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Summit in Tunis
rejects blockade and radio/TV aggression against
Cuba
TUNIS—THE World Summit on
the Information Society (WSIS) rejected unilateral
measures that violate international law by
impeding the development of countries and damaging
the well-being of their citizens, reported PL.
That statement is included
in the Tunis Plan of Action, one two final
documents issued by the WSIS, that reflected
Cuba’s demand for the United States to lift the
economic, commercial, and financial blockade
imposed on the island for more than four decades.
The document also urges
governments to provide assistance to countries
affected by this type of unilateral action.
The Tunis Declaration of
Principals, the second document, emphasizes that
the international community must take all actions
necessary to guarantee that every country in the
world has equitable and affordable access to
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
This document, the fruit
of arduous political negotiations to reach
consensus, also includes Cuba’s objection to all
forms of discrimination or exclusion.
THE BLOCKADE OBSTRUCTS
THE ISLAND’S ACCESS TO THE INTERNET
In an address before the
Summit’s general assembly, which brought together
delegates from 175 countries, Ignacio González
Planas, Cuban minister of informatics and
communications, denounced the negative effects of
the U.S. blockade regarding access to ICT. He
explained that it denies Cuba access to the
Internet by submarine fiber optic cable, which
would help lower the cost.
“Cuba shares the opinion
of the great majority of countries represented
here that the Internet cannot continue to be under
the administration of the United States. It is
necessary to organize a new multilateral and
democratic institution that will administer the
Internet and at the same time regulate and promote
international cooperation, the transfer of
financial and technological resources, and equal
exchange possibilities for all nations in the
realm of new information and communications
technologies,” the Cuban minister said.
As part of his demands,
González Planas called for an end to media
manipulation by wealthy countries that try to
impose only the view and patterns of the affluent
North on the underdeveloped South. “It is
necessary to reveal the truths and the cultural
richness of that other world that is not
represented in the media, of those billions who do
not enjoy access to the Internet, who do not have
telephones, or don’t even have a way to see images
on television or listen to a radio,” he pointed
out.
The minister called for
breaking through “the barrier that attempts to
silence the unjust imprisonment of five Cubans
condemned for fighting against terrorist groups
that, from within the United States and with
complete impunity, attack our country.”
The minister enumerated
the Revolution’s many achievements in this field
despite the empire’s aggressions, including the
fact that all Cuban children and adolescents from
kindergarten receive computer training in school,
and that universities have been extended to all
municipalities with computers and audiovisual
media used as essential learning tools.
He also mentioned the
Youth Computer Club movement, a network of
community facilities where free computer training
is available, and which has doubled in size to 600
centers since the Geneva Summit.
Another example cited was
the Cuban literacy method called “I can do it!”
based on the use of television and video, through
which 1.5 million Venezuelans have learned to read
and write, making that nation the second
illiteracy-free territory of the Americas. Another
10 countries have applied this revolutionary
method of learning with varying degrees of success.
For their part, Caribbean
experts were satisfied with the demands of the
Tunis Summit, expressed in its Plan of Action,
regarding respect for existing telecommunications
norms, which are being violated by Washington in
its radio and television aggression against Havana.
According to the
information provided here, anti-Cuban
transmissions currently total 2,425 hours per week,
and are broadcast on 30 television and radio
frequencies, according to a document presented at
the summit by Cuba.
The Tunis Plan of Action
reiterates that the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) and other regional
organizations must adopt measures to assure the
rational, efficient, and economic use of radio
frequencies. It also insists on the importance of
creating a legal, regulatory and political
environment that is reliable, transparent and non-discriminatory.
• — The United States and
Canada have 74 computers and 60 fixed telephone
lines per 100 inhabitants. In Africa there are
1.76 computers and 3.09 fixed lines for the same
number of persons.
— Only 15% of the planet’s
6 billion inhabitants have access to the Internet.
Of those, 51.9% are in the United States, Canada
and Europe, and only 2.5% are in Africa.
— More than half of the
world’s population has no telephone access, a
technology invented more than a century ago. Forty
percent of telephone lines are in only 23
developed countries, where less than 15% of the
world’s population lives.
— More than 50% of
cellular telephone clients and Internet servers
are in developed countries. |
