An unresolved and deep conflict between the US and Cuba is the expenditure of at least $20 million dollars per year for democracy programs in Cuba, largely through grants from USAID. They were documented by The Cuba Money Project. It no longer exists but many of the ground breaking posts can be found here https://web.archive.org/web/sitemap/http://cubamoneyproject.com
It is illegal for US candidates to accept donations from people who are not US citizens. The controversy of Russian influence still dominates debate about the first Trump campaign. Yet very few American politicians question the legitimacy of covert interference in Cuba's social and political life. USAID is accepted and plays a positive role in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia because its programs are public and negotiated between the governments. The fundamental difference is that the US, despite many disagreements about human rights and democratic practice in all three former enemies does not aspire to regime change.
The following interview with a Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, article about Russian political interference worldwide and discussion of US opposition to China's government funded Confucius Institutes illustrate the inherent hypocrisy in our democracy programs. My solution is at the end.
--John McAuliff
Cuba slams US funding
to “promote democracy” as illegal
By Dave
Sherwood
HAVANA, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Cuba slammed U.S. funding for
"democracy promotion" programs as interventionist and illegal, aimed
at toppling the government just as the island nation faces its worst economic
crisis in decades, the country's Vice Foreign Minister said on Friday.
The Biden
Administration in July announced a call for applications to award up to $6.25
million to nongovernmental organizations and individuals as part of a
decades-long program authorized by U.S. law to "promote peaceful,
nonviolent democratic change in Cuba."
Vice Foreign Minister
Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told Reuters in Havana that the programs - which
over several decades have spent upwards of $200 million on Cuba-related projects
- in fact leverage foreign funding to foment unrest on the island.
"In any nation,
this is illegal," he said, noting the United States has legislation
against people who act as foreign government agents.
"That is
precisely what the United States is trying to promote in Cuba today," he
said.
The U.S. State
Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) call for applications warned of the
challenges and risks of working in Cuba, and said recipients "will not
serve as an agent or act under the direction of USAID."
De Cossio's
allegations come as the island nation suffers its worst economic crisis in
decades, with widespread blackouts and hours-long lines for such basic supplies
as food, fuel and medicine.
Cuba has long blamed
the U.S. Cold War-era embargo and financing of dissidents for its economic and
social woes, but De Cossio said the most recent U.S. funding for pro-democracy
groups was specifically crafted to topple the communist-run government.
"They (the U.S)
are depressing the standard of living of the population and at the same time
pouring millions of US taxpayer dollars into urging people to act against the
{Cuban} government," De Cossio told Reuters.
The United States
called for applications from groups that would provide humanitarian assistance
for persecuted individuals and for those "empowering Cubans through access
to information."
The deputy foreign
minister's statements on Friday follow the first high-level talks between the
two countries in four years, at the time characterized as constructive by the
long-time foes.
Relations have
nonetheless remained tense, with the United States and human rights groups
accusing Cuba of stifling free speech and wrongly imprisoning protesters
following widespread anti-government rallies on the island last July 11. Cuba
has denied those allegations.
Reporting by Dave
Sherwood; Editing by Josie Kao
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-slams-us-funding-promote-democracy-illegal-2022-09-02/
**************************
Russia
Secretly Gave $300 Million to Political Parties and Officials Worldwide, U.S.
Says
By Edward Wong
WASHINGTON — Russia has covertly given
at least $300 million to political parties, officials and politicians in more
than two dozen countries since 2014, and plans to transfer hundreds of millions
more, with the goal of exerting political influence and swaying elections,
according to a State Department summary of a recent U.S. intelligence review.
Russia has probably given even more
that has gone undetected, the document said.
“The Kremlin and its proxies have
transferred these funds in an effort to shape foreign political environments in
Moscow’s favor,” the document said. It added, “The United States will use
official liaison channels with targeted countries to share still classified
information about Russian activities targeting their political environments.”
The State Department
document was sent as a cable to American embassies around the world on Monday
to summarize talking points for U.S. diplomats in conversations with foreign
officials.
Ned Price, the State
Department spokesman, confirmed at a news conference on Tuesday that the
findings on Russia were the result of work by U.S. intelligence agencies. He
added that Russian election meddling was “an assault on sovereignty,” similar
to Russia’s war on Ukraine. “In order to fight this, in many ways we have to
put a spotlight on it,” he said.
The State Department cable and release
of some of the intelligence findings amount to an initial effort by the Biden
administration to use intelligence material to expose the scope of Russian
interference in global political processes and elections, and to rally other
nations to help combat it.
U.S. intelligence agencies have
determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in favor of
Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate who defeated Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic nominee. Its methods included the use of cyberoperations to spread
online disinformation. U.S. intelligence officials also found that President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized a campaign to try to hurt the candidacy
of Joseph R. Biden Jr. when he ran for office against Mr. Trump in 2020.
The new document says that a range of
Russian agencies and individuals carry out the global operations, including the
Federal Security Service and other security agencies, as well as business
figures.
The document named
two men, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Aleksandr Babakov, both
close associates of Mr. Putin, as involved in the influence or interference
campaigns. In April, the Justice Department charged Mr. Babakov, who is also a
Russian lawmaker, and two other Russian citizens with conspiring to violate
U.S. sanctions and conspiring to commit visa fraud while running an
“international foreign influence and disinformation network to advance the
interests of Russia.”
The Russians pay in
cash, cryptocurrency, electronic funds transfers and lavish gifts, the document
said. They move the money through a wide range of institutions to shield the
origins of the financing, a practice called using cutouts. Those institutions
include foundations, think tanks, organized crime groups, political
consultancies, shell companies and Russian state-owned enterprises.
The money is also given secretly
through Russian Embassy accounts and resources, the document said.
In one Asian country, the Russian
ambassador gave millions of dollars in cash to a presidential candidate, the
document said. U.S. agencies have also found that Russia has used false
contracts and shell companies in several European countries in recent years to
give money to political parties.
“Some of Russia’s covert political
financing methods are especially prevalent in certain parts of the world,” the
document said. It added, “Russia has relied on state-owned enterprises and
large firms to move funds covertly across a number of regions including Central
America, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and on think tanks and
foundations that are especially active across Europe.”
As of last year, the document said, a
Russian business figure was trying to use pro-Russian think tanks in Europe to
support far-right nationalist parties. The document warned that in the coming
months, Russia might use its “covert influence tool kit,” including secret
political financing, across broad swaths of the globe to try to undermine the
American-led sanctions on Russia and to “maintain its influence in these
regions amid its ongoing war in Ukraine.”
Although U.S. intelligence agencies
have been studying Russian global election interference and influence for
years, the intelligence review was ordered by senior administration officials
this summer, U.S. officials said. Some of the findings were recently
declassified so they could be shared widely. The review did not examine Russian
interference in U.S. elections, which intelligence agencies had been
scrutinizing in other inquiries, a U.S. official said.
Officials say one aim of the U.S.
campaign to reveal details about Russian political interference and influence
is to strengthen democratic resilience around the world,
a pillar of President Biden’s foreign policy. Administration officials are
focused on ensuring that nations that took part in last year’s Summit for
Democracy, which Mr. Biden held in Washington, can buttress their democratic
systems. The administration plans to convene a second summit soon.
The State Department
summary listed measures that the United States and partner nations could take
to mitigate Russia’s political interference campaigns, including imposing
economic sanctions and travel bans on known “financial enablers” and “influence
actors.”
The department also
recommended that countries coordinate intelligence sharing, improve foreign
investment screening, strengthen investigative capabilities into foreign
financing of political parties and campaigns, and enforce and expand foreign
agent registration rules.
It said governments should also expel
Russian intelligence officers found to be taking part in related covert
financing operations.
The State Department said in the
summary that it was urging governments to guard against covert political
financing “not just by Russia, but also by China and other countries imitating
this behavior.”
Julian
E. Barnes contributed reporting.
https://www.nyti mes.com/2022/09/13/us/politics/russia-election-interference.html
********************************
Controversy
in the US About Chinese government funded Confucius Institutes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Confucius_Institutes
The Confucius Institute (CI)
program, which began establishing centers for Chinese language instruction in
2004, has been the subject of criticisms, concerns, and controversies during
its international expansion.
Many such concerns stem from the CI's relationship to Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) authorities, giving rise to criticisms about
undermining academic freedom at host universities, engaging in industrial and
military espionage, surveillance of Chinese students abroad, and attempts to
advance the Chinese government's political agendas on controversial issues such
as Taiwan, and human rights in China and Tibet.[1][2] Additional concerns have arisen over the institutes'
financial and academic viability, teaching quality, and relations with Chinese
partner universities…..
In August 2020, the United
States Department of State designated the headquarters of the
Confucius Institutes in the U.S. as a "foreign mission" of China.[158][159][160]
As of 2022, all of the Confucius Institutes located on SUNY campuses
were closed because federal research funding was jeopardized. The 2021
National Defense Authorization Act is the act that could
restrict federal research funding to universities that host Confucius
Institutes.[161]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute#Criticism_and_controversies
Confucius Institutes are
used as a form of "soft power" by the Chinese government in which it
spends approximately $10 billion a year on CIs and related programs to exercise
these initiatives.[10] Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping in 2013 stated that the intentions are to "give a
good Chinese narrative".[11] Being
affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Education, CIs have received increasing
skepticism over its censorship of content taught, such as topics related to
individual freedoms and democracy, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang…..
In the short time-frame of
their rapid expansion, the institutes have been the subject of much
controversy. Criticisms of the institutes have included administrative concerns
about finance, academic viability, legal issues, and relations with the Chinese
partner university, as well as broader concerns about improper influence over
teaching and research, industrial and military espionage,[56][57] surveillance
of Chinese abroad, and undermining Taiwanese influence.[58] There
has also been organized opposition to the establishment of a Confucius
Institute at University of
Melbourne,[59] University of
Manitoba,[60] Stockholm
University,[61][62] University of
Chicago[63] and
many others. More significantly, some universities that hosted Confucius
Institutes decided to terminate their contracts. These include Japan's Osaka Sangyo
University in 2010;[64] Canada's McMaster
University and Université
de Sherbrooke,[65][66] and
France's University of
Lyon in 2013;[35] the
University of Chicago, Pennsylvania
State University, and the Toronto
District School Board in 2014,[67][68][69] the
German Stuttgart Media
University and University of
Hohenheim in 2015,[70][71] and Vrije
Universiteit Brussel and University of
Kansas in 2019…..
A
U.S. law passed in 2019 that prohibits universities hosting Confucius
Institutes from receiving funding for Chinese language studies from the
Department of Defense led to more closures of Confucius Institutes. Unable to
obtain a waiver from the Department of Defense, Indiana University, the University of
Minnesota, the University
of Rhode Island, San
Francisco State University, the University of
Oregon, Western Kentucky
University, Arizona
State University, the University
of Hawaii at Manoa, and San Diego
State University closed
their programs in 2019.[105][106][107][108] In
2020, the University of
Maryland also announced the
closure of its Confucius Institute, the oldest one in the U.S.[109]
***********************************
Message to Samantha Power from John McAuliff
|
To: Samantha Power
Subject: USAID democracy programs
|
Dear Ms. Power,
I hope you have seen this story from Reuters about USAID democracy programs
in Cuba. Deputy Foreign Minister de Cossio who was interviewed is a serious and
balanced person. His point about the US attitude on the receiving end can be
seen in the concern about Chinese government funded Confucius Institutes on US
campuses.
It would be a far more effective contribution to democracy in Cuba if the
embargo were ended and the natural influences of unrestricted tourism,
investment, cultural exchanges and trade were allowed to play out.
Hard-liners in both countries would lose leverage on their respective
governments, including the Cubans who characterized President Obama's
initiatives as a Trojan Horse. Regrettably Trump's maximum pressure policies
confirmed their suspicion.- and the Biden Administration has done far too little
to undo the damage.
I could make a proposal to USAID, perhaps in partnership with an
organization like the Institute of International Education, to set up a broad
two way exchange of academics, business, lawyers, professionals, athletes,
artists, etc. One commonality between our two countries is the array of
associations and conferences that provide a natural point of
entry.
The critical factor is that the design of the program and the choice of
participants must be the joint responsibility of representatives of both
countries. Inevitably for the first few years, Cuban participants will be
carefully vetted for reliability. However my expectation is that as trust is
developed, the parameters will widen. Cuban attendance in the annual congress
of the Latin American Studies Association is a useful example.
Regards,
John McAuliff
