US government agent detained in Cuba for ‘aiding opposition groups’

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
American authorities have revealed the arrest in Cuba of a US government worker, who was allegedly supplying telecommunications equipment to opposition groups. The unidentified man, who was reportedly detained in Havana on December 5, is said to work for a Maryland-based international aid group called Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI). This little-known organization works closely with the government-owned United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and last year was awarded a major government contract in “support [of] the rule of law and human rights, political competition and consensus building” in Cuba. There are reports, however, that the contract involved the clandestine supply of laptop computers and cell phones to Cuban groups antagonistic to the government in Havana. The unidentified man has not been charged, but it is interesting that the Cubans have yet to publicize his arrest, a practice that is usually associated with (either factual or fictitious) espionage charges. Cuban and Venezuelan sources see DAI as operating suspiciously close to the US departments of State and Defense, and have even described the aid group as “a mechanism employed by the Central Intelligence Agency”. DAI activities have been implicated in alleged clandestine funding of anti-Chávez organizations in Venezuela, some of which spearheaded the failed 2002 Venezuelan coup d’état.