GRANMA INTERNAITONAL
Havana. May 29, 2008
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/mayo/juev29/USAID.htmlMercenary NGOs meet in Washington
USAID reveals its plans for subversion in Cuba
• José "Pepe" Cárdenas and officials in charge of attacking Cuba have
brazenly revealed in Washington how they are to squander the $45 million
assigned to subversion in Cuba via "experienced" institutions, preferably
European and Latin American ones
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Granma International staff writer—
• IN its new plans for destabilizing Cuba, the USAID is to promote the
clandestine dispatch of electronic materials to the island via European and
Latin American intermediaries, which will undertake the dirty work that it
cannot legally do: to send agents into the country under cover of so-called
humanitarian licenses in order to make on-the-ground evaluations, and to
guarantee their collaborators that their activities will never be divulged,
over and above the Freedom of Information Act.
Forced by the General Accountability Office to fabricate a certain image of
decency in the distribution of taxpayers’ money that it has squandered to
date without the least accountability, the USAID (the so-called Agency for
International Development), called an assembly at its Washington
headquarters on May 14 to discuss the distribution of the $45 million
assigned by the Bush administration to provoke a rupture in the Cuban
revolutionary process.
For three hours, from 9:00 a.m. to midday, behind closed doors and in a
conspiratorial atmosphere in line with the operations planned, José "Pepe"
Cárdenas, USAID chief for Latin America, and a former Cuban-American
National Foundation (CANF) director, headed a clique of federal official
"specialists" on Cuba:
• His right-hand woman for the island, Elaine Grigsby, director of the Cuba
Program;
• Amadjan Abani, from the USAID Aid and Acquisitions Office;
• Anthony Christino III, from the Department of Commerce Industry and
Security Office;
• Clara Davis of the OFAC (the State Department Agency that monitors and
punishes exchanges with Cuba).
Outstanding among the organizations present, some already notorious and
others less well-known, but likewise dedicated to appropriating millions
from the State Department, and whose representatives peopled the room, bent
on getting a slice of the cake, were:
The pseudo Czech NGO People in Need; Global Partners, IBMC, Loyola
University, the Center for Democracy in the Americas, Jackson State
University, the Mississippi Consortium for International Development, the
International Resources Group, the Panamerican Development Foundation,
Partners of America, the Alliance for Family, the Trade Council of Hungary
and the millionaire TV Martí.
No diplomat – not even the Czech agent Kolar – was present.
In what is equivalent to confessing authentic espionage operations against
Cuba and in Cuban territory, "Pepe" Cárdenas, the former CANF director who
replaced the supremely corrupt Adolfo Franco, insisted on the need to
identify NGOS in third countries that can channel USAID’s resources for
subversion.
He stressed the need to dispatch to Cuba, via such intermediaries,
"propaganda pamphlets, cell phones and modern communications equipment," as
well as "to train Cubans resident in third countries."
Highlighting the philosophy behind the significant expansion of the USAID’s
Cuba Program, Cárdenas announced that its budget of $13 million in 2007,
"shot up" to $45 million in 2008.
He then moved on to the new geography of this monumental squandering, noting
Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia and Puerto Rico as countries most inclined
to develop this clandestine operation.
However, Grigsby, supposedly his most faithful collaborator, commented that,
in her experience, it would be difficult to find partners in Latin America.
As a good instructor of what clearly constitutes an intelligence operation,
Cárdenas spoke of the convenience of using East European countries that have
had recent transition experiences.
However, he did not go into details as to the degree of collaboration or
complicity that U.S. intelligence clearly enjoys with government officials
from the countries that he mentioned.
Replying to one question, Cárdenas forgot that he had already recommended
"institutions experienced in carrying out this type of program," such as the
NED, the NDI, the IRI, Florida International University, Freedom House, and
his CIA agent Jaime Suchlicki…
And, of course, his buddy Frank "Paquito" Calzón’s Center for a Free Cuba.
"SECRET" OPERATIONS: ACCESS TO BE DENIED
With a language corresponding to an espionage operation, the former CANF
director confessed that it is difficult to introduce materials into Cuba and
thus implied that the work "had to be done in a clandestine manner."
Grigsby compounded the top secret nature of the designated tasks by stating
that if applications for the declassification of documents should be made
via the FOIA, USAID would only issue a "general summary" and would keep
secret details of each NGO’s program, given that these concern "secret
materials."
Clear as water.
In this same collective confession, Anthony Christino III spoke of the need
to send computers and software to Cuba, for which his services would issue
licenses.
For her part, Clara Davis, the pearl of the OFAC, proposed travel licenses,
making it clear that so-called humanitarian licenses are to be utilized for
infiltrating agents under the cover of projects linked to public health, the
environment and "specific" initiatives.
She also referred, openly and crudely, to the "interest" in promoting travel
to Cuba in order to undertake "on-the-ground evaluations" utilizing general
licenses.
Davis noted that the largest entry of money into Cuba is done via the
Churches, an intentional reference whose aim was to damage the excellent
relations existing between the Churches and Cuban state.
ELECTIONS WILL DETERMINE THE FUTURE
In another confession in this lengthy succession of confidences, Grigsby
pointed out that a further expansion of the subversive budget would depend
on the November elections.
According to observers on the ground there is no doubt that the victims of
this new turn in funding subversion in Cuba will duly adjust their accounts
to the administration.
The organization that has handled the squandering of federal funds on
fraudulent operations evidently called its meeting in order to be seen to be
falling into line in the wake of the GAO reprimand.
Nevertheless, significantly enough, the USAID publicized the day and time of
its assembly, but omitted to say where it was, so that those interested had
to call and ask. The strategy worked. Very few new faces appeared for this
sharing out of an already divided cake.
In its report, the GAO disclosed how USAID top officials managed to conceal
the whereabouts of $65.4 million handed out over 10 years to friends in
Miami and Washington.
José Cárdenas was a senior CANF director from 1986. He was successively
director of "research and publications," spokesman for the organization, and
chief lobbyist when the Mafia organization had a luxury "embassy" in
Washington.
He is, of course, close friends of Ileana Ros Lehtinen and her two
accomplices the Díaz-Balart brothers.
The CANF, created by the CIA under Ronald Reagan, spent a fortune funding
the operations of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, a fact that
Cárdenas obviously knows.
He is equally aware of the already strident lamentations of the Miami capos,
left in a somewhat precarious situation by the reorientation of USAID’s
methods to the benefit of its traditional European correspondents. •
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