February 13, 2012 | 9:52 AM | By

Alan Gross update: Mixing foreign aid with foreign policy.

FILED UNDER: Politics, Alan Gross, Cuba, foreign aid, USAID

Flickr, johanoomen

Is it foreign aid or covert aid?

Remember when the CIA did that fake vaccination scheme in Pakistan, the one that many predicted (correctly) would undermine confidence in American health assistance and other aid programs?

Well, there’s another ongoing saga that illustrates the cost of mixing up foreign aid with foreign policy, especially when we use covert means to achieve foreign policy goals. You will be forgiven if you have so far missed this story, given the boring headlines this week:

USAID contractor case renews debate on tactics

USAID contractor work detailed

American’s arrest in Cuba could have impact

Aid agency official knew he was ‘taking risks,’ report shows

Basically, here’s the story: Alan Gross, a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was charged in 2009 with espionage or some such by the Cuban government and sentenced to 15 years in jail. I’m not sure why the squeamishness in the recent headlines, but it deserves attention.

This ongoing saga is important to Gross and his family, of course, but also because of the implications it could have for the ongoing discussion within the federal government about “re-inventing foreign aid.”

The Associated Press has published a great analysis of newly released reports of Gross’ activities in Cuba aimed at ‘democracy promotion’ among the island nation’s small Jewish community. That sounds pretty tame, until you read up on the details which include smuggling into the country electronic communications equipment aimed at circumventing Cuba’s control of web traffic.

This included Gross smuggling into Cuba a specialized kind of satellite telephone (SIM) card that is not available to the public and, according to the AP, is “provided most frequently to the Defense Department and the CIA.”

The AP: U.S. officials say he did nothing wrong and was just carrying out the normal mission of USAID.

Huh? This is the normal mission of USAID?

This is certainly normal for the CIA, or those other branches of government legitimately set up to undermine authoritarian regimes around the world. I’m all for undermining authoritarian regimes.

But is it wise, and in our long-term interest, to be enlisting USAID in this cause as well?

Should the agency that was set up primarily to bring food to the starving, medical supplies to the injured or otherwise engage in America’s humanitarian causes overseas also be doing covert political work against hostile foreign governments?

Is there a need to more clearly delineate foreign aid from foreign policy?

I’m just asking.

  • http://usalama.wordpress.com/ Carol Jean Gallo

    A couple of thoughts that spring to mind off the top of my head: Ideally, yes, you want them to be separate. In reality, though, I don’t think this phenomenon is new and people in countries where the CIA and/or USAID goes are aware of it. During the Cold War the International Rescue Committee, which is an NGO, allegedly once had some staff on government payroll to keep an eye out for “Communists” and in some places were nicknamed the IRCIA. Unfortunately, I think quite often the perception is the US government is the US government, period. (Even Americans often stick all departments and agencies into one big bucket called “The Government.”)  That could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on where you sit, but either way I think in some contexts the agencies are conflated anyway. And not necessarily, as this example and the Pakistan example show, without reason. I haven’t done any kind of in depth research into it, but I’d venture to say that given the IRC example it’s not a new phenomenon. (The IRC story comes from David Reiff’s book “A Bed For the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis.”)  Maybe time to make a genuine effort to separate them, then.

    • http://twitter.com/tompaulson Tom Paulson

      Good points Carol,

      I haven’t read Reiff’s book in total but I have read excerpts and followed David’s work on this issue. I guess I would just say that just because it has been common doesn’t mean it should be. Many do think it’s high time to do our best to separate aid from politics.

      The British government, for example, has at least made it an explicit policy that all foreign aid must be for poverty alleviation (and can’t be, like much of American foreign aid, an obvious means to further some commercial interest of ours or just another way of doing weapons sales).

      Cheers
      Tom

      • http://usalama.wordpress.com/ Carol Jean Gallo

        Yup, can’t say I disagree with you there. I guess I just think that it’s a sub-problem of a bigger problem. In other words, if the CIA is in your country spying, and American weapons manufacturers are selling the tools of suppression to your government, then American government humanitarian aid in the same space (I don’t know that that’s the case anywhere, it’s just an extreme hypothetical I made up; Pakistan might actually be a close example) is bound to be viewed with suspicion, even if there *is* a genuine policy of separation between the two missions.

        Now I, as a relatively well-read student of international affairs, know that this reflects divisions and disagreements and incoherence within the government and between different departments (I would imagine many USAID staff would be pretty upset about the Pakistan story), not to mention a theoretically independent private sector. But because there is this disagreement, it sends contradictory messages to people who only see “The US Government.”

        Definitely agree with your point, though, and I think it reflects, also, the gulf between macro-level policies and micro-level motivations of people on the ground. (USAID may be deployed in particular places based on political considerations, but I don’t doubt that most actual staff are genuinely just concerned about the mission of need-based, impartial humanitarian work.) In other words, it’s complicated! ;)

  • http://twitter.com/shekissesfrogs Iguana Keeper

    It takes some incredulous naiveté to not know USAID has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns, despite the good intensions of some of its employees.