Our rapper in Havana: USAID hijacked Cuban hip-hop scene trying to undermine govt
December 11, 2014- rt.com
from Black Anti-War
Young
Cuban hip-hop musicians have been sucked into a USAID secret operation
aiming at regime change in Havana. Rappers from underground circles were
unwittingly supposed to promote anti-government sentiments, but the
operation was haplessly executed.
A new AP investigation
has exposed a secret program by America’s Agency for International
Development (USAID) to infiltrate Cuba’s underground hip-hop scene to
form a movement of “socially-conscious youth” opposing the Communist authorities. The operation lasted for over two years, in 2009-2011.
USAID has denied the allegations, claiming “Any assertions that our work is secret or covert are simply false,” in a statement on Wednesday. It stressed that its programs are aimed at strengthening civil society, “often
in places where civic engagement is suppressed and where people are
harassed, arrested, subjected to physical harm or worse.”
The
agency’s principal contractor, Washington-based Creative Associates
International, associated with a Serbian team to promote Cuban rappers
and get the underground hip-hop subculture to stir political dissent in
Cuba.
Previously,
the same team headed by contractor Rajko Bozic was used to organize
student protest concerts, attempting to influence Serbian youths to turn
against the President Slobodan Milosevic and contribute to the
overthrow of his government back in 2000.
According to documents obtained
by the AP, the Serbs operated under the guise of a Panama company
financed via a Liechtenstein bank to cover the operation up. USAID's
efforts were so classified that the money trail was successfully hidden
from Cuban authorities. This effectively raised the suspicions of the US
Treasury Department, which surmised a possible US embargo violation and
froze a transaction.
Promoters
of a political change in Cuba recruited a number of musicians, the most
prominent of them Los Aldeanos, already restricted to performing at
home for their anti-government lyrics.
Los
Aldeanos got political training while doing a concert tour in Serbia,
but allegedly never suspected that the US government had paid the bills
during their tour.
The rappers assisted in producing an underground TV project on Cuban youth culture entitled ‘Viva Cuba Libre: Rap is War’.
Filmed with hidden cameras, the film was supposed to bring viewers to the streets of Havana and hear“the sound of struggle and the voice of a new revolution.”
The protest movement planned by the USAID contractors was organized as a social network based onTalentoCubano.net website promoting Cuban amateur musicians. The movement numbered about 200 “socially-conscious youth.”
USAID
operated rather clumsily in Cuba, AP reports, as there were at least
six incidents in which contractors or their Cuban associates were
detained or interrogated. On a number of occasions Cuban authorities
managed to seize computers with data linking the program to USAID. But
despite those blatant failures, the contractors continued worming their
way into the Cuban musical underground.
Yet
instead of forging Cuban hip-hop into a revolutionary movement, the
USAID contractors compromised the very musicians they tried to promote.
Los
Aldeanos had to leave the country due to pressure from the Cuban
government and moved to South Florida, where their lyrics became much
softer.
“I
never imagined that a program like this could exist ... When you find
out you could be surrounded by a conspiracy, it's shocking,” legendary Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez told AP.
Back in April, AP reported
that the leaders of the Roots of Hope, the largest nonprofit
organization for young Cuban-Americans, which explicitly refused to
accept US government funds, in fact supported Washington’s secret
ZunZuneo program. Also known as the ‘Cuban Twitter’, it was aimed at
toppling Cuba’s government.
A further AP investigation revealed in August that the US secretly sent young Latinos to Cuba to trigger political unrest.
One month ago, the US government prohibited
the Agency for International Development from acting in countries that
reject its help, or from taking on dangerous or risky projects.
---------------------------
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WASHINGTON
(AP) — The head of the nation's global development agency said
Wednesday he will step down from his post in February, following an
announcement by the U.S. government that it would start talks toward
restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Rajiv
Shah, the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International
Development, gave no public reason for leaving the agency he's led since
2000. In a statement released Wednesday morning, he said he had "mixed
emotions" but did not elaborate.
Shah's
announcement also came hours before U.S. officials confirmed on
Wednesday that USAID contractor Alan Gross was freed from a Cuban
prison. He was arrested in December 2009 and later sentenced to 15 years
after Cuban authorities said he tried to smuggle illegal technology
into the country.
USAID,
under Shah, drew intense criticism from some U.S. lawmakers and the
Cuban government for its Cuba programs. An AP investigation this year
revealed the agency — with the help of another Washington-based
contractor — created a Twitter-like service, staged a health workshop to
recruit activists and infiltrated the island's hip-hop community.
Shah
was confirmed Dec. 24, 2009, three weeks after Gross' arrest. At the
time, the AP found, a USAID-run program in Cuba continued despite
internal warnings that travel was dangerous because of Gross' detention.
Following
the AP's disclosures, the agency prepared internal rules that would
effectively end risky undercover work in hostile countries. The AP found
USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates International, concealed
their involvement in the Cuban programs — setting up front companies,
routing money through overseas bank transactions and fashioning
elaborate cover stories.
That
subterfuge put at risk the agency's cooperation with foreign
governments to deliver aid to the world's poor. USAID recently pledged
more than $140 million to fight Ebola in West Africa, part of its $425
million effort against the epidemic.
"For
the past five years, Raj Shah has been at the center of my
administration's efforts to advance our global development agenda,"
President Barack Obama said in a statement Wednesday. Obama said the
administrator "embodied America's finest values by proactively advancing
our development priorities, including ending global poverty,
championing food security, promoting health and nutrition, expanding
access to energy sources, and supporting political and economic reform
in closed societies."
USAID
describes itself as the lead U.S. government agency working to fight
poverty and promote democracy around the world. Shah said Wednesday he
was "more confident than ever in the lasting effect of our work."
