SOME US attempts to destabilise Cuba have become so much the norm that they are no longer news. These include economic blockade and travel restrictions. Others, however, like special covert actions, serve to restore US aggression to public awareness, especially when those covert acts are exposed or when they fail.

That’s the case with yet another revelation on intrusion in Cuban affairs by the US Agency for International Development (USAid).

According to a recent Associated Press (AP) story, USAid hired Creative Associates International to recruit 12 young people from Peru, Costa Rica, and Venezuela to pose as tourists in Cuba beginning in late 2009.

They were to befriend young Cubans, particularly university students, and try to convert them into “change agents” and anti-government activists. Engaging with them as colleagues in “civic projects,” one an HIV-Aids educational initiative, the visitors gained their confidence. The Cubans received money.

The onset of the programme coincided with the arrest by Cuban authorities of Alan Gross, a USAid-funded agent now jailed in Cuba after supplying dissenting Cubans with high-tech communications equipment. The AP report reveals that discussions about risk of detection were ongoing between the amateur agents and their Creative Associates handlers, mainly because they’d received scant training in security precautions. The programme ended in 2011.

In a recent statement, the Cuban Foreign Ministry denounced the US goal of “converting young Cubans … into political actors.” The US government was called upon to “once and for all cease its subversive, illegal, and covert actions against Cuba in violation of our sovereignty.” It linked the disclosures to another AP report published in April that told about the Zunzuneo project.

Zunzuneo was a USAid-financed initiative administered by Creative Associates that began in 2010. Its purpose was to engage young Cubans in social messaging after having been lured through music, sports and cultural information sent to their mobiles.

To evade detection, the “Cuban Twitter” project used text messages and relied upon technical support personnel in other countries. Zunzuneo was financed by funds diverted from USAid projects in Pakistan.

Documents reveal plans to pull in “hundreds of thousands” of people and collect contact details. Eventually, “operators would introduce political content that would enable Cubans to organise ‘smart mobs’ — mass gatherings called at a moment’s notice that might trigger a Cuban Spring.” After two years and only 40,000 Cuban users, the programme ended.

Cuban analyst Iroel Sanchez asks: “Will the US government learn from these new failures or will its policies toward Cuba continue as a feast for the incompetent?”

The revelations recall earlier US initiatives used after predominantly military and terrorist attempts at destabilisation went out of fashion.

Funnelling millions of dollars to anti-government forces in Cuba through public and private groups in Florida came to very little. Funds were stolen or went astray and favouritism prevailed in selecting Cuban recipients.

The convictions as US mercenaries in 2003 of 75 anti-government activists cast a pall over quiet US interventionist attempts, mainly because of video evidence of US payments shown at their trial.

Yet manipulation of social media continues. According to close observer Tracey Eaton, the US gave “an additional $400,000 to the Maryland company that designed and operates Piramideo, a social network aimed at sending millions of text messages to Cuba.”

The Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), responsible for US propaganda stations Radio and TV Marti, “signed the one-year contract with Washington Software on June 20.”

The OCB gave Washington Software $500,000 in September 2011 for a weekly barrage of 24,000 texts to Cuba.

Since then it has received $4,321,173 from USAid.

The Mexican La Jornada newspaper points out that the US government, no longer wedded to coups, death squads and invasions, now “relies upon concepts like democratic development, strengthening of civil society, and defence of human rights.”

But significantly “this destabilising attempt occurs just when nations in the region are devising mechanisms of multinational interaction.

Ultimately “the effect of programmes like those under consideration will be to deepen the superpower’s isolation in the region.”

It seems that “Washington, far from being a guarantor of international legality, democracy and human rights has switched to being a systematic, habitual violator of such principles.”

In Washington, Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the committee that oversees the USAid budget, branded the recently disclosed scheme as “worse than irresponsible.”

And Congressional HIV-Aids caucus co-chair Representative Barbara Lee said she was “appalled by recent reports that the US government orchestrated and funded clandestine democracy promotion efforts under the guise of public health and civic programmes.”

Although President Barack Obama, in November 2013, lectured right-wing blockade apologists in Miami, he has been silent on the current debacle.

The same goes for former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who recently called for “normalising relations eventually,” and Democratic candidate for governor of Florida Charlie Crist who condemns the blockade.

This article originally appeared in People’s World.