Vol. 78/No. 15      April 21, 2014

Called ZunZuneo, Cuban vernacular for a hummingbird’s tweet, the operation was financed and run by the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID, which operates under the veil of “humanitarian” missions around the world, is an arm of the State Department whose stated purpose is “furthering America’s foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets.”

“Once again the United States government has not renounced its subversive plans, which have as their objective changing Cuba’s political order and continue every year to be funded with a multimillion dollar budget,” said Josefina Vidal, director of Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, North American Affairs Division, in an April 4 statement.

“Documents show the U.S. government planned to build a subscriber base through ‘non-controversial content’: news messages on soccer, music and hurricane updates,” AP said. “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.”

“To ensure the success of the Mission,” one document said, “there will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement.”

ZunZuneo was aimed mostly at young Cubans. It was halted in 2012 after just 40,000 out of the 1.25 million cellphone users in Cuba signed up — most unaware of any connection with USAID.

Alan Gross — a former USAID contractor arrested in Cuba in 2009, convicted as a U.S. spy and sentenced to 15 years in prison — announced April 8 that he was starting a fast to protest “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.”

The U.S. government has shown little interest in Gross since his arrest for trying to implement another State Department scheme that involved setting up a parallel Internet on the island.

“Once Alan was arrested, it’s shocking that USAID would imperil his safety even further by running a covert operation in Cuba,” said Gross’ attorney Scott Gilbert in the April 8 statement. “USAID has made one absurdly bad decision after another.”

An April 4 Granma article pointed to remarks made by Cuban President Raúl Castro regarding such ill-fated schemes. “They are eager to deceptively market the supposed advantages of disregard for ideology or social conscience to the youngest [Cubans] as if such concepts were not fully reflective of ruling class interests in the capitalist world,” Castro said in a Jan. 1 talk in Santiago de Cuba celebrating the 55th anniversary of the revolution. They hope to “induce a break between the historical leadership of the revolution and younger generations, promoting uncertainty and pessimism about future prospects, all with the clear objective of dismantling socialism in Cuba from within.”

The Washington Post lambasted AP for printing the news story and defended the plot in an April 7 editorial titled, “A U.S. Plan to Help Cubans Communicate Should Be Applauded.” AP “called this ‘a secret plan,’” wrote the editorial board of the liberal daily, “as if there were something scandalous about undermining tyranny — and as if there were some readily available nonsecret means of doing so.”
 
 
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