1736. U.S. Funding for "Democracy" in Cuba: The National Endowment for Democracy Report

By Tracey Eaton, Along the Malecon, February 14, 2015

The National Endowment for Democracy is a major recipient of US government funds for channeling to democracy programs in Cuba. The NED, based in Washington, D.C., does a better job than most organizations in disclosing to the public how it spends its money.

NED states in the summary of its activities in Cuba:

“Programs in Cuba took advantage of the new migration law that lifted the ban on international travel for Cubans. Cuban activists and human rights defenders presented cases of violations of human and civil rights before the United Nations and Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and participated in trainings to improve their ability to document cases. Cuban activists attended international workshops to share information and experiences with counterparts who face similar challenges.

“Programs raised international awareness about repression on the island, provided ordinary citizens with access to uncensored information and legal support, trained young Cubans to use new social media, and defended the rights of Afro-Cubans and underrepresented communities.”

The following is the list of US Gov. funded grants through NED, published in its 2013 annual report

Afro-Cuban Alliance, Inc.

Freedom of Information

$132,701

ISLAS: Quarterly Afro-Cuban Journal

To encourage greater discussion and analysis about racial issues in Cuba. Afro-Cuba Alliance will publish a quarterly journal to inform readers on the island and in the international community about racial issues in Cuba, the experience of civil rights movements, and the efforts of civil rights activists towards greater racial equality.

Afro-Cuban Alliance, Inc.

Freedom of Information

$6,500 (Supplement)

Promoting Racial Equality in Cuba

To promote discussion about racial issues in Cuba and raise international awareness about the situation of Afro-Cubans.

Asociación de Iberoamericanos por la Libertad

Democratic Ideas and Values

$60,000

Promoting Political Unity for a Democratic Cuba

To promote greater consensus about the need to support democratic actors in Cuba. Asociación de Iberoamericanos por la Libertad (AIL) will convene a series of meetings between international actors that work in Cuba in order to identify opportunities to jointly promote greater respect for civil and political rights in Cuba. AIL will also raise international awareness about the state of democracy and human rights in the country today.

Asociacion Diario de Cuba

Freedom of Information

$262,480 (Supplement: $2,480)

Diario de Cuba

To strengthen the ability of Cuban civil society to articulate its concerns and to promote freedom of expression. Diario de Cuba, a Madrid-based organization, will engage independent journalists, artists, intellectuals and academics in Cuba to promote greater analysis on social, political, economic and cultural developments in Cuba. Diario de Cuba will showcase this information on its digital media platform at www.diariodecuba.com.

Center for a Free Cuba

Human Rights

$102,000

Promoting Democracy in Cuba through Support to Civil Society

To provide humanitarian assistance to political prisoners, their families, human rights activists, youth activists, lawyers, teachers, artists and victims of repression in Cuba. In addition to humanitarian assistance, the Center will provide independent, democratic activists with important material support that will permit them to carry out their work in a more effective manner.

Centro de Investigación y Capacitación de Emprendedores Sociales Asociación Civil

Democratic Ideas and Values

$58,576

Latin American Youth Network for Democracy in Cuba

To strengthen the leadership capacity of pro-democracy youth activists in Cuba. Based in Argentina, CICES will conduct a training program with up to 50 young activists focusing on democratic values and ideas, social entrepreneurship, and effective communication skills, and conflict resolution techniques. In addition, CICES will organize a network of young activists across Latin America to mobilize support in the region for youth activists in Cuba and raise awareness about the lack of fundamental rights on the island.

Centro Democracia y Comunidad

Democratic Ideas and Values

$49,184

Lessons from Chile for a Democratic Transition in Cuba

To share knowledge about the Chilean transition from dictatorship to democracy and to strengthen the organizational capacity of Cuban activists – particularly youth and union groups – through exchanges with Chilean counterparts. CDC will also advocate among Chilean policymakers and politicians for greater solidarity towards the pro-democracy movement in Cuba.

Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina

Democratic Ideas and Values

$82,882

A Regional Approach to Promoting Democratic Values

To support and raise the visibility of pro-democracy actors and human rights advocates in Latin America. CADAL will promote greater international awareness about the efforts of democracy activists and their efforts to promote greater political pluralism in the region.

Clovek v tisni, o.p.s. – People in Need

Freedom of Information

$194,544

Changing Cuba’s Media Landscape

To promote greater freedom of information and freedom of expression. The Czech Republic-based group, People in Need, will provide independent journalists with training and technical assistance to produce uncensored media content on social, political, economic and cultural developments in Cuba. People in Need will provide grassroots organizations throughout Cuba with small grants to carry out community-based initiatives in support of freedom of expression.

Committee for Free and Democratic Cuban Unions, Incorporated

Freedom of Association

$100,000

International Project for Free and Democratic Cuban Unions

To promote greater awareness of conditions facing independent Cuban unionists. The Committee for Free and Democratic Cuban Unions, Incorporated (CFDCU) will bring together prominent labor leaders from around the world to lead a new global campaign to support independent workers in Cuba. By creating a dynamic web platform, leading an international awareness raising campaign, and coordinating a conference on independent unionism in Cuba, the CFDCU will work to reshape longstanding perceptions about the Cuban government’s record on labor and human rights violations.

Cuban Democratic Directorate

Freedom of Information

$700,000

Strengthening Civic Participation in Cuba

To promote greater freedom of information and civic activism in Cuba. Through its Radio Republic broadcasts, this Miami-based organization will provide programming that incorporates the views of democratic activists from Cuba and informs communities about local social, political, economic and cultural developments. Directorio will also provide training and technical assistance to local grassroots activists to carry out civic and community-building initiatives throughout Cuba.

Cuban Soul Foundation

Democratic Ideas and Values

$65,000

Independent Cuban Artist’s Freedom of Expression

To empower independent artists to produce and perform their work in uncensored community venues and events. Cuban Soul Foundation (CSF) will support independent artistic groups in their efforts to establish community arts centers and studios. CSF will also help coordinate a series of events to showcase the work of artists participating in this program.

Cubanet News, Inc.

Freedom of Information

$219,080

Supporting Independent Journalists in Cuba To promote greater freedom of information in Cuba. Cubanet will work with independent journalists throughout the island to produce uncensored media content on social, political, economic and cultural developments on the island. The Miami-based organization will showcase this information on its online media platform at www.cubanet.org and actively distribute it through an array of social media networks.

Fundación Hispano Cubana

Freedom of Information

$75,000

Communication and Technology For Strengthening Civil Society

To strengthen the work of civil society in Cuba and facilitate greater collaboration between independent organizations. Fundación Hispano Cubana will respond support Cuban civil society organizations with technical and material assistance in order to increase the impact of their work. Fundación Hispano Cubana will also help democratic activists in Cuba develop more effective strategies for disseminating information about their work and communicating with their fellow citizens.

Global Rights

Human Rights

$90,000

Strengthening the Capacity of Afro-Descendant Women to Promote their Rights at the OAS and UN

To increase the ability of Afro-Latino women, especially from Cuba, to defend their rights before the Organization of American States and the United Nations. Global Rights will train program participants on how to document human rights violations and develop strategies that promote greater international attention to the plight of Afro-descendant women in Latin America. Global Rights will also help activists engage the many offices at the OAS and UN that are dedicated to defending minority and gender rights in order to prompt greater action by the key multilateral institutions engaged in the region.

Global Rights

Human Rights

$7,800

Increasing the Knowledge of Human Rights Defenders on the Inter-American System

To strengthen the capacity of human rights defenders to advocate for their rights before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Global Rights will carry out an on-line training program to address the specific topics and areas of work of the IACHR. The human rights defenders will also receive technical assistance to draft a human rights report on the condition of minority and gender rights on the island to be presented during a public hearing at the Commission.

Grupo Internacional para la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa en Cuba

Freedom of Association

$270,267

Supporting Independent Unions in Cuba

To promote labor rights and defend Cuba’s independent labor movement. GIRSCC will provide independent labor activists in Cuba with technical and financial assistance in an effort to forge a more coordinated labor movement on the island. This Miami-based organization will also conduct a worldwide information dissemination campaign on the situation regarding labor rights in Cuba.

Grupo Internacional para la Responsabilidad Social Corporativa en Cuba

Freedom of Association

$30,000

Supporting Independent Unions in Cuba

To promote labor rights and defend Cuba’s independent labor movement. Supplemental funding will allow this organization to invite Cuban independent union leaders to participate at international labor union events where they can advocate for greater international support for free unionism in the island.

Instituto Cubano para la Libertad de Expresión y Prensa

Freedom of Information

$95,000

A Light for Cuba

To promote greater freedom of information in communities throughout Cuba. This new Miami-based organization will support five grassroots groups across the island and help them develop community based publications that can be distributed to local residents. Instituto Cubano para la Libertad de Expresión y Prensa (ICLEP) will provide its counterparts in Cuba with the equipment and technical assistance necessary to implement the design and printing of these documents entirely inside Cuba.

Instituto Político para la Libertad Peru

Freedom of Information

$90,000

Educating Activists on Democracy, Technology and Social Media

To provide Cuban pro-democracy activists with training on democracy and the use of the Internet and social networking media. Instituto Político para la Libertad Peru (IPL) will interact with youth and pro-democracy activists and provide them with training on democratic rights, access to information tools and international standards of freedom of expression.

International Platform For Human Rights In Cuba

Human Rights

$74,720 (Supplement: $12,000)

International Platform for Human Rights in Cuba

To raise greater awareness about and promote greater international action on Cuba’s continued non-compliance with human rights principles and standards. IPHRC will conduct a comprehensive analysis of international human rights instruments in order to document the many ways in which the Cuban government has systematically violated the rights of its citizens. This information will be presented to the diplomatic community in Europe and Latin America.

Lech Walesa Institute

Civic Education

$50,311

Polish Solidarity with Cuba

To provide young Cuban activists with training on democratic values and human rights. Based on the Polish experience, the Lech Walesa Institute will provide activists leadership tools to become more effective advocates for social and political change in their country. As part of the training program, the LWI will invite a small group of Cuban activists to travel to Poland to meet with a wide range of activists, academics, elected officials and political figures affiliated with the training program.

Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos

Human Rights

$75,000

Human Rights Observation

To promote greater public awareness about human rights violations in Cuba. The Cuban Observatory on Human Rights will work with counterparts on the island to document ongoing human rights abuses. The Cuban Observatory on Human Rights will use this information to prepare reports for the United Nations and international media outlets.

Outreach Aid to the Americas, Inc.

Democratic Ideas and Values

$60,000

Advocating for Freedom of Religion in Cuba

To foster the development of activities that promote a freer practice of faith among Cubans and increase freedom of religion in Cuba. Evangelical Christian Humanitarian Outreach for Cuba (EchoCuba) will work with trusted partners in country to hold screenings of films that encourage discussion on freedom of religion and to produce and circulate a religious magazine that has gained traction in religious communities. Additionally, EchoCuba will organize an outdoor event for religious leaders, communities, and interested citizens and will provide organizers with information on successful religious movements and events in other countries.

People in Peril Association CVO

Democratic Ideas and Values

$93,800 (Supplement: $26,360)

Promoting Access to Unbiased Information

To enhance the capacity of pro-democracy activists to think critically about the prospects of a democratic transition in Cuba. Based in Slovakia, People in Peril Association (PIPA) will work with a network of independent educators, professionals, and youth leaders across the island to strengthen their institutional capacity and ability to provide members of their communities with uncensored and unbiased information.

Plataforma de Integración Cubana

Freedom of Information

$100,400

Promoting Racial Integration

To promote greater discussion on racial issues in Cuba. Working with academics and activists inside and outside the island, Plataforma will publish a journal on various issues affecting the Afro-descendent population in Cuba. In addition, Plataforma will conduct various public events to raise international awareness about the topic.

Civic Education

$18,224

Promoting LGBT Rights in Cuba

This organization will promote greater respect for LGBTI rights in Cuba.

$100,000

Promoting Democratic Leadership and Values in Cuba

To promote democratic values and ideas and strengthen the leadership skills of pro-democracy activists in Cuba. Grantee will conduct a leadership training program and a public awareness campaign on peaceful activism, community organizing, human rights, and democracy.

$14,729

Promoting Civic Education in Cuba

To enhance the knowledge and understanding of democratic values and ideas among Cuban citizens. The organization will carry out a training program on democracy, the corresponding role of citizens, and the importance of civic-minded individuals to bring about democratic change.

Human Rights

$60,000

Supporting Human Rights Activists

To provide humanitarian and logistical support to the human rights activists in Cuba.

Rule of Law

$32,970

Providing Legal Assistance in Cuba

To provide technical assistance and pro-bono legal advice to citizens seeking legal redress. This organization will also provide training to pro-democracy activists on the domestic and international mechanisms to address the arbitrary use of the law.

$16,000

Providing Legal Assistance in Cuba

To provide technical assistance to Cuban citizens.

Grant descriptions are from the 2013 NED Annual Report.

1503. US Sent Latin Youth Undercover in Anti-Cuba Ploy

By Desmond Butler, Jack Gillum, Alberto Arce and Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press, August 4, 2014 

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration program secretly dispatched young Latin Americans to Cuba using the cover of health and civic programs to provoke political change, a clandestine operation that put those foreigners in danger even after a U.S. contractor was hauled away to a Cuban jail.

Beginning as early as October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled around the island scouting for people they could turn into political activists.

In one case, the workers formed an HIV-prevention workshop that memos called "the perfect excuse" for the program's political goals — a gambit that could undermine America's efforts to improve health globally.

But their efforts were fraught with incompetence and risk, an Associated Press investigation found: Cuban authorities questioned who was bankrolling the travelers. The young workers nearly blew their mission to "identify potential social-change actors." One said he got a paltry, 30-minute seminar on how to evade Cuban intelligence, and there appeared to be no safety net for the inexperienced workers if they were caught.

"Although there is never total certainty, trust that the authorities will not try to harm you physically, only frighten you," read a memo obtained by the AP. "Remember that the Cuban government prefers to avoid negative media reports abroad, so a beaten foreigner is not convenient for them."

In all, nearly a dozen Latin Americans served in the program in Cuba, for pay as low as $5.41 an hour.

The AP found USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates International, continued the program even as U.S. officials privately told their government contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba after the arrest of contractor Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after smuggling in sensitive technology.

"We value your safety," one senior USAID official said in an email. "The guidance applies to ALL travelers to the island, not just American citizens," another official said.

The revelations of the USAID program come as the White House faces questions about the once-secret "Cuban Twitter" project, known as ZunZuneo. That program, launched by USAID in 2009 and uncovered by the AP in April, established a primitive social media network under the noses of Cuban officials. USAID's inspector general is investigating that program, which ended in September, 2012.

Officials said USAID launched "discreet" programs like ZunZuneo to increase the flow of information in a country that heavily restricts it. But the AP's earlier investigation found ZunZuneo was political in nature and drew in subscribers unaware that the service was paid for by the U.S. government.

"USAID and the Obama administration are committed to supporting the Cuban people's desire to freely determine their own future," the agency said in response to written questions from the AP. "USAID works with independent youth groups in Cuba on community service projects, public health, the arts and other opportunities to engage publicly, consistent with democracy programs worldwide."

In a statement late Sunday, USAID said the HIV workshop had a dual purpose: It "enabled support for Cuban civil society while providing a secondary benefit of addressing the desire Cubans expressed for information and training about HIV prevention."

In this July 9, 2014 photo, a woman walks in front of the building that once housed the human rights …

Creative Associates declined to comment, referring questions to USAID.

In response to the AP's report, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said USAID's programs were important for human rights in Cuba. "We must continue to pressure the Castro regime and support the Cuban people, who are oppressed on a daily basis," said Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban native and vocal supporter of pro-democracy programs there.

Both ZunZuneo and the travelers program were part of a larger, multimillion-dollar effort by USAID to effect change in politically volatile countries, government data show. But the programs reviewed by the AP didn't appear to achieve their goals and operated under an agency known more for its international-aid work than stealthy operations. The CIA recently pledged to stop using vaccine programs to gather intelligence, such as one in Pakistan that targeted Osama bin Laden.

The travelers program was launched when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama's administration was talking about a "new beginning" with Cuba after decades of mistrust, raising questions about whether the White House had a coherent policy toward the island nation.

Drawing on documents and interviews worldwide, the AP found the travelers program went to extensive lengths to hide the workers' activities. They were to communicate in code: "I have a headache" meant they suspected they were being monitored by Cuban authorities; "Your sister is ill" was an order to cut their trip short.

"We worked it so that the government here didn't know we were traveling to Cuba and helping these groups," said Yajaira Andrade, a former administrator with a Venezuelan organization. "Because that was when (President Hugo) Chavez was in power, and if he had known about us — that some Venezuelans were working to stir rebellion — we would have been thrown in jail."

To evade Cuban authorities, travelers installed innocent-looking content on their laptops to mask sensitive information they were carrying. They also used encrypted memory sticks to hide their files and sent obviously encrypted emails using a system that might have drawn suspicion.

It is illegal in Cuba to work with foreign democracy-building programs. Nevertheless, one contract was signed days after Gross' detention.

"They arrested a contractor from another agency. That could be dangerous," one Skype message between two project workers would later read. "Thank God he's not one of ours."

Documents show Creative Associates approved the use of the travelers' relatives to carry cash to the Cuban contacts. But the family members weren't to be told that the funds were from the U.S. government.

Hector Baranda, who was a college student in Cuba when he was befriended by a group of traveling Venezuelans, said he was surprised to hear from the AP they were working for the U.S. government and had profiled him.

"How would you feel if you offered your sincere friendship and received this kind of news?" Baranda asked.

The travelers' project was paid for under the same pot of federal money that paid for the ZunZuneo program. But USAID has yet to provide the AP with a complete copy of the Cuban contracts under a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than three months ago.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was in office during the program and is a likely Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, said in her new book "Hard Choices" that she was pleased "to see change slowly creeping into the country."

____

Online:

Documents about the program at http://apne.ws/UxJ05x

Link to the unabridged story: http://tinyurl.com/phcxymt

Another in a series of stories detailing secret American political activity in Cuba under the Obama administration, including the creation of a secret U.S.-backed "Cuban Twitter" program.

1373. U.S. Secretly Created ‘Cuban Twitter’ to Stir Unrest

By Alberto Arce, Desmond Butler and Jack Gillum, Associated Press, April 2, 2014

WASHINGTON — In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba’s communist government.

McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government, they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit unsuspecting executives who would not be told of the company’s ties to the U.S. government.

McSpedon didn’t work for the CIA. This was a program paid for and run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid.

According to documents obtained by The Associated Press and multiple interviews with people involved in the project, the plan was to develop a bare-bones “Cuban Twitter,” using cellphone text messaging to evade Cuba’s strict control of information and its stranglehold restrictions over the Internet. In a play on Twitter, it was called ZunZuneo — slang for a Cuban hummingbird’s tweet.

Documents show the U.S. government planned to build a subscriber base through “non-controversial content”: news messages on soccer, music, and hurricane updates. Later when the network reached a critical mass of subscribers, perhaps hundreds of thousands, operators would introduce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize “smart mobs” — mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice that might trigger a Cuban Spring, or, as one USAID document put it, “renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society.”

At its peak, the project drew in more than 40,000 Cubans to share news and exchange opinions. But its subscribers were never aware it was created by the U.S. government, or that American contractors were gathering their private data in the hope that it might be used for political purposes.

“There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement,” according to a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord, one of the project’s contractors. “This is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the service and to ensure the success of the Mission.”

The program’s legality is unclear: U.S. law requires that any covert action by a federal agency must have a presidential authorization. Officials at USAID would not say who had approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it. McSpedon, the most senior official named in the documents obtained by the AP, is a mid-level manager who declined to comment.

USAID spokesman Matt Herrick said the agency is proud of its Cuba programs and noted that congressional investigators reviewed them last year and found them to be consistent with U.S. law.

“USAID is a development agency, not an intelligence agency, and we work all over the world to help people exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms, and give them access to tools to improve their lives and connect with the outside world,” he said.

“In the implementation,” he added, “has the government taken steps to be discreet in non-permissive environments? Of course. That’s how you protect the practitioners and the public. In hostile environments, we often take steps to protect the partners we’re working with on the ground. This is not unique to Cuba.”

But the ZunZuneo program muddies those claims, a sensitive issue for its mission to promote democracy and deliver aid to the world’s poor and vulnerable — which requires the trust of foreign governments.

“On the face of it there are several aspects about this that are troubling,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s State Department and foreign operations subcommittee.

“There is the risk to young, unsuspecting Cuban cellphone users who had no idea this was a U.S. government-funded activity. There is the clandestine nature of the program that was not disclosed to the appropriations subcommittee with oversight responsibility. And there is the disturbing fact that it apparently activated shortly after Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor who was sent to Cuba to help provide citizens access to the Internet, was arrested.”

The Associated Press obtained more than 1,000 pages of documents about the project’s development. The AP independently verified the project’s scope and details in the documents — such as federal contract numbers and names of job candidates — through publicly available databases, government sources and interviews with those directly involved in ZunZuneo.

Taken together, they tell the story of how agents of the U.S. government, working in deep secrecy, became tech entrepreneurs — in Cuba. And it all began with a half a million cellphone numbers obtained from a communist government.

ZunZuneo would seem to be a throwback from the Cold War, and the decades-long struggle between the United States and Cuba. It came at a time when the historically sour relationship between the countries had improved, at least marginally, and Cuba had made tentative steps toward a more market-based economy.

It is unclear whether the plan got its start with USAID or Creative Associates International, a Washington, D.C., for-profit company that has earned hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. contracts. But a “key contact” at Cubacel, the state-owned cellphone provider, slipped the phone numbers to a Cuban engineer living in Spain. The engineer provided the numbers to USAID and Creative Associates “free of charge,” documents show.

In mid-2009, Noy Villalobos, a manager with Creative Associates who had worked with USAID in the 1990s on a program to eradicate drug crops, started an IM chat with her little brother in Nicaragua, according to a Creative Associates email that captured the conversation. Mario Bernheim, in his mid-20s, was an up-and-coming techie who had made a name for himself as a computer whiz.

“This is very confidential of course,” Villalobos cautioned her brother. But what could you do if you had all the cellphone numbers of a particular country? Could you send bulk text messages without the government knowing?

“Can you encrypt it or something?” she texted.

She was looking for a direct line to regular Cubans through text messaging. Most had precious little access to news from the outside world. The government viewed the Internet as an Achilles’ heel and controlled it accordingly. A communications minister had even referred to it as a “wild colt” that “should be tamed.”

Yet in the years since Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother Raul, Cuba had sought to jumpstart the long stagnant economy. Raul Castro began encouraging cellphone use, and hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly using mobile phones for the first time, though smartphones with access to the Internet remained restricted.

Cubans could text message, though at a high cost in a country where the average wage was a mere $20 a month.

Bernheim told his sister that he could figure out a way to send instant texts to hundreds of thousands of Cubans— for cheap. It could not be encrypted though, because that would be too complicated. They wouldn’t be able to hide the messages from the Cuban government, which owned Cubacel. But they could disguise who was sending the texts by constantly switching the countries the messages came from.

“We could rotate it from different countries?” Villalobos asked. “Say one message from Nica, another from Spain, another from Mexico”?

Bernheim could do that. “But I would need mirrors set up around the world, mirrors, meaning the same computer, running with the same platform, with the same phone.”

“No hay problema,” he signed off. No problem.

After the chat, Creative hired Bernheim as a subcontractor, reporting to his sister. (Villalobos and Bernheim would later confirm their involvement with the ZunZuneo project to AP, but decline further comment.) Bernheim, in turn, signed up the Cuban engineer who had gotten the phone list. The team figured out how to message the masses without detection, but their ambitions were bigger.

Creative Associates envisioned using the list to create a social networking system that would be called “Proyecto ZZ,” or “Project ZZ.” The service would start cautiously and be marketed chiefly to young Cubans, who USAID saw as the most open to political change.

“We should gradually increase the risk,” USAID proposed in a document. It advocated using “smart mobs” only in “critical/opportunistic situations and not at the detriment of our core platform-based network.”

USAID’s team of contractors and subcontractors built a companion Web site to its text service so Cubans could subscribe, give feedback and send their own text messages for free. They talked about how to make the Web site look like a real business. “Mock ad banners will give it the appearance of a commercial enterprise,” a proposal suggested.

In multiple documents, USAID staff pointed out that text messaging had mobilized smart mobs and political uprisings in Moldova and the Philippines, among others. In Iran, the USAID noted social media’s role following the disputed election of then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009 — and saw it as an important foreign policy tool.

USAID documents say their strategic objective in Cuba was to “push it out of a stalemate through tactical and temporary initiatives, and get the transition process going again towards democratic change.” Democratic change in authoritarian Cuba meant breaking the Castros’ grip on power.

USAID divided Cuban society into five segments depending on loyalty to the government. On one side sat the “democratic movement,” called “still (largely) irrelevant,” and at the other end were the “hard-core system supporters,” dubbed “Talibanes” in a derogatory comparison to Afghan and Pakistani extremists.

A key question was how to move more people toward the democratic activist camp without detection. Bernheim assured the team that wouldn’t be a problem.

“The Cuban government, like other regimes committed to information control, currently lacks the capacity to effectively monitor and control such a service,” Bernheim wrote in a proposal for USAID marked “Sensitive Information.”

ZunZuneo would use the list of phone numbers to break Cuba’s Internet embargo and not only deliver information to Cubans but also let them interact with each other in a way the government could not control. Eventually it would build a system that would let Cubans send messages anonymously among themselves.

At a strategy meeting, the company discussed building “user volume as a cover ... for organization,” according to meeting notes. It also suggested that the “Landscape needs to be large enough to hide full opposition members who may sign up for service.”

In a play on the telecommunication minister’s quote, the team dubbed their network the “untamed colt.”

At first, the ZunZuneo team operated out of Central America. Bernheim, the techie brother, worked from Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, while McSpedon supervised Creative’s work on ZunZuneo from an office in San Jose, Costa Rica, though separate from the U.S. embassy. It was an unusual arrangement that raised eyebrows in Washington, according to U.S. officials.

McSpedon worked for USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), a division that was created after the fall of the Soviet Union to promote U.S. interests in quickly changing political environments — without the usual red tape.

In 2009, a report by congressional researchers warned that OTI’s work “often lends itself to political entanglements that may have diplomatic implications.” Staffers on oversight committees complained that USAID was running secret programs and would not provide details.

“We were told we couldn’t even be told in broad terms what was happening because ‘people will die,’” said Fulton Armstrong, who worked for the Senate Foreign Relations committee. Before that, he was the US intelligence community’s most senior analyst on Latin America, advising the Clinton White House.

The money that Creative Associates spent on ZunZuneo was publicly earmarked for an unspecified project in Pakistan, government data show. But there is no indication of where the funds were actually spent.

Tensions with Congress spiked just as the ZunZuneo project was gearing up in December 2009, when another USAID program ended in the arrest of the U.S. contractor, Alan Gross. Gross had traveled repeatedly to Cuba on a secret mission to expand Internet access using sensitive technology typically available only to governments, a mission first revealed in February 2012 by AP.

At some point, Armstrong says, the foreign relations committee became aware of OTI’s secret operations in Costa Rica. U.S. government officials acknowledged them privately to Armstrong, but USAID refused to provide operational details.

At an event in Washington, Armstrong says he confronted McSpedon, asking him if he was aware that by operating secret programs from a third country, it might appear like he worked for an intelligence agency.

McSpedon, through USAID, said the story is not true. He declined to comment otherwise.

On Sept. 20, 2009, thousands of Cubans gathered at Revolution Plaza in Havana for Colombian rocker Juanes’ ”Peace without Borders” concert. It was the largest public gathering in Cuba since the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1998. Under the watchful gaze of a giant sculpture of revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Miami-based Juanes promised music aimed at “turning hate into love.”

But for the ZunZuneo team, the concert was a perfect opportunity to test the political power of their budding social network. In the weeks before, Bernheim’s firm, using the phone list, sent out a half a million text messages in what it called “blasts,” to test what the Cuban government would do.

The team hired Alen Lauzan Falcon, a Havana-born satirical artist based in Chile, to write Cuban-style messages. Some were mildly political and comical, others more pointed. One asked respondents whether they thought two popular local music acts out of favor with the government should join the stage with Juanes. Some 100,000 people responded — not realizing the poll was used to gather critical intelligence.

Paula Cambronero, a researcher for Mobile Accord, began building a vast database about the Cuban subscribers, including gender, age, “receptiveness” and “political tendencies.” USAID believed the demographics on dissent could help it target its other Cuba programs and “maximize our possibilities to extend our reach.”

Cambronero concluded that the team had to be careful. “Messages with a humorous connotation should not contain a strong political tendency, so as not to create animosity in the recipients,” she wrote in a report.

Falcon, in an interview, said he was never told that he was composing messages for a U.S. government program, but he had no regrets about his involvement.

“They didn’t tell me anything, and if they had, I would have done it anyway,” he said. “In Cuba they don’t have freedom. While a government forces me to pay in order to visit my country, makes me ask permission, and limits my communications, I will be against it, whether it’s Fidel Castro, (Cuban exile leader) Jorge Mas Canosa or Gloria Estefan,” the Cuban American singer.

Carlos Sanchez Almeida, a lawyer specializing in European data protection law, said it appeared that the U.S. program violated Spanish privacy laws because the ZunZuneo team had illegally gathered personal data from the phone list and sent unsolicited emails using a Spanish platform. “The illegal release of information is a crime, and using information to create a list of people by political affiliation is totally prohibited by Spanish law,” Almeida said. It would violate a U.S-European data protection agreement, he said.

USAID saw evidence from server records that Havana had tried to trace the texts, to break into ZunZuneo’s servers, and had occasionally blocked messages. But USAID called the response “timid” and concluded that ZunZuneo would be viable — if its origins stayed secret.

Even though Cuba has one of the most sophisticated counter-intelligence operations in the world, the ZunZuneo team thought that as long as the message service looked benign, Cubacel would leave it alone.

Once the network had critical mass, Creative and USAID documents argued, it would be harder for the Cuban government to shut it down, both because of popular demand and because Cubacel would be addicted to the revenues from the text messages.

In February 2010, the company introduced Cubans to ZunZuneo and began marketing. Within six months, it had almost 25,000 subscribers, growing faster and drawing more attention than the USAID team could control.

Saimi Reyes Carmona was a journalism student at the University of Havana when she stumbled onto ZunZuneo. She was intrigued by the service’s novelty, and the price. The advertisement said “free messages” so she signed up using her nickname, Saimita.

At first, ZunZuneo was a very tiny platform, Reyes said during a recent interview in Havana, but one day she went to its Web site and saw its services had expanded.

“I began sending one message every day,” she said, the maximum allowed at the start. “I didn’t have practically any followers.” She was thrilled every time she got a new one.

And then ZunZuneo exploded in popularity.

“The whole world wanted in, and in a question of months I had 2,000 followers who I have no idea who they are, nor where they came from.”

She let her followers know the day of her birthday, and was surprised when she got some 15 personal messages. “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” she told her boyfriend, Ernesto Guerra Valdes, also a journalism student.

Before long, Reyes learned she had the second highest number of followers on the island, after a user called UCI, which the students figured was Havana’s University of Computer Sciences. Her boyfriend had 1,000. The two were amazed at the reach it gave them.

“It was such a marvelous thing,” Guerra said. “So noble.” He and Reyes tried to figure out who was behind ZunZuneo, since the technology to run it had to be expensive, but they found nothing. They were grateful though.

“We always found it strange, that generosity and kindness,” he said. ZunZuneo was “the fairy godmother of cellphones.”

By early 2010, Creative decided that ZunZuneo was so popular Bernheim’s company wasn’t sophisticated enough to build, in effect, “a scaled down version of Twitter.”

It turned to another young techie, James Eberhard, CEO of Denver-based Mobile Accord Inc. Eberhard had pioneered the use of text messaging for donations during disasters and had raised tens of millions of dollars after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Eberhard earned millions in his mid-20s when he sold a company that developed cellphone ring tones and games. His company’s Web site describes him as “a visionary within the global mobile community.”

In July, he flew to Barcelona to join McSpedon, Bernheim, and others to work out what they called a “below the radar strategy.”

“If it is discovered that the platform is, or ever was, backed by the United States government, not only do we risk the channel being shut down by Cubacel, but we risk the credibility of the platform as a source of reliable information, education, and empowerment in the eyes of the Cuban people,” Mobile Accord noted in a memo.

To cover their tracks, they decided to have a company based in the United Kingdom set up a corporation in Spain to run ZunZuneo. A separate company called MovilChat was created in the Cayman Islands, a well-known offshore tax haven, with an account at the island’s Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd. to pay the bills.

A memo of the meeting in Barcelona says that the front companies would distance ZunZuneo from any U.S. ownership so that the “money trail will not trace back to America.”

But it wasn’t just the money they were worried about. They had to hide the origins of the texts, according to documents and interviews with team members.

Brad Blanken, the former chief operating officer of Mobile Accord, left the project early on, but noted that there were two main criteria for success.

“The biggest challenge with creating something like this is getting the phone numbers,” Blanken said. “And then the ability to spoof the network.”

The team of contractors set up servers in Spain and Ireland to process texts, contracting an independent Spanish company called Lleida.net to send the text messages back to Cuba, while stripping off identifying data.

Mobile Accord also sought intelligence from engineers at the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, which organizers said would “have knowledge of Cubacel’s network.”

“Understanding the security and monitoring protocols of Cubacel will be an invaluable asset to avoid unnecessary detection by the carrier,” one Mobile Accord memo read.

Officials at USAID realized however, that they could not conceal their involvement forever — unless they left the stage. The predicament was summarized bluntly when Eberhard was in Washington for a strategy session in early February 2011, where his company noted the “inherent contradiction” of giving Cubans a platform for communications uninfluenced by their government that was in fact financed by the U.S. government and influenced by its agenda.

They turned to Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, to seek funding for the project. Documents show Dorsey met with Suzanne Hall, a State Department officer who worked on social media projects, and others. Dorsey declined to comment.

The State Department under then-Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton thought social media was an important tool in diplomacy. At a 2011 speech at George Washington University, Clinton said the U.S. helped people in “oppressive Internet environments get around filters.” In Tunisia, she said people used technology to “organize and share grievances, which, as we know, helped fuel a movement that led to revolutionary change.”

Ultimately, the solution was new management that could separate ZunZuneo from its U.S. origins and raise enough revenue for it to go “independent,” even as it kept its long-term strategy to bring about “democratic change.”

Eberhard led the recruitment efforts, a sensitive operation because he intended to keep the management of the Spanish company in the dark.

“The ZZ management team will have no knowledge of the true origin of the operation; as far as they know, the platform was established by Mobile Accord,” the memo said. “There should be zero doubt in management’s mind and no insecurities or concerns about United States Government involvement.”

The memo went on to say that the CEO’s clean conscience would be “particularly critical when dealing with Cubacel.” Sensitive to the high cost of text messages for average Cubans, ZunZuneo negotiated a bulk rate for texts at 4 cents a pop through a Spanish intermediary. Documents show there was hope that an earnest, clueless CEO might be able to persuade Cubacel to back the project.

Mobile Accord considered a dozen candidates from five countries to head the Spanish front company. One of them was Francoise de Valera, a CEO who was vacationing in Dubai when she was approached for an interview. She flew to Barcelona. At the luxury Mandarin Oriental Hotel, she met with Nim Patel, who at the time was Mobile Accord’s president. Eberhard had also flown in for the interviews. But she said she couldn’t get a straight answer about what they were looking for.

“They talked to me about instant messaging but nothing about Cuba, or the United States,” she told the AP in an interview from London.

“If I had been offered and accepted the role, I believe that sooner or later it would have become apparent to me that something wasn’t right,” she said.

By early 2011, Creative Associates grew exasperated with Mobile Accord’s failure to make ZunZuneo self-sustaining and independent of the U.S. government. The operation had run into an unsolvable problem. USAID was paying tens of thousands of dollars in text messaging fees to Cuba’s communist telecommunications monopoly routed through a secret bank account and front companies. It was not a situation that it could either afford or justify — and if exposed it would be embarrassing, or worse.

In a searing evaluation, Creative Associates said Mobile Accord had ignored sustainability because “it has felt comfortable receiving USG financing to move the venture forward.”

Out of 60 points awarded for performance, Mobile Accord scored 34 points. Creative Associates complained that Mobile Accord’s understanding of the social mission of the project was weak, and gave it 3 out of 10 points for “commitment to our Program goals.”

Mobile Accord declined to comment on the program.

In increasingly impatient tones, Creative Associates pressed Mobile Accord to find new revenue that would pay the bills. Mobile Accord suggested selling targeted advertisements in Cuba, but even with projections of up to a million ZunZuneo subscribers, advertising in a state-run economy would amount to a pittance.

By March 2011, ZunZuneo had about 40,000 subscribers. To keep a lower profile, it abandoned previous hopes of reaching 200,000 and instead capped the number of subscribers at a lower number. It limited ZunZuneo’s text messages to less than one percent of the total in Cuba, so as to avoid the notice of Cuban authorities. Though one former ZunZuneo worker — who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about his work — said the Cubans were catching on and had tried to block the site.

Toward the middle of 2012, Cuban users began to complain that the service worked only sporadically. Then not at all.

ZunZuneo vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.

By June 2012, users who had access to Facebook and Twitter were wondering what had happened.

“Where can you pick up messages from ZunZuneo?” one woman asked on Facebook in November 2012. “Why aren’t I receiving them anymore?”

Users who went to ZunZuneo’s Web site were sent to a children’s Web site with a similar name.

Reyner Aguero, a 25-year-old blogger, said he and fellow students at Havana’s University of Computer Sciences tried to track it down. Someone had rerouted the Web site through DNS blocking, a censorship technique initially developed back in the 1990s. Intelligence officers later told the students that ZunZuneo was blacklisted, he said.

“ZunZuneo, like everything else they did not control, was a threat,” Aguero said. “Period.”

In incorrect Spanish, ZunZuneo posted a note on its Facebook page saying it was aware of problems accessing the Web site and that it was trying to resolve them.

“ ¡Que viva el ZunZuneo!” the message said. Long live ZunZuneo!

In February, when Saimi Reyes, and her boyfriend, Ernesto Guerra, learned the origins of ZunZuneo, they were stunned.

“How was I supposed to realize that?” Guerra asked. “It’s not like there was a sign saying ‘Welcome to ZunZuneo, brought to you by USAID.”

“Besides, there was nothing wrong. If I had started getting subversive messages or death threats or ‘Everyone into the streets,’” he laughed, “I would have said, ‘OK,’ there’s something fishy about this. But nothing like that happened.”

USAID says the program ended when the money ran out. The Cuban government declined to comment.

The former web domain is now a placeholder, for sale for $299. The registration for MovilChat, the Cayman Islands front company, was set to expire on March 31.

In Cuba, nothing has come close to replacing it. Internet service still is restricted.

“The moment when ZunZuneo disappeared was like a vacuum,” Guerra said. “People texted my phone, ‘What is happening with ZunZuneo?’

“In the end, we never learned what happened,” he said. “We never learned where it came from.”