US administrations since 1997 have earmarked more than $200 million for subversion activities against the Cuban government, the Cubadebate.cu website reported on Tuesday. The figure was released after a study was carried out by Just the Facts, a civilian guide to the US government’s spending for defence and security assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The research took place between 2009 and 2010 and it came after critics questioned the efficiency of the Cuba programs, most of which are managed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The article by Cubadebate added that, over the past few years, USAID paid a Washington D.C. firm at least $1.47 million to audit the agency’s Cuba programs.
In March 2011, journalist Tracey Eaton, who manages the blog Cuba Money Project, requested a copy of the audit results through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and USAID replied earlier this month, providing a 10-page report that omits most of the findings, recommendations and other key information.
“I find it impossible to believe that a $1.47 million audit didn’t leave more of a paper trail,” Eaton wrote after USAID said it could not find any other reports or paperwork related to the audit.
“That would mean that the 10 pages posted above cost taxpayers nearly $150,000 each,” the journalist noted.
Meanwhile, an article published by The Miami Herald under the title “Time to clean up US regime-change programs in Cuba,” authored by former Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s lead investigator Fulton Armstrong, claimed that the US State Department’s programs to provoke a regime change in Cuba “have all the markings of an intelligence covert operation.”
Armstrong added that “like the other millions of dollars we have spent to topple the Cuban government, these programs have failed… It’s time to clean up the regime-change programs…”
Armstrong worked on the Cuba issue on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and later as National Intelligence Officer for Latin America and senior advisor on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
