MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Sun, Feb. 19, 2006

FIVE QUESTIONS
Fostering free press abroad

John Virtue, director of the International Media Center at Florida International University, has been training Latin American journalists for 17 years.

Q. What does the center do?

A. We started off training Central American journalists in the late 1980s using grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and then expanded to Latin America. We have trained more than 8,000 working journalists in Central and South America so far.

Q. How are the courses taught?

A. Most of the training is done in the journalists' home countries. We teach writing, reporting, editing, newsroom management, ethics and print, radio and television work. My specialty is ethics. There are 10 textbooks written in the students' languages.

Most of our students are mid-career journalists. We offer intensive two-week courses. Fifteen of our graduates are now the editors of their newspapers. We began a master's program in journalism; 30 journalists have graduated. Some of them have become journalism professors in their home countries.

Q. You also train journalists in Cuba, right?

A. Yes. In 1990 the Independent Journalists Movement began in Cuba. Using USAID funds, we began offering five courses in Cuba in 1999. It was difficult. We couldn't mail the course work directly to Cuba.

After trying several other countries, we succeeded in mailing it from Canada because I have dual Canadian-American citizenship. I mail the course work to someone in Canada who then sends it to Cuba.

In 2002, we held a clandestine workshop in Cuba. That partly led to the arrest of 75 dissidents, including 27 journalists, in 2003 because there was a spy among the students. We now give video conference workshops at the U.S. Interests Section. They are very effective. We have registered 207 journalists in Cuba. Nearly a hundred are actively writing there, another 50 write sporadically. About a dozen are in prison, and 35 are now in exile.

Most of the students weren't working journalists when they began writing. They were lawyers, agronomists, economists, etc., who got active and turned to writing.

We work with the CubaNet website, picking up stories and circulating them in the hemisphere. We offer up to 10 articles a month.

Q. Would you say the Cuba training is succeeding?

A. Well, before this, the news publications in Central and Latin America had no credible reporting sources in Cuba. Now they do. Our biggest success is Claudia Marquez. Her opinion columns have been published in The New York Times and other major American outlets, rare for the Cuban writers. She was a 22-year-old secretary when she took our training. But the government imprisoned her then-husband, Osvaldo Alfonso, and threatened to take away her son because of her work. She has gone into exile in Puerto Rico.

Our goal is to create many more Claudias and Claudios.

Q. How did you come to the center?

A. I did something that seemed like a good idea at the time. I quit my job as editor of El Mundo in San Juan on principle but without having another job to go to. What happened is that a new publisher came on board who did not believe in independent newsrooms. I fought him for 10 months and then resigned. I was a hero in the newsroom for about two days, I'd say.

After that, I worked at The Miami News during its last 10 months in existence. After that I came to the center at FIU.

Editorial Board member Kathleen Krog prepared this report.

SOURCE:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/editorial/letters/13903811.htm


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Also: What U.S. law provides for those who collaborate with
foreign governments against the interests of the United States.
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs036.html
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http://www.ned.org/grants/04programs/grants-lac04.html

2004:
Cuba

Center for a Free Cuba
$55,000
To provide humanitarian assistance and emergency relief to political prisoners and their families. Assistance will go to family members of the prisoners detained in the March 2003 crackdown as well as the more than 280 prior political prisoners.

Cuban Committee for Human Rights
$65,000
To support human rights in Cuba. The Cuban Committee for Human Rights will work with the U.N. Human Rights Commission in monitoring and investigating the human rights conditions in Cuba. The Committee will publish and disseminate both in Cuba and internationally, news and information about the human rights situation in Cuba and provide humanitarian assistance to political dissidents and prisoners of conscience in Cuba.

CubaNet
$41,000
To promote independent journalism and freedom of expression in Cuba. Endowment funds will allow CubaNet to continue supporting the professional development of independent journalists.

Disidente Universal de Puerto Rico (Universal Dissident of Puerto Rico)
$57,000
To increase the flow of independent information to Cuba through publications of the monthly journal, El Disidente, containing articles and editorials from activists living on the island, dissidents living in exile and international news organizations.

Federación Sindical de Plantas Eléctricas, Gas y Agua (Federation of Electric, Gas and Water Plants in Exile)
$78,000
To document labor rights violations inside of Cuba. The Federación Sindical de Plantas, Eléctricas, Gas y Agua will establish a training center dedicated to labor rights inside Cuba; conduct research and write reports on labor conditions in Cuba; and disseminate information both inside Cuba and internationally on labor rights violations committed by the Cuban government.

Fundacion Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana (Encounter Magazine)
$85,000
To provide support for production of the quarterly journal Encuentro. Encuentro is dedicated to discussion and promotion of political change in the larger context of Cuban culture, philosophy, and history.

Fundación Hispano Cubana (Hispano-Cuban Foundation)
$ 75,700
To increase the flow of independent information to Cuba. The Foundation will publish three editions of its journal Revista Hispano Cubana, which will be distributed within Cuba and internationally. The Foundation will post each edition on the journal's website, as well as prepare 16 previous editions of the journal in CD ROM format.

International Republican Institute (IRI)
$ 412,678
To help the Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio) continue its development of prodemocracy materials for distribution in Cuba. Directorio will also disseminate information about Cuba's democracy movement to the international community; maintain its contacts with pro-freedom activists and citizens in Cuba and produce radio broadcasts about the activities of the pro-freedom movement in Cuba.

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI)
$140,000
To strengthen the ability of advocates to increase international awareness of and support for the Varela Project. NDI will work with the International Committee to Support the Varela Project with activities to disseminate information about Varela Project activities and organize conferences and meetings.

Pan American Development Foundation
$45,000
To work with and promote independent libraries inside Cuba. PADF will provide direct assistance to independent libraries in Cuba and promote international awareness of the library movement. Independent library representatives will travel to Latin America and Spain to meet with librarians, universities, think tanks and other organizations to enlist their support for individual libraries and the libraries movement.

People in Need Foundation (PINF)
$65,000
To work with various independent groups in Cuba to develop their capacity to produce and distribute samizdat. PINF will also help organize the first meeting of the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba to be held in Prague.

Red Feminista Cubana, Inc. (Cuban Feminist Network)
$30,000
To promote women's rights in Cuba. Red Feminista will establish contacts with women's movements throughout the world, collect materials and initiate a series of training programs inside Cuba for independent women activists. Red Feminista will work with women's groups inside Cuba to disseminate information on the strategies and activities of women's movements in other countries.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NED Grants for FY 2005
SOURCE: http://inthenameofdemocracy.org/?q=en/node/8

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CENTER FOR A FREE CUBA
responded to researcher Diana Barahona's FOIA request::
Aug. 23, 2005

RE: FOI-234/05

Dear Ms. Barahona:

This responds to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the "exact amount of USAID money the Center for a Free Cuba has received since 1995 or since its inception."

The Center received their first cooperative agreement with USAID in 1998. That total amount of funding obligated under the initial cooperative agreement was $5,049,709. On March 31, 2005, the first cooperative agreement ended and a new one began. Under the current cooperative agreement, the Center has been obligated $2,300,000.

Sincerely,

S. Lankford
Public Affairs Specialist
Information and Records Division
Office of Administrative Services

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Completed projects 5,806,570
TOTAL: $34,010,103

Source: Ana Radelat, "USAID funding for anti-Castro groups tops $34 million, "
CubaNews (Maryland),
November 2004, p. 9

 

<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-cubareport01xsep01,1,5481254.story> 

Most of $80 million in aid for democracy in Cuba will stay in U.S.

By Vanessa Bauzá South Florida Sun-Sentinel

September 1, 2006

In the month since Fidel Castro's unprecedented transfer of power, the Bush administration has urged Cubans on the island to work for democracy and reject what it calls a dynastic succession to "baby brother" Raúl Castro.

But little has changed there, and only a fraction of the $80 million Washington has allocated to spur political transition will ever get to Cuba.

The largest chunk of that money is meant to support independent civil organizations on the island over the next two years. Under current regulations, however, most of it will be used to help organizations in the United States, to pay for expenses such as phone calls, staff salaries, publishing reports, and computers and fax machines for opposition groups.

Last year, of $11.2 million distributed for Cuba-related projects by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy, only $214,274 was sent as cash to the island, according to the agencies.

That's because USAID, the agency that distributes most federal funding for Cuba grants, prohibits recipients from sending money to individuals or organizations in Cuba. As a private organization, NED has no such restrictions.

Budgets for Cuba-related projects for USAID and NED have ballooned over the past decade. USAID's Cuba program, which started with $500,000 in 1996, now has $7.3 million. NED's funding has almost doubled, from $602,658 in 1996 to $1.1 million this year.

Cuban-American leaders, those who administer the grants and Cuban dissidents are divided over the effectiveness of the funding. Some argue funneling cash and supplies to Cuba's opposition stigmatizes and endangers the movement. Others are concerned that sending cash directly to independent civic groups would ultimately end up in Castro's coffers and say U.S. organizations can help in other ways.

Juan Carlos Acosta, who heads the USAID-funded, nonprofit Acción Democrática Cubana in Miami, said news of Castro's intestinal surgery, announced July 31, galvanized his decade-old mission to help dissidents on the island. But he thinks USAID regulations stymie those efforts.

In 2004, for example, he spent $120,000 to pay professional smugglers and shipping agencies to send humanitarian aid to Cuba. The aid itself, including clothing, medication, food, books and electronic equipment, totaled only $88,000.

Acosta said he would rather send cash.

"Money is very important in the hands of the dissident, because the first consequence of being a dissident is losing one's job," Acosta said. "The Cuban government has always accused the dissidents of being salaried [employees] of the United States since 1959; that doesn't justify not sending the money."

Critics, including some Cuban dissidents, argue that federal funds make the opposition movement vulnerable to Castro's charges that they are conspiring with the United States to overthrow the Cuban government -- a crime in Cuba for which 60 dissidents have been imprisoned since 2003.

Former government economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe knows firsthand the benefits and potential pitfalls of U.S. funding. In 2003 he was imprisoned for 19 months on charges that he conspired with the U.S. government after receiving a stipend, made possible by federal funding, for his reports on the Coral Gables-based Web site, CubaNet.

"We think this concrete step is counterproductive because it serves as an instrument for the [Cuban] government to cultivate nationalism and make us look like ... mercenaries," Espinosa Chepe said from Havana.

He continues to receive about $60 a month as payment for articles that appear on the Web site. But he said money to support the opposition movement should come from the Cuban-American community, not the U.S. government.

Some of the new funding, a 63 percent increase over the $49 million designated by the Bush administration in 2004, will augment broadcasts of Radio and TV Martí, improve Internet access on the island and offer scholarships for Cuban students.

"There are Cubans in Cuba who are talking about a democratic transition, and the purpose of our assistance is to support the efforts of Cubans to successfully define the path that leads to free and fair elections and a future of prosperity for the country," said Caleb McCarry, Washington's Cuba transition coordinator.

The Cuban American National Foundation has lobbied since 1998 to allow cash to be sent directly to dissident groups in Cuba and thinks this is a critical moment to make the changes.

"We know there are factions in the upper echelons of power [in Cuba], and this provides an opportunity for direct aid to have an even greater effect than it would have had in the past," said Camila Ruiz-Gallardo, director of government relations at the foundation.

In his only statement since the transfer of power, Raúl Castro called U.S. efforts to accelerate a transition in Cuba "boorish" and said millions of Cubans stand ready to defend their island nation "with rifles in hand."

"Up until now, the attacks during these days have not gone further than rhetorical ones, except for the substantial increase in subversive anti-Cuba broadcasts over radio and television," Raúl Castro told Granma, the Communist Party newspaper.

"All things considered, they are spending millions in U.S. taxpayers' money to achieve the same result as ever: a TV that is not seen," he said, referring to TV Martí, which is blocked by the Cuban government.

Vanessa Bauzá can be reached at vbauza@sun-sentinel.com  or 954-356-4514.

Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-cubagrantsboxsep01,1,1324979.story> 

S. Florida funding

September 1, 2006

S. FLORIDA FUNDING

South Florida organizations that have received money from the National Endowment for Democracy in 2006 for projects related to Cuba:

$47,500 CubaNet

To support independent journalism and promote freedom of expression in Cuba. CubaNet also has received $1.9 million in federal funds from USAID since 1999.

$133,780 Independent Libraries of Cuba

To promote intellectual freedom and debate inside Cuba. BIC will continue to provide material assistance to independent libraries in Cuba and promote international awareness of the library movement.

$195,000 Cuban Democratic Directorate

To promote access to objective information and news in communities around Cuba. Directorio offers short-wave radio programming devoted to community development and local news.

$87,750 Cuban Feminist Network

To promote women's rights in Cuba. With its contacts with women's movements throughout the world, Red Feminista will collect and send materials to Cuba for independent women activists and will hold a series of training programs for them.

Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

<http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-cubaboxfundingsep01,1,1046662.story> 

Cuba aid by the numbers

September 1, 2006

The Bush administration in July approved an $80 million fund for the next two years to promote a transition to a democratic government in Cuba. Here's a breakdown of how the money will be spent:

$31 million to support independent civil groups on the island.

$10 million to finance educational exchange programs and scholarships for Cuban students.

$24 million to expand Cubans' access to independent information.

$15 million to support international outreach efforts to help hasten a transition to a democratic government.

Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. September 22, 2003
PLANS FOR MILITARY INTERVENTION ON THE ISLAND
Cuba in the sights of the United States
BY PASCUAL SERRANO, —Taken from Le Monde Diplomatique—

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2003/septiembre03/lun22/38lemon.html

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