Cuba Democracia y Vida

Program supports dissidents and families

By Mark Feierstein, USAID and Michael Posner, US State Dep.

January 4, 2012 

Fulton Armstrong’s Dec. 25 Other Views article, Time to clean up U.S. regime-change programs in Cuba, contains several errors. Most important, the U.S.-backed activities in support of democracy and human rights in Cuba aren’t secret, covert or classified. The State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development regularly brief Congress, and program descriptions are posted on both websites. The programs, which began during the Clinton administration and are comparable to international efforts in support of democracy elsewhere provide humanitarian support to dissidents and their families, strengthen civil society and facilitate the flow of information to, from and within the island. Early on in the Obama administration, we instituted new oversight measures to help ensure the maximum effectiveness of taxpayer dollars in these competitively awarded programs.

As President Obama has said, “The people of Cuba deserve the same rights, freedoms and opportunities as anyone else.” Instead, the article urges acceptance of the Cuban regime’s laws, many of which are inconsistent with international norms and prohibit Cubans from exercising human rights such as freedom of expression and assembly. Such appeals would have been dismissed out of hand when dealing with authoritarian regimes of the past in Latin America.

As we continue our work in support of the internationally recognized human rights of the Cuban people, the United States continues to call on Cuban authorities to immediately release Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor who has been unjustly detained for more than two years for helping Cubans access the Internet.

Mark Feierstein, assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C.
Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

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