[News] Helping Opposition in Cuba, USAID’s Longest-Running Mission

[Anti-Imperialist News]

resumen-english.org 
<https://resumen-english.org/2025/02/helping-opposition-in-cuba-usaids-longest-running-mission/> 



  Helping Opposition in Cuba, USAID’s Longest-Running Mission

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By David Brooks and Jim Cason on February 18, 2025

Alan Gross, USAID worker who tried to bring SIM cards into Cuba to 
activate satellite communication system, photo: AP

President Donald Trump’s plans to close the international aid agency 
USAID have put the organization, founded in 1961 as part of the US Cold 
War strategy to confront the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, under 
the microscope. Among its first missions was supporting 
counterinsurgency efforts in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

In its early days, US international assistance was dedicated to 
supporting Washington’s allies in the fight against communism.

According to a summary by the Office of the Historian of the State 
Department, one of the first tasks assigned to what was called the 
Agency for International Development (AID) was to join a special 
(counterinsurgency) group that included the CIA, the Pentagon, and the 
State Department. The group was dedicated to defending the South 
Vietnamese government and AID was in charge of coordinating economic 
assistance programs with civil-military action programs.

Apparently, the agency did its job well. In 1962, White House National 
Security Advisor Robert Komer wrote that AID was more valuable than the 
Special Forces in global counterinsurgency efforts.

The agency’s role quickly expanded beyond Southeast Asia and by the end 
of the 1960s, AID was funding counterinsurgency police training programs 
around the world.

When Dan Mitrione, head of the USAID Office of Public Safety in Uruguay, 
was kidnapped and murdered in the 1970s, information began to emerge 
about the former police chief of the city of Richmond, Indiana, and his 
role in Uruguay in training the Uruguayan police in new techniques for 
torturing and killing Tupamaro guerrillas.

A quote attributed to Mitrione is that his goal was to produce precise 
pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired 
effect. Mitrione’s character would be portrayed in the 1972 Costa-Gavras 
film State of Siege. In 1973, the United States Congress ordered the 
closure of the AID Public Security unit.

But many of the police training functions were not discontinued, but 
simply transferred to the State Department and other US agencies, 
something that was evident during the conflicts in Central America in 
the 1980s.

Until now, USAID has been perceived in Washington only as a tool of US 
foreign policy, but most of its funding has been shifted to humanitarian 
programs. But even in this more benign area, several problems are reported.

In 2018, the US Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction 
reported that USAID support for farmers in that country had 
inadvertently supported poppy production. In another case, the agency 
had given more than $30 million to a charity in Kenya that knew or 
should have known about multiple incidents of child sexual abuse, 
without taking action.

Funding for both programs was eventually suspended. USAID’s Office of 
the Inspector General warned this week that the funding freeze will make 
it more difficult to detect cases of fraud or misuse of funds. He was 
fired the following day by the Trump administration.

One of USAID’s largest and longest-running initiatives is focused on Cuba.

“USAID provides ongoing humanitarian assistance to political prisoners 
and their families, and to marginalized individuals to alleviate their 
hardships due to their political beliefs or efforts to exercise their 
fundamental freedoms,” the agency wrote in 2014.

But there is evidence that they do more than that. In 2009, the Cuban 
government arrested USAID contractor Alan Gross, who was attempting to 
enter the island with a SIM card, needed to activate a satellite 
communication service, supposedly for the Jewish community in Cuba.

“The type of SIM card used by Gross is not available on the open market 
and is distributed only to governments,” the Associated Press news 
agency reported at the time.

“An expert in satellite telephone systems and a former intelligence 
officer who has used this type of chip informed AP that the chips are 
most frequently granted to the Department of Defense and the CIA, but 
they can also be obtained by the Department of State, which oversees 
USAID. A spokesman for the agency told AP that USAID played no role in 
the acquisition of this equipment for its contractor Gross. “We are a 
development agency, not an intelligence agency,” he said.

Media impact

The current freeze on USAID has also impacted the $2.3 million in funds 
that the US government grants to what they call independent 
anti-government media in Cuba. Reuters reported that Miami-based CubaNet 
and Madrid-based Diario de Cuba have issued urgent public requests for 
contributions, as their funding via USAID has been suspended.

In 2023, the United States provided more than $265 million in assistance 
to 707 non-state media outlets and supported 279 civil society 
organizations in the media sector dedicated to strengthening independent 
media and the free flow of information, according to USAID. Nine out of 
ten independent media outlets in Ukraine are supported by USAID, and the 
US government provides financial support to civil society organizations 
that support independent media throughout Latin America.

During his first term, Trump tried to cancel some of these democracy 
promotion programs, but in the end the funds continued to flow after 
pleas from Cuban-American lawmakers, including then-Senator Marco Rubio, 
now the new Secretary of State.

But former officials with knowledge of the internal discussions about 
USAID’s fate say that this time it is not clear whether these types of 
programs will be restored.

What is expected is that the remaining US foreign assistance will be 
more focused on political interests. Every dollar we spend, every 
program we fund, and every policy we promote has to be justified by 
answering three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it 
make America stronger? And does it make America more prosperous? Rubio 
said in relation to the suspension of USAID programs.

But those questions have already been answered by USAID’s achievements 
and purposes, Democrats argue. Last week, liberal Democratic Senator 
Chris Murphy, speaking at a rally in front of the building that until a 
few days ago was the headquarters of USAID, declared: “Every day, the 
United States is safer because of what USAID does. The agency fights 
terrorist groups and supports freedom fighters around the world.”

For the Trump administration, closing USAID is part of a supposed 
symbolic war against an overly large federal government, rather than an 
attempt to reduce federal spending.

Even if Elon Musk manages to eliminate all USAID spending, it would only 
be a 1.2% reduction in the federal budget. For now, what remains of 
USAID’s mission and purpose could look much more like it did when it 
first started operating.

Source:La Jornada 
<https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2025/02/18/mundo/ayudar-a-opositores-en-cuba-la-mision-mas-longeva-de-la-usaid-8221>, 
translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

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