Cuba ends personal cell phone ban

MEXICO CITY – Cuban President Raul Castro lifted much-loathed restrictions on personal cell phone ownership Friday, a move that could increase the flow of political ideas and news to the isolated and information-starved island nation.

The decision, announced in an understated manner on page 2 of the Communist Party daily Granma, adds to an array of developments that indicate that Castro, 76, is beginning to reshape daily life in the Western Hemisphere’s last communist outpost after decades of working in the shadow of his older brother, Fidel.

Since succeeding his ailing brother Feb. 24, Raul Castro has set about legalizing products and services that Cubans have been forced to acquire through the black market. Besides lifting the cell phone restrictions, Castro has quietly ended a ban on personal purchases of some electronic items, including computers, video players, all sizes of televisions, pressure cookers, electric rice cookers, electric bicycles and car alarms.

There are unconfirmed reports that Castro also has erased efficiency-sapping rules that forced farmers to buy materials at state-run stores and required medical patients to pick up prescriptions at inconveniently located pharmacies.

Cubans formed long lines Friday outside cell phone stores. Until now, only top government officials and foreigners had been permitted to own the devices. But thousands of Cubans have long skirted the rule by persuading foreigners or corrupt government officials to sign cell phone contracts on their behalf. It was tolerated by the Cuban government, and Cubans often chatted openly on phones acquired on the black market. Even the omnipresent state police seemed to turn a blind eye.

“This could have a massive impact,” said dissident Manuel Cuesta in a telephone interview from Havana. “It opens the possibility for more contact with foreigners, for more text messaging, for a culture of mass communication. You can almost publish a newspaper with messages sent over cell phones.”

But Cuesta cautioned against interpreting the decision too broadly. The rule change, he said, does nothing to address limits on free speech and foreign travel, rigid prohibitions on the ownership and sale of private property, or bans on most forms of private enterprise.

“This is not going to affect in any way the total control that the government has,” Cuesta said. “This is a small step toward liberalization.”

Cubans have been tantalized with prospects for change in recent days. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said last week that the government was considering ending restrictions on foreign travel. The government denies most Cubans permission to leave the island and discourages travel by imposing high exit-visa fees. Castro’s daughter Mariela Castro Espin told the Associated Press in Rome this week that Cuba should abolish travel restrictions, end a ban on Cuban citizens staying at the island’s best tourist hotels and guarantee computer access.

“The prohibitions have been necessary, but recently the conditions have begun to exist to eliminate them,” she said.

But strict government control of information still reigns. Cuba’s best-known blogger, Yoani Sanchez, alleged this week that the government blocked access to her blog, which is written in Havana and posted to a Web site registered outside Cuba. Most Cubans do not have access to the Internet in their homes or offices, but they can pay to go online at a few state-run centers, where many popular sites such as Yahoo and Google are blocked.

Friday’s decision is likely to increase the number of Cubans who have cell phones by allowing ownership for islanders who were afraid to break the law, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a dissident economist, said from Havana. “This ends the fiction of the ban,” he said. “There’s a bit of rationality in this decision.”

It costs the equivalent of $119 to start service and $64 for the least expensive phone, a hefty price for state workers who earn as little as $13 a month.

However, many Cubans seemed to revel in a new sense of freedom and independence. “Now we’re not going to have to be dependent on foreigners,” a woman who gave her name only as Gisela said outside a cell phone store. “This is not a luxury. If my mother falls ill, now she’ll be able to call me.”