Freedom House gives back Cuba funds

Freedom House gives back Cuba funds
Posted on Friday, 06.10.11

The democracy-advocacy organization says receiving USAID funds for Cuba programs is conditioned on providing too much risky information that could be leaked to Havana.
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com

Complaining that the U.S. Agency for International Development is asking for risky information about how its Cuba democracy funds are spent, the Freedom House advocacy group has surrendered a $1.7 million grant from USAID.

Information about the identities and travel plans of the people involved in its Cuba programs could be leaked to Havana, said Daniel Calingaert, deputy director of programs at Freedom House.

“We take very seriously the need to be accountable for these programs,” Calingaert said. But the USAID requests for information are “not just onerous. They really raise the risk of what we do, especially in the age of Wikileaks.”

The U.S. programs are designed to support peaceful civil society activities in the communist-ruled island, but Cuba has branded them as subversive and made it illegal to deliver or accept the U.S. assistance, requiring what USAID calls “discretion.”

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/10/2261117/freedom-house-gives-back-cuba.html

http://www.pbs.org.nyud.net:8090/newshour/images/latin_america/jan-june03/0424cubacalzon2.jpg

Good old Cuban "exile," Frank Calzón
has headed Freedom House, within his
years of service to the right-wing.
~snip~
Target Cuba

In 1995, at the same time Miami exiles and their friends in government were predicting the rapid fall of the Cuban revolution, Freedom House began its USAID and State Department-funded Cuba Program to "provide assistance to Cuba's civil society" and to "raise awareness among international audiences regarding the need for a peaceful transition process in Cuba." From 1995-1997 this program was run by Frank Calzon, a Freedom House principal since 1989.17 It is currently run by Xavier Utset in Washington, DC. Journalist Walter Lippmann says Freedom House was granted US$2.1 million for its Cuba program in 2004.18

On May 11, 2001, the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the UN lodged a complaint with the NGO Committee, alleging that Freedom House engaged in activities that violated its consultative status, objecting to "those NGOs that were being used as agents by certain governments to violate the sovereignty of other States."19 The organization was "a machinery of subversion, closer to an intelligence service than an NGO," he said. "Documents showed receipt of money by illegal groups in Cuba and evidence of clandestine activities. The current Cuba programme of Freedom House involved the recruitment and training of journalists from Eastern Europe and sending them to Cuba for subversive activities."20

More:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/barahona030107.html

the Obama/Clinton/ Panetta government? A clampdown on their rogue operations? After "Guido" and the "suitcase full of money"--that ridiculous Bushwhack CIA caper out of Miami--and other lunatic fringe operations (Alan Gross; Honduras; the Miami mafia in this Scumbag-Diebold Congress running its own foreign policy, including virtually declaring war on Venezuela and other leftist countries )--it wouldn't surprise me if Panetta's more suave style of imperial service has clashed with these thugs.

If, indeed, they really did turn down $1.7 million in easy U.S. taxpayer lucre from the USAID (civil arm of the CIA), for fear of being "outed," that is amusing in itself, but I wonder if they really did turn it down or were jettisoned because their activities are just too embarrassing in the new leftist political landscape of Latin America, given what appears to be an Obama administration recognition of the realities (U.S. transglobal corporations and war profiteers aren't going to get anywhere with U.S. threats, bullying and aggression). Their stated description of the situation may not be accurate--it may be an agreed upon cover story (--that THEY walked away from the money). I don't know if the Wikileaks line was just a joke they threw in, to further obfuscate what is really going on, or perhaps a pointer to coming revelations--serious dirt on Freedom House--that is prompting the new U.S. regime to cut them loose. But, in any case, this is--as I said--a fascinating development, and surely needs to be evaluated IN CONTEXT.

It also may be a pointer to something really terrible that FH has been up to--assassination plots against leftist leaders, for instance? connections to the death squads in Colombia and Honduras (murders of trade unionists and others}? that strange Middle Europe/Irish mercenary plot against Evo Morales? Their political propaganda and spying activities are bad enough. But, to be jettisoned, they may well have gone further. And the CONTEXT is that Latin America is not going to put up with these kinds of U.S. activities any longer--placing U.S. military assets throughout the Central America/Caribbean region to bully and threaten (no doubt with additional Pentagon oil war plans on their Big Dartboard), contriving fraudulent elections in Honduras and Haiti, lavishing billions of dollars in military aid on notoriously murderous militaries (Colombia), plotting regime change against Latin American democracies, and against the quite legitimate government of Cuba, recognized throughout the world except in Miami. (They have a different system, it's true, but it is by no means a heinous regime. Look at the OTHER end of the island of Cuba for the torturers of prisoners, the deniers of human rights, the defiers of the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and for the perpetrators of three oil wars!).

Latin America has had it with this! They really have. And they are uniting around a common goal--independence from U.S. domination. And I think one of two things has happened, or possibly both: 1) Obama has finally gotten some control over the Bushwhack-infested agencies of the U.S. government, to implement (at long last) his initially stated Latin American foreign policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" and/or 2) Dilma Rousseff (Lula da Silva's chosen successor, elected president of Brazil) MADE VERY CLEAR to Obama, in Obama's recent visit, that Brazil WILL NOT TOLERATE any more Hondurases, ANY attack on Venezuela or Brazil's other leftist allies, or ANY further belligerence and interference in Latin America, and that Latin America is GOING TO GO ITS OWN WAY, so if U.S. corporations agree to this LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, fine, they can join in and COMPETE, but if they don't, good-bye! Latin America is developing "south-south" trade--both amongst themselves and across the "Global South" from Africa to Asia. Brazil is particularly suited to lead this new southern world "block" to prosperity because of its leftist leaders' commitment to "raising all boats." Latin America is uniting on goals of peaceful change and social justice. And the U.S. can kiss off, if it doesn't change its policies accordingly.

I think that's what Dilma Rousseff--who was tortured by the U.S.-backed dictatorship in Brazil, and went on to become president--told Obama. Whether this suited him or not, I don't know. He's a hard man to read. But, in any case, it is the REALITY of Latin America, and I would at least credit him with an effort to face reality, if, for no other reason, that the U.S. really cannot afford Oil War IV.

And in this CONTEXT, I think the U.S. government jettisoning Freedom House makes sense. It may not mean jettisoning all such subversive programs, and it may not even mean taking the next oil war "off the table," but it certainly could mean removal of a visible irritant, and, if worse Wikileak or other revelations are pending, a strategic "distancing" of the U.S. from such activities.

Attacks on Cuba are all-of-a-piece with attacks on Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and others, with U.S. supported rightwing coup d'etats (Venezuela '02, Haiti '04, Bolivia '08, Honduras '09, Ecuador '10, Haiti again in '11), with the U.S. 4th Fleet roaming the Caribbean, and with new U.S. military bases being constructed all over the region (esp. Colombia and Honduras), with a USAF base on the Dutch islands right off Venezuela's oil coast and other hostile U.S. actions--and our lunatic rightwing, especially the Miami mafia reps in Congress, SEE IT THAT WAY and are the operatives of others (U.S. corps such as Drummond Coal, Chiquita, Exxon Mobil, Dyncorp) who SEE IT THAT WAY. Cuba is the linchpin of this war policy. This tiny holdout against predatory capitalism sits in a very strategic position in the U.S. "circle the wagons" region of Central America/the Caribbean. And what they are "circling the wagons" against is "south-south" trade. They fear competition like the Devil--such an irony for propagandists who throw around the word "freedom"!

The halfwits must've stopped playing with themselves for a while. :shrug:

... ha ha smoked them out, no doubt the money was going to pay their country club dues, etc.