Vol. 75/No. 13      April 4, 2011

Gross was distributing sophisticated satellite equipment in Cuba to selected individuals and groups as part of U.S. operations to create a covert, high-speed Internet network there.

Gross worked for Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), a profit-based non-governmental organization operating in some 60 countries. The company worked under the U.S. State Department’s USAID program. Its stated purpose is “furthering America’s foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets.”

DAI was USAID’s main contractor, having received more than $2.7 billion between 2000 and just before Gross’s arrest in December 2009. But, as part of Washington’s efforts to revamp the image of its operations in Cuba, the company is no longer publicly connected to the State Department program.

DAI paid Gross more than $500,000 for his work over a short period setting up connections for what the State Department called “marginalized groups” in Cuba. Gross says these were primarily Jewish social organizations.

The prosecution presented eyewitnesses as well as expert and documentary evidence proving Gross’s direct involvement in a “subversive project sponsored by the U.S. government to overthrow the Cuban Revolution using communication and information systems not under the control of the state in order to promote destabilizing plans against different sectors of the Cuban population,” reported the Cuban paper Juventud Rebelde.

The sentence, lighter than the 20 years sought by prosecutors, was handed down by a five-judge panel of the Crimes against State Security Court. Gross may appeal to the Supreme People’s Tribunal, the country’s high court.

Cuba’s Internet bandwidth is relatively limited. The island is forced to use very expensive and slow satellite connections due to the U.S. economic embargo on the island, which blocks Cuba from using existing infrastructure available to other nations.

While denying requests to allow access to faster, cheaper Internet connections, the U.S. Treasury Department announced March 8 it would begin to allow the export of Internet-based communications and social networking services to Cuba, along with Iran and Sudan. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) made clear that the technology will be used to advance Washington’s efforts to undermine the governments in the three countries.

“The OFAC is well known for administering and enforcing trade sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy goals,” said an article from Cuba’s Foreign Ministry on the change. “Throughout history, U.S. administrations, both Democrats and Republicans, have pursued the common goal of toppling the Cuban Revolution and regaining control over their former properties in Cuba.”

The White House’s budget proposal for 2012 includes a 43 percent increase for the State Department’s Office of Cuban Affairs and a 34 percent increase in funds for the U.S. Interests Section in Havana—the central spy nest for the financing and organization of counterrevolutionary activity in Cuba. The proposal also maintains the $20 million budget for USAID’s operations in Cuba and includes $30.5 million for anticommunist Radio and TV Martí broadcasts to the island.

Meanwhile, five Cuban revolutionaries remain imprisoned in the United States since 1998 with sentences ranging from 15 years to double life. The Cuban Five, as they are known, were framed up by the U.S. government on false “conspiracy” charges for monitoring the activities of counterrevolutionary groups in Miami with a history of armed assaults and acts of sabotage against Cuba.
 
 
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