President Bush said earlier this week that Americans will soon be able to send family members in Cuba cell phones in a move he hopes will bring more freedom to the communist island nation.
The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which has been in effect since the early 1960s, prohibits American companies from doing business there. Americans are also restricted from traveling to Cuba. And there are several restrictions regarding gifts given to people living in Cuba.
Dan Fisk, National Security Council senior director for Western hemisphere affairs, told the Associated Press that the new policy, which will take effect in a few weeks, is not an indication that the U.S. will loosen its economic embargo against Cuba. It is simply a policy change that will allow U.S. citizens to send cell phones in care packages to family members.
Bush also said during his speech, given at the White House commemorating the 106th anniversary of Cuban independence this week, that he'd allow faith-based organizations and nonprofit groups working with Cuba to provide computers and Internet access to the Cuban people.
The changes in U.S. restrictions come as Raul Castro, who took office in February, begins lifting several bans imposed by his brother Fidel Castro, who had ruled the island nation for 49 years. Specifically, he has lifted bans that had prohibited Cubans from owning cell phones and buying DVD players, computers, and kitchen appliances.
Bush said he was changing the policy with regard to cell phones in an effort to encourage the new leadership in Cuba to provide more freedoms to its people.
"If Cuban rulers will end their restrictions on Internet access, and since Raul is allowing Cubans to own mobile phones for the first time, we're going to change our regulations to allow Americans to send mobile phones to family members in Cuba," the president said in a speech. "If Raul is serious about his so-called reforms, he will allow these phones to reach the Cuban people."
Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba's foreign minister, called Bush's remarks "ridiculous" during a press conference on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
"It was a decadent show, a speech irrelevant and cynical, an act of ridiculous propaganda," the AP quoted him as saying at the news conference. "Let him retire and leave the presidency."
Even though restrictions on cell phones and computers have been lifted in the communist country, it's difficult to say how much of an impact it will really have. Most people are still too poor to buy these luxury items. And even those receiving free cell phones from friends and relatives in the U.S. won't likely be able to afford a service plan so they can actually use their phones.
Cell phone service from U.S. operators can be accessed in parts of Cuba, but it's typically unreliable. The small wireless market that already exists in Cuba is controlled by Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., or ETECSA. The company has said it will soon offer prepaid contracts to the general public now that the ban has been lifted. Prepaid services are popular in other poor countries, such as the Philippines, where nearly everyone owns a cell phone. But pricing of the prepaid plans in Cuba is still uncertain.
Ordinary Cubans will soon have the luxury of owning a cell phone, according to a story by the Associated Press.
President Raul Castro's government said Friday that it will allow anyone in the country to get cell phone service, a right previously limited to executives working for foreign companies or high communist party officials.
This is the first announcement that a major government policy or restriction has been changed since the 76-year-old Castro took over as leader of the island nation from his older brother Fidel Castro.
The AP said there has been a kind of black market for cell phones in Cuba where people who were ineligible were able to get phones and service by having foreigners sign contracts in their names. But for the most part, mobile phones are not common in Cuba.
The small wireless market in Cuba is a monopoly controlled by Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A., or ETECSA. The company has said it will soon offer prepaid contracts to the general public now that the ban has been lifted.
But because most Cubans only make about 408 Cuban pesos, or a little less than $20, a month according to the AP, it's hard to imagine that many Cubans will be able to afford a cell phone. Still, even the poorest of the poor have managed to afford cell phones in other countries. I was amazed on my a recent trip to the Philippines that everyone I encountered, from housemaids to Bangka boat captains to street vendors, all had cell phones. The Philippines also happens to be considered the texting capital of the world.
It's also very hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that people in Cuba have simply not been allowed to own cell phones while the rest of the world has seen an explosion in cell phone usage and technology. In the U.S., more than 80 percent of the population owns a cell phone. And close to 3 billion people around the globe have cell phones.
Cuba isn't the only country loosening its cell phone ban. In North Korea, where people had been publicly executed for carrying a cell phone, the ban is also being lifted, according to Web reports.
The North Korean government imposed the cell phone ban after a 2004 explosion in the city of Ryongchon that was believed to be an assassination attempt on the communist country's leader, Kim Jong-Il.
North Korea's ban is somewhat ironic considering that its southern neighbor South Korea is one of the most sophisticated mobile phone markets in the world.
But for governments that are intent on keeping a tight lid on information coming in or going out of the their country, cell phones are a major threat.
After all, it has been through photographs and video taken on cell phones and circulated on the Internet that the world has seen the disturbing images of the riots in Tibet: the clouds of tear gas, burning buildings, monks in purple robes, and riot police. Cell phones were the primary way that news was leaked to the outside world during the crackdown in Burma last year. And in many places, cell phones have been used to gather protesters and distribute antigovernment messages.
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