Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Cuban democracy funds spent on Game Boys (Guardian)

Una storia che non si sa se e' da ridere o da piangere. Notare che c'e' 
ancora un Trujillo. Ma stavolta compra xBox e GameBoys piuttosto che 
slot machine.
Am.
Cuban democracy funds spent on Game Boys
Richard Luscombe in Miami
Wednesday November 15, 2006
Guardian Unlimited 
The PlayStation: an unexpected tool for promoting democracy?
 
Cuban dissidents who were given millions of dollars by the US government 
to support democracy in their homeland instead blew money on computer 
games, cashmere sweaters, crabmeat and expensive chocolates, which were 
then sent to the island.
A scathing congressional audit of democracy-assistance programmes found 
łquestionable expenditure˛ by several groups funded by Washington in 
opposition to President Fidel Castroąs rule on the communist Caribbean 
island.
The Miami-based Acción Democrtica Cubana spent money on a chainsaw, 
Nintendo Game Boys and Sony PlayStations, mountain bikes, leather coats 
and Godiva chocolates, which the group says were all sent to Cuba. 
łThese people are going hungry. They never get any chocolate there,˛ 
Juan Carlos Acosta, the groupąs executive director, told the Miami 
Herald.
He also defended the purchase of a chainsaw he said he needed to cut a 
tree that had blocked access to his office in a hurricane, and said that 
the leather jackets and cashmere sweaters were bought in a sale. łThey 
[the auditors] think itąs not cold there,˛ Mr Acosta said. łAt $30 [Ł16] 
itąs a bargain because cashmere is expensive. They were asking for 
sweaters.˛
The audit analysed $65m of spending by the US Agency for International 
Development (USAID) from 1996 to 2005 and concluded that poor management 
was to blame for the waste. łThere were weaknesses in agency policies 
and in programme office oversight, and internal control deficiencies,˛ 
the report states.
None of the 36 groups that received money were identified in the report, 
but others admitted to the Miami Herald in advance of its publication 
today that they had been investigated.
Frank Hernandez Trujillo, executive director of Grupo De Apoyo a la 
Democracia (Group for the Support of Democracy), said his organisation 
received more than $7m from USAID, a programme that has formed a central 
piece of President George Bushąs policy on Cuba.
łIąll defend that until I die,˛ Mr Hernandez Trujillo said of his 
decision to spend part of his groupąs allocation on boxes of computer 
games. łThatąs part of our job, to show the people in Cuba what they 
could attain if they were not under that system.˛
Most of the items were distributed to dissidents in Cuba by US diplomats 
in Havana, who were sometimes unaware what was in the shipments.
David Snider, a spokesman for USAID, said he was awaiting a final copy 
of the report, but admitted that an investigation was under way into 
three cases highlighted by the audit.
The US government has previously accused the Cuban government of 
hijacking consignments sent to its Havana mission.

 then sent to the island.
meglio quello delle bombe che mettevano all'Avana e in altre parti di Cuba.
 
-- 
[si parla della censura sulla strage israeliana di Beit Hanoun sul blog di
tonibaruch]
[sergio]: da perfetto goebbelsuccio quale sei, meglio non parlarne cosi'
nessuno la ricorderà
[Tonibaruch] :  Vero
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
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 slot machine.
XBox e GameBoys sono diaboliche invenzioni capitalistiche,e l'unico 
comunista autorizzato a indossare cachemire è Bertinotti.
E' tutto un diabolico complotto yanqui per corrompere il fiero popolo cubano 
con beni di lusso (cioccolata??? vergogna!!!) e sabotare la revolucion.
Ma il Partito vigila...
Marxismo-Leninismo o muerte!
Carlo "Jurassic Park"