Rethink in US on how to sow the seeds of democracy in hostile lands
Secretive US programmes in hostile countries to be reviewed, State Department says, after reports USAid to end risky undercover efforts
The US State Department has said it is reviewing some of its secretive democracy-promotion programmes in hostile countries after it was reported that the nation's global development agency may end risky undercover work in those environments.
The proposed changes follow an investigation this year into work by the US Agency for International Development, which established a Twitter-like service in Cuba and secretly sought to recruit a new generation of dissidents there while hiding ties to the US government. The agency's proposed changes could move some of that work under America's diplomatic apparatus.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to elaborate on the plan on Monday, saying it was "premature" because of ongoing deliberations. "We continue to believe we need to find creative ways to promote positive change in Cuba, but beyond that, we're still assessing what any change or what any impact would be," she said.
USAid's proposed policy closely mirrors a Senate bill this summer, which would prohibit the agency from spending money on democracy programmes in countries that reject the agency's assistance and where USAid would have to go to "excessive lengths to protect programme beneficiaries and participants."
In turn, some of USAid's high-risk democracy efforts would likely be moved under the State Department, according to government officials familiar with discussions about the policy who were not authorised to talk about the matter publicly. Other programmes could shift to the National Endowment for Democracy, a non-profit group that receives money from the US government.
The changes would prevent USAid from running programmes such as the "Cuban Twitter" project, known as ZunZuneo. In that operation, USAid and its contractor concealed their involvement, setting up a front company, routing money through Cayman Islands bank transactions and fashioning elaborate cover stories.
The subterfuge put at risk USAid's cooperation with foreign governments to deliver aid to the world's poor. Last month, it pledged more than US$140 million to fight Ebola in West Africa.
But the Obama administration on Monday would not answer questions on how it could continue any democracy-promotion work in Cuba when such efforts are illegal there and would likely require secrecy to be effective. USAid Administrator Rajiv Shah said earlier this year that ZunZuneo was not a covert programme, although he said "parts of it were done discreetly" to protect the people involved.
Government officials said USAid acknowledged changing its democracy-promotion policy after being questioned by Senators Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and Jeff Flake, a Republican, who wrote to the agency in April.
Both ZunZuneo and a second programme to recruit Cuban dissidents were run by Creative Associates International, a Washington contractor. They were part of a larger, multimillion-dollar effort by USAid to bring about democratic reforms in politically volatile countries. But the officials said they were told USAid had concluded some democracy programmes in hostile countries were not successful.
ZunZuneo evaded Cuba's internet restrictions by creating a text-messaging service for political purposes that drew tens of thousands of subscribers who were unaware it was backed by the US government. US officials said it ended in late in 2012 because funding ran out.
