Activists get federal aid to subvert Cuba regime

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Mon, Feb. 21, 2005


Activists get federal aid to subvert Cuba regime

BY GARY MARX
Chicago Tribune


HAVANA - (KRT) - As part of a broad strategy to spur political change in Cuba, the U.S. government has been quietly sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to activists seeking to undermine President Fidel Castro's one-party state, according to documents and interviews.

The cash assistance is being channeled through the U.S.-financed National Endowment for Democracy and pays more than two dozen freelance writers for a Miami-based Web site that posts articles critical of the Cuban government.

The cash also supports opposition figures, human-rights activists, political prisoners and their families, including those prisoners jailed in 2003 during the government's crackdown on dissidents.
(snip)

The cash payments comprise only a small part of President Bush's intensified campaign to squeeze the Castro regime through the tightening of trade sanctions and increased material support for opposition activists.
(snip/...)

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10957042.htm
(Free registration is required)

[tlcandie]

1. More meddling and coup planning to take down yet another

country's government just because! DISGUSTING!! And if someone was doing this in the US...what then?

[Judi Lynn]

2. It'd be ILLEGAL here, for sure.

From: April 26, 2003

Cuba Crackdown:
A Revolt Against the National Security Strategy?
By ROBERT SANDELS

...In a recent television interview in Miami, Cason said the help he gave dissidents was "moral and spiritual" in nature. But, according to the testimony of several Cuban security agents who infiltrated the organizations that received U.S. support, the Interests Section became a general headquarters and office space for dissidents. Some of them, including Marta Beatriz Roque, had passes signed by Cason that allowed them free access to the Interests Section where they could use computers, telephones, and office machines.

The State Department calls these activities "outreach." However, under the United States Code, similar "outreach" by a foreign diplomat in the United States could result in criminal prosecution and a 10-year prison sentence for anyone "who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official (Title 18, section 951 of the United States Code).
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/sandels04262003.html

[EFerrari]

3. No double standard here. We love our one party system. n/t

[Say_What]

5. US Code: Section 951. Agents of foreign governments

Do this sh*t in the USSA and you get a fine, possibly ten years in jail or both. Yet the yahoos in the US and sometimes on this board whine about the Cuban government prosecuting people in their country for trying to destabilize the Cuban government. LOL can we spell H_Y_P_O_C_R_I_S_Y???

<clips>

(a) Whoever, other than a diplomatic or consular officer or
attacheAE1, acts in the United States as an agent of a foreign
government without prior notification to the Attorney General if
required in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

...(1) such person agrees to operate within the United States
subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or
official; and
(2) such person -
(A) is an agent of Cuba or any other country that the
President determines (and so reports to the Congress) poses a
threat to the national security interest of the United States
for purposes of this section, unless the Attorney General,
after consultation with the Secretary of State, determines and
so reports to the Congress that the national security or
foreign policy interests of the United States require that the
provisions of this section do not apply in specific
circumstances to agents of such country; or

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/45/sections/section_951.html

[Say_What]

4. U.S. aid funneled to Castro opponents

US dirty tricks as usual...

<clips>

As part of a broad strategy to spur political change in Cuba, the U.S. government has been quietly sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to activists seeking to undermine President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s one-party state, according to documents and interviews.

The cash assistance is being channeled through the U.S.-financed National Endowment for Democracy and pays more than two dozen freelance writers for a Miami-based Web site that posts articles critical of the Cuban government.

The cash also supports opposition figures, human-rights activists, and political prisoners and their families, including those prisoners jailed in 2003 during the government's crackdown on dissidents.

Supporters argue the cash payments, totaling about $200,000 a year, help keep opposition alive in a country where most dissidents are fired from their jobs and ostracized.

..."Providing funding to dissidents at a time when the U.S. government says that its objective is to bring down the Cuban government is to turn the dissidents into subversive agents," said Wayne Smith, a former U.S. diplomat in Cuba. "It's a colossal mistake."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&e=2&u=/chitribts/20050222/ts_chicagotrib/usaidfunneledtocastroopponents

[Mika]

6. The "journalists" just "speaking their minds" are like Armstrong Williams

But, sadly, they have the support of many Castrophobic DUers.

___________________

<sarcasm on>

Long live the Cuban "independent journalists" and the Armstrong Williams' on the US government payroll who are getting the truth out.

<sarcasm off>

[Say_What]

7. Meanwhile, back at the USSA's TORTURE CAMP aka Gitmo....

the Canadian government isn't doing enought to protect a CHILD being held at Gitmo who is a Canadian citizen.

<clips>

Teen grilled by CSIS in Cuba

CANADA'S SPY agency says it needs to interrogate a Canadian teen held as an enemy combatant by U.S. authorities at Guantanamo Bay as part of its fight against terror. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says the interrogations are not intended to help in any prosecution of Omar Khadr, whose family was closely connected to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Khadr is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in July 2002 when he was 15 and could face the death penalty.

His lawyers want the Federal Court to end interrogations and force Ottawa to provide him "real and substantive" consular help in Cuba.

"Any efforts to limit or fetter the service's investigative powers ... will hamper the service's ability to advise the Canadian government," a CSIS official said in an affidavit.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/02/22/938641-sun.html

[murray hill farm]

8. and it gets more and more uncomfortable

to be an American living in a foreign country...i have lived in Mexico long enough...so, i don't feel it so strongly..as a personal hatred..but it is growing..and more and more they do hate is for our tyrannical form of "freedom".

[Rose Siding]

9. Bush offered only $58K in DISASTER aid to Cuba after the hurricanes

and he's funding "activists" with $100'sK? How much more from the DoD slush fund? But we already knew his priorities are whack.

[Mika]

10. Don't forget the 25+ MILLION /year spent on Radio & TV Marti

It is just political payola to the intransigent Castrophobes in S Fla. who, in return, contribute to certain campaigns in a tit for tat reciprocal relationship. Sadly, the Dems are in on these payola activities also (and it still hasn't worked out for them, but they persist).

[Say_What]

11. NED funding is $7 million!!!

<clips>


CUBA

The Committee fully supports the budget request of $7,000,000 for the Cuba democracy program and supports its goals of promoting democratization, respect for human rights, and the development of a free market economy in that country. When allocating these funds the Committee expects USAID to consider proposals at or through institutions of higher education in the United States and expects that competitive procedures will be followed with regard to such proposals.

House Rpt.108-222 - FOREIGN OPERATIONS, EXPORT FINANCING, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS BILL, 2004

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&db_id=cp108&r_n=hr222.108&sel=TOC_146567&

---

and $2 million more for Radio/TV Marti

<clips>
...Broadcasting to Cuba- The Committee recommendation includes $26,901,000 for radio and television broadcasting to Cuba, which is the same as the request and $2,067,000 above the fiscal year 2003 level.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&db_id=cp108&r_n=hr221.108&sel=TOC_393099&

[bemildred]

12. Cuba is a "no party" state.

I know that is hard to imagine out here in TV-land, imagine
no national political parties pretending to duke it out
for the public's benefit while lining the pockets of their
friends and cronies. It is a very revolutionary idea.

[centerspectrum]

13. reply

No matter how you look at it, Cuba is still a dictatorship. People still get jailed for voicing their opinions against Fidel Castro.
Getting Castro out of power is not really a bad thing.

[bemildred]

14. My God! I'll bet he tortures them too.

We would never do that here would we? The only torturing
going on in Cuba is at Gitmo.

You better tell Senator Lugar he is supporting a dictator.

http://www.indystar.com/articles/8/220951-5688-010.html

Read about this guy. He is on the Gusanos shit list too:

US warns exile who returned to Cuba of possible fine, prison

HAVANA (AP) - A former exile turned Cuban dissident who returned to the island for good 18 months ago on Monday protested a United States government letter warning him of a fine of up to US$250,000 and up to 10 years in prison for staying so long.

Eloy Gutierrez-Menoyo, founder of the Miami-based opposition group Cambio Cubano, returned to Cuba for good in August 2003 with hopes of eventually opening a Cambio Cubano office here.

His legal immigration status in Cuba remains in limbo and he has been unable to open the office.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20050208T210000-0500_74772_OBS_US_WARNS_EXILE_WHO_RETURNED_TO_CUBA_OF_POSSIBLE_FINE__PRISON.asp

He's been back in Cuba for some time now, but the Cuban gov't has
left him alone and even allowed him to go back and forth. It's the
US government that is harassing him, he projects the wrong message.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Isn't that crazy? He's a man who, at one time, invaded in the Bay of Pigs

He also was found to be part of a plot to kill Fidel Castro, spent years in jail there, then lived in Miami for ages afterwards. He is staying in Cuba specifically to create his own Cuban political party and does not get harrassed by anyone but _Bush's administration.

He is also one of a huge number of Cuban "exiles" who've been coming and going from Cuba regularly before _Bush started choking off their travel, too.

Thanks for the info. on the pending bipartisan effort in Congress to alter _Bush's filthy designs on Cuba. Haven't had the time to absorb it yet, have stashed it to read later. I'm happy to say my own Representative and one of the Senators from my state, Kansas, have both been to Cuba several times, working on normalizing relations with Cuba: one a Democrat, one a Republican.