The contract shows that USAID's program intends to be prepared for a variety of contingencies in Cuba, including, as the implementation section of this document suggests, "if a USG-Determined Transition occurs, and USAID is asked to provide assistance." In that event, USAID hoped to have staffing, networking, and infrastructure in place to be able to rapidly supply financial, technological, and educational assistance to help a new government consolidate. The CDCPP is designed "to support Cuba's pro-democracy actors," the document states. "This task order will provide a contractual mechanism that will allow the USG to respond quickly to different types of opportunities or emergencies, particularly those that may result from macro-political changes."
Due to the sensitivity of these operations, the "CDCPP demands continuous discretion," states another document attached to DAI's Jan. 15 motion to dismiss the suit. But the suit itself is already eroding the discreet nature of the USAID Cuba democracy operation, and opening it to public debate over the wisdom, propriety, and efficacy of the program. In DAI's decision to file these documents in court there seems to be an element of "graymail" -- the threat of exposure of far more sensitive information about the surreptitious nature of its work with the U.S. government in Cuba -- if the lawsuit goes forward. DAI's motion states clearly that the company is "deeply concerned that the development of the record in this case over the course of litigation could create significant risks to the U.S. Government's national security, foreign policy, and human rights interests."
The incoming secretary of state is no stranger to the Cuba issue. Indeed, the beginning of the Kerry era at the State Department presents an opportunity to reevaluate not only the democracy program, but the Obama administration's overall approach to Cuba policy. Despite Obama's campaign pledge to "write a new chapter" in U.S.-Cuban relations during his first term, the president failed to substantively alter Washington's half-century posture of hostility toward the Castro regime. The fact that Alan Gross's freedom depends on a new approach to U.S.-Cuban relations is an added incentive for that reevaluation to be expeditious.
When I visited Gross in late November in the military hospital where he is incarcerated, he told me that he wanted to see the United States and Cuba "sit down and talk tachlis -- truthfully -- about mutual interests," including his case. It is now up to Kerry to move toward a normal dialogue with the Cuban government in which Gross's case can be resolved.
Read Gross's lawsuit and contract with DAI on the next page.
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