The Cuban government has announced a new phase of the Alan Gross saga. According to the official note in Cuban newspaper Granma, prosecutors will seek a 20 year sentence against Gross under the Cuban sovereignty defense law. This law was passed by the Cuban National Assembly in 1999 as a nationalist antidote against the American interventionist regime change programs promoted under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act.

The fact that Mr. Gross will finally have his day in Court is positive. It brings his situation closer to international standards regarding the human right to legal counsel and a fair and impartial trial. The Cuban government will have the chance to present Gross’ alleged violations of Cuban laws and expose the ways in which the USAID Cuba program differs from the legal and good practices of international development assistance. These factors might create conditions for a political solution of his case negotiated by Havana and Washington.

A USAID sub-contractor, an American interested in social development, Alan Gross spent more than a year behind bars in Havana without formal charges. His family has paid a major emotional and financial toll for his absence.  His daughter, Shira, has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy without having her father by her side.  His wife Judith, his family, and his congregation all bemoan his absence.

Gross’s imprisonment is the direct result of the design flaws in USAID’s Cuba programs that the Obama Administration inherited from its predecessor. The agency is conducting programs on the island that place Cubans at risk of severe prison sentences without informing them of the risk they take.

In most foreign nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development is  working with the consent of the government and civil society groups.  But this is not the case with its Cuba program, where it has deviated from its development mission to become a tool of regime change. In Cuba, USAID workers hide their U.S. government connection not only with the Cuban government but also with the Cuban religious groups they are supposed to help.  Most Cuban civil society rejects any connection with USAID activities since they are funded under a regime change statute that the Cuban government and people alike see as a fundamental violation Cuban sovereignty. Any cooperation with those programs can land a Cuban in jail for decades.

Presumably, Gross violated Cuban immigration law by entering Cuba five times under a tourist visa. He was also a non-registered representative of a United States government program in Havana. According to Mrs. Gross, her husband walked naïvely into a dangerous situation. He didn’t even speak Spanish and the fact that someone likes Cuban music hardly qualified him for USAID tasks of regime change in such a politically sensitive setting.

The U.S. government won’t say whether Alan Gross was told in advance that what he was sent to do in Cuba is illegal.  Nor are there unambiguous USAID guidelines requiring that Cuban “beneficiaries” of the programs be told that they are funded under section 109 of the Helms-Burton law. 

If USAID wants to strengthen Cuban civil society, it must build a respectful relationship with its leaders. Yet, neither of the leaders of two synagogues in Havana, Mayra Levy and Adela Dworin, were ever informed or asked for their consent regarding the activities in which Mr. Gross was involved.

As long as the Helms-Burton law exists, most USAID programs in Cuba will be radioactive to the majority of Cuban civil society. Cubans don’t want to spend their life in jail just to be part of a strategy that violates Cuban sovereignty, and prioritizes property claims from the 1960’s over their current day concerns.

To prevent a backlash against cooperation between legitimate civil society organizations of the United States and Cuba, USAID should add a clause to its programs requiring informed consent from Cubans involved in their programs. It would be irresponsible to risk putting more Americans like Alan Gross in jail and endangering the Cubans they proclaim to help.

  More to the point, it’s unnecessary.  For years, private Americans have traveled openly to the island with licenses from the U.S. government enabling them to take books, computer equipment, and telephones to give to Cubans. Cuba’s religious and civil society leaders also believe that even more ideas exchanges and opportunities for support would exist if the U.S. travel ban to Cuba was eliminated entirely.

  After all the political posturing, it is time to hear the plea of Judith Gross, to change the tide of U.S.-Cuba bilateral relations with a “new beginning” of freedom, travel and trade. It is time to bring Alan Gross home and let Americans travel to Cuba freely.