A waving Nicaraguan flag. Photo: Cesar Perez/El19Digital/file photo.
By Fabrizio Casari – Aug 28. 2024
The new law that will regulate the activities of non-governmental organizations in Nicaragua, outlining the contours of their functions, is called “Alianza de Asociación” (Partnership Alliance). The new law redefines and specifies their legal nature, pointing out the association with the Nicaraguan State as the only possible contractual form for their work. In essence, the new law is based on two aspects, one of a juridical-administrative nature and the other of an eminently value-based nature, directly linked to the purposes of NGO work, which cannot fail to contemplate the presence of a subsidiary nature based on the principle of solidarity and cooperation.
“Nicaragua is now equipped with a legislative instrument that defends the principle of solidarity but directs it in the direction of national interests. It represents the will to be open to the contribution of honest people and the capacity to close itself to interference.”
In the first aspect, the law traces and expands previous provisions on the matter, inspired by the law passed by the neo-liberal government of Violeta Chamorro in 1995, subsequently updated after the attempted coup d’état of 2018. It reiterates the obligation of administrative transparency for all associations, and, significantly, mandates the constant monitoring of funding, strict compliance, and accurate reporting of expenditure flows. It reiterates the obligation to report on funds from abroad and from foreign institutions and the obligation to document their amount, purpose and use.
On this subject, considering the obligation derived from Nicaragua’s membership in the international forum that fights money laundering and illicit currency trafficking, little can be said. The law moves in the right direction, which sees the State as responsible for the proper functioning and correct performance of any entity, whether private, public or international, operating in the national territory.
It is on the more strictly evaluative level where the new law presents a novelty with respect to previous and even similar laws in force in other countries, namely, the associative nature with the State. In practice, the Nicaraguan State offers and requires from NGOs a collaboration plan defined as a “Partnership Alliance”.
The law specifies that the NGO’s presence, accompanied by general and detailed documentation on the projects to be carried out, must be sent to the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it requires each NGO to submit detailed proposals on specific topics according to their mission or vocation. These proposals, once the public interest has been ascertained, will form the basis of the “Alliance Partnership” with the State under which the NGO’s activities are to be carried out.
Of course, the government may or may not accept the projects, but in any case, it will ensure that all its activities are carried out in accordance with the law, as a mutual guarantee. Once a project is completed in its entirety, it will be possible to move on to a new proposal. It is clear, however, that no project will be exempt from the corresponding tax obligations: which, in addition to representing a principle of legal validity, potentially avoids any kind of advantage that could give rise to possible unfair competition with national companies wishing to try their luck in similar projects.
This law is undoubtedly a novelty for all countries with the presence of non-governmental organizations, but if we examine it more closely, we find a precise conception of NGO activity. Indeed, it is about the principle of subsidiarity, by virtue of which NGOs act or should act. That is, acting to complement and assist the public works and social activities of the State with specific projects. It announces a rigorous control of the fulfillment of the approved projects and specifies the purpose of the work of the NGOs in the field, which can only take place in a context of solidarity and fraternity with the good of Nicaragua as the ultimate goal.
The updating of the law, which establishes the general framework in which NGOs should exercise their role of subsidiary support to the creation of social works, became necessary precisely because of the well-established role of socio-political destabilization that many NGOs carry out by acting as representatives of Washington’s interests.
As demonstrated in Nicaragua, but also in Cuba and Venezuela, the US government and the European Union (EU), in alliance with the church hierarchies, the large land owners and the coup-supporting right wing, played a subversive and provocative role … Until 2018 the strategic role of NGOs in the subversive processes within the countries that the U.S. and the EU intend to destabilize and lead towards political crisis had not been clear.
These so-called NGOs, funded by various U.S. agencies, instead of working … with public and community organizations (as would have been their task) devoted themselves for years to organizing opposition, political education, building dissent and preparing social sectors and individuals for confrontation with the legitimate and democratically-elected ruling political authority.
In 2018, they clearly demonstrated in Nicaragua that, far from representing a dimension of solidarity and generosity, they were an aggressive opposition force, wolves disguised as lambs when they were in front of cameras … Their mission, once the horror phase began, became to turn armed thugs into peaceful students and to blame their crimes on a police force that, obeying the President’s orders, was stationed in their police stations. The aim was to spread a totally distorted image of what was happening in order to positively influence international public opinion and predispose it to foreign intervention if the conditions were right. Together with the Catholic Church, the NGOs represented the hypocritical and false tip of the sword of the coup, its masked face used to justify the unjustifiable, as well as the international funding collector that functioned without control … The dollars destined for the coup reached the accounts of the NGOs and the Church and from there they were distributed to the enlisted terrorists.
In fact, NGOs had multiplied in Nicaragua: there were thousands and thousands of them. A strange proliferation which, however, responded to the interests of the White House which had found a reliable and officially unsuspected financing channel. U.S. law, through the rules of administrative transparency of its agencies such as USAID and many others, allows funding to NGOs, which in Latin America and for at least 15 years have genetically modified their mission in areas where the United States needs to intervene from within.
This happens with non-profit organizations, associations and human rights organizations: real channels of financing to build and defend the interventionist project first and coup later. These NGOs were certainly not the spontaneous product of generous philanthropists from overseas: the most significant ones in Nicaragua belonged to the Chamorro family and the former MRS, which through them received money and political support from Miami and Washington.
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This new law definitively brings to an end the era in which updated methods of penetration had consecrated the everlasting will of direct intervention in the political, social, cultural and media life of the country.
Today, in the face of any possible interference, Nicaragua is equipped with a legislative instrument that defends the principle of solidarity but directs it in the direction of national interests. It represents the will to be open to the contribution of honest people and the capacity to close itself to interference; it is the capacity to unmask destabilizing operations and to value the common good and popular needs. It is the respect for these, as well as for the institutional nature of the country, which puts in place welcome and solidarity, alliances and sharing. This opens the nation’s arms but sharpens its vision and prevents the transformation of cooperation into conspiracy. This is the task.
Fabrizio Casari is an Italian journalist and political analyst.
