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Weekly Report - 7 August 2014 (WR-14-31)
CUBA: US democracy efforts damaging
Writing in the daily Huffington Post on 5 August, a US professor, William M. LeoGrande (of American University in Washington D.C.), quipped that “the Maxwell Smarts of USAID” were “at it again in Cuba” in reference to the latest revelations about the US government’s democracy programs in Cuba. If anyone thought the legendary tales of efforts to kill off Cuba’s revolutionary leader and former president, Fidel Castro, with exploding cigars were comical Cold War relics, they were proven wrong earlier this year when it emerged, via the Associated Press (AP), that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had okayed a fake ‘Cuban Twitter’ (‘ZunZuneo’) - a social messaging network designed to promote democracy on the island. The story, covered in detail by our sister publication Latin American Security & Strategic Review (April 2014), provoked not only mirth but also – inevitably – a strong backlash from the Cuban government about continuing US meddling and interference.
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