IF ...
Oscar Wilde
could be threatening Cuba, Venezuela, and even Mexico with annexation
-- or worse -- if their current rulers didn't abdicate. And pave the
way for U.S. democracy-building.
Hard to believe we allow the Irans of the world to arm and threaten
peace and liberty in places like Venezuela. In our own back yard!
This is OUR hemisphere and it's our job to see to its security and
freedom under some form of representative government.
Fidel should have been taken out long ago.
==================
"Pro-democracy program in Cuba questioned after man detained"
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 25, 2009; A03
The detention of a U.S. government contractor in Cuba has put the
spotlight on a secretive U.S. pro-democracy program that ballooned
during the Bush administration but has faced persistent questions
about its management and effectiveness.
The Cuba program seeks to evade the Communist government's
"information blockade" by sneaking computers, cellphones, DVD players
and other communications equipment onto the island. Its budget rose
from about $3.5 million in 2000 to $45 million in 2008 under President
George W. Bush, who made democracy promotion a priority.
Few dispute that tools such as blogs, Twitter and YouTube are cracking
the Cuban government's monopoly on information. But the jailing of the
American contractor -- who has not been publicly identified -- has
highlighted the risk of trying to slip communications technology into
police states. It has also revived a debate over whether the U.S.
democracy program for Cuba, like a similar one in Iran, can backfire
by exposing dissidents to charges that they are U.S. puppets.
"It taints them. It is almost a gift to the Castro regime to do that,"
said Ted Henken, a sociologist at Baruch College who has studied the
growing Cuban "blogosfera."
Since it was launched in 1997, the Cuba program has come under fire
for poor management. An audit by the Government Accountability Office
in 2006 found that groups receiving $4.7 million in pro-democracy
grants had made numerous questionable purchases, including Godiva
chocolates and Nintendo Game Boys. In 2008, a former employee of one
Cuban American group pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $600,000 in pro-
democracy funds.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, called this month for a review of the Cuba program, saying
it "may have noble objectives, but we need to examine whether we're
achieving them." Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif), chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton in April asking for "a more robust mechanism" to track
the spending and results of the "problematic" program.
The Obama administration has continued to support the Cuba democracy
program, which received $20 million in 2009 and 2010.
Supporters say that although the program's effectiveness is difficult
to measure, it responds to requests from Cubans willing to take risks
to exercise basic rights.
"The Castro regime pretends to have a monopoly on truth, and to take
care of all the needs of Cuban society. In fact, it doesn't," said
Daniel Calingaert of Freedom House, a democracy watchdog group. "And
the outside support is important because it gives Cubans greater
opportunities to speak their own minds and address their own problems
at their own initiative."
Cuban President Raúl Castro said the contractor detained on Dec. 5 was
illegally providing satellite communications equipment to civil-
society groups. State Department and congressional sources said the
man, a Bethesda computer specialist traveling on a tourist visa, was
not working with political dissidents but was hooking up members of a
community group to the Internet.
"Anywhere else, this would be extremely innocuous activity," said a
State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because
of the sensitivity of the issue.
Still, the case has sparked new tensions in U.S.-Cuban relations,
which the Obama administration had tried to improve with steps such as
lifting restrictions on family visits to the island. In a speech last
weekend, Castro accused the Obama administration of increasing support
for "open and covert subversion." The Cuban government has not allowed
U.S. diplomats access to the contractor.
Since Cuba democracy program took off in the mid-1990s, it has had a
cloak-and-dagger flair, providing grants to nongovernmental groups
that sent shortwave radios, laptop computers, photocopiers, books and
other items into the Communist country, often in the suitcases of
volunteers posing as tourists. Some grant money also goes for
humanitarian aid for dissidents' families, and for activities outside
Cuba focused on its human-rights record and the post-Castro
transition.
In the past two years, the U.S. government has increased its efforts
to slip technology into Cuba, as new rules allowed Cubans to buy
cellphones and laptop computers. Access to the Internet remains
restricted and expensive on the island. Officials at the State
Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have turned
more to private contractors, as part of efforts to improve financial
accountability. One of them, Bethesda-based Development Alternatives,
employs the man now in prison.
State Department and USAID officials have declined to identify the
groups involved in the program.
The democracy program is risky for providers and recipients of the
equipment. The Cuban government has made collaboration with the
program, funded under the 1996 Helms-Burton law, punishable by jail
terms of up to 20 years. Cuban intelligence has infiltrated many
dissident groups that have been the target of the assistance.
Henken said the program undermined U.S. efforts to build trust with
the Cuban government. Speaking at the Inter-American Dialogue think
tank this month, he said the Obama administration should promote the
flow of information by increasing cultural and academic exchanges and
dropping the ban on U.S. tourists traveling to the island -- a
position that has gained favor with some American lawmakers.
Other lawmakers, however, scoff at the idea, noting that Cuba's
political system hasn't been changed by a flood of European and
Canadian vacationers in recent years.
"Facing a regime such as exists in Cuba today, any effort to assert
fundamental political rights is going to carry with it risks. But the
people who participate in these programs have shown clearly they're
prepared to take that risk," said one senior U.S. official, who was
not authorized to comment on the record.
Thomas Carothers, a democracy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, said Cuba was an example of how difficult it was
for outsiders to change totalitarian societies.
"In general, the experience of trying to promote democracy, or trying
to carry out assistance programs that can facilitate democracy in
closed societies, has been a very frustrating experience," he said.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122403065.html?hpid=topnews