BY ANITA SNOW
 Associated Press

 HAVANA -- The discovery of the Internet's potential hit Fidel Castro's government like an electrical surge in an ungrounded socket during last year's custody battle over
 Elián González.

 Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of new hits appeared daily on the website of the Communist Party newspaper Granma as the curious scrolled stories in Spanish and
 English about government demands that the boy be repatriated from the United States.

 Granma editors were stunned at least twice during the seven-month custody battle when the weekly number of visitors passed two million. For perhaps the first time, the
 island isolated for more than 40 years by U.S. trade sanctions was offering unedited views directly to Americans and others outside Cuba who didn't even think about
 Cuba before the fight over the motherless 6-year-old boy.

 NEW TOOL

 Castro himself has praised the benefits of the Internet as an instant link between continents. ``We are glad about that so we can also transmit out truths and our
 messages,'' Castro said during his trip to Venezuela last month.

 An Internet latecomer, Havana now deftly uses the facility to spread its political message by subverting the information curtain that has surrounded the island since a
 trade embargo was imposed four decades ago.

 Foreigners can now visit more than 200 government sites that explain communist Cuba's view of the battle over Elián, the U.S. trade embargo, and Washington's
 crackdown on Americans who break the law to travel to the island.

 Havana also has discovered an important side benefit to its Web presence: potential revenue from services and products advertised on those pages.

 By diverting payments through third-country banks not affected by American trade sanctions, people outside Cuba are using credit cards -- even ones issued by U.S.
 banks -- to pay for things ranging from hotel rooms to gifts for relatives on the island.

 Generating income while ``publishing the truth about Cuba in the world'' are two main goals of Cuba's Internet program, said Melchor Gil Morell, vice minister of informatics
 and communications.

 ILLEGAL ACTIVITY

 ``It is not legal for American citizens to purchase Cuban items from these sites,'' said Tasia Scolinos, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of
 Foreign Assets Control.

 Because the practice is new, there are no statistics on how many people, if any, have been prosecuted for such purchases. ``But any enforcement would be targeted at
 the people buying, not the companies selling,'' Scolinos said.

 For those seeking free information about the island, there are numerous links to sites about Cuban history, politics and government, arts and music, all of the
 state-operated newspapers, even a calendar of upcoming events.

 One site, www.cubavsbloqueo.cu, presents communist Cuba's arguments for eliminating the U.S. trade embargo.

 The government's main website, www.cubaweb.cu, a service called Quick Cash lets people use their Visa, MasterCard or American Express to send money to a Cuban
 bank account within 24 hours. The payment is diverted through a bank in Canada -- which has no embargo with the island.

 The state tourism company Cubanacan, meanwhile, has a site -- www.cubancan.cu -- that allows online shoppers to buy gifts, from television sets to bottles of rum for
 people in Cuba.

 For a short message to loved ones on the island, a service called ``e-scriba'' -- a play on the Spanish word for ``write'' -- allows anyone with a credit card to send a note of
 up to 800 words or 80 lines to anyone in Cuba. Each message costs $1 and is delivered as a letter by the Cuban postal service.

 Foreign entrepreneurs such as the British travel agency T&M International Marketing Ltd., operate similar Cuba sites. T&M International's GoCuba site claims to be the
 first to provide an Internet payment system for travelers visiting the island, beginning in 1998.

 The company recently launched cubagiftstore.com, which lets consumers use credit cards to buy gifts for people in Cuba. Payments are made through banks in the
 British Virgin Islands.

 Other independent sites focus on Cuba's world famous cigars. The Canada-based www.clubhavana.com, promises it can ship Cuban stogies to anywhere in the world --
 presumably including the United States.

 Using a credit card, an online consumer can order a box of Montecristo No. 2 cigars for $600 or a box of Super Partagas for $250.

 Herald staff writer Nancy San Martin contributed to this report.
 
 

                                    © 2001 The Miami Herald and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.