The Idiocy of Privatizing Diplomacy

If you want to encourage democracy in Cuba, here's a thought: don't privatize the effort.

Congress has put the U.S. Agency for International Development's $45 million Cuba program's 2008 funding on hold, following a series of troubling audits and cases of massive fraud, The Miami Herald has learned.

In a quest to get the funding hold lifted, U.S. AID on Friday ordered a bottoms-up review of all its Cuba democracy programs and suspended a Miami anti-Castro exile group that spent at least $11,000 of federal grant money on personal items.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ordered a hold on the U.S. AID Cuba program funding last month, in part in response to a $500,000 embezzlement at the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington disclosed earlier this year, federal officials said.

In a memo sent Friday to various members of Congress, Stephen Driesler, AID's deputy assistant administrator for legislative and public affairs, said the agency recently implemented stricter financial reviews. That new review turned up irregularities at the Grupo de Apoyo a la Democracia (Group in Support of Democracy), a Miami group criticized in the past for using federal funds to send Nintendo games to Cuba. [my emphasis]

Rest assured it gets worse:

The executive director of Grupo de Apoyo admitted that an employee used the organization's credit card for thousands of dollars in personal items and then billed them to the grant aimed at bringing democracy to Cuba, Driesler's memo said.

You ain't seen nothing yet:

A report by the Cuban-American National Foundation released in May showed that less than 17 percent of $65 million in federal Cuba aid funds spent during the past 10 years went to ''direct, on-island assistance.'' The bulk of the money, the report said, went to academic studies and expenses of exile organizations, mostly in Miami and Washington.

My nominee for tone-deaf hypocrite of the year: Frank Calzon, Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba:

Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, stressed that the $500,000 fraud at his organization was not discovered by a federal audit but by Calzon himself. He said Berman, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pushed for the audits because he is against President Bush's Cuba policy.

Not a dime more to this den of thieves NGO. Not one. Honestly, one of the worst curses visited upon our nation is the electoral college system and the idea that our policy on this issue is hostage to a small group of vocal, belligerent and ultimately criminal element is disturbing. Not one thing they have done is helped the cause and freedom and justice in Cuba. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

Comments

[frank calzon]

I read with interest your comments about me and the Center for a Free Cuba. Here are the facts: I have managed federal funds for over ten years. The GAO first audit of USAID Cuba grantees did not find anytthing wrong with us. The Center has conducted an annual audit by independent auditing firms every year for the last ten years
There were never any findings. We are proud of our work which includes the type of program which brought freedom to Eastern Europe such as the distribution inside Cuba of tens of thousand of short wave radios.

I discovered the fraud in late January, I initiated an investigation in which four lawyers, my comptroler and general manager participated. We alerted the government. Recovered all of the money plus interest. We welcome the Inspector Generals inspection and gave them our computer hardrives. We are operating with copies. We were the victim of a crime and because we reported it, as required got penalized and caught in the quagmire of partisan politics at the tail end of the current administration.

If you or anyone has any questions I will be happy to provide answers. In the meantime I wish you well. Stay cool.

[Anonymous]

Dear Mr. Calzon,

As someone who has family on the island and travels there frequently, I would like to thank you for the short wave radios. My family members who are not dissidents or any kind of opposition possess and cherish many of your short wave radios.

The U.S. Interests Sections, which has limited contacts on the island, hands them out with passion. There are hundreds if not thousands of construction workers, employees at the oil refineries, sugar workers and others who have received your short wave radios from aid workers, American journalists and other middle men. Many of those that use the radios are communist party members.

But hey, you can still gloat about how you have delivered them. What you fail to address is what results the tax dollars have led to. Un abrazo de los duenos de tus productos y que sigas mandando las cosas a isla.

Jota

[av2ts]

I won't mention Calzon's violent past or his work for the CIA, as I am afraid this blog might get censored by his lawyers. Today he makes his living as professional regime changer, giving money mostly to his friends in Miami and a few luck people in havana who get video games, cashmere sweaters and Godiva chocolates. Calzon would have the support of less than 1% of actual Cubans with his hardline nonsense. Still, US taxpayers funnel millions though his organization, producing nothing but hate and distrust.

Mr. Calzon admits to having at least a half million dollars of taxpayer money embezzled by his Chief of Staff, right under his nose. Calzon has not told anyone where the money went or exactly how much, but somehow he was able to "put back" the money into his account. The guy getting the blame for the mess - Mr. Sixto - walks around a free man more than a year after the facts came out.

BTW, this ambassador of the Cuban community, Mr. Calzon, does not think Cuban-Americans have the right to send whatever money they want to family members in Cuba. He and his group are also against the right to travel freely back to Cuba to see friends and family. Never-mind the rights of you and to travel where we please.