Cuba Independiente Zeroes in on Castroite Blogger Yohandry

   

Laz at Cuba Independiente is continuing his very fine work of keeping tabs on the Castroite Blogger who uses the pseudonym "Yohandry," who I have examined myself in a recent post.  This past Thursday Laz put up an excellent examination of Yohandry, in which he uses a little touch of excess to drive home a simple point that is becoming increasingly hard to deny -- Yohandry is not one blogger, but rather a group.  And the significance of this observation is that it is becoming increasingly apparent that the attacks on Yoani are an organized effort on the part of the regime to discredit her.

I would like to post a translation of the first four paragraphs of Laz's article, which get to the heart of the issue:

"The individual who calls himself Yohandry Fontana Guethon [he has forgotten the 2nd lastname in his new blog] who at one time confessed that he was directly responsible, under different pseudonyms, for 90% of the comments that were made in Generacion Y, which itself is a full-time job with several extra hours a day incompatible with his declared profession of doctor.  Bear in mind that on average a Yoani post generates about 3000 comments, for which Yohandry averaged some 2,700 comments.  Assuming that Yohandry sleeps about 7 hours a day and takes another two hours to eat, bathe, and one hour to read what Yoani posts, to receive guidance and read el Granma, we would have his maximum available time at 14 hours.  So to get up to 2700 comments, Yohandry has to post them at a reasonable rate of 192.86 per hour or by the same count, 3.21 comments per minute.  If someone can demonstrate that he can do this day after day, the best thing they can do is to summon the Guinness judge because he has an assured record. But that is not all, Yohandry states that he is a doctor and works as such, for which he would have to deduct another 8 hours minimum [I am not considering the trip back and forth to work because Yohandry could be a family physician who lives on the 2nd floor of the clinic.  Neither am I leaving out the time to do his "errands," union meetings, party meetings, meetings with his commander nor those which any doctor has in the clinic and the town.]; for which the real maximum effective time that Yohandry can dedicate to commenting in Yoani's blog is itself limited to 6 hours daily [14-8] and then Yohandry's efficiency and productivity reaches inhuman levels:  450 comments per hour or 7.5 per minute and if a Yohandry comment is 30 words, then he writes at the incredible speed of 225 words per minute!!! On the other hand Yohandry says that he is 37 years old, for which he would have been born in the year 1970 or 1971; while the fashion of names that begin with "Y" in Cuba began in the 2nd half of the 70's with its boom in the 80's as Yoani explains clearly.  It is not impossible, but it is unlikely that a child born in Cuba in the year 1970 or 1971 has a name that begins with "Y" and that their parents chose a name quite unusual for the time of the cane harvest of the 10 million volunteers, when Bolshevik names were the fashion, Vladimir, Natasha, Nadia, and so on. In a world where uncertainty reigns and the truth is more relative than ever, the sensible analysis of the circumstances of the person Yohandry indicate that he is not one person but a group that has the mission of deploying an ideological offensive from Havana in the blog world. . . ."

Laz goes on to point out that the Cuban government has been open about its plans to use the internet to propagandize the regime and he gives examples to get to the point that "Yohandry is only a crude way to put into practice the concepts that the leadership in Cuba has publicly expressed about the 'ideological battle' on the Internet."  And he continues with one of Yohandry's recent blogs which he introduces in the context of its presentation, which strengthens his point further.

I believe Laz is correct.  Yohandry cannot be one person and it is not an accident that he is getting so much publicity from official circles in Havana.

Buen Hecho Laz!

StJacques