It's not only opponents of the Revolution who use post materials on
websites outside of the island. Domestic Supporters of the Revolution
do that, too. People like Celia Hart, Pedro Campos Santos and others
who are completely integrated in the revolutionary process post their
commentaries using the internet. News services like CubaNews are doing
whatever we can to help inform the world public of the growing
intellectual and discussion on the island.

What's needed now more than anything is to end Washington's blockade
which is the number one limitation on discussion and debate there.
Before anything else, Washington should permit the Cubans to purchase
internet access through fibre-optic cable connections which are already
there. Cuba is denied such access by Washington, while all other countries
on earth have it. Cuba is forced to purchase internet access via satellite,
which is more expensive than any other way to receive it.

Also, what's needed is an end to the U.S.-imposed prohibitions on U.S.
citizens traveling to Cuba, and on Cubans traveling to the United
States. Cuba is a blockaded country. It's the only country on earth
where a military base belonging to a hostile foreign power continues
to occupy national soil. Cubans have somewhat of a paranoid political
style, but that's totally understandable since they're blockaded and
Washingto publicly declares its plans, intentions and activities to
finance dissident opposition within the country, and openly supports
anti-Cuban terrorists acting from within the United States.

The best way to expand democratic discussion and debate within Cuba,
and to help the Cuban people to resolve their problems, is to end
Washington's blockade of the country NOW and to fully normalize
diplomatic relations now. Allow Cubans and people from the U.S. to
travel freely back and forth. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Cuba is open, why not Washington?

Walter Lippmann, CubaNews
Los Angeles, California
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

p.s., not all of the rightist websites are blocked in Cuba. Last time I was
there, a few months ago, while you couldn't access sites like CANF and
Cubanet, I had no trouble accessing the rightist militant bloggers' sites.
===========================================================================

URGENT: SECRET - SPECIAL - PRIVATE - INSIDE INFORMATION - TELL NO ONE:
Calls for expanded debate inside Cuba have come from such influential
individuals as Raul Castro, the father of Mariela Castro, and Luis
Sexto, long-time commentator and at Juventud Rebelde newspaper:

LUIS SEXTO: On criticizing Cuba:
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/columnists/2007-06-18/on-criticizing-cuba/

LUIS SEXTO: Today's times require debate:
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/columnists/2007-08-17/today-s-times-require
-debate/

Raul urges students to develop debate, analysis and differences:

Raul urged the university students to be fearless about developing the
practice of debate, analysis and differences, given that timely discussion,
in the appropriate place and in the correct way, would always produce the
best decisions. [December 2006]
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/diciembre/juev21/1raul-i.html
============================================================================

Cuban dissidents tap cyberspace from abroad
08/02/2007 07:56
By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) - Leading Cuban dissidents who are denied access to
Internet at home now have their messages on Web sites thanks to the work of
exiled friends and family abroad.

Oswaldo Paya, who doggedly began a signature drive for a referendum on civil
liberties riding a bicycle five years ago, has no access to e-mail.

But his Web site (www.oswaldopaya.org) was launched last month by relatives
in Madrid. The site has Paya's statements and news about the Varela Project,
a petition that was rejected by the government despite its 25,000
signatures.

"We have to do it from outside Cuba because we can't here," said Paya,
winner of Europe's 2002 Andrei Sakharov prize for human rights, on
Wednesday. "We want to express our point of view, which we cannot do here
due to the lack of freedom."

Cuba, like China, restricts Internet access. Cuba chooses whom it will allow
to have access to the World Wide Web, though passwords can be purchased on
the black market.

Since Cuban leader Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother last July
after undergoing emergency surgery, Cuba's communist authorities have
released three dissidents from jail, but there is no sign Cuba's policy on
limited Internet access has changed.

The wives and mothers of jailed Cuban dissidents, known as the "Ladies in
White" because they dress in white to march in silence demanding the release
of their men, have a Web site built for them by Cuban exiles in Spain
(damasdeblanco.com).

"I've never seen it. I don't have access to Internet," said Miriam Leiva, a
founder of the women's group whose husband was released in 2004 after 20
months behind bars for criticising Castro's government.

A leading dissident in Cuba with close ties to the exile community in South
Florida, Martha Beatriz Roque, has had a Web site
(asambleasociedadcivilcuba.info) since 2004 that is run from Miami.

Even if Paya, Leiva or Roque could freely surf the Web, they still would not
see their sites because they are blocked in Cuba, as are other sites of
staunchly anti-Castro exiles.

"The Internet is a basic tool in today's world, but the government doesn't
want Cubans to have outside information and only grants access to certain
people," Leiva said.

Leiva said the site will help inform the world about their campaign to win
the release of 59 of the 75 dissidents jailed since March 2003. The others
were freed on medical parole.

The Cuban government calls dissidents "counterrevolutionary mercenaries" who
are on the payroll of its ideological nemesis the United States and have
little support in Cuba.

The dissidents' lack of access to the Internet comes on top of the everyday
shortages that all Cubans deal with -- such as the limited transport that
had Paya seeking petition signers on a bicycle.

Cuba says it restricts Internet use because U.S. trade sanctions deny it
access to underwater telecommunications cables and it has to use expensive
satellite links through other countries.

Cuba last month announced a plan to bypass the U.S. embargo with an
underwater optic fibber cable to Venezuela, its closest ally.

Last year dissident Guillermo Farinas went on a seven-month hunger strike to
demand open access Internet for all Cubans. He was on an intravenous drip
when he called off the protest.

For free Internet access, some dissidents go to the U.S. Interests Section,
the American diplomatic mission in Havana, which has 23 terminals open to
the public and takes about 200 users a week, by appointment.

(Additional reporting by Esteban Israel)