Amateur Hour update: A bad idea, poorly implemented, disingenuously defended. Other than that, what’s to criticize in the Obama Administration’s failed, covert attempt to build a Twitter-like social media site in Cuba? Of course, ZunZuneo was nothing more than a U.S. Agency for International Development effort to encourage political discussions on the island nation that we haven’t had normal relations with in more than half a century. Of course.
Let’s be honest. We get that no foreign development program, including the Marshall Plan, is politically neutral. Nobody’s is. But it must be recognized that self-serving foreign aid is a double-edged sword. First do no harm has more than Hippocratic-oath applications.
Here’s an illustrative anecdote passed on by Ted Hencken, the Baruch College professor who authors the El Yuma blog. He told of a 2007 trip to Cuba when he spent time in Pinar del Río province with Dagoberto Valdés, the editor of the independent Catholic monthly Vitral.
Valdés said he had been visited by Joseph Sullivan, at the time the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Sullivan was impressed with Valdés’ critical Cuban analysis. He asked how he could help. Valdés’ less-than-nuanced response: “If you really want to help us, I ask that you not help us at all.”
In other words, guilt by Yanqui association is no help to Cuban influentials. Plus, the promotion of democracy, which we haven’t quite yet perfected in this country, shouldn’t come at the expense of another country’s sovereignty.