NGOs and the New Plan Condor for Latin America

By Manuel Zelaya and Lois Pérez Leira – Jul 4, 2021

Beginning in the 1980s, with the advent of the neoliberal model of exploitation, organizations began to appear that in theory were created to fill a vacuum that arose between the public and the private spheres. These non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which at first appeared to be impartial, became in essence self-proclaimed political agents of civil society, legitimizing the rise of globalization and the market. With the arrival of progressive governments, via elections in Latin America, as in the case of Nicaragua, where Daniel Ortega won by more than 70% with the Sandinista revolution, these same organizations directed their activity to the strategic and political control of society, to what, euphemistically, in the United States, is called “regime change.”

The functional structure from the top, whether in the United States or Europe, places a few opulent foundations to feed the entire NGO machinery. The most prominent ones supply about 80% of all funds managed by these organizations worldwide. In most cases, the parent foundations have no direct relationship with the recipients who function as local operators of the funds. For this function there is a network constituted by international cooperation agencies such as USAID, NDI, NED, IRI and other Western government agencies that finance intervention actions, mainly aimed, allegedly, at “poverty reduction,” strengthening of “democratic values,” governance, “human rights,” transparency, justice, and management of public finances.

From the aforementioned network of NGOs, there are hundreds of organizations that saturate the political life of society, creating a kind of parallel State, driven by large media and networks, which artificially become protagonists that try to undermine the progress of progressive governments, or prevent the rise to political power of leftist political projects, which claim the participation of society and the State against the deceit of the market.

This immense network of tentacles… is in charge of promoting a hidden and specific agenda that defines the orientation they want to give to public opinion. In Nicaragua they shamelessly promote the policies that the hegemon requires. Thus, it is not strange that in Honduras in 2009, they actively supported the coup d’état, always under the anti-communist discourse of defending democracy.

With large amounts of resources these organizations are dedicated to telling the state what to do until they become agents of delegitimization of politics, and against socialist liberation movements despite the fact that their operation is, strictly speaking, political in nature.

Their other, equally perverse function is dedicated to destabilizing any popular government in Latin America that does not agree to submit to the dictates or geostrategic interests of the hawks in Washington. In this task, they feed networks of supposed discontent that are dedicated to the construction of negative images of leaders, spending significant amounts of resources in their task.

This well-articulated system of Smart Power since the first decade of the 21st century became specialists in promoting and organizing “color revolutions” which are nothing more than controlled popular protests aimed at regime change in order to impose a docile administration at the service of the interests of transnational corporations. Significant is the participation of the Ford Foundation and specifically of George Soros, who accumulated experience in Eastern European countries after the fall of the Soviet bloc, and was key in the well-known “Arab Springs” that ended up strengthening the existence of extremist groups such as the Islamic State throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

In Latin America, the activity of these organizations ranges from Mexico, where they oppose the government of the Cuarta Transformación, to Argentina, where they are part of the meticulous work of discrediting the Peronista administration. Their main attack in recent times has been directed towards the ALBA countries, fundamentally Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, etc., where they have organized uprisings.

In these nations they have even organized violent uprisings, which have cost the lives of many innocent people. The case of Cuba is special, because the existing conditions of the blockade do not allow them the flow of resources that they use in the other countries mentioned. On the other hand, Venezuela and Bolivia have been eliminating the operation of these NGOs in their territories, which usually use the façade of humanitarian organizations.

In Nicaragua, currently under attack, a situation similar to the previous violent riots organized for 2018, led by the political opposition that without any organic capacity served as an entrance for many external resources aimed at creating the feeling of the imminent fall of the democratic government. This time, the new US electoral Plan Condor has been anticipated, especially by the amount of resources destined to boycott Nicaragua’s electoral process coming November.

Their efforts in Nicaragua are aimed at raising the political profile of the opposition, and their mission is to prevent a new popular victory for Sandinismo. For this purpose they control the media agenda, which by its genuflecting nature allows them to go from great defenders of the electoral processes today to standard bearers of the suspension of an election if the result of the same does not favor their interests.

The Anti-Imperialist Peoples’ International repudiates the obvious conservative aggression from Washington against the people of Nicaragua and stands in solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution, led by Comandante Daniel Ortega.

Manuel Zelaya is President and Lois Pérez Leira is Executive Secretary of the Anti-Imperialist Peoples’ International.

Featured image: The new Plan Condor for Latin America is being carried out by NGOs, funded from the United States and Europe, and working across the continent from Mexico to Argentina. Image taken from Con El Mazo Dando.

(Internationalist 360°)