This month there has been “certain” exposure in the Cuban networks of an alleged scam related to funds from the Washington-based organization Freedom House, which would have been orchestrated by the Cuban opposition writer Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo in apparent conspiracy with Rosa María Payá and Frank Calzón. The point is that Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, a biologist turned fierce dissident in recent years, claims that in 2018 Pardo Lazo fraudulently requested funds—in his name —from Freedom House's emergency assistance program, worth close to $10,000.
The tenuous coverage of the case in the Cuban “independent” media has demonstrated the historical and contemporary influence of figures such as Calzón and Payá, respectively. The former has been a protagonist of the subversion business since its very beginning in 1995, when he coordinated from Freedom House the implementation of the first USAID grant under the Torricelli and Helms-Burton acts. This effort would be followed by his work at the head of the corrupt “Center for a Free Cuba”, founded in 1997. As for Payá and Pardo Lazo, both are very well treated by “hard-line influencers” such as Alexander Otaola—the humiliated Miami-Dade mayoral hopeful—, who has taken it upon himself to excommunicate Ruiz Urquiola for his imputations.
But the most interesting thing here is that we are talking about a negligible sum in mathematical terms, taking into account the juicy funds that the U.S. government has given to Freedom House to operate against Cuba. There is no doubt that the activity of this organization has served to train and logistically support many actors of the internal opposition, but the record of its expenditures in federal funds speaks clearly that the real cheated is the U.S. taxpayer.
Between 1996 and this year, the U.S. Congress has approved some $470 million to finance the subversive agenda coordinated by USAID, the State Department, and NED. Along the way a good part of these funds have been used inappropriately, as recognized years ago by the Government Accountability Office, which since 2013—as far as we know—has not audited again the anti-Cuba operations of the related agencies.
Freedom House's "Cuban" expenses
According to data provided by the organization itself, it currently executes the project “Promoting Human Rights in Cuba”, approved and funded since 2022 by Foggy Bottom´s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Freedom House reported expenditures close to $400,000 related to the referred project between June 2022 and June 2023 (in total the organization spent around $94 million—in that period—on the democracy business, guaranteed by the federal budget). Between 2017 and 2020 Freedom House implemented a USAID project entitled “Cuba Grassroots Civil Society Building” with more than $1,700,000 committed for its execution.
SourceThe so-called “democracy programs” aimed at Cuba are often presented as “highly sensitive” by Washington, in order to thus justify the concealment of key information on their development. While some very general data on USAID- and NED-managed projects are disclosed, those sponsored directly by the State Department operate below the radar. Almost none of the latter appear on USAspending.gov, a U.S. government website touted as its official source for spending data.
And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.
