US Contractor Alan Gross Asks ‘Why Am I Still Here?’ In Letter To Obama From Cuban Jail

Alan Gross, a 64-year-old subcontractor with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) who was arrested in December 2009 by the Cuban government for distributing satellite communication systems among members of the island's dissident groups and later sentenced to 15 years in jail, appealed to President Barack Obama last week in a letter which asks the president for his "personal involvement" in securing his release. "As I reflect on these last four years," wrote Gross, "I find myself asking the same question - why? Why am I still here?"

The letter continues, "With the utmost respect, Mr. President, I fear that my government - the very government I was serving when I began this nightmare - has abandoned me. Officials in your administration have expressed sympathy and called for my unconditional release, and I very much appreciate that. But it has not brought me home." The Washington Post reported that White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president had "personally engaged foreign leaders and other international figures to use their influence with Cuba" to free Gross, whom the Cuban government had convicted of "acts against the independence or territorial integrity of the state".

USAID has long been viewed with suspicion by Latin American leaders on the left. In 2012 the 10 member countries of ALBA - a political and economic alliance between American countries with left-leaning leadership, including Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Nicaragua - accused USAID of "illegally financing the media, political leaders and non-governmental organizations" and called on its members to expel USAID workers from their territory due to what they called "open interference...designed to destabilize the legitimate governments" which did not share the interests of the United States.

According to CNN, the agency says Gross was in Cuba to work on a US-government-funded project designed to help install individual satellite-based Internet connections in Cuba, where a miniscule part of the population has regular access to Internet. Secretary of State John Kerry said last Tuesday in response to the letter that the administration is "currently engaged in some discussions" to secure Gross' release. "We will do everything we can and will continue to, but these things are often best resolved in quiet diplomacy, under the radar screen, behind the scenes, and that is exactly what we have been pursuing," he said.

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