Newsweek revela otros planes de Estados Unidos contra Cuba
Publicado el 10
abril, 2014 de siempreconcuba
Washington, 10 abr.- La revista Newsweek revela hoy otros planes de
Estados Unidos para desestabilizar al gobierno de Cuba, que se suman
al denunciado programa secreto denominado ZunZuneo, de la Agencia
Estadounidense de Desarrollo Internacional (USAID), para crear una
red tipo Twitter en la Isla.
En una amplio reportaje del periodista Jeff Stein, titulado “Bahía
de Cochinos: Cómo los masones se vieron involucrados en un complot
para derrocar a Castro”, se revela la participación de Akram
Elías, ex Gran Maestro de la Gran Logia de Washington, en una
operación encubierta de la USAID para provocar un cambio de régimen
en la Isla.
Newsweek ofrece detalles de la trama que involucró a Elías -a quien
llama “espía amateur atrapado en otra trama irresponsable para
derrocar al régimen cubano”- no solo con los planes para derrocar
el gobierno de la Isla, sino con el gobierno sirio, intentando
proveer a ambos países de supuestas capacidades tecnológicas de las
redes de infocomunicaciones.
Califica de extraño que Elías, según su sitio web Capital Group
Communications, tenía contratos de relaciones públicas con 18
agencias de Seguridad Nacional en el gobierno de Barack Obama,
incluyendo el Departamento de Justicia, el Departamento de Estado, la
Administración de Control de Drogas y el Departamento de Seguridad
Nacional.
También era un jugador clave en una campaña de larga duración de
la Agencia de Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional para
socavar el régimen de Cuba, sostiene la publicación.
¿Por qué Elías? ¿Por qué Cuba?, se pregunta Newsweek. “Porque,
en otro giro extraño aquí, Elías era un alto oficial de la
masonería, centenaria organización protestante y con una larga
historia en Cuba, oportunidad que aprovecharon los ideólogos
derechistas de la USAID para darle otro giro a la carrera en el
derrocamiento del régimen comunista, apunta.
Añade que en 2009, Akram Elias estuvo en La Habana para sostener una
reunión con Alan Gross, un subcontratista de la USAID, que en
diciembre de ese año fue arrestado por introducir ilegalmente
equipos de comunicaciones avanzadas de Internet.
De acuerdo con un documento presentado por las autoridades cubanas
durante su sentencia en 2011, Gross recibió una llamada en
Washington en noviembre de 2009 de Elías, “un ex Gran Oficial de
la Washington Masonic Lodge, que se caracteriza por su clara
oposición al sistema político cubano”, consiga la fuente.
En esta reunión, según el documento de la sentencia del tribunal
cubano, Elías dijo que había pensado en instalar el sistema del
acusado en las logias masónicas de Cuba.
Un año después del arresto de Gross, la USAID “decidió
clandestinamente lanzar una red al estilo de Twitter cubano
supuestamente independiente, llamada ZunZuneo, a través de una red
de empresas fantasmas en un programa de acción encubierta”, añade
el sitio digital de Newsweek.
Para rematar, Newsweek asegura que tal vez la palabra “estúpido”
no es suficiente para describir el proyecto Zunzuneo, teniendo en
cuenta la agenda de los planificadores detrás de estos proyectos de
la USAID.
“No se trataba de ser eficaz”, explicó a la revista Fulton
Armstrong, un alto exfuncionario de la CIA y la Casa Blanca, quien
trabajó como Oficial Nacional de Inteligencia para América Latina.
“Ellos saben que no van a derrocar al régimen. Ellos saben que sus
agentes en la isla son en su mayoría oportunistas, y que el gobierno
cubano ha demostrado que muchos de los opositores que se benefician
con nuestra ayuda son en realidad sus agentes.”
Armstrong también declaró que la USAID aplastó una oportunidad
para liberar a Alan Gross en 2010. Dijo que esa agencia no le informó
a la Casa Blanca sobre las operaciones secretas para provocar un
cambio de régimen.
ZunZuneo consagra a los 5
Publicado el 11 de abril por Gustavo
Espinoza M
Luego de conocido el denominado “Plan ZunZuneo” impulsado por el
gobierno de los Estados Unidos contra Cuba, cualquier persona bien
intencionada tendría que justificar plenamente las actividades
desarrolladas por René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero
Gerardo Hernández y Fernando González Llort en los últimos años
del siglo pasado para proteger a su país del accionar terrorista
impulsado por el Imperio desde hace más de cincuenta años. El tema,
los consagra.
Y es que la denuncia del citado plan muestra a cabalidad no sólo la
obscena tenacidad con la que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos se
empeña en doblegar la resistencia de Cuba -de su pueblo y de su
gobierno-; sino que pone en evidencia, también, el uso que la
administración yanqui le da a instituciones formalmente dedicadas a
la promoción del Desarrollo, como es el caso de la USAID, que
termina actuando como un simple canal de la Agencia Central de
Inteligencia, la tristemente célebre CIA, tan conocida y vapuleada
en el mundo.
Adicionalmente hay que admitir también que la Inteligencia Cubana
tuvo el mérito de detectar el nivel y las modalidades de la ofensiva
norteamericana contra su país y actuó en consonancia con su
responsabilidad. No solamente evitó numerosos actos terroristas,
sino que, adicionalmente, vislumbró operativos de alta tecnología,
como los que se impulsaran preferentemente en el siglo XXI
La Operación ZunZuneo tuvo un carácter simple: consistió en
activar una red destinada a llegar por medios electrónicos, a
decenas de miles de receptores en La Habana y otras ciudades de Cuba
para alentar la “disidencia” y promover un “alzamiento cívico”
contra el gobierno de Raúl Castro. Sólo que se trataba de una
“misión discreta”, al decir de Rahij Shad, Administrador de
USAID; o más bien secreta como lo señalara en su momento el
gobierno de Cuba.
Fue, además, una operación clandestina en todas sus formas. No solo
porque operó ilegalmente y a la sombra, sino porque, además, tuvo
objetivos y propósitos inconfesables, que no habría admitido ante
sus usuarios en ningún caso; y un financiamiento que habría negado
en todos los idiomas: los cuantiosos recursos indispensables para
ejecutarla, provenían de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica.
Ninguna novedad, por cierto. Los latinoamericanos ya sabemos cómo se
preparan los operativos destinados a derribar gobiernos opuestos a
Washington. Los vimos en toda su dimensión, desde la Guatemala de
Arévalo y Arbenz y los seguimos viendo en nuestro tiempo cada día
contra Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia y todos los gobiernos que hacen
resistencia al Imperio, o que obstaculizan sus planes de dominación.
No olvidamos que precisamente en estos días se cumplen 50 años del
Golpe Militar impuesto por la Escuela Superior de Guerra del Brasil,
y que marcó la caída del gobierno democrático de Joao Goulart. Los
militares brasileños, a su modo, se valieron de todos los ardides de
la tecnología de entonces para sorprender a la opinión ciudadana y
engañaron a millones.
Hicieron creer -es decir, mintieron a sabiendas- diciendo que el
régimen depuesto “se enrumbaba hacia el comunismo”, y lo
derrocaron en nombre de Dios, la Familia y la Propiedad, combinando
acciones terroristas con gigantescas “passeatas” alentadas por
Carlos Lacerda, el gobernador Magallhaes Pinto y la “prensa
grande”. Manipulando todo, detrás de las bambalinas estaba, por
cierto, la embajada yanqui.
En esta historia, y a lo largo del tiempo, situamos incluso al Perú,
porque aquí también, en los años de Velasco Alvarado, hubo
atentados y acciones terroristas preparadas por la Inteligencia
norteamericana y ejecutadas por Servicios Secretos a su mando. Los
explosivos colocados en las viviendas de los vicealmirantes Larco Cox
y FauraGaig no hicieron sino mostrar cuál fue la mano que accionó
los ataques a los barcos cubanos en la rada del Callao.
Esas mismas acciones se ejecutan hoy en Venezuela, como ha quedado
demostrado de manera fehaciente. Y es que en nuestros días, el
terrorismo -que nunca fue en ninguna parte un método de acción
revolucionario- se integra con todo su contenido de desesperación,
al arsenal de los servicios secretos de los Estados Unidos y sus
acólitos en todos los confines del planeta.
Los 5, tuvieron la entereza de enfrentarse a ese monstruo y poner en
evidencia su capacidad destructiva. Por eso fueron acosados,
capturados y finalmente sentenciados a penas inicuas. Dos de ellos
recuperaron ya su libertad, pero aun Ramón, Antonio y Gerardo están
privados de la suya. Si nos atenemos a los procedimientos seguidos
hasta hoy, está claro que la voluntad del Imperio es que, por lo
menos, Gerardo Hernández muera en prisión. Eso, no se puede
permitir.
La iniciativa del Presidente del Uruguay, José Mujica, plantea una
salida razonable al tema. Si la administración Obama quiere -como
dice querer- cerrar definitivamente el centro clandestino de
reclusión que mantiene ilegalmente en Guantánamo; tiene la
posibilidad real de ceder a cinco de los presos que tiene allí, al
Estado Uruguayo, que está dispuesto a recibirlos a cambio que el
Presidente Norteamericano libere a los tres rehenes del Imperio.
Y es bueno que el señor Obama tome nota de esta propuesta y la lleve
a la práctica porque así podrá matar dos pájaros de un tiro:
librarse de la deplorable imagen que le genera ante el mundo el tener
presos ilegales en Guantánamo, y deshacerse de un asunto que ya le
cuesta mucho, porque en el mundo crece día a día la solidaridad con
los antiterroristas cubanos injustamente encarcelados.
Pero adicionalmente Estados Unidos debe sopesar lo que le significa
para su relación con el mundo el papel que le ha asignado a USAID.
En el Perú, como ocurre con seguridad en otros países, hay
instituciones de distinto signo, dedicadas a diversas tareas, que
mantienen vínculos con USAID, que alientan proyectos y programas de
cooperación y colaboración, en el entendido que, en efecto, USAID
es una organización que promueve el desarrollo y asiste a los
gobiernos y a las entidades privadas en la lucha por concretar
objetivos loables.
¿Cómo actuarán esas personas e instituciones ahora, cuando se sabe
de manera confirmada que USAID no es otra cosa que el taparrabo de la
CIA, y que sirve para encubrir el ilegal financiamiento de
operaciones clandestinas contra pueblos y países?
¿Qué dirán las instituciones educativas, o las ONGs que reciben
recursos de USAID para sus planes y proyectos?
¿Cómo reaccionarán todos aquellos que, de buena fe, pensaron
siempre que USAID era una entidad honorable en la que podían confiar
para financiar iniciativas y proyectos sanamente orientados?
En el Perú, la lucha solidaria con la causa de los 5, cumplirá en
el mes de agosto doce años de trabajo ininterrumpido. En ese tiempo
-equivalente también a 144 meses o 3,280 días, se han desarrollado
eventos, marchas, mítines, exposiciones de pintura, recitales
poéticos, plantones, declaraciones públicas, recolección y envío
de firmas, asambleas obreras, llamamientos, memoriales, actos
solemnes, o movilizaciones callejeras; y muchas otras acciones.
En este esfuerzo se han hecho presentes muchos. Pero sobre todo
intelectuales, jóvenes, mujeres y colectivos solidarios para los que
el tema de los 5 se ha convertido en una fuente inspiradora de
acciones y de luchas.
Para esta tarea, no se ha desestimado nada, a fin de dar cabida a una
solidaridad limpia, natural, activa, que responda a la voluntad
siempre alta de los peruanos cuando se trata de la causa de Cuba.
Hoy, que la “operación ZunZuneo” ha puesto en evidencia las
nuevas modalidades subversivas de los servicios secretos de los
Estados Unidos, la solidaridad peruana alcanzará niveles más altos
Y es que, en efecto, este curioso “programa” yanqui, no hace otra
cosa que consagrar la causa de los 5.
(*) Presidente del Comité Peruano de Solidaridad con los 5.
US secretly created 'Cuban Twitter' to stir
unrest
By DESMOND
BUTLER, JACK
GILLUM and ALBERTO
ARCE
* Copyright 2014 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a
U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches
on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining
Cuba's communist government.
McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had
come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their
mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of
thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government,
they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a
Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit unsuspecting executives who
would not be told of the company's ties to the U.S. government.
McSpedon didn't work for the CIA. This was a
program paid for and run by the U.S. Agency for International
Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in U.S.
humanitarian aid.
According to documents obtained by The Associated
Press and multiple interviews with people involved in the project,
the plan was to develop a bare-bones "Cuban Twitter," using
cellphone text messaging to evade Cuba's strict control of
information and its stranglehold restrictions over the Internet. In a
play on Twitter, it was called ZunZuneo — slang for a Cuban
hummingbird's tweet.
Documents show the U.S. government planned to
build a subscriber base through "non-controversial content":
news messages on soccer, music, and hurricane updates. Later when the
network reached a critical mass of subscribers, perhaps hundreds of
thousands, operators would introduce political content aimed at
inspiring Cubans to organize "smart mobs" — mass
gatherings called at a moment's notice that might trigger a Cuban
Spring, or, as one USAID document put it, "renegotiate the
balance of power between the state and society."
At its peak, the project drew in more than 40,000
Cubans to share news and exchange opinions. But its subscribers were
never aware it was created by the U.S. government, or that American
contractors were gathering their private data in the hope that it
might be used for political purposes.
"There will be absolutely no mention of
United States government involvement," according to a 2010 memo
from Mobile Accord, one of the project's contractors. "This is
absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the service and to
ensure the success of the Mission."
The program's legality is unclear: U.S. law
requires that any covert action by a federal agency must have a
presidential authorization. Officials at USAID would not say who had
approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it.
McSpedon, the most senior official named in the documents obtained by
the AP, is a mid-level manager who declined to comment.
USAID spokesman Matt Herrick said the agency is
proud of its Cuba programs and noted that congressional investigators
reviewed them last year and found them to be consistent with U.S.
law.
"USAID is a development agency, not an
intelligence agency, and we work all over the world to help people
exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms, and give them access
to tools to improve their lives and connect with the outside world,"
he said.
"In the implementation," he added, "has
the government taken steps to be discreet in non-permissive
environments? Of course. That's how you protect the practitioners and
the public. In hostile environments, we often take steps to protect
the partners we're working with on the ground. This is not unique to
Cuba."
But the ZunZuneo program muddies those claims, a
sensitive issue for its mission to promote democracy and deliver aid
to the world's poor and vulnerable — which requires the trust of
foreign governments.
"On the face of it there are several aspects
about this that are troubling," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
and chairman of the Appropriations Committee's State Department and
foreign operations subcommittee.
"There is the risk to young, unsuspecting
Cuban cellphone users who had no idea this was a U.S.
government-funded activity. There is the clandestine nature of the
program that was not disclosed to the appropriations subcommittee
with oversight responsibility. And there is the disturbing fact that
it apparently activated shortly after Alan Gross, a USAID
subcontractor who was sent to Cuba to help provide citizens access to
the Internet, was arrested."
The Associated Press obtained more than 1,000
pages of documents about the project's development. The AP
independently verified the project's scope and details in the
documents — such as federal contract numbers and names of job
candidates — through publicly available databases, government
sources and interviews with those directly involved in ZunZuneo.
Taken together, they tell the story of how agents
of the U.S. government, working in deep secrecy, became tech
entrepreneurs — in Cuba. And it all began with a half a million
cellphone numbers obtained from a communist government.
____
ZunZuneo would seem to be a throwback from the
Cold War, and the decades-long struggle between the United States and
Cuba. It came at a time when the historically sour relationship
between the countries had improved, at least marginally, and Cuba had
made tentative steps toward a more market-based economy.
It is unclear whether the plan got its start with
USAID or Creative Associates International, a Washington, D.C.,
for-profit company that has earned hundreds of millions of dollars in
U.S. contracts. But a "key contact" at Cubacel, the
state-owned cellphone provider, slipped the phone numbers to a Cuban
engineer living in Spain. The engineer provided the numbers to USAID
and Creative Associates "free of charge," documents show.
In mid-2009, Noy Villalobos, a manager with
Creative Associates who had worked with USAID in the 1990s on a
program to eradicate drug crops, started an IM chat with her little
brother in Nicaragua, according to a Creative Associates email that
captured the conversation. Mario Bernheim, in his mid-20s, was an
up-and-coming techie who had made a name for himself as a computer
whiz.
"This is very confidential of course,"
Villalobos cautioned her brother. But what could you do if you had
all the cellphone numbers of a particular country? Could you send
bulk text messages without the government knowing?
"Can you encrypt it or something?" she
texted.
She was looking for a direct line to regular
Cubans through text messaging. Most had precious little access to
news from the outside world. The government viewed the Internet as an
Achilles' heel and controlled it accordingly. A communications
minister had even referred to it as a "wild colt" that
"should be tamed."
Yet in the years since Fidel Castro handed over
power to his brother Raul, Cuba had sought to jumpstart the long
stagnant economy. Raul Castro began encouraging cellphone use, and
hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly using mobile phones for
the first time, though smartphones with access to the Internet
remained restricted.
Cubans could text message, though at a high cost
in a country where the average wage was a mere $20 a month.
Bernheim told his sister that he could figure out
a way to send instant texts to hundreds of thousands of Cubans— for
cheap. It could not be encrypted though, because that would be too
complicated. They wouldn't be able to hide the messages from the
Cuban government, which owned Cubacel. But they could disguise who
was sending the texts by constantly switching the countries the
messages came from.
"We could rotate it from different
countries?" Villalobos asked. "Say one message from Nica,
another from Spain, another from Mexico"?
Bernheim could do that. "But I would need
mirrors set up around the world, mirrors, meaning the same computer,
running with the same platform, with the same phone."
"No hay problema," he signed off. No
problem.
___
After the chat, Creative hired Bernheim as a
subcontractor, reporting to his sister. (Villalobos and Bernheim
would later confirm their involvement with the ZunZuneo project to
AP, but decline further comment.) Bernheim, in turn, signed up the
Cuban engineer who had gotten the phone list. The team figured out
how to message the masses without detection, but their ambitions were
bigger.
Creative Associates envisioned using the list to
create a social networking system that would be called "Proyecto
ZZ," or "Project ZZ." The service would start
cautiously and be marketed chiefly to young Cubans, who USAID saw as
the most open to political change.
"We should gradually increase the risk,"
USAID proposed in a document. It advocated using "smart mobs"
only in "critical/opportunistic situations and not at the
detriment of our core platform-based network."
USAID's team of contractors and subcontractors
built a companion website to its text service so Cubans could
subscribe, give feedback and send their own text messages for free.
They talked about how to make the website look like a real business.
"Mock ad banners will give it the appearance of a commercial
enterprise," a proposal suggested.
In multiple documents, USAID staff pointed out
that text messaging had mobilized smart mobs and political uprisings
in Moldova and the Philippines, among others. In Iran, the USAID
noted social media's role following the disputed election of then
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009 — and saw it as an
important foreign policy tool.
USAID documents say their strategic objective in
Cuba was to "push it out of a stalemate through tactical and
temporary initiatives, and get the transition process going again
towards democratic change." Democratic change in authoritarian
Cuba meant breaking the Castros' grip on power.
USAID divided Cuban society into five segments
depending on loyalty to the government. On one side sat the
"democratic movement," called "still (largely)
irrelevant," and at the other end were the "hard-core
system supporters," dubbed "Talibanes" in a derogatory
comparison to Afghan and Pakistani extremists.
A key question was how to move more people toward
the democratic activist camp without detection. Bernheim assured the
team that wouldn't be a problem.
"The Cuban government, like other regimes
committed to information control, currently lacks the capacity to
effectively monitor and control such a service," Bernheim wrote
in a proposal for USAID marked "Sensitive Information."
ZunZuneo would use the list of phone numbers to
break Cuba's Internet embargo and not only deliver information to
Cubans but also let them interact with each other in a way the
government could not control. Eventually it would build a system that
would let Cubans send messages anonymously among themselves.
At a strategy meeting, the company discussed
building "user volume as a cover ... for organization,"
according to meeting notes. It also suggested that the "Landscape
needs to be large enough to hide full opposition members who may sign
up for service."
In a play on the telecommunication minister's
quote, the team dubbed their network the "untamed colt."
___
At first, the ZunZuneo team operated out of
Central America. Bernheim, the techie brother, worked from
Nicaragua's capital, Managua, while McSpedon supervised Creative's
work on ZunZuneo from an office in San Jose, Costa Rica, though
separate from the U.S. embassy. It was an unusual arrangement that
raised eyebrows in Washington, according to U.S. officials.
McSpedon worked for USAID's Office of Transition
Initiatives (OTI), a division that was created after the fall of the
Soviet Union to promote U.S. interests in quickly changing political
environments — without the usual red tape.
In 2009, a report by congressional researchers
warned that OTI's work "often lends itself to political
entanglements that may have diplomatic implications." Staffers
on oversight committees complained that USAID was running secret
programs and would not provide details.
"We were told we couldn't even be told in
broad terms what was happening because 'people will die,'" said
Fulton Armstrong, who worked for the Senate Foreign Relations
committee. Before that, he was the US intelligence community's most
senior analyst on Latin America, advising the Clinton White House.
The money that Creative Associates spent on
ZunZuneo was publicly earmarked for an unspecified project in
Pakistan, government data show. But there is no indication of where
the funds were actually spent.
Tensions with Congress spiked just as the ZunZuneo
project was gearing up in December 2009, when another USAID program
ended in the arrest of the U.S. contractor, Alan Gross. Gross had
traveled repeatedly to Cuba on a secret mission to expand Internet
access using sensitive technology typically available only to
governments, a mission first revealed in February 2012 by AP.
At some point, Armstrong says, the foreign
relations committee became aware of OTI's secret operations in Costa
Rica. U.S. government officials acknowledged them privately to
Armstrong, but USAID refused to provide operational details.
At an event in Washington, Armstrong says he
confronted McSpedon, asking him if he was aware that by operating
secret programs from a third country, it might appear like he worked
for an intelligence agency.
McSpedon, through USAID, said the story is not
true. He declined to comment otherwise.
___
On Sept. 20, 2009, thousands of Cubans gathered at
Revolution Plaza in Havana for Colombian rocker Juanes' "Peace
without Borders" concert. It was the largest public gathering in
Cuba since the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1998. Under the watchful
gaze of a giant sculpture of revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che"
Guevara, the Miami-based Juanes promised music aimed at "turning
hate into love."
But for the ZunZuneo team, the concert was a
perfect opportunity to test the political power of their budding
social network. In the weeks before, Bernheim's firm, using the phone
list, sent out a half a million text messages in what it called
"blasts," to test what the Cuban government would do.
The team hired AlenLauzan Falcon, a Havana-born
satirical artist based in Chile, to write Cuban-style messages. Some
were mildly political and comical, others more pointed. One asked
respondents whether they thought two popular local music acts out of
favor with the government should join the stage with Juanes. Some
100,000 people responded — not realizing the poll was used to
gather critical intelligence.
Paula Cambronero, a researcher for Mobile Accord,
began building a vast database about the Cuban subscribers, including
gender, age, "receptiveness" and "political
tendencies." USAID believed the demographics on dissent could
help it target its other Cuba programs and "maximize our
possibilities to extend our reach."
Cambronero concluded that the team had to be
careful. "Messages with a humorous connotation should not
contain a strong political tendency, so as not to create animosity in
the recipients," she wrote in a report.
Falcon, in an interview, said he was never told
that he was composing messages for a U.S. government program, but he
had no regrets about his involvement.
"They didn't tell me anything, and if they
had, I would have done it anyway," he said. "In Cuba they
don't have freedom. While a government forces me to pay in order to
visit my country, makes me ask permission, and limits my
communications, I will be against it, whether it's Fidel Castro,
(Cuban exile leader) Jorge Mas Canosa or Gloria Estefan," the
Cuban American singer.
Carlos Sanchez Almeida, a lawyer specializing in
European data protection law, said it appeared that the U.S. program
violated Spanish privacy laws because the ZunZuneo team had illegally
gathered personal data from the phone list and sent unsolicited
emails using a Spanish platform. "The illegal release of
information is a crime, and using information to create a list of
people by political affiliation is totally prohibited by Spanish
law," Almeida said. It would violate a U.S-European data
protection agreement, he said.
USAID saw evidence from server records that Havana
had tried to trace the texts, to break into ZunZuneo's servers, and
had occasionally blocked messages. But USAID called the response
"timid" and concluded that ZunZuneo would be viable — if
its origins stayed secret.
Even though Cuba has one of the most sophisticated
counter-intelligence operations in the world, the ZunZuneo team
thought that as long as the message service looked benign, Cubacel
would leave it alone.
Once the network had critical mass, Creative and
USAID documents argued, it would be harder for the Cuban government
to shut it down, both because of popular demand and because Cubacel
would be addicted to the revenues from the text messages.
In February 2010, the company introduced Cubans to
ZunZuneo and began marketing. Within six months, it had almost 25,000
subscribers, growing faster and drawing more attention than the USAID
team could control.
___
Saimi Reyes Carmona was a journalism student at
the University of Havana when she stumbled onto ZunZuneo. She was
intrigued by the service's novelty, and the price. The advertisement
said "free messages" so she signed up using her nickname,
Saimita.
At first, ZunZuneo was a very tiny platform, Reyes
said during a recent interview in Havana, but one day she went to its
website and saw its services had expanded.
"I began sending one message every day,"
she said, the maximum allowed at the start. "I didn't have
practically any followers." She was thrilled every time she got
a new one.
And then ZunZuneo exploded in popularity.
"The whole world wanted in, and in a question
of months I had 2,000 followers who I have no idea who they are, nor
where they came from."
She let her followers know the day of her
birthday, and was surprised when she got some 15 personal messages.
"This is the coolest thing I've ever seen!" she told her
boyfriend, Ernesto Guerra Valdes, also a journalism student.
Before long, Reyes learned she had the second
highest number of followers on the island, after a user called UCI,
which the students figured was Havana's University of Computer
Sciences. Her boyfriend had 1,000. The two were amazed at the reach
it gave them.
"It was such a marvelous thing," Guerra
said. "So noble." He and Reyes tried to figure out who was
behind ZunZuneo, since the technology to run it had to be expensive,
but they found nothing. They were grateful though.
"We always found it strange, that generosity
and kindness," he said. ZunZuneo was "the fairy godmother
of cellphones."
___
By early 2010, Creative decided that ZunZuneo was
so popular Bernheim's company wasn't sophisticated enough to build,
in effect, "a scaled down version of Twitter."
It turned to another young techie, James Eberhard,
CEO of Denver-based Mobile Accord Inc. Eberhard had pioneered the use
of text messaging for donations during disasters and had raised tens
of millions of dollars after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Eberhard earned millions in his mid-20s when he
sold a company that developed cellphone ring tones and games. His
company's website describes him as "a visionary within the
global mobile community."
In July, he flew to Barcelona to join McSpedon,
Bernheim, and others to work out what they called a "below the
radar strategy."
"If it is discovered that the platform is, or
ever was, backed by the United States government, not only do we risk
the channel being shut down by Cubacel, but we risk the credibility
of the platform as a source of reliable information, education, and
empowerment in the eyes of the Cuban people," Mobile Accord
noted in a memo.
To cover their tracks, they decided to have a
company based in the United Kingdom set up a corporation in Spain to
run ZunZuneo. A separate company called MovilChat was created in the
Cayman Islands, a well-known offshore tax haven, with an account at
the island's Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd. to pay the
bills.
A memo of the meeting in Barcelona says that the
front companies would distance ZunZuneo from any U.S. ownership so
that the "money trail will not trace back to America."
But it wasn't just the money they were worried
about. They had to hide the origins of the texts, according to
documents and interviews with team members.
Brad Blanken, the former chief operating officer
of Mobile Accord, left the project early on, but noted that there
were two main criteria for success.
"The biggest challenge with creating
something like this is getting the phone numbers," Blanken said.
"And then the ability to spoof the network."
The team of contractors set up servers in Spain
and Ireland to process texts, contracting an independent Spanish
company called Lleida.net to send the text messages back to Cuba,
while stripping off identifying data.
Mobile Accord also sought intelligence from
engineers at the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, which
organizers said would "have knowledge of Cubacel's network."
"Understanding the security and monitoring
protocols of Cubacel will be an invaluable asset to avoid unnecessary
detection by the carrier," one Mobile Accord memo read.
Officials at USAID realized however, that they
could not conceal their involvement forever — unless they left the
stage. The predicament was summarized bluntly when Eberhard was in
Washington for a strategy session in early February 2011, where his
company noted the "inherent contradiction" of giving Cubans
a platform for communications uninfluenced by their government that
was in fact financed by the U.S. government and influenced by its
agenda.
They turned to Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of
Twitter, to seek funding for the project. Documents show Dorsey met
with Suzanne Hall, a State Department officer who worked on social
media projects, and others. Dorsey declined to comment.
The State Department under then-Secretary Hillary
Rodham Clinton thought social media was an important tool in
diplomacy. At a 2011 speech at George Washington University, Clinton
said the U.S. helped people in "oppressive Internet environments
get around filters." In Tunisia, she said people used technology
to "organize and share grievances, which, as we know, helped
fuel a movement that led to revolutionary change."
Ultimately, the solution was new management that
could separate ZunZuneo from its U.S. origins and raise enough
revenue for it to go "independent," even as it kept its
long-term strategy to bring about "democratic change."
Eberhard led the recruitment efforts, a sensitive
operation because he intended to keep the management of the Spanish
company in the dark.
"The ZZ management team will have no
knowledge of the true origin of the operation; as far as they know,
the platform was established by Mobile Accord," the memo said.
"There should be zero doubt in management's mind and no
insecurities or concerns about United States Government involvement."
The memo went on to say that the CEO's clean
conscience would be "particularly critical when dealing with
Cubacel." Sensitive to the high cost of text messages for
average Cubans, ZunZuneo negotiated a bulk rate for texts at 4 cents
a pop through a Spanish intermediary. Documents show there was hope
that an earnest, clueless CEO might be able to persuade Cubacel to
back the project.
Mobile Accord considered a dozen candidates from
five countries to head the Spanish front company. One of them was
Francoise de Valera, a CEO who was vacationing in Dubai when she was
approached for an interview. She flew to Barcelona. At the luxury
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, she met with Nim Patel, who at the time was
Mobile Accord's president. Eberhard had also flown in for the
interviews. But she said she couldn't get a straight answer about
what they were looking for.
"They talked to me about instant messaging
but nothing about Cuba, or the United States," she told the AP
in an interview from London.
"If I had been offered and accepted the role,
I believe that sooner or later it would have become apparent to me
that something wasn't right," she said.
___
By early 2011, Creative Associates grew
exasperated with Mobile Accord's failure to make ZunZuneo
self-sustaining and independent of the U.S. government. The operation
had run into an unsolvable problem. USAID was paying tens of
thousands of dollars in text messaging fees to Cuba's communist
telecommunications monopoly routed through a secret bank account and
front companies. It was not a situation that it could either afford
or justify — and if exposed it would be embarrassing, or worse.
In a searing evaluation, Creative Associates said
Mobile Accord had ignored sustainability because "it has felt
comfortable receiving USG financing to move the venture forward."
Out of 60 points awarded for performance, Mobile
Accord scored 34 points. Creative Associates complained that Mobile
Accord's understanding of the social mission of the project was weak,
and gave it 3 out of 10 points for "commitment to our Program
goals."
Mobile Accord declined to comment on the program.
In increasingly impatient tones, Creative
Associates pressed Mobile Accord to find new revenue that would pay
the bills. Mobile Accord suggested selling targeted advertisements in
Cuba, but even with projections of up to a million ZunZuneo
subscribers, advertising in a state-run economy would amount to a
pittance.
By March 2011, ZunZuneo had about 40,000
subscribers. To keep a lower profile, it abandoned previous hopes of
reaching 200,000 and instead capped the number of subscribers at a
lower number. It limited ZunZuneo's text messages to less than one
percent of the total in Cuba, so as to avoid the notice of Cuban
authorities. Though one former ZunZuneo worker — who spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly about his work — said the Cubans were catching on and had
tried to block the site.
___
Toward the middle of 2012, Cuban users began to
complain that the service worked only sporadically. Then not at all.
ZunZuneo vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.
By June 2012, users who had access to Facebook and
Twitter were wondering what had happened.
"Where can you pick up messages from
ZunZuneo?" one woman asked on Facebook in November 2012. "Why
aren't I receiving them anymore?"
Users who went to ZunZuneo's website were sent to
a children's website with a similar name.
ReynerAguero, a 25-year-old blogger, said he and
fellow students at Havana's University of Computer Sciences tried to
track it down. Someone had rerouted the website through DNS blocking,
a censorship technique initially developed back in the 1990s.
Intelligence officers later told the students that ZunZuneo was
blacklisted, he said.
"ZunZuneo, like everything else they did not
control, was a threat," Aguero said. "Period."
In incorrect Spanish, ZunZuneo posted a note on
its Facebook page saying it was aware of problems accessing the
website and that it was trying to resolve them.
" ¡Que viva el ZunZuneo!" the message
said. Long live ZunZuneo!
In February, when Saimi Reyes, and her boyfriend,
Ernesto Guerra, learned the origins of ZunZuneo, they were stunned.
"How was I supposed to realize that?"
Guerra asked. "It's not like there was a sign saying 'Welcome to
ZunZuneo, brought to you by USAID."
"Besides, there was nothing wrong. If I had
started getting subversive messages or death threats or 'Everyone
into the streets,'" he laughed, "I would have said, 'OK,'
there's something fishy about this. But nothing like that happened."
USAID says the program ended when the money ran
out. The Cuban government declined to comment.
The former web domain is now a placeholder, for
sale for $299. The registration for MovilChat, the Cayman Islands
front company, was set to expire on March 31.
In Cuba, nothing has come close to replacing it.
Internet service still is restricted.
"The moment when ZunZuneo disappeared was
like a vacuum," Guerra said. "People texted my phone, 'What
is happening with ZunZuneo?'
"In the end, we never learned what happened,"
he said. "We never learned where it came from."
Contributing to this report were Associated Press
researcher Monika Mathur in Washington, and AP writers Andrea
Rodriguez and Peter Orsi in Havana. Arce reported from Tegucigalpa,
Honduras.
When Is Covert Action Not Covert? When It's
'Discreet.' USAID's Indiscreet Twitter Program in Cuba
04/11/14 - Huff Post - William Leo
Grande
Ever since the Associated Press revealed that
USAID created a short-lived, free text message app for Cuban
cell-phone users called ZunZuneo, Obama administration officials have
been indignantly denying that the program was covert.
"Discreet does not equal covert," agency
spokesman Matt Herrick wrote on the USAID website, defending the
operation. "The [Cuba] programs have longbeen the subject of
Congressional notifications, unclassified briefings, public budget
requests, and public hearings." In a testy hearing before the
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on foreign operations, USAID
Administrator Rajiv Shah argued that because ZunZuneo was being
discussed in an open forum, it was not covert.
USAID officials need to review the statutory
definition of covert action. In 1991, Congress tightened that
definition in reaction to the Reagan administration's claims that its
Iran-contra operation was not a covert action under the law and
therefore did not require a presidential finding or Congressional
notification. The relevant passage of the Intelligence Authorization
Act of 1991 (50 U.S. Code § 3093) reads: (e) "Covert action"
defined As used in this subchapter, the term "covert action"
means an activity or activities of the United States Government to
influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where
it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not
be apparent or acknowledged publicly.... The record is indisputable
that the U.S. government's role in ZunZuneo was kept secret (not
classified Secret, just kept secret) from the Cuban government, Cuban
users of the service, some of the subcontractors working on the
project, relevant members of U.S. Congress, and the U.S. public. That
certainly sounds like an operation that fits the definition of covert
action pretty snugly. The claim that ZunZuneo was not covert, just
"discreet," doesn't pass the duck test.
There is no category of "discreet"
actions that the intelligence law excludes from the requirements of
intelligence oversight even though they fit the statutory definition
of covert action.
Nor does the fact that USAID publicly acknowledges
it has a program to promote democracy on the island exempt specific
operations from oversight if they fit the definition of covert
action. The Reagan administrationpublicly requested funds to support
the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s,but the contra program was still
subject to intelligence oversight.
USAID initially denied that ZunZuneo was intended
to influence Cubanpolitics and claimed that nothing political was
ever tweeted out to Cuban subscribers. In the Senate hearing, USAID
Director Shah insisted that ZunZuneo was intended solely "to
support access to information and to allowpeople to communicate with
each other," not to influence Cuban politics orfoment unrest.
But based on program documents and interviews with
programparticipants, the Associated Press has demonstrated beyond
reasonable doubtthat these claims of innocence are simply false.
In summary, USAID's ZunZuneo program meets the two
key definitional attributes of a covert action: it was intended to
influence Cuban politics, and the U.S. government's role was
intentionally hidden. Therefore, under the law (50 U.S. Code § 3093
(a)), it required a presidential finding and notification of the
Congressional intelligence committees. Thoseobligations do not appear
to have been met.
Why is an agency committed to social and economic
development running covert operations in the first place? USAID
officials don't have therequisite tradecraft to run them successfully
(as Alan Gross, the victim ofanother "discreet" USAID
operation, can testify). Apparently, they don'tunderstand the
relevant oversight laws, either. If the Obama administrationreally
wants to make it possible for Cubans to communicate with one
anothervia social media, the president could relax the embargo,
allowing Cuba toexpand its internet bandwidth by hooking up to one of
the undersea fiberoptic cables that crisscross the Caribbean, but
bypass Cuba. He could allowU.S. social media firms to do business in
Cuba. He could lift the remainingrestrictions on travel to Cuba so
more Cubans and Americans could friendeach other. And once and for
all, he and Congress could zero outappropriations for the
hair-brained schemes that have characterized USAID'sCuba program
since its inception.
Alan Gross, U.S. contractor held in Cuba,
goes on hunger strike
By Karen
DeYoung, Updated: Tuesday, April 8, 6:00 AM – The Washington
Post
Alan Gross, the U.S. government contractor who has
been imprisoned in Cuba for more than four years, began a hunger
strike last week to protest his treatment by both the Cuban and U.S.
governments, his lawyer said Tuesday. “I am fasting to object to
mistruths, deceptions, and inaction by both governments, not only
regarding their shared responsibility for my arbitrary detention, but
also because of the lack of any reasonable or valid effort to resolve
this shameful ordeal,” Gross said in a telephoned statement to his
legal team.
As he has many times before, Gross called on
President Obama to become personally involved in efforts to free him
from “inhumane treatment” in a Cuban prison.
Gross was arrested in 2009 for distributing
Internet and other communications materials in Cuba under a program
funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. He was
sentenced to 15 years for crimes against the Cuban state and is said
to be in poor health.
His case moved back into the limelight last week
following revelations about a separate USAID program to undermine
Cuba’s communist government with a Twitter-like network designed to
build an audience among Cuban youth and push them toward
anti-government dissent. While unclassified, administration officials
have described the program as “discreet.”
The “Cuban Twitter” program, discontinued in
2012, caused an uproar among U.S. lawmakers who charged they had
never approved spending for it. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who heads
the appropriations subcommittee in charge of the USAID budget, called
the program “dumb, dumb, dumb.”
Others praised the program, which they called
laudable effort to circumvent Cuban restrictions on Internet freedom.
Such efforts help “provide uncensored access to information and
communications for the Cuban people and others struggling around the
globe against repression, censorship and the denial of basic human
rights,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee.
Since 1996, Congress has appropriated more than
$200 million for “democracy assistance” programs in Cuba. USAID
has been given wide discretion in deciding what the money is used
for. Most of the programs are subcontracted to firms like Development
Alternatives, Inc., which received a $6 million contract, under which
Gross was working.
USAID Administration Rajiv Shah is scheduled to
testify before Leahy’s subcommittee Tuesday morning.
In a statement, Gross’s lawyer, Scott Gilbert,
said the Cuban Twitter program had put Gross’s life in greater
jeopardy. “Once Alan was arrested, it is shocking that USAID would
imperil his safety even further by running a covert operation in
Cuba,” Gilbert said. “USAID has made one absurdly bad decision
after another. Running this program is contrary to everything we have
been told by high-level representative of the Obama administration
about USAID’s activities in Cuba.”
Gilbert said that Gross, a 64-year-old Maryland
resident, has lost more than 110 pounds since his arrest and is held
in a small cell with two other prisoners for 23 hours a day.
Even as he has criticized the program that landed
Gross in prison, Leahy has criticized what he and others have called
the administration’s inattention to the case. In a November letter
to Obama, Leahy spearheaded a letter signed by a bipartisan group of
66 senators urging the president to “act expeditiously to take
whatever steps are in the national interest to obtain [Gross’s]
release.”
A separate letter, signed by 14 lawmakers led by
Cuban-American Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Menendez, exhorted
Obama to continue his policy of demanding Gross’s “immediate and
unconditional release.”
Is This the Moment to Normalize US Relations
With Cuba?
With Senator Foreign Relations chairman and
Cuba hawk Robert Menendez mired in scandal, the embargo could finally
be lifted.
Tom Hayden | April 16, 2014 – The
Nation
Until last week, New Jersey Democratic Senator
Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
was relatively untouchable among Democrats, while holding virtual
veto power over US Cuba policy and being a military hawk on US
policies towards Syria, Iran and Venezuela.
Not any more.
Now Menendez’s grip is weakened by revelations
that his very close friend, Miami opthalmologistSalomanMelgen, topped
the country in Medicare fraud, and funneled $700,000 in campaign
contributions through a Democratic super-PAC, nearly all of which
were channeled right back to the Menendez re-election campaign in
2012. Melgen ripped off $21 million in Medicare reimbursements that
year alone by over-prescribing a medication for vision loss among
seniors.
A key question is whether Senate leader Harry
Reid, whose close former aides run the Majority PAC for Senate
Democrats, will aggressively investigate ethics violations, diminish
Menendez’s Senate standing, or risk his party‘s association with
the scandal by circling the wagons.
Federal investigations, including two raids on Dr.
Melgen’s clinics, already have revealed that Menendez interceded
with Medicare officials on his friend's behalf in 2009 and 2011.
Menendez is still under scrutiny by the Obama Justice Department.
Menendez acknowledges traveling several times on Melgen’s private
jet and staying at the eye doctor’s posh estate in the Dominican
Republic. Menendez was forced to reimburse $58,500 for the costs of
those trips when the information was disclosed in 2010.
The important back story in the Menendez-Melger
case is that US Cuba policy is at stake.
The Cuban-born Menendez is a fierce lifetime
opponent of any easing of tensions with Havana. As a top fund-raiser
and the Democratic chairman of the key foreign relations committee,
Menendez is an obstacle to Obama and Senate liberals on a range of
national security policies. He favors regime change through military
or covert means in Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and of course Cuba. He has
the power to set bills, hold hearings, and approve or deny
administration nominations. Menendez is becoming Obama’s chief
domestic obstacle in normalizing relations with Cuba. Even on an
administration priority like immigration reform, Menendez (and
Senator Marco Rubio) have pledged their votes only on the condition
that their hardline position on Cuba is heeded.
Now that Menendez’s grip on power is weakened,
the only question is by how much.
Only a few years ago Menendez, chairing the Senate
Democrats’ campaign committee, raised hell when one of the party's
biggest fund-raisers, Hollywood’s Andy Spahn, tried raising funds
for candidates who supported a new Cuba policy. Spahn, who travels
often to Cuba with American politicians and Hollywood producers like
Steven Spielberg, was demonized by Menendez and shut down. But Spahn
today remains as one of Obama's top fund-raisers, and actively
supports lifting the embargo.
This year an even sharper split erupted in the
Senate between Menendez and Senator Patrick Leahy who is making a top
priority of achieving a new Cuban policy. Leahy, who engages in
steady, behind-the-scenes dialogue with Cuban officials, obtained
sixty-six Senate signatures on a December 2013 letter to Obama
calling on the president to "act expeditiously to take whatever
steps are in the national interest" to obtain the release of
American
citizen Alan Gross [1]. Gross is a contractor for the US Agency
for International Development serving a fifteen-year sentence in Cuba
for covertly smuggling high-tech communications equipment into the
island. A rival letter sent by Menendez and Rubio calling for Gross'
"immediate and unconditional release" garnered only
fourteen votes, an embarrassing setback for Menendez. In the opaque
culture of Washington, the Leahy letter was interpreted as political
cover for Obama to negotiate diplomatically for Gross’ release,
whereas the Menendez letter was a dud.
The Leahy-Menendez feud has deepened further with
recent revelations that the AID has operated a secret Twitter program
to stir protests in Cuba. Leahy denounces the project as "dumb,
dumb, dumb" while Menendez defends it vigorously.
National Democrats interested in Cuba commonly
claim their hands are tied on Cuba because of Menendez's role. Under
the 1997 Helms-Burton legislation, President Bill Clinton delegated
to Congress the final say over recognizing Cuba and lifting the
embargo, providing the most powerful tool in Menendez’s arsenal
until now. For that reason, Obama has pursued gradual progress with
Cuba through executive action—like lifting license requirements for
travel by Cuban-Americans, which has resulted in a flow of about
500,000 Cuban Americans per year. Obama also is conducting
business-like talks with the Cuban regime on immigration, drug
enforcement and other state-to-state matters. Obama shook hands with
President Raul Castro at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, angering the
Cuban Right.
Any ebbing of Menendez’s role will help Obama to
take further steps towards normalization. For example, the State
Department is considering lifting its designation of Cuba as a
"terrorist state." Such a move would make it much easier
for the Cuban government to engage with private banks and firms who
now worry about breaching US anti-terrorism laws. While lifting the
terrorist label is within the administration's power, the decision
can be challenged by two-thirds of the Senate. With a weakened
Menendez, the Senate might go along with Obama and John Kerry.
The surfacing of the Medicare scandal, Melgen’s
donations to Menendez, and the links between that money and the
Senate’s Majority PAC now increase the pressure on Senator Reid and
Democrats to distance themselves from Menendez. For Democratic
insiders, managing the scandal is a dicey matter, because losing the
Senate in November will turn Cuba policy over to the exiles’ latest
favorite son, Senator Marco Rubio.
If Democrats are uncomfortable about a nasty fight
with one of their own, who will step up? Menendez is not up for
election this November. Republicans who agree with his right-wing
foreign policies may like him where he is. Where are New Jersey
Democrats? For many years the liberal focus against the Cuban Right
has centered on Miami, not so much on the enclave of right-wing
Cubans in Jersey City. The recent liberal obsession about New Jersey
has been about Republican governor Chris Christie, not Democratic
senator Menendez. The uproar over Christie, while fully justifiable,
is easier politically than Democrats taking on a leader of their own
party. But while causing traffic jams on an interstate bridge is an
outrage, how does it compare with a lone Senator flaunting his own
president, fomenting US military interventions, and sabotaging a
possible bridge to Cuba? Time will tell.
Free Alan Gross—and the Cuban Five!
If the U.S. wants Cuba to release USAID
contractor Alan Gross, it should give up its own political prisoners
from Cuba.
By Arturo Lopez-Levy, April 18, 2014.
Alan Gross, an American imprisoned in Cuba since
December 3, 2009, recently went on a hunger strike in Havana that
lasted for eight days. He did so to protest the U.S. and Cuban
governments’ inaction in negotiating a solution to his tragedy.
Gross is the latest victim in a long history of
conflicts between Cuba and the United States. An international
development expert subcontracted by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), Gross entered Cuba as a
non-registered foreign agent. His mission was to create a wireless
internet satellite network based in Jewish community centers that
would circumvent detection by the Cuban government.
Gross was quickly apprehended. But while the U.S.
government has vigorously protested his treatment, it has proven
unwilling to make the diplomatic overtures—like releasing the Cuban
Five—that could secure his release.
Regime Change “Cockamamie”
The USAID program that landed Gross in prison was
designed during the George W. Bush administration. It received
approval under the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 law that essentially
committed the U.S. government to the overthrow of the Cuban regime.
Gross’ program took an indisputably covert and
incendiary approach to democracy promotion, never bothering to obtain
the informed consent of the Cuban Jewish community. Like most Cuban
religious groups, Jews in Cuba have opposed any attempt to politicize
religious organizations by turning them into tools to promote
opposition to the regime. The Bush administration’s holy warriors
at USAID, however, had aspirations far beyond the temple doors,they
aimed to overthrow the Cuban government. If that involved getting
Cuban Jews in trouble without their consent, then so be it.
USAID made a peculiar choice in selecting Gross
for actions that would come to be condemned in Cuba as subversive.
Gross did not know Cuba and did not speak Spanish. He loved Cuban
music, but that hardly qualified him for the covert mission he was
sent on. Moreover, the U.S. government systematically misinformed
Gross about Cuba. According to a confidential summary of an August
2008 meeting between USAID high officials and representatives of
Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI)—the contractor that
hired Gross—Bush-era USAID officials recommended that project team
members “stay well informed” about Cuba by reading certain blogs.
At the head of the USAID-recommended list of go-to sources about Cuba
was Babalu, a rabidly right wing blog based in Miami. One of Babalu’s
more recent posts labels current U.S. president Barack Obama a
“Marxist tyrant” in the tradition of “Mao, Stalin, and Fidel
Castro.”
Rather than revising USAID’s regime change
program, the Obama administration preferred to cover up the mess that
the Bush administration had left behind. Worse still, as we just
learned this April, even after Gross’ arrest, USAID implemented
another covert operation in Cuba: ZunZuneo, or “Cuban Twitter.”
ZunZuneohad been developed under Bush in
2007-2008, but was implemented under Obama between 2010 and 2012. The
program’s designers aimed to create a Twitter-like social network
among Cuban youth to mobilize “smart mobs” and further the
possibility of a revolt. It involved the same disrespect for Cuban
sovereignty and civil society that the Helms-Burton law has
repeatedly advanced. As always, the purpose was to create chaos and
destabilization—this time with the intent of generating a Cuban
Spring modeled after the Arab Spring revolts.
Washington maintains that USAID does regular
humanitarian work in Cuba. Yet the agency’s own officials show that
to be untrue. During an April 8 budget hearing before the Senate
Appropriations Committee, USAID director Rajiv Shah said that the
Helms-Burton law precludes any program to promote child healthcare on
the island. Shah is correct. The law only authorizes humanitarian
activities, travel, or trade if they are certified to serve the goal
of overthrowing the Cuban government. In other words, these programs
have nothing to do with promoting human rights or Cuba’s peaceful
transition to democracy.
Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has called ZunZuneo a
“cockamamie idea.” His remarks highlight the way USAID’s
deviation from humanitarian aid standards in Cuba has caused
tremendous harm to the organization’s more legitimate development
efforts elsewhere. Citing Gross and ZunZuneo among other examples,
several world governments and political parties have denounced USAID
altogether as a tool of American subversion and hypocrisy.
Gross and the Cuban Five
Gross’ detention is considered arbitrary by the
UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions that analyzed his case.
According to that panel of experts, his trial in Cuba was politically
motivated and lacked the international minimal standards of a fair
and just legal process.
But Cuba is not the only government holding
political prisoners. The same UN body also considers “arbitrary”
the 1998 detention of five Cuban agents, three of whom remain in
prison, by the U.S. government. The “Cuban Five” infiltrated
anti-Castro groups with a long pedigree of violent actions against
Cuba—acts that were planned on U.S. soil with the knowledge of the
U.S. government. Most assessments agree that the Cuban agents caused
no harm to U.S. national security. According to the UN panel, the
political circus surrounding the trial of the Cuban Five in Miami
made a fair and just trial impossible. The Cuban government has
indicated that it will release Gross if the United States releases
the three “Cuban Five” agents who remain in prison.
Aiming to inspire parallel acts of international
conciliation, Uruguayan president José Mujica has indicated his
country’s willingness to accept some of the detainees who remain
imprisoned in the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. This would
contribute to the closure of a camp that has brought tremendous harm
to America’s reputation and raised serious questions about
Washington’s commitment to international human rights. Mujica said
that he hopes the gesture will lead Obama to think about the
potential benefit for U.S.-Latin America relations that would follow
a release of the three Cubans still in U.S. prisons.
But the same pro-embargo crowd that sent Alan
Gross on the ill-conceived covert action leading to his arrest is now
willing to keep him locked in prison. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have called on the White House to demand
Cuba’s “unilateral and unconditional” release of Gross—an
irrational requirement. Their insistence is a transparent attempt to
torpedo Obama’s overall dialogue with Cuba, even when improving
relations between the two countries would clearly serve the national
interests of the United States.
Rather than seek a realistic solution to Gross’
tragedy, the Obama administration has engaged in semantic nonsense.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her successor John
Kerry have both held that Gross was not a spy. They are correct only
at the most technical level, since he did not seek secret
information. Still, Cuba’s description of Gross as part of a
subversive regime-change strategy is difficult to dispute, not the
least because U.S. legislation says so openly. In the meantime, while
the U.S. and Cuban governments engage in the “spy-not spy”
discussion, Gross remains a prisoner.
Gross will be released only as a result of
diplomatic compromise. Gross has written to Obama “on behalf of
every American who might ever find himself or herself in trouble
abroad” and asked him “to direct his administration to take
meaningful, proactive steps to secure my immediate release.”
It’s time to do it.
*Arturo Lopez-Levy is a PhD
Candidate at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies of the
University of Denver. You
can follow him on Twitter @turylevy.
MATERIALES AUDIOVISUALES RELACIONADOS CON
ZUNZUNEO
- El proyecto Zunzuneo se mantuvo en secreto porque era ilegal
http://youtu.be/V5sQGkZTjd4
- EEUU miente al decir que ZunZuneo no era un proyecto secreto
http://youtu.be/8FLMX1xw_Lg
- ZunZuneo o Piramideo: Seguimos en Combate
http://youtu.be/muqbDSNKM0M
- Medios de comunicación de Estados Unidos publican sobre nuevo plan de subversión contra Cuba
http://youtu.be/VdHwcc643So
- Confirma ETECSA noticia de la AP: ZunZuneo envió miles de mensajes spam a Cuba
http://youtu.be/ZE1-MfmxJaw
- ZunZuneo: Antecedentes y desarrollo de actividades subversivas contra Cuba
http://youtu.be/yuM9OI0b36A
- Zunzuneo según blogueros cubanos
http://youtu.be/yaGHg_JvlXA
- Cuba resiste bajo la avalancha propagandística de EE. UU.
http://youtu.be/tzWCa56LaFc
- De Zunzuneo a Commotion los planes Imperiales contra Cuba
http://youtu.be/Yr6K9TvZlvY
- La Fórmula Imperial Subversión mas Bloqueo
http://youtu.be/zb5t98mr12g
- ZunZuneo, el último episodio de la injerencia de EE.UU. contra Cuba
http://youtu.be/5PUInhC0lBs
- Cuba denuncia a EE.UU. por proyecto injerencista ZunZuneo
http://youtu.be/eK247EoF_Gg
- Nuevas revelaciones sobre ZunZuneo, proyecto subversivo contra Cuba
http://youtu.be/X_53bZCgs9o
- Costa Rica demands answers on ZunZuneo as diplomatic fire spreads
http://youtu.be/Lo0y0ZyDerc
- U.S. created 'Cuba Twitter' to sow unrest, reports AP
http://youtu.be/AjGzxpXk8wI
- ZunZuneo, le Twitter cubain créé par les Etats-Unis
http://youtu.be/gS_SYzXg_6c
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