U.S. secretly built ‘Cuban Twitter’ to stir unrest
The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a “Cuban Twitter” — a communications network designed to undermine the communist government in Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign banks, government documents and interviews with officials reveal.
The Obama administration project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba’s stranglehold on the Internet with a primitive social media platform. First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then, the plan was to push them toward dissent.
Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a U.S. agency with ties to the State Department, nor that American contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information might be used someday for political purposes.
It is unclear whether the scheme was legal under U.S. law, which requires written authorization of covert action by the president and congressional notification. Officials at the USAID would not say who had approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it. The Cuban government declined a request for comment.
USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said Thursday that it was not a covert program, though “parts of it were done discreetly” in order to protect the people involved.
White House spokesman Jay Carney echoed Shah’s statement and said he knew of no individuals in the White House who were aware of the program.
At minimum, the revelation appears to muddy the U.S. Agency for International Development’slongstanding claims that it does not conduct covert actions, and could undermine the agency’s mission to deliver aid to the world’s poor and vulnerable — an effort that requires the trust and cooperation of foreign governments.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s State Department and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, on Thursday called the program “dumb, dumb, dumb” and said he was not aware of the effort.
“And if I had been, I would have said, ‘What in heaven’s name are you thinking?’ ” Leahy said on MSNBC.
The Republican chairman of a House oversight subcommittee said the panel will be looking into the project.
“That is not what USAID should be doing,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform National Security Subcommittee.
But several other lawmakers voiced their support for the project, dubbed ZunZuneo — slang for a Cuban hummingbird’s tweet. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said USAID should be applauded for giving people in Cuba a platform to talk to each other.
USAID and its contractors went to extensive lengths to conceal Washington’s ties to the project, according to interviews and documents. They set up front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands to hide the money trail, and recruited CEOs without telling them they would be working on a U.S. taxpayer-funded project.
USAID said in a statement that it is “proud of its work in Cuba to provide basic humanitarian assistance, promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to help information flow more freely to the Cuban people.”
Documents and interviews reveal that ZunZuneo’s organizers hoped the network would allow dissidents to organize “smart mobs” — mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice — that could trigger political demonstrations, or “renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.”
Launched in 2009, ZunZeneo eventually reached at least 40,000 subscribers. But documents reveal its developers found evidence Cuban officials had tried to trace the text messages and break into the system. USAID said ZunZuneo ceased operating in September 2012, when a government grant ended.
More than two years later, the Communist Party remains in power — with no Cuban Spring on the horizon.
