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Draft messages produced for a Twitter-like service in Cuba that the US government secretly funded were overtly political, documents obtained by The Associated Press show, even though the Obama administration has said the program had a more neutral purpose.
The early messages poked fun at the Castro government and were created by a political satirist working for the social media project. Those messages conflict with the US government's earlier assertions that its program didn't push political content.
Disclosure of the text messages came as the head of the US Agency for International Development told Congress in sometimes confrontational testimony on Tuesday that his agency's program was simply meant to increase the flow of information in Cuba.
An AP investigation last week found that the program, known as Zun Zuneo, evaded Cuba's digital restrictions by creating a text messaging service that could be used to organize political demonstrations. It drew tens of thousands of subscribers who were unaware it was backed by the US government, which went to great lengths to conceal its involvement.
At an oversight hearing on Tuesday, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont told USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah that the program was "cockamamie" and not adequately described to Congress. Shah also faces the House and Senate foreign relations committees this week.
Some messages sent to Cuban cellphones had sharp political commentary, according to documents obtained by the AP. One early message sent on Aug 7, 2009, took aim at the former Cuban telecommunications minister, Ramiro Valdes, who had once warned that the Internet was a "wild colt" that "should be tamed".
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