Ardin was visiting Cuba to research her PhD thesis, 'The Cuban Multi-Party System'. Her 'field tutor' was Miriam Leiva, a prominent member of the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White). In 2003, the Cuban government arrested Miriam Leiva's husband, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, for receiving money from U.S. 'diplomats'. Chepe was writing anti-Castro propaganda for Cubanet and CubaEncuentro, both of which were funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which in turn is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an organisation funded by the U.S. State Department. Chepe's arrest was a part of 'Black Spring', a crackdown on 75 U.S. funded dissidents involved in 'destabilization' / 'pro-democracy' activities. The 'Ladies in White' consists of the wives and other female relatives of the jailed dissidents.
After Anna Ardin was asked to leave Cuba due to her political activities, she travelled to Miami to continue her research, interviewing prominent expatriate Cuban anti-Castro and anti-Communist activists. In Anna Ardin's 39-page thesis she does not mention U.S. interventionism in the internal affairs of Cuba, or how this might affect a future multi-party democracy. She does not mention that all of the political parties she explores receive U.S. funding, or the influence and control exerted by the United States upon these groups. The sources she cites are the same U.S. State Department-funded publications that Oscar Espinosa Chepe worked with. They are part of an ongoing attempt to manufacture, support and finance a U.S.-friendly internal opposition movement in Cuba via a range of organisations. The 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry called the 'Varela Project' and other interventions "counterproductive" and stated that dissidents receiving money from U.S. sources, especially from the CIA, were immediately discredited. In 2008, the State Department and USAID triple previous levels levels of funding, 'awarding' $45.7 million in ‘Cuba democracy’ grants.
The links between Miami-based anti-Castro Cuban-American organisations and the U.S. government's Central Intelligence Agency forms one of the darkest episodes in U.S. history; the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by a counter-revolutionary militia trained and funded by the CIA, the Cuban missle crisis blow-back and the tangled horror of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In Miami, Anna Ardin interviewed CIA counter-revolutionary militant Lino Fernandez aka Ojeda. Fernandez and five hundred of his men were captured while awaiting a CIA air-drop one month before the invasion at the Bay of Pigs. In Cuba, Anna Ardin interviewed Manuel Cuesta, a leader of Arco Progresista, who said “[she] advised us on how to form a political party, we exchanged bibliographies and her group gave us a minimal amount of economic assistance. She tried to influence us too forcefully on how we should lead Arco Progresista. Our reluctance generated a certain uneasiness on her part.”
Sweden has continued to support U.S. interests in Cuba. Oswaldo Payá, founder of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and the Varela Project was killed in a car crash on 22nd July 2012 at the age of 61. Swedish politician and chairman of the Young Christian Democrats Jens Aron Modig and Spanish politician Angel Carromero Barrios, deputy secretary general of Nuevas Generaciones (the youth wing of Spain’s Partido Popular) were present and survived with minor injuries. As with Anna Ardin, they entered Cuba on tourist visas and later acknowledged that their visit was solely to conduct political work with dissidents. Jens Aron Modig said he first came to Cuba in 2009 to meet and support dissidents, and that on this trip the gave Oswaldo Payá $4,900 for his opposition work and help organising dissident political youth groups. Henrik Ehrenberg, a spokesman for Sweden's Christian Democratic Party, said that any cash carried by its members to dissidents was "private money", and that "quite a number of Christian Democrats" had visited Cuba to show "moral support and solidarity" for Oswaldo Payá's civil rights movement. Jens Aron Modig said he made the two trips under instructions of the Christian Democrats international department and admitted that “we don’t perform these types of activities in any other country.”
In 2006, the U.S. became increasingly disenchanted with the Miami-based anti-Castro organisations. Congressional auditors accused the USAID of failing properly to administer its program and of having channelled tens of millions of dollars through exile groups, which were wasteful and kept questionable accounts. The auditors concluded that 30% of the exile groups who received USAID grants showed questionable expenditures. The failure of the Miami-based organisations to make any perceivable impact on Cuba's internal dynamics has clearly led to a change in U.S. strategy. Young Mexican and European politicians acting under the banner of activism have been recruited with their governments' assent to work as U.S. proxies.
07.11.12 Stjärna Frånfälle
http://marthamitchelleffect.co.uk/#/assange-case-aa-cuba/4570690553
Comments
Hide the following 6 comments
'The Cuban Multi-Party System"
09.11.2012 06:50
Yeah right
Remove!!
09.11.2012 11:59
It does however talk utter shite about Cuba's "future" (ho ho) "multi-party democracy"
Smear campaign / misinformation!!!!!!!! Please REMOVE
A1
A1 - Remove!! Rebuttal.
09.11.2012 13:57
This article is solely based on fact. It is the best researched article on this matter on the internet. You cannot find, one single misrepresentation or distortion, and so must shout smear, whilst you seem to misunderstand wildly - the article has no opinion about the future of Cuba.
This article clearly highlights an important aspect regarding the background of one of those accusing JA of sex crimes, which may according to how someone interprets these facts, especially when place on top of the more widely known facts; serve to explain the opaque but unraveling Stockholm 'affair'.
It also highlights the intriguing but unreported fact of Swedish intervention in Cuba at the behest of the United States.
Stjärna Frånfälle
Q&A @Stjärna Frånfälle
09.11.2012 20:24
One can only repeat that the article does not mention Julian Assange, Wikileaks or indeed "sex crimes" anywhere outside the title. So if it's been "wildly misunderstood" that's because it's badly written - written in fact to miss out all the critical information linking its claims or explaining the relevance of those claims to Julian Assange, to Wikileaks or to sex crimes
A2
USAID blown up AGAIN!
09.11.2012 23:33
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/suicide-blast-kills-12-near-kabuls-airport-in-afghanistan/2012/09/18/14f05668-014d-11e2-b257-e1c2b3548a4a_story.html
And in this one:
http://www.devex.com/en/news/suicide-bombers-attacked-dai-office-in-afghanistan/68251
The very same USAID that is also a CIA front op for the security operatives of the U.S and its allies. So its an aid operation but spends most of its time trying to find out where much needed "gun-aid", "mortar-aid" and "ammo-aid" is needed most in those poor countries that the U.S has been forced to invade for their own good, which of course is why these 'facilities' keep getting blown up!
They don't spend ALL their time delivering aid though, a lot of their time is spent funneling funds out of the U.S and into the private bank accounts of bent soldiers and contractors.
Vandervalk.
A2 - Q&A Rebuttal.
10.11.2012 00:19
This article does not make any 'claims'. It is a series of facts. It is not an opinion piece.
The reader is assumed to be capable of reflective reasoning and therefore does not need condescending dot joining to comprehend that there might be an interesting relationship between the facts presented in the article and the unraveling Julian Assange, Stockholm 'affair'. For instance, it is notable that your own conjecture has brought WikiLeaks into the equation, without the writer even mentioning this element.
The title necessarily sets up the possibility of a link. The reader is left free from any further interference and suggestion to form their own opinion.
For the 'critical information' regarding the events in Stockholm:
http://marthamitchelleffect.co.uk/#/assange-case/4568506448
Kind regards, Stjärna Frånfälle
Stjärna Frånfälle
e-mail: stjarnafranfalle@gmail.com
Homepage: http://marthamitchelleffect.co.uk/