Infiltrating
Civil Society
By Philip Agee
04 August, 2003
Condemnation
of Cuba was immediate, strong and practically global following the imprisonment
of 75 political dissidents and the execution of three ferry
hijackers. Prominent among the critics were past friends of Cuba of
recognised international stature.
As I read the hundreds
of denunciations that came through my mail, it was easy to see how enemies
of the revolution had seized on those issues to condemn Cuba for violations
of human rights. They had a field day.
Deliberate or careless
confusion between the political dissidents and the hijackers, two entirely
unrelated matters, was also easy because the events happened at the
same time. A Vatican publication went so far as to describe the hijackers
as dissidents when in fact they were terrorists. But others of good
faith toward Cuba also jumped on the bandwagon of condemnation treating
the two issues as one.
With respect to
the imprisonment of 75 civil society activists, the main
victim has been history, for these people were central to US government
efforts to overthrow the Cuban government and destroy the work of the
revolution.
Indeed, regime
change, as overthrowing governments has come to be known, has
been the continuing US goal in Cuba since the earliest days of the revolutionary
government. Programs to achieve this goal have included propaganda to
denigrate the revolution, diplomatic and commercial isolation, trade
embargo, terrorism and military support to counter-revolutionaries,
the Bay of Pigs invasion, assassination plots against Fidel Castro and
other Cuban leaders, biological and chemical warfare, and, more recently,
efforts to foment an internal political opposition masquerading as an
independent civil society.
The administration
of US President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s decided that more than
terrorist operations were needed to impose regime change in Cuba. Terrorism
hadn't worked, nor had the Bay of Pigs invasion, nor had Cuba's diplomatic
isolation, nor had the economic embargo. Now Cuba would be included
in a new world-wide program to finance and develop non-governmental
and voluntary organisations, what was to become known as civil
society, within the context of US global neoliberal policies.
Coups
The CIA and the
Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in this
program as well as a new organisation christened in 1983 the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Actually, the new
program was not really new. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA had
been deeply involved in secretly funding and manipulating foreign non-governmental
voluntary organisations.
These vast operations
circled the globe and targeted political parties, trade unions and business
associations, youth and student organisations, women's groups, civic
organisations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and
cultural societies, and the public information media. The network functioned
at local, national, regional and global levels.
Over the years,
the CIA exerted phenomenal influence behind the scenes in country after
country, using these powerful elements of civil society to penetrate,
divide, weaken and destroy organisations on the left, and indeed to
impose regime change by toppling governments.
Such was the case,
among many others, in Guyana, where in 1964, culminating 10 years of
efforts, the Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes,
terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA agents in the trade
unions.
About the same time,
while I was a CIA agent assigned to Ecuador, our agents in civil society,
through mass demonstrations and civil unrest, provoked two military
coups in three years against elected, civilian governments.
Anyone who has watched
the opposition to President Hugo Chavez's government in Venezuela develop
can be certain that the CIA, AID and the NED are coordinating the destabilisation
and were behind the failed coup in April 2002 as well as the failed
civic strike of last December-January.
The Cuban American
National Foundation was, predictably, one of the first beneficiaries
of NED funding. From 1983 to 1988, CANF received US$390,000 for anti-Castro
activities.
NED
The NED is supposedly
a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it receives a
yearly appropriation from the US Congress. The money is channelled through
four core foundations. These are the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs (linked to the Democratic Party);
the International Republican Institute (Republican Party); the American
Center for International Labor Solidarity; and the Center for International
Private Enterprise (US Chamber of Commerce).
According to its
web site, the NED also gives money directly to groups abroad who
are working for human rights, independent media, the rule of law, and
a wide range of civil society initiatives.
The NED's NGO status
provides the fiction that recipients of NED money are getting private
rather than US government money. This is important because so many countries,
including both the US and Cuba, have laws relating to their citizens
being paid to carry out activities for foreign governments.
The US requires
an individual or organisation subject to foreign control
to register with the attorney general and to file detailed activities
reports, including finances, every six months.
Cuba has its own
laws criminalising actions intended to jeopardise its sovereignty or
territorial integrity as well as actions supporting the goals of the
anti-Cuba US Helms-Burton Act of 1996, such as collecting information
to support the US embargo or to subvert the government, or for disseminating
US government information to undermine the Cuban government.
Efforts to develop
an opposition civil society in Cuba had already begun in 1985 with the
early NED grants to CANF. These efforts received a significant boost
with passage in 1992 of the Cuban Democracy Act, better known as the
Torricelli Act, which promoted support, through US NGOs, of individuals
and organisations committed to non-violent democratic change in
Cuba.
A still greater
intensification came with passage in 1996 of the Cuban Liberty and Solidarity
Act, better known as the Helms-Burton Act.
As a result of these
laws, the NED, AID and the CIA (the latter not mentioned publicly but
undoubtedly included) intensified their coordinated programs targeted
at Cuban civil society.
CIA
One may wonder why
the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were several reasons.
One reason from the beginning was the CIA's long experience and huge
stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around
the world. By joining with the CIA, the NED and AID would come on board
on-going operations whose funding they could take over while leaving
the secret day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers.
In addition, someone
had to monitor and report the effectiveness of the local recipients'
activities. NED would not have people in the field to do this, nor would
their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was
ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry
out discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society
recipients, especially if they were in opposition to their governments.
Finally, the CIA
had ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required.
In Cuba, participation by CIA officers under cover in the US Interests
Section would be particularly useful, since NED and AID funding would
go to US NGOs that would have to find covert ways, if possible, to get
equipment and cash to recipients inside Cuba. The CIA could help with
this quite well.
Evidence of the
amount of money these agencies have been spending on their Cuban projects
is fragmentary. Nothing is publicly available about the CIA's spending,
but what is easily found about the other two is interesting. The AID
web site cites $12 million spent for Cuba programs during 1996-2001,
but for 2002 the budget jumped to $5 million plus unobligated funds
of $3 million from 2001. AID's 2003 budget for Cuba is $6 million showing
a tripling of annual funds since the George Bush junta seized power.
No surprise given the number of Miami Cubans Bush has appointed to high
office in his administration.
From 1996 to 2001,
AID disbursed the $12 million to 22 NGOs, all apparently based in the
US, mostly in Miami. By 2002, the number of front-line NGOs had shrunk
to 12 the University of Miami, Center for a Free Cuba, Pan-American
Development Foundation, Florida International University, Freedom House,
Grupo de Apoyo a la Disidencia, Cuba On-Line, CubaNet, National Policy
Association, Accion Democratica Cubana and Carta de Cuba.
In addition, the
International Republican Institute received AID money for a sub-grantee,
the Directorio Revolucionario Democr tico Cubano, also based in Miami.
These NGOs have
a double purpose, one directed to their counterpart groups in Cuba and
one directed to the world, mainly through web sites. Whereas, on the
one hand, they channel funds and equipment into Cuba, on the other they
disseminate to the world the activities of the groups in Cuba. Cubanet
in Miami, for example, publishes the writings of the independent
journalists of the Independent Press Association of Cuba, based
in Havana, and channels money to the writers.
Interestingly, AID
claims on its web site that its grantees are not authorised to
use grant funds to provide cash assistance to any person or organisation
in Cuba. It's hard to believe that claim, but if it's true, all
those millions are only going to support the US-based NGO infrastructure,
a subsidised anti-Castro cottage industry of a sort, except for what
can be delivered in Cuba in kind computers, faxes, copy machines,
cell phones, radios, TVS and VCRs, books, magazines and the like.
On its web site,
AID lists purposes for the money: solidarity with human rights activists;
dissemination of the work of independent journalists; development of
independent NGOs; promoting workers' rights; outreach to the Cuban people;
planning for future assistance to a transition government; and evaluation
of the program. Anyone who wants to see which NGOs are getting how much
can visit http://www.usaid.gov/regions/lac/cu/upd-cub.htm
AID's claim that
its grantees can't provide cash to Cubans in Cuba, makes one wonder
about the more than $100,000 in cash that Cuban investigators found
in the hands of the 75 mostly unemployed dissidents who
went on trial. A clue may be found in the AID statement that US
policy encourages US NGOs and individuals to undertake humanitarian,
informational and civil society-building activities in Cuba with private
funds. Could such private funds be money from the
NED?
Recall the fiction
that the NED is a private foundation, an NGO. It has no
restrictions on its funds going for cash payments abroad, and it just
happens to fund some of the same NGOs as AID. Be assured that this is
not the result of rivalry or lack of coordination in Washington. The
reason probably is that NED funds can go for salaries and other personal
compensation to people on the ground in Cuba.
The Cuban organisations
below the US NGOs in the command and money chain number nearly 100 and
have names [translated from Spanish] like Independent Libraries of Cuba,
All United, Society of Journalists Marquez Sterling, Independent Press
Association of Cuba, Assembly to Promote Civil Society and the Human
Rights Party of Cuba.
NED's web site is
conveniently out of date, showing only its Cuba program for 2001. But
it is instructive. Its funds for Cuban activities in 2001 totalled only
$765,000 if one is to believe what they say. The money they gave
to eight NGOs in 2001 averaged about $52,000, while a 9th NGO, the International
Republican Institute received $350,000 for the Directorio Revolucionario
Democratico Cubano for strengthening civil society and human rights
in Cuba. In contrast, this NGO is to receive $2,174,462 in 2003 from
AID through the same IRI.
Why would the NED
be granting the lower amounts and AID such huge amounts, both channelled
through IRI? The answer, apart from IRI's skim-off, probably is that
the NED money is destined for the pockets of people in Cuba while the
AID money supports the US NGO infrastructures.
Whatever the amount
of money reaching Cuba may have been, everyone in Cuba working in the
various dissident projects knows of US government's sponsorship, funding
and of its purpose regime change.
Far from being independent
journalists, idealistic human rights activists, legitimate
advocates for change or Marian librarians from River City,
every one of the 75 dissidents arrested and convicted was
knowingly a participant in US government operations to overthrow the
government and install a US-favoured political, economic and social
order. They knew what they were doing was illegal, they got caught and
they are paying the price.
Anyone who thinks
these people are prisoners of conscience, persecuted for their ideas
or speech, or victims of repression, simply fails to see them properly
as instruments of a US government that has declared revolutionary Cuba
its enemy.
They were not convicted
for ideas but for their paid actions on behalf of a foreign power that
has waged a 44-year war of varying degrees of intensity against this
poor country.
To think that the
dissidents were creating an independent, free civil society
is absurd, for they were funded and controlled by a hostile foreign
power and to that degree, which was total, they were not free or independent
in the least.
The civil society
they wished to create was not just your normal, garden variety civil
society of Harley freaks and Boxer breeders, but a political opposition
movement fomented openly by the US government. What government in the
world would be so self-destructive as to sit by and just watch this
happen?
The threat of war
against Cuba from Bush and his coterie of crusaders, all of them crazed
after Iraq, is real. A military campaign against Cuba, coinciding with
the 2004 electoral campaign, may be the only way he can hope to get
himself elected for his second term.