What Did President Obama Learn About Cuba in 2009?
Michael Orion Powell /
President Barack Obama launched his Cuban policy with some carrots for Fidel Castro’s regime. In April, he moved to lift many of the restrictions which hamper Cuban Americans from visiting and communicating with their families, and to cut through obstacles preventing private telecommunications and satellite radio and television companies from providing services to Cuba.
Only eight months after President Obama offered to lift the restrictions on private communications companies, the Cuban government arrested a 60-year-old social worker and contractor, Alan P. Gross, from the Washington-based firm Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), for assisting several Jewish community groups in gaining access to the Internet. Notably, DAI has been operating with a grant of $40 million in aid from the U.S. government intended for allocation in pro-democracy programs in Cuba. Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón charged that Gross was acting at the behest of“American intelligence services” and “agents, torturers and spies that are contracted as part of the privatization of war.”