Direct payments initially supported

Posted on Wed, Nov. 15, 2006

POLICY QUESTION
Direct payments initially supported

A confidential USAID memo from March 22, 1996 -- less than one month
after the Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down -- notes the
agency supported sending as much as $400 at a time to ''victims of
repression'' in Cuba.

The memo says USAID's Latin American and Caribbean Office, the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana, the State Department and the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee supported direct cash assistance of up to $10,000.

The Office of the Inspector General, citing an inability to track the
money because auditing the program from Cuba was difficult, left the
decision to USAID. Larry Byrne, an assistant USAID administrator from
1993 to 1997, decided to ban sending cash. ''I was not in favor of them
trying to buy somebody to shoot Fidel Castro or whatever else they might
do with the money,'' Byrne told The Miami Herald.

USAID's mission statement advocates a peaceful transition to democracy.

Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, said USAIDfinanced groups should be
allowed to send cash: ``I have always advocated for such measures.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/16014373.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_local