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US officials secretly funded a 'Cuban Twitter' to overthrow Fidel Castro

3 April 2014, 13:45 -- Who said the Cold War was over? The US government secretly funded the establishment of Cuban Twitter in 2009 to stir political unrest in Cuba. Social network was designed to undermine the communist government in the country, the Associated Press reports. The project ZunZuneo by Agency for International Development (USAID) was carried out for three years and has attracted tens of thousands of subscribers.

Fifty-three years after the CIA failed to overthrow Fidel Castro's government, the US government is still trying to dislodge the Caribbean island's communist regime.

The project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to create a short message service which could circumvent existing in Cuba restrictions on access to the Internet. The role of the US government carefully concealed. The US government has been working covert backchannels with aid agencies funneling money through front companies for years to create this media platform, the Time reports.

The target audience of Twitter has become mostly young people. The plan was to push them toward dissent. Once ZunZuneo's network reached a critical mass, they would begin sending out more politically-charged texts, in the hopes that they would spark demonstrations against the regime of Raul Castro and 'renegotiate the balance of power between state and society,' as one USAID document reads. Associated Press conducted its own investigation into the circumstances of the operation and reported about it.

According to Washington Post, it is unclear whether the scheme was legal under US law, which requires written authorization of covert action by the president and congressional notification. USAID officials would not say who had approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it. The Cuban government declined a request for comment.

The Project stopped in 2012 because of insufficient funding. USAID officials refused to provide information about who had approved the program or whether the White House was aware of it. USAID spokesman Matt Herrick said only the US Congress was aware of the project and found it consistent with US law.

Source: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_03/ US-officials-secretly-funded-a-Cuban-Twitter- to-overthrow-Fidel-Castro-8888/