Another Failed Policy of Subversion: Obama Youth Infiltrate Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

August 06, 2014
Another Failed Policy of Subversion

Obama Youth Infiltrate Cuba

by SHELDON RICHMAN


When I saw the headline about the U.S. government and Cuba in my newspaper the other day, I thought I’d awoken in 1961. It was a Twilight Zone moment for sure: “U.S. program aimed to stir dissent in Cuba.” I expected Rod Serling to welcome me to “another dimension.”

But it was 2014. The AP news report said President Barack Obama and presumably then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton had plotted to incite a popular uprising — to “gin up opposition” — against the Cuban government by sending in young Latin Americans masquerading as tourists and health workers.

Did Obama, Clinton, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which oversaw the operation, learn nothing from the 1960s, when the Kennedy and Johnson administrations tried repeatedly to overthrow Cuban ruler Fidel Castro and even to assassinate him?

The AP investigation disclosed that the USAID agents had “little training in the dangers of clandestine operations — or how to evade one of the world’s most sophisticated counter-intelligence services.” Nevertheless, the AP continued, “their assignment was to recruit young Cubans to anti-government activism, which they did under the guise of civic programs, including an HIV prevention workshop.” The program, which lasted at least two years, began shortly after Obama’s inauguration.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/06/obama-youth-infiltrate-cuba/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Cuba and the Skeletons of USAID

Cuba and the Skeletons of USAID
August 7, 2014
Fernando Ravsberg*

HAVANA TIMES — The Associated Press (AP) news agency seems intent on making all of the United States plans in Cuba public. It first great revelation was that Alan Gross – the US citizen currently imprisoned in Havana – had smuggled communication systems so sophisticated they were used by the Pentagon and CIA.

In addition, it revealed that, to conduct these operations, Gross had been paid hundreds of thousands of Washington’s dollars, tearing apart the image of the altruistic Jewish humanitarian who risked his freedom to give his community on the island greater Internet access.

Sometime later, the agency revealed the existence of Zunzuneo, a kind of Twitter especially designed to steer Cuba’s internal political situation through cell-phone text messages. The United States reached some 40 thousand people on the island this way. The plan consisted in sending interesting but politically innocuous information to users in order to gain in credibility among a public to whom materials aimed at impacting Cuba’s internal situation (with a view to “promoting democracy”) would later be sent.

Now AP brings up for discussion the fact the US government also infiltrated groups of young Latin Americans (from Costa Rica, Peru and Venezuela) into Cuba in order to bolster the opposition movement – and that they did so using health programs as cover.

One of the infiltrators was Felipe Valencia Dongo, advisor to the Minister of Education of Peru.

Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the commission that supervises USAID’s budget, declared that the façade used was “worse than irresponsible” because “the U.S. government should never sacrifice delivering basic health services or civic programs to advance an intelligence goal.”

However, the young Latin Americans were a very good deal, because they could be paid infinitesimal wages and would not become a problem for the White House if they ended up in prison. Better still, they would create conflicts between Havana and governments in the region.

More:
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=105385