Activists say the Net has become an important tool for organizing actions and communicating across international borders. But in the debates surrounding Cuba, the Net is also used by modern-day pamphleteers to attract interest to their causes and spread their propaganda.

While few oppose the pope's visit, many are using it as an attention-getting device to express their opinions about Cuba's communist dictatorship, the U.S. blockade of Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act, which prohibits other countries from doing business with the island nation.

The Cuban-American National Foundation, a Miami-based anti-Fidel Castro group, made a splash by unveiling a human-rights exhibit Tuesday morning, the day before the pope was scheduled to arrive in Cuba. The organization, one of the more extremist of the Cuban exile groups, posted an emotional statement and promoted the human rights exhibit on its Web site.

The CANF is not alone in promoting its activities via cyberspace. Many other anti-Castro groups, including CubaNet, the Free Cuba Foundation and the Cuban Committee for Democracy, maintain elaborate Web sites, while on the other side of the fence, organizations like the International Action Center, which opposes the Cuba blockade, use the Web to keep in touch with supporters and to promote demonstrations and other events.

"A lot of solidarity work for Cuba and other causes happens on the Internet," said Dierdre Sinnott, an organizer and Web designer for the IAC. "It's often easier to get students involved using the Web and E-mail if [supporters] are spread out all over the place."

Activists also use listservs -- automatic E-mail mailing lists -- and newsgroups to keep informed; in some cases, demonstrators have written E-mail dispatches from the scene of an action, even as it is going on.

"The Internet is a source of many rumors as well," Sinnott added. "For example, the ever present and constant 'Fidel-has-passed-away' rumor that pops up every now and again. Even the [anti-Castro] groups in Miami have to say 'we won't believe it until we see it.'"

One group whose voice isn't often heard online is the Cuban population. Because of an antiquated telephone system, the expenses and scarcity of computer equipment, and the lack of a direct Internet connection, ordinary Cubans are in no position to construct Web pages, post messages to a newsgroup or send E-mail messages. (See: Cubans take advantage of the Net)

CubaNet, a nonprofit group with bureaus in several countries, aims to give Cuban nationals a voice in cyberspace by posting communiques from Cuba's underground democracy movement. The messages appear on CubaNet's news site, which runs daily Cuba-related news, and is also E-mailed into several sites within Cuba. "The material which is sent into Cuba ... is posted on the Internet in Spanish and English, offering millions of readers worldwide the opportunity to hear the perspective of the Cuban Opposition," said a statement on CubaNet's site.

Usenet offers several newsgroups on Cuba, the most prominent of which is soc.culture.cuba.