Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on April 5, 2014

9 hours ago by Aldo Gamboa Cubans use their cell phones in Havana on May 8, 2008

ZunZuneo, a Twitter-style application designed to get Cubans talking among themselves on their cell phones, has become the latest obstacle to improved relations between Washington and Havana.

Experts in the United States say the failed project, active between 2009 and 2012, should raise serious questions about US policies towards the communist-run Caribbean island.

The US Agency for International Development has (USAID) admitted to building the application so that Cubans, who face strict curbs on expression, could "talk freely among themselves."

White House spokesman Jay Carney described the program as a "development assistance" scheme.

The program was debated in Congress and conducted within US law, said Carney.

He bristled at suggestions that USAID was being used to mount a covert operation aimed at inciting political unrest against Cuba's communist leaders.

Discretion on implementing the program "does not make it covert," Carney said. "USAID is a development agency, not an intelligence agency. Suggestions that this was a covert program are wrong."

'Dumb, dumb, dumb'

But some experts feel differently.

Link:
ZunZuneo: The new sound of US-Cuban discord

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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