HAVANA (AP) — For more than two years, a U.S. agency secretly infiltrated Cuba's underground hip-hop movement, recruiting unwitting rappers to spark a youth movement against the government, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The idea was to use Cuban musicians "to break the information blockade" and build a network of young people seeking "social change," documents show. But the operation was amateurish and profoundly unsuccessful.

On at least six occasions, Cuban authorities detained or interrogated people involved in the program; they also confiscated computer hardware, and in some cases it contained information that jeopardized Cubans who likely had no idea they were caught up in a clandestine U.S. operation. Still, contractors working for the U.S. Agency for International Development kept putting themselves and their targets at risk, the AP investigation found.

They also ended up compromising Cuba's vibrant hip-hop culture — which has produced some of the hardest-hitting grassroots criticism since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. Artists that USAID contractors tried to promote left the country or stopped performing after pressure from the Cuban government, and one of the island's most popular independent music festivals was taken over after officials linked it to USAID.

The program is laid out in documents involving Creative Associates International, a Washington, D.C., contractor paid millions of dollars to undermine Cuba's communist government. The thousands of pages include contracts, emails, preserved chats, budgets, expense reports, power points, photographs and passports.

The work included the creation of a "Cuban Twitter" social network and the dispatch of inexperienced Latin American youth to recruit activists, operations that were the focus of previous AP stories.

...

Bian Oscar Rodr�*guez Gala "El B" y Aldo Roberto Rodr�*guez Baquero "El Aldeano" hicieron su primera aparición publica en 5 Palmas, La Lisa, el 27 de febrero de 2003. Luego ese mismo año inauguraron su dúo de rap como Los Aldeanos en el Parque Almendares. Ese año recibieron el premio Rap Plaza por su canción A veces sueño. Los Aldeanos es un grupo de rap cuyo repertorio es reconocido como revolucionario, critico de los reg�*menes burocráticos y de la corrupción.

<sub>-In April, The Associated Press revealed that the U.S. Agency for International Development had overseen the creation of a secret "Cuban Twitter" program to stir political dissent on the island and bypass Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet. But that was part of a larger operation. A second AP investigation in August found the agency dispatched young Latin Americans to provoke political change in Cuba, using health and civic programs as cover.

Now the AP has found the agency secretly cultivated Cuba's underground hip-hop scene, recruiting unwitting rappers to spark a youth movement against the government.

Here are five things to know:

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THE PRECEDENT

The USAID hip-hop program was inspired by Serbian student protest concerts that helped oust former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Serbians involved in that effort guided the Cuban hip-hop program.

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RAP IS WAR

The Serbians recruited musicians for the project, including rappers Los Aldeanos, whose critical lyrics had provoked the government to restrict their performances. Los Aldeanos helped produce an underground TV project on youth culture and received political training while performing in Serbia, but U.S. government connections of the program were hidden from them.

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REPEATED RISK

On at least six occasions, USAID contractors or Cubans they were working with were detained or interrogated. A number of times, authorities seized computer equipment with material linking the program to USAID. But contractors kept taking risks — even with the unwitting Cuban artists.

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SOCIAL NETWORK

The program built a social network of Cuban artists called TalentoCubano.net. A Cuban working for the contractors identified about 200 "socially conscious youth" and connected them on the site that managers hoped would spark a "social movement."

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SECRET FUNDING

The Serbian team hired by Creative Associates International, a Washington-based contractor, used a Panama front company and a bank in Lichtenstein to hide the money trail from Cuban authorities. USAID's effort was so covert that it even surprised the U.S. Treasury Department, which froze a transaction under suspicion that it violated the U.S. embargo.</sub>

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