content, and you get a cigar which is widely regarded as being among the best.

It is my understanding, however, that Cuban tobacco is not as strong, now. Also, a great deal of Cuba's foremost cigar-producing families fled Cuba, when Castro took over.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct.

Cuba is cut-off from the Internet thanks to the US embargo. They cannot lay down fiber from Florida to Cuba. Currently only Satellite internet is available on the island. Internet is unavailable thanks to the bandwidth limits (hence unaffordable), not because "Cuba is evil". Cell phones were also banned in the past because there were not enough cell towers to provide coverage. Now, more cell towers built, cell prone available.

Anyway, high speed undersea fiber connection from Venezuela is in the works. Yeah, that's another "pinky regime". Funny how it takes socialists/communists to spread information while US can only transmit their propaganda via Radio Free America. Personally, I would have hoped that US would drop the embargo and allow companies to provide fiber internet access from Florida to Cuba. At least then Cuba would no longer be able to hide behind "it's US's fault via embargo" tag line.

Maybe US is still butt-hurt about Bay of Pigs fiasco and some rich dudes losing their playground with Batista. All the embargo is doing is strengthening Cuban resolve against US. But then what do I know.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Sepultura]

Americans have been pumped full of negative propaganda about Castro (& Cuba) for as long as many of them have been alive. The fact is he's done some good, is loved in some parts of the world, and has done bad, and is hated in some places.

In that way he was like many other "leaders" in the world today.

However, he hasn't had to worry about getting votes, so when he made a decision he didn't have to give a shit what anyone thinks of it. That meant less manipulating the public to get their favor and improve his image.

That's where he differs from most leaders in our western, democratic world. Politicians here still do what's in their best interests but they bullshit the masses into believing they care about them more than themselves. You may argue democracy would be better for Cuba nut to argue Castro is more malevolent than the average sociopath that gets into politics is to ignore the facts.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you give far too much credit to Bush. I parse your argument as saying: Yeah, but, he didn't mean to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. OK, there could be some debate about that, so maybe not, but he still did. And yes, he is directly responsible.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Pomslo]

Hey! Hes just a dictator that throwed everyone eho disagreed with him into jail(or killed them).How nice!

How good of him to be aging this well and to conserve such an agile mind for such an elderly brain.

I just cant be happier for him. /sarcasm

I mean, besides general oppression and murder what else did he do?

Ah! Yes! Massive censorship.

How can he praise the same freedom he constantly strangled when he was in charge? Does he find no hipocrisy on it?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[sarhjinian]

It's not decades: the US still keeps it's boot on Cuba's proverbial neck.

Recall Helms-Burton, which was passed a little more than a decade ago. It's one of the reasons why Cuba cannot get so much as a leg up: the US will penalize, quite heavily, any company that does business in Cuba and makes use of pre-revolution assets.

Just for the record, this means just about anything in Cuba: agriculture, technology, people, anything. No corporation can do business in Cuba without risking serious penalties if they also wish to do business in the United States. This means that no one can open a mine, export sugar, fruit or tobacco, operate in a pre-1960 building, etc, etc.

It certainly means that American telcos can't run a pipe from Florida or Texas undersea. As a result, Cuban connectivity, post-Soviet, requires traffic to take backwater paths halfway around the planet via rinky-dink companies who are not and will never operate in the US.

So how, exactly, is Cuba ever supposed to do better if it can't sell so much as a sugar cube to the United States?

Interesting, isn't it, how the US will bend over backwards to do business in China or Russia, or with any number of right-wing despots all over the world, all of whom have far worse human rights records, claiming that "trade will set them free!" but get all "Think of the poor oppressed citizenry" when it comes to Cuba. You'd never think that Florida was a swing state and that both parties fall over themselves to cater to a bunch of noisy expats, the most powerful and noisy of whom were equally nasty people, but under Bautista instead.

Now, all this said, the Cuban government would probably filter and snoop on their citizen's internet traffic (they probably do now, and it's probably easy, considering the bandwidth to the whole country is exceeded by that offered to some condos in New York), but how is this different from bastions of western democracy like, oh, Australia or the UK. Or to use a less extreme example, China.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[CodeBuster]

Castro is not an idiot or an ideologue. He is the classic opportunist - and an intelligent one, at that.

Perhaps, but that does not excuse the immorality and injustice of his regime. Indeed, it is the height of hubris to hear one such as Castro, who knew exactly what he was really doing during all of those years of communist dictatorship, lecture the United States, as he likes to do from time to time, on morality and issues of social justice. It will be interesting to see whether or not the Cuban people maintain their facade of reverence for his person and policies in subsequent generations. Perhaps some will, but I think that most will not or at least their views will be tempered by their unfiltered knowledge of the regime's crimes against liberty and justice.

5...4...3...

[DWMorse]

Countdown to another little nudge from Raul on the steps...

Just proving out the reality of Communism

[LynnwoodRooster]

All people are equal, just some are more equal than others!

meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest,

Swastikas.

norms of good behavior,

Porn.

the integrity of the people

Terrorism Act 2006.

or national security."

Assange.

Being rich in America is like being rich in Cuba: life's cool. Meanwhile, being poor in America is like being poor in Cuba: life sucks. In the latter case, what differs is the handout you get and who you can get away criticising sufficiently loudly.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[petrus4]

Being rich in America is like being rich in Cuba: life's cool. Meanwhile, being poor in America is like being poor in Cuba: life sucks. In the latter case, what differs is the handout you get and who you can get away criticising sufficiently loudly.

Go to work, send your kids to school.
Follow fashion, act normal.
Walk on the pavements, watch T.V.
Save for your old age, obey the law.

Repeat after me: I am free.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can't wait until we get another U.S.-approved dictator in power in Cuba. About the same percentage of the population will be oppressed, but we'll be able to vacation there and people will stop bitching about Castro.

Re:I'm surprised...

[damburger]

Yup. People will be as free, wealthy and happy in Cuba as they now are in Haiti. Good times.

He's a Dictator, not President

[mangu]

first of all he is ex-president. What threats of his powers are you talking about?

Formal titles do not mean that much in Communist countries. Leonid Brezhnev, for instance, was "General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", while Nikolai Podgorny was "Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR" until 1977, when a power struggle removed him from office.

What really matters is how much power each one holds. Fidel lost a lot of that power when he fell sick, but since he has been recovering some of his health his power seems to be increasing.

US government might want to paint a worse picture of their enemies than what they actually are! It's not even only Cuba.. It's China, Russia, North Korea, whatever country with different views, culture and society.

I have never seen the US government trying to paint a bad picture of any truly democratic country, meaning a country with freedom of expression, multiple party political system, and regularly scheduled elections with different parties alternating in power. However, when a country starts slipping from democracy, like Venezuela which is steadily drifting away from those three principles, then the US government starts having reservations about that country.

Disclaimer: I'm not an American but, as you mention that some of the countries the US government demonizes may not be as bad as they say, in the same way the US may not be as bad as you think.

Internet penetration and the embargo

[ciguanabo]

I was always critical of the cuban government because of their internet censorship and regulation. However, in a recent interview Fidel Castro gives an explanation about why the restrictions are necessary. Basically, because of the US embargo, Cuba cannot buy the materials required for a broadband connection (any company that sells hardware to Cuba would be fined). The internet that is available at the moment has to go through a satellite instead of through a fibre optic backbone. This makes the connection much more expensive and slower. According to Castro, it is due to this technical restrictions that the government has to prioritise who can access the internet and who cannot.

I am not entirely convinced by this explanation, although maybe someone who knows more about the costs and speed of these types of connections can say whether it makes sense. Ideally, any connection that is available should be accessible to anyone at, for example, libraries. I'm not sure whether this is possible in Cuba right now (anyone that can describe the current situation in Cuba?).

The article also mentions that Cuba is building a submarine connection through Venezuela, which is aimed at solving the "internet shortage".

Re:Revolution

[Phrogman]

Its funny but the cynical side of me can't actually visualize the US wanting the Cuban's to revolt and replace their government with a democracy friendly to the US and its interests. Instead what I see is a lot of corporations wanting to reassert control over Cuba so they can rape its resources and access a source of cheap labor. I no longer believe the US has any interest in promoting democracy I guess, recent decades of foreign policy under Bush I and II seem to have disabused me of that notion. Obama hasn't done much to fix the situation either, although I recognize it will likely take years to try to fix the US after the Republicans have had years to seriously screw it up and twist the US into something it wasn't intended to be by its founders.

I hope Cuba gets access to the Internet so we can see what effects it has on the country and its people. I don't think Communism works very well, but it might just be that it has served the interests of Cuba well enough. Capitalism sure wasn't working before the revolution, the country was being run by big US corporations, the Mafia, and corrupt government officials. I can understand why some people in Cuba might not want to see that return.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Scrameustache]

Boy, some people just buy the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. The Cuban government has the motivation and the means to lie about those statistics.

The Cuban government has the means to make the CIA website say what they want? Wooooooow...

Re:He seemed like a nice guy to me.

[CodeBuster]

I'm sure that under the right circumstances Joseph Stalin would have been a charming guest at a dinner party, but that didn't make him a nice guy or excuse his crimes.