HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- At a computer room in Havana University's foreign
                  languages department, students wait patiently for slots they booked in advance to
                  use one of six machines connected to the Internet.

                  One-by-one they consult their e-mail or browse Web sites under a sign that
                  warns, among other instructions on the use of computers: "It is prohibited to
                  disseminate information not in line with the principles of the Revolution."

                  A relative latecomer to the Internet, Cuba is now embarked on a major
                  technological modernization program whose chief promoter and enthusiast is
                  President Fidel Castro.

                  Underpinning that is the usefulness of the Internet to what Castro calls the "Battle
                  of Ideas," his government's year-old ideological offensive to demonstrate the
                  superiority of Cuban socialism over the Western capitalist model.

                  "We have no fear of the dissemination of counterrevolutionary revolutionary
                  information on the Internet because you cannot fear lies, and all that is lies," said
                  Melchor Gil, vice minister in the Information and Communications Ministry set
                  up last year to oversee Cuba's technological drive.

                  "Those who should be worried are our enemies because the Internet is the ideal
                  medium for disseminating the truth about Cuba," Gil added at a recent news
                  conference.

                  In that vein, official institutions have created 300 Web sites such as that of the
                  Foreign Ministry (www.cubaminrex.cu), which vigorously promotes Cuba's
                  political aims abroad such as its fight against U.S. economic sanctions.

                  Some foreign businessmen are working in joint venture with Cuba to help
                  develop Internet sites. "There is a desperate need around the world for
                  information about Cuba," said Stephen Marshall, a British entrepreneur who has
                  65 active Web sites about Cuba, some in partnership with Cuban companies.

                  According to vice minister Gil, the state's sites receive 50 million visits per
                  month. "The way to defend our principles is to put our information out on the
                  Internet," he said.

                  Just 15,000 Web surfers

                  But only a small percentage of Cuba's 11 million people can see these or other
                  Web sites. Gil acknowledged there are only 60,000 e-mail accounts on the island,
                  of which just "one quarter have the ability to surf the Internet."

                  "I'm starting a course on Web sites and I have never surfed the Internet, not
                  even for one minute, I only have e-mail," said a graphic designer who -- like
                  most Cubans when speaking to foreign correspondents on politically delicate
                  subjects -- preferred to remain anonymous.

                  Most of the privileged 15,000 Internet users work at state or foreign companies
                  and organizations. In Havana, there is only one cyber cafe for public use and that
                  is reserved principally for foreign tourists.

                  "There is no commercial license for Cubans to use the Internet, this is just for
                  tourists or for Cubans who come with a foreigner," said a young woman at the
                  cyber cafe in Havana's imposing Capitolio building.

                  Down the road, on Havana's Plaza de Armas, there is another cyber cafe, but
                  that is reserved for artists and writers linked to the state-run Cuban Writers' and
                  Artists' Union (UNEAC).

                  Cuban dissidents accuse Castro's government, which already controls all
                  traditional media outlets, of deliberately restricting people's access to information.

                  "The government assigns use of the Internet. ... They feel threatened by
                  information that citizens might receive. They perceive information as a danger --
                  both information about Cuba and communication with the rest of the world,"
                  said a leading moderate dissident, Oswaldo Paya.

                  "You can't surf the Internet. They do it to control information; that's how
                  totalitarian governments maintain their power," added a dissident journalist, who
                  asked not to be named. "If people have access to information, their vision of the
                  world expands and they think in another way."

                  Aware of such criticism, authorities deny they are limiting access to sites and
                  recently accused certain foreign media of an "anti-Cuban campaign" for
                  suggesting the government was blocking the Internet for political reasons.

                  Cuba an 'enemy of the Internet'?

                  But just in the last few days entry to some Internet pages to make free or cheap
                  long-distance phone calls has been blocked in Cuba, as confirmed by users and
                  sources from one of the island's main servers.

                  International press freedom body Reporters Without Borders has put Cuba on its
                  list of 20 nations considered "enemies of the Internet" due to total or partial
                  control of citizens' access. "In Cuba, the public powers control the Internet like
                  they do the rest of the media," said a recent report by the Paris-based
                  organization.

                  Cuba's official media, like Granma, the daily newspaper of the ruling Communist
                  Party, mainly exist to promote the government line. On the few occasions they
                  mention dissidence or alternative opinions, it is to attack them.

                  The government answers its critics on Internet access by saying the reduced use
                  is due to "technical limitations" caused by scarcity of resources and technological
                  restrictions caused in large part by the U.S. embargo.

                  "If we decided that everyone who wants to can connect to the Internet, no one
                  would be able to connect or make a telephone call. We have limited resources
                  and we decided to distribute them according to priorities," Gil said, adding mass
                  Internet access was not a short-term priority for Cuba.

                  Cuba's well-educated and ever-ingenious population gets round the Internet
                  access problem in part by illegal entry, thanks to "pirates" who rob passwords
                  and sell them for about $50 a time.

                  "People end up getting in. They find a way onto the Internet. It's impossible to
                  stop it," said one young information programmer who knows some of these
                  pirates.

                     Copyright 2001 Reuters.