US embassy cable - 05SANSALVADOR3214

UNCLAS SAN SALVADOR 003214 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INR/R/MR, WHA/CEN, WHA/PDA, R, IIP/T/GIC 
AMEMBASSIES FOR PAS, POL, USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KMDR, ES, KPAO, MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE ACCOUNT 
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: MILLENNIUM ACCOUNT / ICANN 
 
 
1.  Millennium Challenge Account 
 
"Namibia and El Salvador," op-ed in moderate "La Prensa 
Grfica "(circ. 100,000) on Sunday, November 13, by 
columnist and National Development Commission member Sandra 
de Barraza: 
 
"Namibia is now getting national attention because we will 
be competing against this country for US$450 million of 
Millennium Challenge Account funds. 
 
"Both countries are far behind nations with a greater per 
capita income; this is evidenced in annual growth rates of 
less than two percent in both countries. 
 
"With the Millennium Account, the northern part of our 
country has an opportunity for integral development.  [El 
Salvador] also has the opportunity.to diminish poverty.,  to 
develop management styles based on effectiveness, to fortify 
international alliances for development, to strengthen 
democracy, and to maintain an indefatigable fight against 
corruption.  This is a winning situation for all." 
 
2.  ICANN 
 
"Who governs information," op-ed in moderate daily La Prensa 
Grfica (circ. 100,000) on Sunday, November 13, by Margarita 
Funes, editor of the paper's on-line edition: 
 
"The European Union was the first to withdraw its support 
for the Internet Commission on Assigned Names and Numbers 
(ICANN), requesting that administrative control be yielded 
to other countries. This week, at the World Summit on the 
Information Society, countries like Brazil, China, Cuba and 
Iran will request the creation of an international entity to 
govern the Internet. Others will request greater UN 
participation in ICANN. 
 
"The United States is against giving up its administration 
of the World-Wide Web. The U.S. arguments are, first, that 
since it was created, the system has worked efficiently. 
Second, they are appealing to fears that countries with 
little freedom of expression--like Cuba or China--could 
meddle with it in a way that would make [the Internet] lose 
the essence of why it was created: to be free." 
 
 
"The owner of the Internet," op-ed by Mexican journalist, 
columnist, and Univisin personality Jorge Ramos in the 
Sunday, November 13 edition of moderate La Prensa Grfica 
(circ. 100,000): 
 
"If I ask `Who owns the Internet?', the most probable answer 
is `We all do.'  Or, perhaps, `No one does.'  Both answers 
are wrong.  The U.S. owns the Internet, although it lends it 
to the rest of the world, and that is precisely what many 
countries want to change. 
 
"The U.S. had considered ceding control over the Internet to 
an international entity in 2006.  Nevertheless, it just 
changed its mind. 
 
"Because the Internet is fundamental to the U.S. economy and 
d 
society, President Bush's government does not want to risk 
it falling into anti-American or unfriendly hands. 
 
"If the Internet, for example, were controlled by an 
international entity, dictatorships like those in Cuba, 
China and Saudi Arabia, or authoritarian governments like 
the one in Venezuela, could censor information that 
questioned their regimes. Or worse, they could request the 
names, addresses and telephone numbers of those who 
criticize them through the Internet and then look for them 
and jail them under any excuse. 
 
"It is enough to say that the Internet was a U.S. idea, 
administered for more than four decades by Americans, with 
U.S. technology.  The United States is not about to give 
away its most important invention since television." 
 
BARCLAY