HAVANA (AP) – Cuban rappers targeted by a clandestine U.S. program are “victims” unknowingly swept into an effort to spark an anti-government youth movement, the Cuban government said Friday in its first reaction to an Associated Press investigation into the initiative.
Vice Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas described the U.S. Agency for International Development program as “treachery” that drew in rappers Los Aldeanos and other Cuban musicians.
The hip-hop operation was conceived by one of USAID’s largest contractors, Creative Associates International, using a team of Serbian music promoters. The Washington-based contractor also led other efforts aimed at undermining Cuba’s communist government, including a secret Cuban Twitter text-messaging service and an operation that sent in young, inexperienced Latin American “tourists” to recruit a new generation of activists.
The collection of USAID missions, which were all undertaken over the same period of 2009-2012 and cost millions, failed.
Rojas said Aldo Rodriguez, lead singer of Los Aldeanos, had received backing from the Hermanos Saiz Association, a youth culture group with close government ties, and “I don’t think he’s lost that support.”