Not content with duking it by more traditional means, opposing sides have flooded the Internet with billions of bytes on everything you ever wanted to know about Cuba, its leader Fidel Castro, and his Cuban-American enemies in Miami. While exiles drum up support for a petition calling for Castro's resignation, the Cuban government peddles luxury vacations at Varadero Beach.
One web site offer solidarity with the "underground democracy movement inside Cuba," while the Workers World News Service says "Hands off Cuba," and backs a boycott of Florida vacations in retaliation for the American economic embargo of Cuba.
Others are less serious. "Fidel '96" - is a cheeky Californian campaign drive to elect Castro as president of the United States! "Send a real (underlined) revolution to Washington," it urges. Another offers tips on prostitution in Havana, touted these days as one of the world's top sex destinations.
Trying to make sense of Cuban cyberspace, computer experts at the Internet Factory in Detroit, put together a guide called CubaWeb. It's also billed as a grass-roots effort to build a communications bridge between Cubans on both sides of the divide.
With ever-tightening embargo legislation making it tougher for average Americans to see Cuba, the Internet is a virtual alternative, says CubaWeb's designer, Ros a Maria Caballero, herself a Cuban emigre. "What we are doing is creating an on-line virtual Cuban community of exiles and people on the island."
That's a tall order however, considering that computers are scarce in Cuba, and access to the Internet is tightly controlled by the government. Free access to information is the "dictator's dilemma," says Larry Press, an expert at California University who has studied Cuba's telecommunications infrastructure. "In spite of the political risks, Castro sees that modern communications and computer networks are necessary for the economy," he says.
As evidence of that, Cuba's first direct link to the net was hooked up in June, and a recent decree allows, in theory at least, domestic computer users to be connected.
But, in practice, even if they have a computer, few Cubans can access global information networks. To do so involves paying a foreign access company in dollars and dialing a telephone number abroad on a clean line.
Ordinary Cubans can only make overseas calls through the fuzzy operator- controlled lines. Special direct dial numbers with a 33 prefix are reserved for foreigners and approved state institutions and academic and research centers.
Another Internet service, CubaNet, has come up with a simple, if only partial, way around the problem. Based in West Palm Beach and run by volunteers as a "community service," CubaNet publishes alternative news from independent journalists in Cuba who are critical of the Castro government.
"We saw there was an absence of credible social information about Cuba and we thought who else more credible than people actually living in Cuba," said Omar Galloso, who runs CubaNet from an office in West Palm Beach.
Since the journalists are banned from publishing in Cuba, and are denied access to the Internet, CubaNet records their articles over the telephone and then transcribes onto the web site for a worldwide audience.
Despite the lack of computers, "there is an amazing amount of computer talent in Cuba," said Steve Cisler, a senior scientist at Apple Computer who has lectured in Havana on navigating the Internet.
The state-run Union of Young Communists runs more than 100 computer clubs around the country, he said, teaching computing, telecommunications and desktop publishing.
The worldwide Internet Society has also helped train Cuban "networkers" as part of a program to help developing countries master the computer age. Cisler feels the U.S. should do more to encourage the use of computers in Cuba, to encourage the free exchange of information with the democratic world.
While he was in Cuba two years ago he sent president Clinton an e-mail telling him that he was there "trying to extend the global information infrastructure, and that I hoped that he would facilitate that."
Money remains a major problem for Cuba's Internet capability. Until a few years ago the Soviet Union provided Cuba with a satellite telecommunications link, free of charge. But after the collapse of the Soviet bloc Cuba has had to make its own way on the Internet, forced to pay for services in hard currency. "A mailing list with light traffic could cost several dollars a day which is the equivalent to a month's salary," said Cisler.
When the Cuban government launched its own web site earlier this year, it resort ed to capitalist-style advertising. Among its on-line sponsors are a Canadian goldmining firm which operates in Cuba, and travel and freight companies. One not-so communist come-on entices net-surfers with this ad: "Want to Make a Lot of Money, Quickly and Easily? Internet Expert Reveals His Million Dollar Money Making Secrets."
Cuba's official web page also touts trips to a rum factory, the island's fine hotels and sandy beaches, as well as export ideas, including an effective rat killer, and electronic acupuncture equipment.
"The web page is a good way to see a Cuba that is not the one portrayed in the papers," said Juan Luis Ponce, a spokesman for the Cuban diplomatic mission in Washington. "Since the American people are prohibited from coming to Cuba, this is the best way to tell our story to them." But critics complain Cuba doesn't want too many people telling their stories. An advertised e-mail directory for the island is constantly unavailable.
Cuba says that in order to protect its citizens from the capitalist vices of cyb er-porn, access must be restricted. The government warns that information sent over the Internet from Cuba, "must be loyal to the country."
A special commission has been set up to control access, with priority being give n to "individuals and institutions which play the greatest role in the life and devel opment of the country."
Apple's Cisler offers an explanation. He recalls hearing a story in Havana about a subversive message that invaded local computer screens with the words "Abajo Fidel," Spanish for "Down with Fidel." Presumably sent from Miami, its contents were not only unwelcome, the charges for receiving that many e-mail messages may have been substantial, he says.
Researcher John Martin contributed to this article.