Chavez vs. Rosales campaign rally

Using google earth and pictures taken by the venezuelan government and individuals attending the campaign rallies it is safe to say the Manuel Rosales beat Chavez hands down by ~ 3:1 ratio. This is despite the government closing down all highways into Caracas on the day Manuel Rosales held his rally. In addition, the government used ~ 2,150 buses to transport people from around the country to attend the Chavez rally (estimated at 86,000 people or 38% of the attendees), they gave out free food and clothing, and threatened public employees to attend the Chavez rally. All of which the Manuel Rosales campaign did not do.

Below are the numbers I have calculated:

Chavez rally

width = 80 feet (road)
length = 0.5 miles


Manuela Rosales rally

width = 84 feet (road)
length = 1.4 miles

Groupo Cronica estimates the following number of people:

Chavez - 225,000
Rosales - 935,000

or 4:1 ratio this is above my estimate of 3:1 based only on the main rally point and not couting side streets.

The images below are from google earth showing where the Chavez rally was held the white line = 0.5 miles, length of the Chavez rally. In the large low resolution image the blue line represents the length of the Manuel Rosales rally.

Manuel Rosales closing rally in Caracas Venezuela. How big was it?

Below are a couple of google map images that gives you a perspective of how big the rally for Manuel Rosales was on Sat.

The white line is 1 mile in length and also represents a conservative estimate for how far the campaign rally stretched. In actuality the people extended about 1.2 miles from what I have seen from the pictures, since the line pictured is straight but the highway is not. Remember the people were along a 8 lane highway and on both sides of the river and along side roads. I don't know how to estimate how many there were (Rosales campaign estimates 1.4 million) either way it was truly a lot of people.


The beginning for the white line (right side) is where the stage was and Manuel Rosales spoke from. The end of the white line (left side) is approximately where the rally ends, from what I can see in the pictures taken.

If anyone who was at the rally finds a mistake with my estimate please let me know.

addendum: I was told the people extended a little further (~0.2 miles) than what is captured in the picture so the total length of the rally was ~1.4 miles. Again not taking into account side roads.

Dirty tricks "Guarimba Oficialista"

A quick update on today's closing campaign for Manuel Rosales in Caracas. It is estimated that 700,000 people are present; although more would have been present but the government showing its increasing fear decided to close the highways into Caracas, but not out of Caracas. Why? to clean highways and tunnels of course. It seems as though no traffic is being allowed to pass since machines are blocking the highway.

correction
The number above stands corrected they rally had approximatly 1.4 million people. The 700,000 number was from earlier in the day right before things got starteed with Manuel Rosales.

Venezuela: Poll, Polls, Polls

Political campaigns always brings out the pollsters en mass, most of who try to "predict" the winner, of course the media buy into this prediction and inadvertently or not try to sway public opinion. Venezuela during the past month has seen countless polling agencies many from well known companies (i.e. Zogby and AP-Lpsos) releasing data showing Chavez winning by a margin of ~20%. Consequently, the international media have relied on them as "experts" and publish the results never questioning their methodology or what's behind the numbers.

telling you the past
Polling data, contrary to how it's sold, can only tell you past public mood. For arguments sake lets assume a polling agency shows the incumbent with 60% approval. Lets say the data is released 2 days later and the media picks it up the following day. Within those three days a political scandal could have occurred vastly changing the incumbent approval and potential outcome. Trends are a better predictor but can still suffer the same limitation when interpreting the data. In short polls give nice pretty numbers for the media to report on and it gives people jobs and something to do, but in the end political polls should be taken with a grain of salt.

"Roja, Rojita" - "Red, really Red"
The biggest disservice pollsters are doing is not taking into account Venezuela's "hybrid regime" status and public fear of government reprisal. When a government creates a black list of its "enemies" firing and denying them services, calling for individuals to be fired if they don't overtly express revolutionary solidarity, and requests public employees to wear pro-government apparel and attend pro-government rallies, can a pollster really get a true feeling for a voters intention?

A recently released pool by the AP-Ipsos claims a "Chavez with a 59-29% lead of Rosales", but how did they conduct the polling? In a persons home of course.

"Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted Nov. 10-18 among 2,500 registered voters interviewed in person at their homes across Venezuela..."

The problems with polls such as this AP-Ipsos is that they are conducted at peoples homes. If you knew you could lose your government job, one of you social "missiones", denied a passport, or harassed by the tax agency would you reveal to a pollster your voting intention? No! you have to be naive to think a person would reveal to a stranger who my work for the government their true voting intention. Instead fear can be heard in peoples voice, even over the phone family members show reluctance to state their voting intention, so one can only assume their fear with a stranger in their home and it not being secret .

The second issue and is more specific to the above quoted AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from Nov. 10-18, while the media (AP) is reporting the results 7 days later as recent polling data. As my previous point suggested 1-2 days is a long time in politics so 7 days is an eternity. Other issue complicating the polling scenario are fake polling companies such as North American Opinion Research (coincidentally it has not conducted any polls since May 2006). Then we have polling agencies that outsource their work to secondary and tertiary companies, casting doubt on their transparency and reliability, in addition to polling agencies contracted by government companies (PDVSA).

Of course none of this means anything because "Rosales says his own polling and some opposition-linked surveys show he can win the election".

In the end, Dec 3rd will hopefully reveal in a peaceful and transparent manner the approval of each candidate. Unfortunately, this will require the voter overcoming their fear, voters defending their vote and Rosales "defending what's his". In the mean time we can sit back and amuse ourselves with the pollsters and media all trying to predict the future.

Manuel Rosales will defend what's his

Among the opposition some complained that after the referendum the opposition didn't call for street protests to defend the vote. Such calls likely would not have succeeded, for one the international observers certified the elections as clean, although it is still a contentious issue. Secondly, the opposition leadership would have found it difficult to mobilize its supporters after being dealt a stunning loss, hence both politicians and voters in the opposition were in a state of shock. This would have been compounded by government forces suppressing any protests, as was the case in Chacao, and with a country almost evenly divided 50/50 pro- and anti-Chavez public pressure would not have been enough to pressure Chavez to step down.

A very different scenario has presented itself with the announcement that Manuel Rosales as the single unity candidate to run against Chavez. Arguably, the most significant difference is that the opposition unity surged from the political forces at play and not imposed by civil society. Granted, the dissolving of the old more radical political forces largely facilitated this unity, it goes without saying that this time around the political actors and their roles are more clearly defined. Another key difference is that ideas are being proposed to the voters to combat poverty, insecurity, unemployment, and a host of other domestic issues, rather than "remove Chavez". Finally the opposition leadership has stopped acting as if Venezuela were Caracas and preaching to the converted, instead it is going to the barrios to take its message.

One of the questions remaining is how will Rosales respond to any attempt of fraud during the elections? If the past is any indication, which I think it is, Rosales will fight for what is right and in his words "...what is [his]". The following is a quote from the Associated Press by Christopher Toothaker on November 15, 2006:

Friends say Rosales isn't likely to back down. They say that when Rosales won his first election in his hometown in 1979, local political bosses tried to tamper with the results -- and that a gun was fired into the air during an argument among Rosales, his opponents and soldiers guarding the ballots.

Rosales claims not to remember exactly what happened, saying "problems, attempts at fraud arise in many elections and everyone defends what's theirs.

There was a problem there and I defended what was mine." Asked who fired the gun, Rosales grinned and responded: "I don't remember. Maybe it was a firework."

Recently, the Chavez government has been threatening Rosales with imprisonment if he calls for street protests following the Dec. 3rd elections. They have threatened the media with closure if they report any protests or any calls to protests, and they have threatened citizens via their citizen militias, which are responsible for defending the revolution. Inclusively the government stated they will use the military to prevent citizens from opening the ballot boxes post-elections to count ballots in >50% of the boxes, which is a constitutional right. Ironically, one would think the government would be willing to manually count votes since their polling numbers show ~70% approval, thus a Chavez win would be indisputable. Despite, these threats Rosales continues to make his pledge to fight for what is his and to defend the vote. His post-electoral preparations and his tenacity has made him unbeatable since 1979 when he ran as mayor in the southern part of Zulia, and most recently twice elected governor of Zulia has made him unbeatable even against Chavez imposed candidates.

As mentioned above the Rosales campaign has mobilized its supporters to have observers at polling stations and to demand >50% of the ballot boxes opened, which will be randomly selected, and manually counted. In addition, they are asking voters to stay at the polling booths to defend their votes, an important step in guaranteeing fair elections.

December 3rd and 4th

If memory serves me correctly polling booths close around 4pm and the CNE will begin announcing results a few hours after that, or should we expect another madrugazo. Will voters be allowed to practice their constitutional right of manually counting the votes? Will voters defend their vote? Will Chavez step down if he losses? Will there be violence? These are impossible questions to answer but the next couple of weeks will be very telling especially if the closing Rosales campaign rally in Caracas on November 25 is a success.

Venezuelan voter ballot

Below is what the voter ballot will look like on Dec 3rd when Venezuelans head to the polling booths. The political parties circled in red are those that will count as votes for Chavez and those circled in blue are parties whose votes will count for Manuel Rosales.

In case readers don't know Chavez's party MVR is in the upper left hand corner while Rosales party is in the lower right hand corner.

Birds of a Feather: Venezuela, The Huffington Post, and Mark Weisbrot and Co.

This post could be concidered a continuation of my research on Mark Allen Weisbrot and his involvement in Venezuela. Readers may remember that Part 1 looked at Weisbrot's educational background, Part 2 looked at his advocacy for Chavez and his government. Part 3 will look at those individuals that are Chavez apologists in the United States and how, strangely, they are tied to Mark Weisbrot and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington D.C.

Jeremy Bigwood, Eva Golinger, and the CEPR

Dating back to March 2005 it was already pretty well established that Bigwood, Golinger, and the CEPR were working together to establish "solidarity" with the Chavez revolution via the Venezuelan Information Office. For those who don't know Eva Golinger and Bigwood, they worked together in publishing Eva's book "The Chavez Code" claiming they obtained "classified" documents proving the US was behind the coup in Venezuela. Currently Eva spends most of her time in Venezuela and works for the Venezuelan government writing news articles. Bigwood on the other hand has taken a permanent job at CEPR as an "International Policy Analyst" specializing on Latin America (i.e. Venezuela).

Bob Naiman, Mark Weisbort, and The Huffington Post

Robert (Bob) Naiman is a former "Policy Analyst" at the CEPR and a former collage friend (University of Michigan) of Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker, the two founding directors of the CEPR. During his stay at CEPR Naiman helped embroil it with the Venezuelan government via the VIO. Since leaving the CEPR to write at "Just Foreign Policy", Naiman and Weisbrot appear to remain good friends and have now taken their pro-Chavez propaganda to the popular blog The Huffington Post, where they continue to spin the pro-Chavez lies. By the way don't bother trying to leave a comment exposing their lies or their connection to the Venezuelan government since they won't post it.

I find it rather interesting how most of the pro-Chavez US propaganda seems to come from one source Mark Weisbrot the and the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington D.C.

Other individuals who routinely have encounters with Mark Weisbrot include: Dan Hellinger Professor at Webster Universtiy, and Sarah Stephens who also has a blog at The Huffington Post, works at Center for International Policy that maintains the pro-Chavez blog Caracas Connect which of course cites Mark Weisbrot's "research". Do note Caracas Connect has stopped being a blog, instead it now reposts news articles.

Mark Weisbrot spinster of lies
In addition to the news articles Weisbrot has published a few articles in his favorite journal (not peer reviewed) International Journal of Health Services. The most recent publication in the said journal is titled "Latin America: The end of an era". I won't dissect the paper since it is not worth the time or effort, instead I will highlight one statement that is both a lie and shows Weisbrot's hypocrisy.

"No reputable human rights organization would claim that Venezuela has deteriorated in terms of democracy, human rights, or civil liberties under the Chávez government; nor that it compares unfavorably with the rest of the region in these areas."

Amnesty International
Inter American Press Association
Human Rights Watch
Reporters without Borders

This statement "No reputable human rights organization" is shocking, so Human rights watch, Amnesty International, Reporters without Boarders, Inter-American press association, just to name a few don't count as reputable? So which ones in Weisbrot's mind do constitute a reputable organization?

"That was the conclusion of a 213-page report by Human Rights Watch, one of the world's largest human rights organizations, written three years ago. And it keeps getting worse. Tens of thousands of workers are fired each year for joining or attempting to organize a union, in violation of U.S. law."

So Mark Weisbort like most Chavez apologists only quote world recognized human rights organization when it is convenient to do so.

For those interested you can see Mark Weisbrot being interviewed on CNN after the Chavez speech at the UN. It's sad to see the media not researching the individual who they are interviewing to see if they are true expert. Hopefully, the policy makers in Washington know better than to trust the CEPR.

To conclude, I find it amazing to see how most of the Chavez apologists have crossed paths at some point (i.e. via the CEPR). I also find it worrying that these people might exert any influence on US policy due to their relationship with the Venezuelan government, and their clearly biased and false assessment of the situation in Venezuela.

To read more on this topic visit this website Click here

Addendum

After visiting the Just Foreign Policy web site where Bob Naiman works I saw that the president of said organization is non-other than Mark Weisbort. Interesting, isn't it?

Venezuelan Forum

About two months ago I approached the department of Latin American and Caribbean Studies with the proposal to hold a forum on Venezuela and the upcoming elections. Unfortunately, the assistant director felt that my original plan of showing "La Lista" and inviting two Venezuelan professors "not experts on Venezuela" would not be appropriate. Eventually, we agreed to have three speakers: Damarys Canache assistant professor in Political Science, Jonathan Hill, Anthropology, and grad student Cristobal Valencia, also invited was Daniel Hellinger however he wasn't able to make it (crocodile tears), and was moderated by yours truly.

Prior to the forum I knew that Cristobal Valencia was a Chavez supporter since his thesis research is studying collectivism in Catia / 23 Enero (western Caracas). Daniel Hellinger I later found out was also a Chavez supporter and has written a book on Chavez and attends government sponsored functions. Dr. Canache and Dr. Hill were the only two I was unsure about.

Granted my biggest worry was that my good intentions would result in a Chavista get together, which was further confirmed the day before when Cristobal Valencia said we needed to discuss "US intervention in the Venezuelan election process".

The forum

For the most part the debate was what I expected the two Chavez supporters discussing the wonderful things about Chavez and the government. J. Hill mentioned all the missiones the government has created but of course never discussing the effectiveness of them. Cristobal, was more entertaining when he stated that "Chavez would win by a landslide", that the voter registry had increased from 12 million in 2004 to 16 million in 2006 and it was safe to say all those votes would go to Chavez. Another question I proposed was if they felt Chavez's spending was taking a toll with his popularity. Cristobal took this question by stating it was only a small sum of money (~ 2 million dollars), and Venezuelans are very to help people in other countries in the name of solidarity. Of course I had to correct his figures to the tune of ~30 billion.

The best moment (in my opinion) was when I proposed the question what they thought about the "Mi Negra proposal". Dr. Hill immediately jumped in stating it sounded like a Bush proposal that rewarded the evils of individualism, when we should be thinking about the collective. This was followed by Dr. Canache stating that "Mi Negra" was originally an idea proposed by Teodoro Petkoff a socialist, she then explained that when it comes to oil Venezuelans feel entitled to it and inherently are individualistic.

Overall the ability to exchange comments and ideas centering around a polarizing topic was beneficial and hopefully useful to those attending. It did further confirm, to me, that non-Venezuelans just don't seem to understand the history and culture of Venezuela. They portray themselves as experts on Venezuela yet it is Venezuelans who are the true experts of their own country. Of course when a Venezuelan academic discuss issues about their country, and they don't show undying support to Chavez they are classified as the opposition, part of the rich elite, discredited, and treated as if they don't know their own country.

BTW, I hope to start blogging more often now that my traveling is over for the semester and my research proposal has been submitted for review.

United States mid term elections Update!!

Democrats win the House of Representative, will they take the Senate?

US midterm elections

Update 9pm EST

Around 3 hours ago I cast my vote, the only problem (if you want to call it that) was that they couldn't find my name in the registry. After a few calls they realized they hadn't checked my name in the in-active registry, again nothing to to get worked up about, since the people were very polite and were very helpfull in wanting me to go to the right precinct to cast my vote, plus they looked somewhat tired.

Thankfully I did use the touch screen voting machines (ie. Smartmatic) instead I used a scantron sheet (i.e. fill in a circle with black ink) and the votes are tabulated with a this ballot counter.

Thus far it looks as if Democrats will win the House but the Senate is still up in the air. I will update later once we can get a better idea of who will win.

Venezuela
The national guard has prevented the 24 hours news station Globovision from accessing it microwaves in order to transmit live broadcasts.

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So I thought I would post a few things I have come across in the news on how the voting is going around the country. BTW I have not voted yet I will be doing so later today.
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Apparently some polling precincts in Ohio and Indiana have had to switch to paper ballots because the electronic ones were not working properly.
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Below are to alligations that I thought might be worth sharing:

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Election fixing charges fly in Utah county
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Voting appears to be very popular in Daggett County, Utah.

Daggett County has registered 947 voters for Tuesday's election. According to the most recent Census figures, that's four more than the county's population in 2005.
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Va. officials warn of possible deceptive calls to voters
(CNN) -- Virginia election officials expressed concern Monday over reports of deceptive phone calls made to voters ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, but were hesitant to launch an immediate investigation for fear of politicizing the vote.

Year of transition in Venezuela and the United States?

Will 2006 be the year the Democrats gain the majority of the House and the Senate and the opposition the Presidency of Venezuela? For the later we will have to wait another month but the former we will find out tomorrow.

Americans, including myself will head to the polls tomorrow to vote in the mid term congressional elections and as expected the number one issue is Iraq.

So tonight I will be busy going over my voters guide and learning as much as I can on the different candidates ranging from county clerk to governor to representative in congress.

It is expected that Democrats will win the House of Representatives but they may still lose the Senate. If the Democrats win the house the new house majority speaker will be Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco, CA, 8th district.

Predicted major losers in the campaign are the moderate republicans, this of course is a little concerning, what we need is not more polarization but more moderation both among the American public and our politicians.

Of course one question people will ask is what does this mean for Venezuela? In my opinion nothing will change, Chavez may gloat about how Bush lost the House or the Senate but American policy will not change. If anything policy on Venezuela may be one of the few issues both the Democrats and Republicans will agree on, this was especially evident after the Chavez speech at the UN.

Tomorrow I will post some of the results of the elections and how voting went at my polling location. Although I'm sure it won't be anything worth writing home about. I only hope it won't be electronic voting.

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Addendum

To continue yesterdays post about Er Conde pulling out of the presidential race. According to Descifrado.com Er Conde will announce on Wed or Thursday he is going to back Rosales as President. Apparently Er conde has about 4% of the vote, therefore it is safe to assume that 4% will go to Rosales. Most importantly, as I said yesterday, Er Conde will help in the Rosales campaign in the Eastern part of the country. This is where Rosales is not as well known but where Er Conde is. Tha announcement and backing by Er Conde would come at a perfect time in the campaign, lets hope the momentum can last.

Manuel Rosales as the single candidate, and Chavez coming out of the autocratic closet

Manuel Diaz, head of Benjamin Rausseo (Er Conde del Guacharo) campaign announced that they are studying the possibility of Rausseo pulling out of the Presidental race. This would in effect leave Rosales running solo against Chavez. Diaz also announced that if Rausseo pulls out he will lend his support to Rosales and not Chavez.

By Rausseo pulling out and helping Rosales would be another sign that the political opposition has finally matured and can set aside their differences for the greater good of the country. Some benefits Rausseo can give to Rosales are name recognition, potential votes of lower income and young people, and strategic campaigning in the llanos and in the west. While not stealing significant votes from Rosales or Chavez (~2%) this could be significant enough in a close race, which in my opinion could very well be.

Chavez coming out of the autocratic closet

So the latest scandal to hit Venezuela is the video showing minister and head of PDVSA saying such things as:

"I am insulted … that we find people Ni-Ni in here, chavistas light, that there are people that say that we need to open up this thing. No sir, here the one that will forget that wee are in the middle of a revolution we are going to remind him by hitting him hard ["carajazos" physical roughing up, trashing up, hitting to blood if needed] because here this company is with the President"

A full transcript can beread here in spanish.

Now Ramirez hints at the fact the video is not real, yet it is obvious it is real. Even if fake the damage is done and Chavez and Vice president Rangel have come out and specifically supported and even encouraged what Ramirez "said". Moreover, Chavez announed all private media "might" be closed in March 2007. How will this play out with the electorate? Will Chavez lose votes? Will Rosales gain votes? Remember the Chavista "lights" often complained the opposition were to radical, confrontational, and impatient.

When an Answer is Not an Answer, but a "Revolutionary" Answer

If you have come across a supporter of Chavez or Castro, or both, you are likely aware of the no answer-answer to a question. If not, you can read below or visit Caracas Chronicles (CC) , were you can have a personal encounter with our Venezuelan trolls. Do note their permeant residency is not CC, but instead Oil Wars, they only visit CC to feed, so in the words of F.T. "please do not feed them" they are plenty fat.

Original article published here

ATHENS, Greece--A Cuba government official told a United Nations summit here that the U.S. government was to blame for the poor Internet access that its citizens endure.

Juan Fernandez, a government official in the Cuba's Commission of Electronic Commerce, on Wednesday assailed the U.S. government's economic embargo and argued that, as a result, poorer countries are "financing" the Internet. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Fernandez to a high-level working group two years ago.

Fernandez's only problem was that a longtime Internet engineer and researcher was present and challenged those claims. Bill Woodcock, research director of the nonprofit Packet Clearing House who has set up Internet exchange points in Latin America and other developing nations, replied by saying that the Cuban government's problems stem from its own telecommunications monopoly and its official censorship policies.

A report published last month by the Reporters Without Borders advocacy group says "it is forbidden to buy any computer equipment without express permission from the authorities," and spyware "installed in all Internet cafes automatically detects banned content." U.S. law exempts telecommunications equipment and service from the trade embargo

Juan Fernandez, Cuban government official: I'd like to remind you here that the main obstacles to access to Internet is hunger, lack of education, discrimination and exclusion...But once the underdeveloped countries have undertaken this tremendous effort and sacrifice to create the minimum conditions for them to be able to connect up to the Internet, then they find themselves confronted with a situation whereby they have to pay for the connection up to the Internet at the same level as the developed countries, even though this might also be a channel used by users in the developed countries.

Which means that you can have technical means whereby you can do away with this paradox. And these poor countries seem to be financing (the) Internet by this system.

So my question is specifically: What can we do to change the situation in favor of those who are less advantaged, so far? We have to see how we can, in fact, try to not only reduce costs but to make sure that we can share the costs. And I don't know whether the WTO (World Trade Organization) can be called in on this, as somebody said, or whether we could call on the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) or what we could do.

Ulysse Gosset, a French moderator: Well, before we go any further, what is the number of people who are connected the on Internet in Cuba today?

Juan Fernandez: What?

Ulysse Gosset: What percentage of the citizens are connected to the Internet, in terms of the overall population?

Juan Fernandez: Well, I really didn't want to talk about Cuba, because I didn't want to politicize this forum too much. But you asked me, so I'll tell you. As an awful a lot of you will be aware, Cuba is a small country.
Fifty years ago, it underwent an economic war waged on the by the most economically powerful country in the world. Now, look at Google, for example. If we try and get onto Google, we're told that we can't have access. We can't buy software from Microsoft. We don't have access to fiber optics. All of our Internet over the last few years has had to go through satellite channels. And they're very expensive. And what are we doing about this? Because the cost of connection is very high, we have social appropriation of the Internet.

Ulysse Gosset: I was asking about the percentage of Cubans who were connected.

Juan Fernandez: We don't count this, in terms of individuals who, depending on the money in their pocket, cannot have access. People have connection to Internet, wherever they are, in the mountains, in the schools. More than a thousand schools have only maybe one pupil, because when we say 100 percent in Cuba, we talk about 100 percent.
So a lot of these schools have to put up solar panels so they can have connection. One hundred percent of our universities have Internet. All of our research centers and companies that need it can have Internet access. We don't prioritize individual use of Internet, not because we don't want that; it's because we can't, because we don't have the access, the network, because of the embargo imposed on us by the United States.

Bill Woodcock, network engineer: I was hoping to respond to the question about Cuba. Shall I do that?

Ulysse Gosset: Please go ahead.

Bill Woodcock: Let me preface this with, first of all, an apology for my government's long-standing policies. I'm from Berkeley, Calif., and as many of you who are familiar with the politics in the United States know, this means that I am pretty much 100 percent for Cuba with regards to the embargo and so forth.

With that preface, let me answer the question about what percentage of Cubans are connected to the Internet. Remember that the Internet is an end-to-end model. Zero percent of Cubans are connected to the Internet. The Cuban government operates an incumbent phone company, which maintains a Web cache. Cubans who wish to use the Internet browse the government Web cache. They do not have unrestricted access to the Internet.

And the question about whether there is an inequality in Cuban access to the global Internet, ask yourself whether a Cuban Internet service provider would face any challenges in connecting to a network in the United States or in Europe. And the answer is that, no, these are unregulated markets. They would face exactly the same costs as anyone anywhere else in the world.

Whereas an American or British or French Internet service provider wishing to sell Internet access in Cuba would find themselves precluded from doing so by government regulation. There's a basic incompatibility between heavy government regulation and the free-market model upon which the Internet is built.


So..... does anyone know how many people are connected to the internet in Cuba?

I sure don't