United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID)

This government agency boasts of having helped countries around the world develop economically and resolve serious humanitarian problems in the course of its more than 40 years. It is well known, however, that USAID has been used by the U.S. government as a smokescreen to carry out covert operations and destabilizing efforts throughout the world. This is has been especially evident in Latin America and the Caribbean. USAID is an instrument of U.S. foreign policy created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 following the Cuban Revolution. Grounded in the development ideology of W. Rostow (Stages of Economic Growth), it has aimed to nip anything resembling the Cuban revolution in Latin America —and the Third World in general— at the bud (“the advance of totalitarianism”). In recent years, USAID has destined increased financial and material resources to the fostering of subversive activities, in coordination with the U.S. Interests Section in Havana; these activities include the introduction of subversive written and video materials into Cuba and the distribution of radios fitted with special devices to be used in subversive operations. Between 1996 and 2004, the U.S. government gave $34 million to 25 counterrevolutionary organizations through USAID. From 1988 to April 2005, Frank Hernandez Trujillo’s Democracy Support Group alone received over $4.6 million. USAID’s 2003 Cuba budget was of six million dollars. According to its own reports, this money was given NGOs that “promote a democratic transition in Cuba.” With this statement, USAID acknowledges that a foreign government finances subversive activities within Cuba aimed at brining about a political change, a covert operation that is, needless to say, in violation of international law.

Sources:

www.cubadebate.org www.cubavsterrorismo.cu