For two years, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) conducted a program that infiltrated Cuba’s hip-hop community with the goal of encouraging an anti-Castro youth movement, the Associated Press reports. The effort included co-opting artists and urging them to politicize their performances and musical compositions to encourage their fans to engage in anti-government activity.
The program, which concealed its U.S. sponsorship and funding from the Cubans it tried to recruit, was eventually detected by Cuban intelligence, who detained the operatives running the project and seized the computers and USB drives they were carrying. The confiscated equipment was found to contain evidence implicating USAID and Creative Associates International in the plot. Alarmingly, some of the confiscated hardware also “contained information that endangered Cubans who are thought to have had no idea they were caught up in a clandestine program,” the AP said.
Creative Associates International is a Washington, D.C. based global contractor with a long and lucrative relationship with the U.S. development agency.
In investigative reports published earlier this year, the Associated Press revealed that Creative was behind ZunZuneo, a Twitter-like social media and text messaging platform that sought to send anti-government messages to thousands of Cuban subscribers, as well as the “travelers” program that sent Latin American youths undercover into Cuba to foment dissent. In both instances, Cubans who innocently subscribed to ZunZuneo, or who participated in an HIV/AIDS prevention workshop that was actually a front for identifying potential anti-government leaders, were never informed of the U.S. government’s involvement.
Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, told the AP “The conduct described suggests an alarming lack of concern for the safety of the Cubans involved, and anyone who knows Cuba could predict it would fail.”
To kick-off the hip-hop campaign, Creative started a front company in Panama and hired Rajko Bozic, a Serbian music promoter, to manage the effort. Bozic visited Cuba to push Aldo Rodriguez, a famous Cuban rapper and member of the hip-hop group Los Aldeanos, to intensify the anti-government content of his music, but was instructed to keep the musician in the dark about the project’s connections to the U.S. government.
Bozic told Aldo he was trying to start a TV show about Cuban rappers, and he encouraged the rapper to use anti-government rhetoric in a filmed concert. When Juanes, the renowned Colombian singer-songwriter, announced in 2010 he would stage a concert for peace in Havana, Bozic maneuvered to get Los Aldeanos to meet with Juanes and take a picture with him, hoping that such a boost to the group’s popularity would shield them from government censorship.
After Bozic was detained entering Cuba with the equipment containing evidence of his ties to the U.S. government, he fled Cuba and Creative Associates paid Adrian Monzon, a Cuban citizen, to take over the project after Bozic left. Monzon started a social media platform for Cuban rappers, and took a group of them to Europe for a “leadership training” workshop that served as a front for teaching the rappers techniques for sparking anti-government sentiment.
Monzon also infiltrated an independent music festival in Rotilla, which Creative Associates paid $15,000 to underwrite. After Cuban officials discovered the link between USAID and Monzon, they took over the Rotilla music festival, bringing an end to one of the few outlets of independent expression that managed to spring up on the island.
In an interview with the Miami Herald, Aldo confirmed that he was unaware of U.S. involvement in Bozic’s project, but he rejects the idea that Bozic convinced him to “pump up” the political content of his lyrics. “Who can believe that I would allow a man who doesn’t even live in my country to come and tell me that I have to sing stronger, politically charged songs?,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake also criticized USAID Thursday. “These actions have gone from boneheaded to a downright irresponsible use of U.S. taxpayer money,” the Arizona Republican said.
Oversight is needed more than ever. As Ric Herrero of #CUBANOW said in a statement today,
“As long as Helms-Burton is around, more stupid cowboy programs will continue to get funded through its regime change mandate and the prestige of all agencies and NGOs involved–we’re looking at you, NED—will continue to be tarnished when the next inevitable story breaks about another half-baked operation goes nowhere.”
