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ZunZuneo

Covert social-media platform built for Cuba through USAID during the George W. Bush administration, intended by John Kiriakou's account to instigate an Arab Spring-style uprising. He says Cubans were indifferent to it, the project died, and its existence became public only when it was leaked by accident to the Guardian.

ZunZuneo was a social-media platform created through USAID during the George W. Bush administration and aimed at Cuba. John Kiriakou describes its purpose as instigating “an Arab Spring-like uprising in Cuba”, and its outcome bluntly: “Cubans just went meh, not really interested, and it just went away.”[1]

Kiriakou lists it among the USAID covert programmes that became public “over the years, or in one case accidentally leaked to the media” — in ZunZuneo’s case “somebody leaked it by accident to the Guardian, and the cat was out of the bag.”[1]

He places it in a sequence of similar uses of the agency, alongside the declassified 1972 confirmation that USAID money reached Laotian rebels and the 2013 attempt to use USAID against the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia.[2][3]

See also

References

  1. Truthwire, 2025-03-0153:21 on YouTube · Transcript
  2. Truthwire, 2025-03-0152:47 on YouTube · Transcript
  3. Truthwire, 2025-03-0153:51 on YouTube · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.