Cuba: Comrades, Phone Home

Cuba's Communist government announced today that Cuban citizens will soon be allowed to buy cell phones and service, lifting a restriction that had created resentment among islanders with the dollars to pay for the luxury.

Until now, Cubans had to get a foreigner working or visiting their homeland to sign service contracts. The head offices of the ETECSA joint-venture telecommunications firm of the Havana government and Italy's Italcom are usually crowded with Cubans bringing in foreign friends or relatives to subscribe for them and pay in hard currency.

Few ordinary Cubans, whose salaries average less than $20 a month, can afford the 110 Convertible Pesos (CUCs) ($137.50) to activate the service, or even the minimum 10 CUC prepaid time required each month to keep the account active. But growing numbers of Cubans earning hard currency in tourism or black-market enterprises and the estimated 10% of households getting dollar handouts from U.S. exiles have boosted domestic demand for cell phones.

While the legalization of cell phone use by Cubans is unlikely to have much immediate effect on the number of subscribers, it will be seen as a step by the new leadership of Raul Castro in removing meaningless or outdated curbs on individual freedoms.

—Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami

Photo: A Cuban man buys a mobile phone at a store in Havana. Credit: Alejandro Ernesto / EPA

Comments

[Jerome Melgar]

And this is supposed to be good news?? What the regime needs to do is (in no particular order) 1) Deal away with the dual currency, 2) Stop the food rationing, 3) Allow their citizens to own businesses and properties, 4) Stop the tourist apartheid, 5) Allow their citizens to travel outside of Cuba, 6) Release all political prisoners, 7) Allow political parties to campaign for office. Folks, these are the REAL changes that need to be done. With the salary the gov't pays to their citizens they can't even afford toothpaste or toilet paper!

[Julio Fernandez]

Being a cuban national living in the US it's appauling to hear the news about cell phones in Cuba, where the people can hardly eat let alone afford cell phones. But of course, the Castro's brothers plan to acquire dollars is going to work, just like it has worked during the Burton-Helms embargo, the cubans living in the US defy the law by going to cuba from third world countries and keep the dollars rolling in to the island.

Unfortunately they dont see the bigger picture, by thinking that they are helping their families in Cuba, they help keep the goverment stronger by sending more and more dollars. This cell phone bit is yet another very well thought strategy by the Cuban government to keep the dollars coming into the island. They know that by doing this it facilitates communications abroad, therefore generating yet another source of income to strengthen the political regime that has been in place in Cuba for so many years.
Cuban-Americans should open their eyes and see that while we keep sending money, traveling to the island and now buying and paying for cell phones in Cuba, will only give the regime more power to stay. Our brothers in the island dont know what's like to REALLY WORK because they get the basics for free, so they dont have any incentive to progress. Let's not forget the true meaning of Communism: "Eveyone is the same in Communism, no one is greater or less than anyone". A very pretty sentiment on paper but WE all know that it's a very different picture in real life.

[JusticeNow]

Your comment "it will be seen as a step by the new leadership of Raul Castro in removing meaningless or outdated curbs on individual freedoms" is really not accurate. The reason the Cubans are now opening up, from Fidel stepping down to this cell phone story, is that our generally belligerent US foreign policy has been both exposed and weakened by the Bush administration. The curtain has been pulled back, the bumbling clown behind it has been seen for what he his, and the threat to Cuba has been reduced. In other words, their "state of siege" mentality has been reduced and they can now begin to relax. If you doubt this look at the reverse here since 9/11. We are losing our freedoms, our bill of rights. They had to react to our actions and that's where a fair bit of their need to control came from. To dismiss it as the article did, as “meaningless and outdated” shows an insensitivity and ignorance of their history.

[Walter Lippmann]

Ms. Williams, writing from Miami, has herself been to Cuba more than once. She ought to know that this isn't auch a big surprise as it's made out to be.

Today (03/28/08) the foreign press reports that the Cuban government is allowing cell phones to be used by Cubans. This is supposed to be BIG NEWS.

Anyone who has visited Cuba in the last two years know that many Cubans already have cell phones Yet, cell phones will be available to only those who can use such technology and pay for it. In other words, a small fraction of the population.

On the other hand, today Cuba also informed its people that it has been building the LARGEST EVER water supply and distribution system across 9 of the the island's 14 provinces. Such a large works project will benefit millions of Cubans. The project is considered "strategic" in Cuba's social and ec onomic development. But not a word in the foreign media. Obviously, cell phones are more important than the availability of drinking water.

Access to the water, of course, is also subsidized.