Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Was ZunZuneo To Promote Free Speech Or Destabilize Cuba?

Was ZunZuneo To Promote Free Speech Or Destabilize Cuba?
April 08, 2014 5:00 AM ET

David Greene to Julia Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, about revelations the USAID created and ran a now-defunct
Cuban Twitter communications network from 2010 to 2012.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Dumb, dumb, dumb. That's a quote. It's what Democratic senator Patrick
Leahy is calling a social media program the U.S. government operated in
Cuba for two years, ending in 2012. The Associated Press last week
reported that the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funds
humanitarian and development projects, created a text messaging service
called ZunZuneo meant to give Cubans a platform for political dissent.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The name is Cuban slang for a hummingbird's tweet. The 68,000 Cubans who
used ZunZuneo had no way of knowing the U.S. was paying for it. USAID
denies there was anything improper about ZunZuneo and the head of USAID
answers questions today before a Senate panel chaired by Patrick Leahy.

GREENE: The White House has also been on defense, saying it was all
above board. Here's press secretary Jay Carney.

JAY CARNEY: Suggestions that this was a covert program are wrong.
Congress funds democracy programming for Cuba to help empower Cubans to
access more information and to strengthen civil society. These
appropriations are public, unlike covert action. The money invested has
been debated in Congress .

GREENE: OK, so is ZunZuneo an effort to promote free speech in a
repressive country? Or a covert program meant to destabilize the Cuban
government - or is it both?

For one point of view, we turned to Julia Sweig. She's a senior Fellow
at the Council on Foreign Relations who's been a frequent visitor to
Cuba and has been openly critical of U.S. policy there.

Julia Sweig, thanks so much for coming on the program. We appreciate
your time.

JULIA SWEIG: I'm happy to be here, David.

GREENE: So give us thumbnail, if you can. What exactly was this program?

SWEIG: This program created an app that was sent in a big blast to Cuban
cell phone users that allowed them to communicate with one another for
free. It's been called a Twitter-type platform but manufactured by
companies who were contracted by USAID.

GREENE: So someone in Cuba using this would not have realized that it
was connected to the U.S. government. They might have been using it to,
you know, chat with friends - do other stuff.

SWEIG: That's absolutely true. The program was designed actually to
conceal the fact that it was developed by the U.S. government.

GREENE: Well, how exactly was the U.S. government trying to use this
program?

SWEIG: In this particular case, the idea is that social media has the
possibility of bringing about political change. And this attempt was to
measure and seize upon dissatisfaction by young people in Cuba with
their government, and to gradually encourage them with content and other
sorts of messaging, to create pools of dissidents and opposition activity.

What's funny about this is that in order to get this program up and
running and to sustain it, the front companies actually paid the Cuban
government-owned telephone company revenue for providing the
connectivity that was necessary, in order for this quasi-Twitter app to
function. So on the one hand, the Obama administration is working very
hard to enforce economic sanctions. On the other hand, through this
essentially covert program, is actually giving money to the Cuban
government.

GREENE: Well, let me ask you this, Julia Sweig: Could a program like
this backfire? I mean there are some who are suggesting that people who
are in countries around the world, who are genuinely trying to organize
protests using social media in difficult environments, this now gives a
leader the right to say: Look, I'm going to shut down social media
because this might be if foreign government trying to infiltrate.

SWEIG: Well, it certainly does have that potential. We saw that in Iran
over the last few years. But the truth is, David, on the Cuba front, I
think that this is not going to cause the Cuban government to shut down
the use of social media or to stop its strategy of trying to expand the
Internet digitally. Because I think the broader economic imperative is
that Cuba needs and Cubans need to have these tools.

So I do think it's going to just sharpening attitudes inside of the
Cuban government, where it would be better for the future if the two
countries could deal with one another with a slightly more positive
view. This will die down however, in my view.

GREENE: Julia Sweig is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations. Julia, thanks so much for your time.

SWEIG: Thanks very much for having me, David.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: And there's more firm MORNING EDITION ahead. We appreciate you
making NPR News a part of your daily routine. This afternoon, remember
to tune into ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

Source: Was ZunZuneo To Promote Free Speech Or Destabilize Cuba? : NPR -
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/08/300477959/was-zunzuneo-to-promote-free-speech-or-destabilize-cuba

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