The Good USAID and the Bad USAID

The Good USAID and the Bad USAID / Yoani Sanchez
Posted on November 3, 2014

YOANI SÁNCHEZ, 3 November 2014 — Just a few months ago we experienced an
avalanche of official propaganda targeted to attacks on the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID). Those initials came
to represent the enemy with whom they frighten us from our television
screens, platforms, and even classrooms. However, to our surprise, this
week we've learned that some Cuban doctors arriving in Liberia will work
in a field hospital financed by this "terrible agency."

Although the official press has avoided publishing pictures showing our
compatriots next to the logo of USAID, the odd photo has escaped
censorship. So suddenly, there is a crack in the story of confrontation,
the rhetoric of the adversary does not hold water, and clearly evident
is all the moral relativism of those who fabricate the ideological
crusades with which they bombard us from the mass media.

Could someone ask the Associated Press (AP) to investigate as soon as
possible this "secret" conspiracy between the Plaza of the Revolution
and an agency that receives guidance from the U.S. State Department? We
are eager to see the rivers of ink that this strange collaboration
provokes, the "revelations," the secret memorandums and the veiled-face
confessions that explain such a collaboration.

However, the answer that will be given by those who reject USAID support
for Cuban Civil Society but seem fine working shoulder to shoulder with
the island's authorities, will be that in humanitarian issues have no
political colors. As if to inform and technologically empower oneself
weren't a question of survival in the twenty-first century. The official
press, for its part, will rush to explain that, when it's about saving
lives, Cuban doctors are willing to put aside their differences. But
none of these is the real explanation.

The bottom line is that Raul Castro's government is eager to express and
receive belligerence from its great northern neighbor. What it will not
tolerate and will never accept is grants to or recognition of the
belligerence of its own civil society. It is anxious to take a family
photo with Uncle Sam, as long as no one invites the bastard nephew that
is the Cuban population.

Power is attracted to itself, these images of the last few days want to
tell us. If a young Cuban receives a text message summoning him to an
alternative concert, he should be careful – according to what the
official commentators warn us on our little screens – because the
imperialist could be behind each character. They don't use the same
ethical yardstick, however, to evaluate a health care professional who
works under the tent, over the stretchers, and with the syringes funded
by USAID.

How are they going to explain to the children, who have spent months
being frightened by the United States Agency for International
Development, that now their fathers or uncles who went to Liberia
are working in a hospital built with funds from that agency?

When Ronald Hernandez Torres, one of the Cuban doctors who traveled to
Liberia, wrote on his Facebook page that "this unit has the best
conditions for patient care, and the best professionals from different
countries working side by side," did he, perhaps, know that all this is
being funded by the same agency that is latest nemesis that the Castro
regime has found to frighten us with?

As always happens, the cries of political hysteria end up drowning out
the voices that raise arguments. Although, as a general rule, the
official version is usually imposed because it is the highest insult,
this should not discourage us to look for the reasons and to reveal the
contradictions of their discourse.

I now know, that at the end of the year, when we look at the balance of
reporting in the headlines of our national newspapers, the impression
will be that the Havana government and USAID are irreconcilable enemies.
But it is a lie. The principal confrontation that continues to be set in
stone and without ceding an inch, is what emerges from the
powers-that-be in Cuba toward their own people.



Source: The Good USAID and the Bad USAID / Yoani Sanchez | Translating
Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-good-usaid-and-the-bad-usaid-yoani-sanchez/