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Report puts aid to Cuba under microscope

By DAVID ADAMS
Published November 16, 2006

MIAMI - Democrats, emboldened by a new report that criticizes lax oversight of millions in aid to Cuban dissidents, are sharpening their knives for an assault on the Bush administration's strict economic restrictions.

The 57-page report comes at a tough time for the White House, barely a week after the midterm elections, and could provide fodder for critics of U.S.-Cuba policy to push for changes in the new Democrat-controlled Congress. It's also egg on the face of some of the Cuban exile groups in Miami and Washington who receive money for this $73.5-million program.

The program stems from a Bush administration initiative in 2004 to increase support for Cuba's dissident movement.

The program drew criticism at the time from some experts who warned that U.S. government aid for dissidents would undermine their legitimacy by making them look like mercenaries. In early August, after Fidel Castro was struck with suspected cancer and forced to abandon power, Bush pledged to increase that funding by $80-million over the next two years.

Now it turns out the program, managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department, suffers from poor management and inadequate oversight, according to the report published Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Sloppy grant authorization procedures and a lack of monitoring of program recipients are also cited in the report, as well as the high cost of smuggling aid into Cuba. Some groups paid up to $20 a pound to have the goods ferried in. In one case almost half of the $7.4-million allotted was spent on shipping.

The lack of internal control made the program vulnerable to "the risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and noncompliance with laws," the GAO found. Although the report did not allege corruption, it did point out some "numerous questionable expenditures."

In one case, a Cuban exile group in Miami used taxpayer money to send cashmere sweaters, Godiva chocolates, Nintendo Game Boys and Sony PlayStations to dissidents in Cuba.

The exile groups say they are doing an important job.

"There's a growing civil society movement in Cuba, and they need more and more help in bringing it along," says Orlando Gutierrez, director of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, which has received a little more than $3-million in U.S. funding. Most of that money went to sending books, publications and laptop computers to Cuba, working with dissidents on building a democratic future, and fostering contacts between dissidents and the outside world.

Gutierrez said his group, which has a staff of 10 as well as a team of volunteers, was audited regularly and runs "a very seriously focused program." He added that most of the other 10 to 15 exile groups that receive funding are committed pro-democracy activists.

He pointed out that the taxpayer money spent on democracy in Cuba paled in comparison to the sums spent in Eastern Europe, or in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

The GAO report notes that the U.S. program faces "a difficult operating environment" in Cuba. Under Cuban law it is illegal to for Cubans to cooperate with the U.S.-funded dissident programs.

So, what do you do?

No one has a very good answer. Most critics of U.S. Cuba policy do not advocate abandoning dissidents outright. But the new Congress could see a renewal of bipartisan efforts to roll back some of the Bush administration's 2004 embargo tightening. The tightening on travel and family remittances also went down poorly among some Cuban-Americans in Miami. New restrictions allow Cuban-Americans only one trip to the island every three years, and then only to visit close relatives.

Miami's Cuban-American congresswoman, Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, had been set to take over the lead of the International Relations committee, but will now have to take a back seat. Instead, Massachusetts Democrat William Delahunt, a critic of the Cuba embargo, is to become chairman of the committee's Oversight and Investigations panel. Delahunt said Wednesday he would hold hearings on the GAO findings as soon as January.

Another Cuba policy critic, Democrat Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., will be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

"There's a huge opportunity not just because of what is happening here after the elections, but what is happening in Cuba," said Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas. "Things are up for grabs. There's a whole new terrain."

David Adams can be reached at dadams@sptimes.com or (305) 361-6393.

[Last modified November 16, 2006, 00:38:39]