Editorial: Partners in Crime

Intercontinental Cry

Jan 24, 2013

By Jay Taber

 

With the scandalous abuses of power by US, EU and UN humanitarian agencies over the last dozen years, little attention has been paid to the creation, co-optation and corruption of human rights NGOs that help lay the groundwork for humanitarian intervention using the militaries of NATO to subdue states resistant to US control. Yet, as an increasingly vital element of justifying military aggression for allegedly humanitarian purposes, NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have become what the Centre for the Study of Interventionism terms partners of the UN Human Rights Council that are in reality, “para-governmental organisations whose goal is to introduce the concept of interventionism in those regions where NATO and its allies want to intervene to pursue their geo-strategic interests.” →

It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words … | Haitians Want to Know: “Where’s the Money?”

Photo courtesy of Ezili Danto, Haitian News

US NGO’s and the Privatization of El Salvador

 

As much of Latin America braces itself for the possibility of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s death, observers around the world would do well to note the stark contrasts that exist within the region.  On the one hand, there are the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas) countries, united by Chavez in their rejection of US imperialism and neoliberal capitalism.  On the other hand, there are those countries which are still very much living under the hegemony of the United States.  In El Salvador, this means subservience to Washington and international investors who seek nothing less than total control of that nation’s economic destiny.  This attempt at economic monopolization can be summed up with one word: privatization.  It is precisely this strategy with all the union-busting, wage gouging, and propaganda disinformation that it entails, that is rearing its ugly head in El Salvador. →

FLASHBACK: The “Green Revolution” | Bill Gates, Philanthropy and Social Engineering

by Michael Barker

Like many of the world’s richest businessmen [1], Bill Gates believes in a special form of democracy, otherwise known as plutocracy; that is, socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. Following in the footsteps of John D. Rockefeller’s and Andrew Carnegie’s charitable foundations, Gates, like most capitalists, relies upon the government to protect his business interests from competition, but is less keen on the idea of a government that acts to redistribute wealth to the wider populous. →

[TIPNIS] Alvaro Garcia Linera: Geopolitics of the Amazon – Part I

Introduction and translation by Richard Fidler, Life on the Left

Revolution and Counterrevolution in Bolivia

Bolivian leader replies to critics of the Morales government’s development strategy

Introduction

Álvaro García Linera is one of Latin America’s leading Marxist intellectuals. He is also the Vice-President of Bolivia — the “co-pilot,” as he says, to President Evo Morales, and an articulate exponent of the government’s policies and strategic orientation.

In a recent book-length essay, Geopolitics of the Amazon: Patrimonial-Hacendado Power and Capitalist Accumulation, published in September 2012, García Linera discusses a controversial issue of central importance to the development process in Latin America, and explains how Bolivia is attempting to address the intersection between economic development and environmental protection. →

Subverting Sovereignty

Skookum: *An online journal of the American psyche in transition*

by Jay Taber

November 4, 2012

 

As reported at Wrong Kind of Green, the expulsion of USAID from Russia and Latin America is long overdue, and given the history of USAID’s involvement in overthrowing and destabilizing governments unwilling to yield to US dictates, it’s surprising that it took so long. This doesn’t mean that the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency will stop spying on governments that seek independence from the US; it simply means that US spies and provocateurs will no longer be able to work undercover as USAID operatives.

As noted in other WKOG articles and special reports, though, US spies and provocateurs will still be able to work undercover as employees of NGOs, funded by foundations established by US elites to undermine opposition to US hegemony. With help from the Rockefellers, Ford and Soros, subverting sovereignty and derailing democracy worldwide will continue, albeit in a manner that puts authentic non-profits and independent journalists at risk.

While this is a risk that US elites are more than willing to take, it is understandable that some countries will see classifying all Americans visiting their countries as possible spies as a precautionary principle. It’s merely the logical consequence of a half century of perverted US foreign policy.

 

End to USAID Spying Looms in Latin America

Nil NIKANDROV

September 26, 2012

Strategic Culture Foundation

“In June 2012, foreign ministers of the ALBA bloc countries passed a resolution on USAID. It read: «Citing foreign aid planning and coordination as a pretext, USAID openly meddles in sovereign countries’ domestic affairs, sponsoring NGOs and protest activities intended to destabilize legitimate governments which are unfavorable from Washington’s perspective. …In most ALBA countries, USAID operates via its extensive NGO networks, which it runs outside of the due legal framework, and also illicitly funds media and political groups.”

 

The ejection of USAID from Russia was a long-awaited and welcome development. Moscow has repeatedly warned its US partners via an array of channels of communication that the tendency of USAID to interfere with Russia’s domestic affairs was unacceptable and, particularly, that the radicalism of its pet NGOs in the Caucasus would not be tolerated. When, on October 1, the decision made by the Russian leadership takes effect, the Moscow-based USAID staff which has been stubbornly ignoring the signals will have to pack and relocate to other countries facing allegations of authoritarian rule…

In Latin America, USAID has long earned a reputation of an organization whose offices are, in fact, intelligence centers scheming to undermine legitimate governments in a number of the continent’s countries. The truth that USAID hosts CIA and US Defense Intelligence Agency operatives is not deeply hidden, as those seem to have played a role in every Latin American coup, providing financial, technical, and ideological support to respective oppositions. USAID also typically seeks engagement with the local armed forces and law-enforcement agencies, recruiting within them agents ready to lend a hand to the opposition when the opportunity arises.

To varying extents, all of the Latin American populist leaders felt the USAID pressure. No doubt, Venezuela’s H. Chavez is the number one target on the USAID enemies list. Support for the regime’s opponents in the country shrank considerably since the massive 2002-2004 protests as the nation saw the government refocus on socioeconomic issues, health care, housing construction, and youth policies. The opposition had to start relying more on campaigns in the media, around 80% of which are run by the anti-Chavez camp. Panic-provoking rumors about imminent food supply disruptions, overstated reports about the crime level in Venezuela (where, actually, there is less crime than in most countries friendly to the US), and allegations of government incompetence in response to technological disasters which became suspiciously frequent as the elections drew closer are bestowed on the audiences as a part of the subversive scenario involving a network of Venezuelan NGOs. In some cases, the membership of the latter can be limited to 3-4 people, but, coupled to strong media support, the opposition can prove to be an ominous force. Pro-Chavez commentators are worried that USAID agents will contest the outcome of the vote and, synchronously, paramilitary groups will plunge Venezuelan cities into chaos to give the US a pretext for a military intervention.

USAID is known to have contributed to the recent failed coup in Ecuador, during which president R. Correa narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. Elite police forces heavily sponsored by the US and the media which made use of the liberal free speech legislation to smear Correa were the key actors in the outbreak. Subsequently, it took Correa serious efforts to get a revised media code approved in the parliament contrary to the USAID-lobbied resistance.

Several bids to displace the government of Evo Morales clearly employed the USAID operative potential in Bolivia. According to journalist and author Eva Golinger, USAID poured at least $85m into destabilizing the regime in the country. Initially, the US hoped to achieve the desired result by entraining the separatists from the predominantly white Santa Cruz district. When the plan collapsed, USAID switched to courting the Indian communities with which the ecology-oriented NGOs started to get in touch a few years before. Disorienting accounts were fed to the Indians that the construction of an expressway across their region would leave the communities landless, and the Indian protest marches to the capital that followed ate away at the public standing of Morales. It transpired shortly that many of the marches including those staged by the TIPNIS group, had been coordinated by the US embassy. The job was done by embassy official Eliseo Abelo, a USAID curator for the Bolivian indigenous population. His phone conversations with the march leaders were intercepted by the Bolivian counter-espionage agency and made public, so that he had to escape from the country while the US diplomatic envoy to Bolivia complained about the phone tapping.

In June 2012, foreign ministers of the ALBA bloc countries passed a resolution on USAID. It read: «Citing foreign aid planning and coordination as a pretext, USAID openly meddles in sovereign countries’ domestic affairs, sponsoring NGOs and protest activities intended to destabilize legitimate governments which are unfavorable from Washington’s perspective. Documents released from the US Department of State archives carry evidence that financial support had been provided to parties and groups oppositional to the governments of ALBA countries, a practice tantamount to undisguised and audacious interference on the US behalf. In most ALBA countries, USAID operates via its extensive NGO networks, which it runs outside of the due legal framework, and also illicitly funds media and political groups. We are convinced that our countries have no need for external financial support to maintain the democracy established by Latin American and Caribbean nations, or for externally guided organizations which try to weaken or sideline our government institutions». The ministers called the ALBA leaderships to immediately deport USAID representatives who threaten the sovereignty and political stability of the countries where they work. The resolution was signed by Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Paul J. Bonicelli was confirmed by the US Senate as the USAID Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean last May. Former USAID chief Mark Feuerstein gained such notoriety in Latin America as the brain behind the ousters of the legitimate leaders of Honduras and Paraguay that the continent’s politicians simply had to learn to avoid him. The USAID credibility is increasingly drying up, and it is unlikely that Bonicelli, a PhD and a conservative, will be able to reverse the tendency. His record includes heading various USAID divisions and «promoting democracy» in concert with the US National Security Council.

Bonicelli’s views are reflected in his papers in the Foreign Policy journal. To Bonicelli, Chavez is not a democrat but a leader eager to get rid of all of his opponents. The new USAID boss holds that, apart from the drug threat, Chavez – having inspired populist followers in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua – poses the biggest challenge to the US interests in Latin America. Bonicelli therefore urges the US to prop up the Venezuelan opposition in every way possible, providing material support and training, so that it can maximally take part in elections and civilian activities.

Another paper by Bonicelli portrays Russia’s present-day evolution as grim regress and a slide towards «neo-Tsarism». Based on the perception, Bonicelli argues that the West should hold Russia and its leaders accountable in whatever concerns freedom and democracy – even if freedom in the country is important to just a handful of people – and cites the case of Poland where the US used to stand by Lech Wa??sa.

Chances are slim that a reform of USAID would restore the agency’s credibility in Latin America. Sticking to a trimmed list of priorities, USAID axed a few minor programs and shut down its offices in Chile, Argentine, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Panama, with Brazil next in line. USAID believes that the above countries are already in reasonable shape and no longer need assistance, so that the agency can throw its might against its main foes – the populists and Cuba, and do its best to have the politicians unfriendly to Washington removed across the Western Hemisphere. The stated USAID budget for Latin America is $750m, but estimates show that the secret part of the funding, which is leveraged by the CIA, may total twice the amount.

 

BOLIVIA | Evo Morales Bluntly Describes US Diplomacy

Nil NIKANDROV

October 27, 2012

Strategic Culture Foundation

“Bolivia’s next step is going to be to similarly insulate itself from USAID as well as from the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute. Those are known to be behind anti-government groups and NGOs in Bolivia such as the Youth for Development organization, the Governance and Development Institute, the Civil Advocates Institute, etc. Over the years of its presence in Bolivia, USAID formed a fifth column of the opposition intellectual elite, media people, and student associations in the country.”

 

Bolivian leader Evo Morales tends to speak in a carefully chosen language, in part as a precaution natural for someone who is permanently under fire from his opponents. It long became a staple of the US propaganda to portray Morales as an individual who does not measure up to the standards normally associated with his status, and on the fringes the campaign against the Latin American country’s first indigenous president chronically slips into downright racism.

After a period of evident restraint, Morales did respond to the US invectives in an unusually blunt manner in a recent Decolonizaton Day address (the Decolonizaton Day is Bolivia’s official title for the date of the discovery of America). He said that, in contrast to the recent past when Bolivian army and security officers flocked to the US diplomatic mission in La Paz as the connection used to guarantee a successful career, these days relations with the U.S. Embassy have become so bad they are “like a turd.”. According to Morales, now the police and army staff fear being spotted attending the US embassy as the majority of Bolivians frown on such contacts and regard US diplomats as enemies of Bolivia. The former Bolivian governments were heavily dependent on the US which was practically able to hand out appointments within the army and police hierarchies, but the current Bolivian administration managed to put an end to the arrangement.

Morales revisited the US-Bolivian relations when, next day, he spoke in Santa Cruz at the graduation ceremony for 630 Cuban-trained Bolivian medical doctors. “Over the past 50 years, the US have cultivated an asymmetrical, disrespectful, abusive and dominant relationship with Bolivia”, said Morales. He charged that Washington never wanted Bolivia on the development path and that the US imposed on his country such cooperation programs that actually impeded its progress and served to perpetuate its inferior-partner condition. Morales also touched upon the theme of the fight against drug trafficking and expressed a view that Washington’s secret agenda was not aimed at defeating the drug cartels. Rather, as he explained, the US DEA felt that the flourishing of the drug business created pretexts for the US meddling and subduing – ideologically and politically – the Bolivian army and police. The US hoped to treat Bolivia as “a political pawn” while implementing an imperial doctrine and, in the settings, to grab control over Bolivia’s natural resources, held Morales.

Morales maintains that the prospects for the relations with the US are dire as Bolivia’s nationalizations of its natural riches will stay forever on the grievances list in Washington. In the past, the US as Bolivia’s lender was able to exercise political dictate, but the ill tradition was erased when Morales was propelled to power in a national vote in 2006. The US interests and the present-day Bolivian policies – sovereignty and economic independence, the socialist course, etc – are obviously impossible to reconcile. Morales is convinced that the above is the reason behind Washington’s pressure and continuous conspiracy games. The Bolivian leader accuses the US of undermining the country’s efforts to become a democratic nation with high levels of social justice and civil activity, and of pursuing deliberately divisive policies. US ambassador Philip Goldberg who was ejected from Bolivia a few years ago had been dispatched to the country to put into practice a destabilization program intended to ignite racial hate, to foster confrontations, and, ultimately, to provoke a civil war, said Morales, citing Goldberg’s record of corrosive activities in the former Yugoslavia.

Morales frequently invokes in his speeches the facts revealing the subversive role taken by the US Embassy in Bolivia. It put obstacles in the way of organizing the Bolivian national assembly and encouraged separatism in the five of Bolivia’s provinces which sit on important deposits of natural reserves and contribute 75-80% of the national GDP. While a referendum demonstrated that 2/3 of Bolivians support the socioeconomic course Morales is steering, the US diplomats and agents did a huge job with a multimillion budget to plunge the country into a state of discord. USAID helped form opposition youth gangs, sponsored anti-government rallies, and planted myriads of increasingly radical NGOs in Bolivia. The US Embassy’s plane was used to shift protesters to the Beni and Pando departments where they tried to block the airports and to prevent the arrival of Morales when he planned to personally help the situation revert to normalcy on site. In September, 2008, Morales declared Goldberg persona non grata over charges that the US diplomat assisted separatists in Bolivia. A bunch of CIA and DEA officers caught recruiting the Bolivian army and security staff or spying on Morales were also deported. The Bolivian security agency warned that the intensification of the US monitoring of Morales’ rides could be indicative of preparations for an assassination attempt. Morales said that the ousters made it possible to get rid of the problems the US was creating to slow down the process of change in Bolivia and that he never regretted showing the US ambassador the door.

It is clear though that the US Embassy remains hyperactive in Bolivia. Information surfaced that cars with US diplomatic license plates were used to transfer firearms, and the US diplomats’ attempts to mobilize the Indian communities’ resistance to government policies were strictly documented by the Bolivian authorities. A terrorist group comprising CIA contractors from Europe – mostly individuals with combat experience earned in the Balkan region – was intercepted during an attempt to infiltrate Bolivia. Some of the terrorists were mowed down in a raid launched by the Bolivian police and a number of others – currently stand trial after a probe which took three years. Still, 17 of the 39 members of the terrorist group escaped to the US. Those facing charges in Bolivia receive legal and financial support from abroad and the US propaganda claims that the whole investigation and trial are a show staged by the administration of Morales.

Bolivia decided to fully rebuild the diplomatic ties with the US in late 2011 and, after a round of consultations, signed a framework agreement with Washington. The plan called for the countries’ exchanging ambassadors, plus a deal on the struggle against drug trafficking was penned in January, 2012, but the process stalled on March 7, 2012 when the US released an extremely negative assessment of the Bolivian anti-narcotic initiatives. Shortly after giving a talk at a session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Morales slammed DEA over illicit maneuvering in Bolivia. For Morales, the DEA refusal to recognize Bolivia’s accomplishments was a clear case of political pressure: he said to justify the expulsion of DEA from Bolivia that the agency, in contrast to the UN, always slapped poor grades on the country for anti-drug policies and that DEA was essentially a political instrument used to discredit anti-imperialist government officials and labor union leaders.

Bolivia’s next step is going to be to similarly insulate itself from USAID as well as from the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute. Those are known to be behind anti-government groups and NGOs in Bolivia such as the Youth for Development organization, the Governance and Development Institute, the Civil Advocates Institute, etc. Over the years of its presence in Bolivia, USAID formed a fifth column of the opposition intellectual elite, media people, and student associations in the country. On top of that, US maintains in Bolivia a network of analytical laboratories where Bolivian and foreign experts compose blueprints for anti-government campaigns. Wayne Nilsestuen is the USAID Mission Director in Bolivia, and his crew consists of CIA operatives working under diplomatic cover. The CIA station in Bolivia exists under the name of the Embassy’s political section. The real occupatione of the section staff is no secret to the Bolivian counter-espionage service. Geoffrey Schadrack is the CIA resident and his subordinates – Robert Crotty, Eric Whittington, Richmond Blake, Eric Camus, and others – are mostly fairly young people. The US Embassy also hosts officers from the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

Larry L. Memmott is the US charge affairs in Bolivia. He entered the field of diplomacy in 1987 as the US vice consul in La Paz and later mostly focused on Latin American countries, but, being a fluent speaker of Russian, also stayed in the post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2008-2011. Like his peers, Memmott is no fan of the Bolivian populist regime, but he is a person with romantic inclinations and does not have the appearance of a sinister CIA agent who tortures inmates in secret jails worldwide. Memmott likes to travel across Bolivia to take pictures which he puts on display in his blog.

It is an open question whether Memmott will make it through his term in Bolivia without running into serious conflicts with the country’s administration. Morales stated unequivocally that Bolivia is an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-liberal country where the US interference would not be tolerated. The Bolivian president has a reputation for keeping his pledges – and his recent talk left no doubt that, from Morales’ perspective, the US diplomacy simply stinks.

 

BOLIVIA | The United States Uses Diplomacy to Destroy Nations

Since the decade of the 50s, U.S. administrations have implemented policies intended to destroy the nations that do not coincide with its ideology and do not respect its hegemony.

Cambio Newspaper

October 16, 2012

Juan Carlos Zambrana Marchetti (*)

“Without a doubt, the Right that is being promoted and financed by the U.S. will react, but to delay this defensive action would be to make the same mistake of the revolution of 1952. Bolivia also has to shut down all of the channels of penetration, including NGOs such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which, using as a parapet the Instituto de Democracia y Gobernabilidad, even this far into the process of change can still give itself the luxury of rounding up the best political science students of the country with the pretext of an essay contest to take the 30 best to the city of Sucre, all expenses paid, to “teach” them how to present to the Plurinational Legislative Assembly a citizens’ project on intercultural matters and governability that obviously reflects the agenda of the United States for Bolivia.”

In recent days, President Evo Morales and the Minister of the Presidency, Juan Ramón Quintana, expressed separately the discontent and the harm caused by the incessant subversive U.S. campaign against Bolivia. Several of us Bolivians have agreed that the interventionism of the United States in Bolivian territory is reaching intolerable limits.

On Friday, October 12, 2012, I said on Eva Golinger’s program, Detrás de la Noticia, that “the diplomatic relations of countries that distance themselves from the policies of the United States, are very difficult because Washington uses the access that such relations provide to  invade them with the power of all its agencies that are experts in coup d’états, promoting the opposition, exacerbating conflicts and establishing bases for what later becomes a program of nation building; but it rather means the destruction of countries, since it begins with the destruction of the original anti-imperialist nation in order to replace it with one that is complacent, or, if that is not possible, divide it in two, so as to build against the anti-imperialist nation its antagonist Siamese twin, which from then on, will do the dirty work of the counter-revolution”.

Despite the signing of the new framework agreement on diplomatic relations, Bolivia remains irremediably tied to the disastrous Point IV agreement of 1951 for technical cooperation, through which the United States adjudicated to itself the right to intervene directly in Bolivian politics by means of aid that was supervised by its agents and of programs that were independent from any supervision by the Bolivian government.

The goal was to move rightward the MNR’s socialism and nationalism, corrupt the revolution of 1952, restore and indoctrinate the armed forces that had been dissolved by the people, prepare them for the military dictatorships of the 70s and 80s, and impose the imperialism of the 90s and the 2000s. Absolutely everything is based on the agreement of 1951.

The first guideline for subjection is written into the title of the agreement, which reads: “Point four general agreement for technical cooperation between the United States of America and Bolivia.” Regrettably, it seems that no one in Bolivia thought of questioning the meaning of the mysterious Point IV.

It turns out that the program called Point IV, through which the United States signed bilateral agreements with the countries of the Third World, was the program of technical and economic assistance in the fields of agriculture, military affairs, scholarships, information, and political advisors that was created by president Harry Truman in 1949 and approved by Congress in June of 1950. It got the name of Point IV because it was the fourth foreign policy objective he mentioned in his speech. What was not mentioned in the agreements was that that point was clearly related to point three of the same speech, which established as an objective to “strengthen freedom-loving nations against the dangers of aggression.” →

Freedom House: The Language of Hubris [Freedom House in Venezuela]

 NACLA

[The following article is from the Summer 2012 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas, “Latin America and the Global Economy.” It was published alongside Jeremy Bigwood’s expose of Freedom House’s role in clandestinely nurturing and organizing the opposition to Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez over the last eight years.]

Freedom House offices in Washington (credit: Jeremy Bigwood)

Freedom House is the oldest Washington-based NGO working in the international arena. It was founded just before the beginning of the U.S. entry into World War II and blossomed during the Cold War. Freedom House today positions itself as a nuanced, liberal, or even left-of-center organization, obscuring its real agenda: to destabilize foreign governments whose policies challenge U.S. global hegemony. Since the 1980s Reagan revolution, its Board of Trustees has been largely composed of neoconservatives, including R. J. Woolsey, the former director of the CIA; Donald Rumsfeld; Paul Wolfowitz; Jeane Kirkpatrick; and Samuel P. Huntington.¹ Although it likes to call itself “independent,” it receives about 80% of its funding from the U.S. government, either through the State Department, USAID, or the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).² As such, it is clearly an instrument of the U.S. government.³ The rest of its funding is underwritten by foundations that pay for its annual Freedom in the World report, which ranks countries according to how free they are—as perceived through the eyes of Freedom House’s main office in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C. This report is widely cited as gospel in the news media but has been heavily criticized by academics for its biased methodology.⁴

During the Cold War, Freedom House acted as the principal U.S.-based intellectual organ for attacking the ideologies and policies of Soviet and Chinese communism. But it almost always artfully avoided any discussion of the embarrassing inconsistencies between U.S. ideals and practices, such as the U.S. government’s Cold War activities in Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia, and its domestic racial policies. Even so, few NACLA readers would find fault with all of Freedom House’s work during the Cold War or after. As such, the organization belongs to a gray area of U.S. foreign policy.

Freedom House underwent a significant shift toward promoting neoliberal economic and political policies after the 1973 coup in Chile against the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende.⁵ Since the end of the Cold War, Freedom House has adjusted to the new geopolitical environment by shifting its attention from attacking Communism to undermining what Washington considers to be “authoritarian” and “populist” countries. Freedom House now quietly funds projects in those countries that the United States considers to be economic or ideological threats, or more openly in allies that the United States wants to keep in line. Freedom House tends to stay away from U.S.-friendly totalitarian regimes and monarchies.

Freedom House arrogantly holds that it has the right to operate anywhere in the world with or without the permission of the local government. In response to queries about its activities in other countries, an online Freedom House fact sheet explains: “Language in the annual State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill states that U.S. democracy and human rights programming shall not be subject to the prior approval by the government of any foreign country.”⁶ In other words, Freedom House believes that, with the permission of the U.S. Congress, it has the right to decide when and where it can meddle in any other government on the planet.

To rationalize this imperious position, the fact sheet continues: “In order for a foreign group to legally operate within the United States, it must simply fill out the proper tax forms. Civil society organizations within the United States do not have to report their activities to or receive approval from the United States government.” While this may be true for U.S. private- or government-funded and operated civil society programs, it would not apply to U.S.-based organizations funded by foreign governments—especially hostile ones. Fortunately for U.S. national sovereignty, the law clearly states that any individuals or entities working “as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity” in order to influence the U.S. political system must register as foreign agents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).⁷ FARA would clearly be applicable to any organization receiving foreign funding and working to influence the outcome of elections, international court cases, and the like. In the United States, there are serious penalties for unregistered paid agents of a foreign country who actively meddle in U.S. domestic politics, which is precisely what Freedom House does in other countries.

 

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Jeremy Bigwood is an investigative reporter whose work has appeared in American Journalism Review, The Village Voice, and several other publications. He covered Latin American conflicts from 1984 to 1994 as a photojournalist. See his article in this Report, “Freedom House in Venezuela.”

 

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1. Diego Giannone, “Political and Ideological Aspects in the Measurement of Democracy: the Freedom House Case,” Democratization 17, no. 1 (January–February 2010): 68–97, available at tandfonline.com.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., 75.

4. Gerardo l. Munck and Jay Verkuilen, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices,” University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Comparative Political Studies 35, no. 1 (February 2002): 5–34; Scott Mainwaring, with Daniel Brinks and Anibal Perez Liñán, “Political Regimes in Latin America, 1900–2007,” available at kellogg.nd.edu.

5. David Harvey, “Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610 (March 2007): 26, as quoted in Giannone, “Political and Ideological Aspects in the Measurement of Democracy.”

6. Sarah Trister, “Fact Sheet: Freedom House in Egypt,” January 2012, available at freedomhouse.org.

7. U.S. Department of Justice, “Foreign Agents Registration Act,” available at fara.gov