Cubans cruise on info highway with stories of daily life

Yoani Sanchez writes the “Generation Y” blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad - 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 US$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 $19.50 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 and 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.

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 legalised what was common practice.

“Legally recognising 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.”

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. from corrupt officials.