Photo: REUTERS/Jorge Silva

The Obama administration in March asked Pope Benedict XVI to help secure the release of Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor who has been jailed in Cuba since December 2009.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters:

We obviously are hopeful that the pope will continue to be strong on all of the human rights issues in Cuba, religious freedom, and it would be a very, very good thing if the Cuban government were to take this opportunity to release Alan Gross. We would be obviously very grateful were the the pope to raise this issue.

Cuban authorities accuse Gross of taking part in U.S.-government regime change programs aimed at subverting Cuba’s socialist government. Gross’ wife, Judy, contends that he was helping Cuba’s Jewish community connect to the Internet. She said she hoped the pope would appeal for her husband’s release.

She told NBC:

Alan went to Cuba not knowing that he was doing anything wrong, so a lot of people say, ‘Well, it’s Alan’s fault,’’ his wife said. “They let him through customs, he got receipts for his equipment, nobody informed him that he was breaking any kind of law. So maybe Alan is guilty of being naïve, but I am not even sure that you can go that far.

Also in March, some lawmakers questioned USAID’s budget. U.S. Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah:

And lastly, the Obama administration’s policy of concessions towards the Castro brothers has not yielded any measurable change for democracy. And I am deeply concerned about the Department of State’s and USAID’s growing funding for programs that promote the Castro brothers’ sham economic reforms, at the expense of funding for important programs that do support Cuban political prisoners and the growing internal opposition.

Though this administration likes to point Castro’s so-called economic reforms as a sign of change, the fact remains that 11 million Cubans continue to suffer under the brutally conditions of the oppressive Castro regime. And this new focus on economic reforms will do nothing more than validate the Castro regime and promote their radical anti-American propaganda. How does harnessing U.S. foreign assistance to promote the Castro brothers’ sham ‘economic reforms’ build the capacity for the internal opposition? And how can we prioritize the funding for Cuba to strive for a free and democratic Cuba by again funding the pro-democracy programs on the island?

Roundup by Karly Berezowsky

Alan Gross

Alan Gross smuggled a special SIM card into Cuba to try to prevent Cuban authorities from detecting satellite phone transmissions, the Associated Press reported on Feb. 12.
The AP’s Desmond Butler wrote:

Piece by piece, in backpacks and carry-on bags, American aid contractor Alan Gross made sure laptops, smartphones, hard drives and networking equipment were secreted into Cuba. The most sensitive item, according to official trip reports, was the last one: a specialized mobile phone chip that experts say is often used by the Pentagon and the CIA to make satellite signals virtually impossible to track.
The purpose, according to an Associated Press review of Gross’ reports, was to set up uncensored satellite Internet service for Cuba’s small Jewish community.
The operation was funded as democracy promotion for the U.S. Agency for International Development, established in 1961 to provide economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of U.S. foreign policy goals. Gross, however, identified himself as a member of a Jewish humanitarian group, not a representative of the U.S. government.

The AP said USAID denied that its contractors perform covert work. Mark Lopes, a deputy assistant administrator, told the AP:

Nothing about USAID’s Cuba programs is covert or classified in any way. We simply carry out activities in a discreet manner to ensure the greatest possible safety of all those involved.

The AP story made it clear that Gross, according to his own trip reports, was trying to hide what he was doing in Cuba. And in case anyone confused that with simply being “discreet,” as USAID would like you to believe, Butler spelling out the definition of “covert.”

The U.S. National Security Act defines “covert” as government activities aimed at influencing conditions abroad “where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.”

It’s unclear how Gross acquired the “discreet” SIM card. Anonymous sources told Butler that “the chips are provided most frequently to the Defense Department and the CIA, but also can be obtained by the State Department, which oversees USAID.”
USAID spokesman Drew Bailey told Butler that the agency did not help Gross obtain equipment.

Ernesto Hernández Busto, editor of the influential blog Penúltimos Días, consulted an expert – also anonymous – who doubts the AP’s claim about a special SIM card. He quotes the source as saying:

Short answer — don’t think the article is correct. There’s a lot of factual errors in the article. Seems the reporter didn’t check with a technical expert on how cell phones work… The way the technology works – what is transmitted to the cell phone network is 2 pieces of information, the SIM card ID # and the ID # of the phone. Even if the sim card were changed in some way, the cell phone # would still be transmitted.
To be able to not be detected — one would need a completely different phone and very different type of SIM CARD. Don’t see how a US AID contractor would be able to get his hands on such a unit. They likely aren’t available in the open market at all.

It’s likely not just a chip, but also a very different cell phone that uses a military satelite network. A US AID contractor wouldn’t have access to such technology. Let alone, he wouldn’t have the security clearance to use such a device.
Seems too far fetched for me…
US Govt officials usually when they travel use normal phones with normal sim cards (issued in the US). However the phones have special encryption that allows the voice and data to be protected.

It’s all about the phone and what network it is using. I see it far fetched for Gross to be able to get the security clearance required to get a device able to connect to the separate military/intelligence satellite network.

Hernández said he contacted Butler, who told him he stands by his story.

Update: A reader commenting on The Cuban Triangle blog defended the AP story. The reader wrote:

In his attack on the reporting of Desmond Butler of the AP, Ernesto Hernandez Busto argues that the BGANs Gross was deploying were perfectly ordinary, and quotes an anonymous expert who says that only a special cell phone using a military network would have the capability Butler described, and it’s not plausible that Gross had access to such highly classified technology.

This expert is just wrong. There is such a thing as a discrete SIM card that has exactly the capabilities Butler described. It has nothing to do with cell phones or military satellite networks. It fits a regular BGAN terminal, and appears to only be available to government purchasers. See this description (esp. slides 16-18) of how it works in a sales presentation prepared for government agencies. This special SIM card stops the BGAN from reporting its GPS location to the satellite; instead, it reports the location within a 100-300 kilometer radius.

Hernandez Busto also claims that all Gross was doing was creating a “BGAN Private Network” as described here, but in fact that is something completely different, as a careful reading of the linked page makes clear.

Phil Peters, a former State Department official and creator of The Cuban Triangle blog, criticized USAID for its “bland generalities.”

Considering that Gross’ trial is ended, Cuba knew what he was doing, and USAID insists that there is nothing covert or classified about its operations, I think more information would be helpful here. USAID’s m.o. is a subject of legitimate public policy debate, of interest to both fans and skeptics of USAID’s activities. It is strange for the U.S. government to allow it to proceed with abundant information provided by Cuba, some leaked information reported by AP, and only bland generalities from USAID.

Ernesto’s questions deserve answers, as do others. Such as whether USAID has a policy about its operatives using private American citizens and organizations as cover, without informing them, for activities that could land them in the same trouble in which Mr. Gross finds himself now.

Butler’s story gave new details about the quantity of equipment Gross helped bring in to Cuba. He wrote:

Much of the equipment Gross helped bring in is legal in Cuba, but the volume of the goods could have given Cuban authorities a good idea of what he was up to.
“Total equipment” listed on his fourth trip included 12 iPods, 11 BlackBerry Curve smartphones, three MacBooks, six 500-gigabyte external drives, three Internet satellite phones known as BGANs, three routers, three controllers, 18 wireless access points, 13 memory sticks, three phones to make calls over the Internet, and networking switches. Some pieces, such as the networking and satellite equipment, are explicitly forbidden in Cuba.
Gross wrote that he smuggled the BGANs in a backpack. He had hoped to fool authorities by taping over the identifying words on the equipment: “Hughes,” the manufacturer, and “Inmarsat,” the company providing the satellite Internet service.

Peters said it’s difficult to understand what Gross meant when he said he felt “duped” and “used.”

His modus operandi seems to have been to hook up with a Jewish group traveling to Cuba, present himself as a member of a humanitarian group, enlist some members to carry some equipment, and gather it all up once everyone cleared Customs. In so doing he put those Americans in danger, and if he used the name of a real humanitarian group, he abused that group as well.
This is dirty pool. If USAID and its operatives are going to put Americans at risk when they are traveling to Cuba for religious fellowship or humanitarian projects, it owes them a chance to weigh the risks before it uses them for cover.

I still wonder how this all began. How was it decided that Cuba’s Jewish community needed better Internet access, as opposed to other assistance? And how was it decided that this was the best way to provide it?

Anya Landau French, director of the New America Foundation’s U.S.–Cuba Policy Initiative and the editor of The Havana Note, also questioned the U.S. strategy. She wrote:

USAID and State Department officials commenting for Butler’s story insist that 1) USAID’s work in Cuba isn’t about regime change (though it’s funded under a U.S. law that explicitly seeks regime change in Cuba), 2) U.S. assistance is not covert in nature, it’s simply “discreet” to protect people (though U.S. grantees aren’t required to disclose their connection to the U.S. government unless asked, and Cuban counter-intelligence penetrates the programs), and [in other comments], 3) Alan Gross broke no laws in Cuba (such as the law against collaborating with a foreign government’s regime change program).

If USAID isn’t seeking regime change in Cuba, then why doesn’t the administration fund these programs out of general aid accounts, rather than continuing them under the authority of a U.S. statute explicitly seeking regime change in Cuba? And if the programs aren’t covert – which if they were would imply at a minimum that that they lack proper congressional oversight and that the wrong agency (USAID, rather than the CIA) is carrying them out – why not adopt a strict rule that any project grantees (or subgrantees) must disclose their connection to the U.S. government in all contacts with Cubans?

Gal Beckerman, of the Jewish Daily Forward, wrote:

Ultimately, the big takeaway from the (AP) piece is the disconnect between how USAID perceives its work in a place like Cuba and how it is actually received by the authorities in that country. Officials of the American agency might have thought that they were doing nothing subversive by funding the efforts of Gross, but from the perspective of Havana, any attempt to provide unfettered access to the outside world is seen as dissident activity meant to undermine the regime.
If you are operating in a place like Cuba … any attempt to promote democracy … is going to be perceived as an existential threat. Ultimately, it seems Gross simply fell into this gaping paradox, a hole in which he is now stuck.

Geoff Thale, program director for the Washington Office on Latin America, called for a new approach.

Policy makers ought to re-think what can and should sensibly be done to promote democratic reform and political opening in Cuba. Reducing the hostility between our countries and increasing contact and dialogue would be the most obvious—and least expensive—steps. If the United States wishes to continue investing in programs directed at Cuba, efforts should focus on educational, cultural, and scientific exchange programs run through the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. These programs should be de-politicized, so that they can actually support the changes that are taking place in Cuba. The few effective current activities—humanitarian support for the families of prisoners, some non-political training programs for journalists, and others—could be carried out under other U.S. government auspices and without the taint that lurks behind the existing programs.

On Feb. 29, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was unapologetic, telling a House committee that the imprisonment of Gross was “deplorable.” She said the American “deserves to come home.”

Supporters and foes of USAID’s Cuba programs continued in January debating the efficiency of the agency’s democracy-promotion efforts.
On Jan. 16, CaféFuerte published a sentencing document that has new details of Cuba’s case against American subcontractor Alan Gross. (Download 15 MB document here).
The document shows that Cuban spies began tracking Gross in mid-2004 when he traveled to Cuba to deliver a video camera and medicine to José Manuel Collera Vento, former head of the Freemasons fraternal organization in Cuba.

Marc Wachtenheim, left, and Jose Manuel Collera, also known as Agent Gerardo. Photo: Juventud Rebelde

Gross delivered the package on behalf of Marc Wachtenheim, then director of the Cuba Development Initiative at the Pan American Development Foundation, or PADF, which receives funds from USAID.
Wachtenheim told the Herald he couldn’t talk about his Cuba work, but told El Nuevo Herald in an email:

Giving someone a laptop is not a crime anywhere in the civilized world — only punished in countries such as North Korea, Iran and Cuba.

Mark Feierstein saw fit to tweet that on Jan. 26. He is USAID’s assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Feierstein – along with the State Department’s Michael Posner – defended the democracy-promotion programs in Cuba in a letter published Jan. 4 in the Miami Herald. They said the programs were “comparable to international efforts in support of democracy elsewhere.”
The two wrote the Herald in response to a letter published Dec. 25 in which former Senate staffer Fulton Armstrong called Cuba programs deeply flawed.

Anya Landau French

Anya Landau French, director of the New America Foundation’s U.S. – Cuba Policy Initiative and the editor of The Havana Note, agreed with Armstrong and criticized Feierstein and Posner for their reply. In a Jan. 18 post called “Eyes Wide Shut, USAID, State Double Down on Cuba Programs,” she wrote:

…Their response is another disappointing indication that this administration remains inexplicably committed to a policy of willful ignorance when it comes to Cuba.

Helping Alan Gross to understand Cuban law before he traveled to the island would have better served him. Instead, Feierstein and Posner disingenuously suggest that we can choose not to accept Cuban law. In what other foreign country may a private American citizen flout local national security laws and expect to go free because the United States government thinks it’s an unfair law? Surely Feierstein and Posner can’t be unaware of this advise offered to any traveler on the State Department website: “While in a foreign country, you are subject to its laws.” Or, of the warning USAID gave to grant applicants in 2008 that Cuba might harshly sanction Cubans or foreigners carrying out activities under Section 109 of the Helms-Burton Act.

It’s one thing for U.S. officials, surrounded by unsatisfiable critics on all sides, to quietly grumble about a former colleague’s tough and public critique of a program that doesn’t work but can’t be dumped. But it’s intellectually dishonest – and diplomatically counterproductive to achieving Gross’s release – to come strutting out with a defense that so willfully denies reality.

Stephen Wilkinson

Stephen Wilkinson, a Cuba scholar in London, criticized the U.S. government’s approach in Cuba. In a Jan. 11 post, he wrote:

For those who have known about these operations for some time, Armstrong’s forthright words are a breath of fresh air, but he fails to mention another stark fact that is even more reason for the U.S. to stop wasting taxpayers’ money: Gross was easily caught.

The truth is that the network of dissidents that is supplied and financed by these operations is deeply infiltrated by Cuban double agents. The Cuban government knows exactly who are behind the projects. Whether or not their agents are ‘duped’ or knowing participants, the likelihood is that there will be more cases such as that of Alan Gross, unless the U.S. changes tack.

On Jan. 14, Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the non-profit Lexington Institute, also faulted USAID’s tactics. He wrote:

It doesn’t matter what you or I or Alan Gross or Feierstein or Posner think of Cuban law or USAID’s way of operating. What matters is that USAID has chosen a style of operation in that environment that puts its operatives in predictable danger, and when things go sour, its response is to whine in public and defend the program rather than help get the guy out. Again, if your kids want to become covert operatives, send them to the CIA, not to this crew.

Salim Lamrani

The American’s release from jail would be a “major step” toward improved U.S.-Cuba relations, but right now Gross is the “fly in the ointment,” French journalist Salim Lamrani.
In a Jan. 17 article, Lamrani wrote:

Clearly, Alan Gross violated the law. Of that there can be no doubt. On the other hand, he seems to have done little harm. His continued incarceration results in no important benefits to the U.S. His release, on the other hand, could be a major step toward improved U.S.-Cuban relations, especially if in the process he were prepared to apologize for his actions.

Lamrani contends that American officials should consider releasing Cuban agents jailed in the U.S. in exchange for Gross’s freedom.

The sentencing document said Gross supplied Cubans with three laptops, three satellite phones and 13 Blackberry phones.

Peter Kahn

The jailed man’s lawyer told the Miami Herald that the document shows he was not subverting the Cuban government. Lawyer Peter J. Kahn said the document

is further confirmation of what we have said all along — the Cuban authorities cannot point to any action … intended to subvert their government.
All this document evidences is that it was the USAID program that was on trial in Cuba.

Postscript: For a detailed analysis of the Gross sentencing document, see Peter’s follow-up Feb. 2 article entitled, “The Alan Gross “sentencia” summarized.”

Here’s a snapshot of that article from Peters’ blog, called The Cuban Triangle:

In brief, the Cuban court held that Gross was working on a project that he designed, that he described in his own papers as focused on political objectives and contributing to the Bush Administration’s regime change objectives; that he imported and installed three satellite Internet/Wifi systems for Cuba’s Jewish community, never representing himself as working for a U.S. government program; that those communications systems were chosen because they do not operate on the Cuban communications network; that he traveled to Cuba five times in one year, carrying some equipment himself and enlisting unwitting Americans who were traveling to Cuba for religious exchanges to carry the rest; that he was going to be assigned to repair a satellite communications system that another USAID grantee had installed; and that he had a discussion – at Cuba’s Hotel Nacional, of all places – about installing satellite communications systems for Cuba’s Masonic Lodges.

If just half of that is true, the real question becomes: Is there a more surefire scheme for sending an American into Cuba to get arrested?