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Nicaragua a 'Dictatorship' When It Follows US Lead on NGOs John Perry ([link removed])


AP: ADVERTISEMENT [link removed] Click to copy Related topics Politics Sports Caribbean Daniel Ortega Nicaragua Nicaragua government laying waste to civil society

AP (6/2/22 ([link removed]) ) reported that "the government seems intent on wiping the landscape clean of any organization it does not control."

President Daniel Ortega’s government in Nicaragua is “laying waste to civil society,” according to the Associated Press (6/2/22 ([link removed]) ). The Guardian (6/2/22 ([link removed]) ) called it a “sweeping purge of civil society,” while for the New York Times (2/14/22 ([link removed]) ), Nicaragua is “inching toward dictatorship.” According to the Washington Post's Spanish edition (5/19/22 ([link removed]) ), the country is already “a dictatorship laid bare.” In a call echoed by the BBC (5/5/22 ([link removed]) ), the UN human rights commissioner urged
Nicaragua ([link removed]) to stop its “damaging crackdown on civil society.”

What can possibly have provoked such widespread criticism? It turns out that the Nicaraguan National Assembly’s “sweeping purge” was the withdrawal of the tax-free legal status of a small proportion of the country’s nonprofit organizations: just 440 over a period of four years. In more than half the cases, these non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have simply ceased to function or no longer exist. In other cases, they have failed (or refused) to comply with legal requirements, such as producing annual accounts or declaring the sources of their funding. Modest legal steps that would go unnoticed in most countries are—in Nicaragua’s case—clear evidence that it is “inching toward dictatorship.”

None of the media reports asked basic questions, such as what these nonprofits have done that led to the government taking this action, whether other countries follow similar practices, or what international requirements about the regulation of nonprofits Nicaragua is required to comply with. There is a much bigger story here that corporate media ignore. Let's fill in some of the gaps.


** Three basic questions
------------------------------------------------------------

There are three basic questions. First, is Nicaragua exceptional in closing nonprofits on this scale? No, the practice is widespread in other nations. While figures are difficult to find, government agencies in the United States, Britain, Australia and elsewhere have closed tens of thousands of nonprofits in the last few years.

For example, between 2006 and 2011, the IRS closed 279,000 nonprofits ([link removed]) out of a US total of 1.7 million; it closed 28,000 more ([link removed]) in 2020. The Charity Commission in Britain closes around 4,000 per year ([link removed]) . And in Australia, some 10,000 nonprofits ([link removed]) have been closed since 2014, one-sixth of the total. In Nicaragua, four years of closures have so far affected only 7% of a total of more than 6,000 nonprofits.
Guardian: Nicaragua cancels nearly 200 NGOs in sweeping purge of civil society

Reprinting an AP story, the Guardian (6/2/22 ([link removed]) ) used scare quotes to suggest that NGOs that took foreign money were not really "foreign agents." When the paper (9/20/18 ([link removed]) ) reported that "Washington has ordered two Chinese state-run media agencies to register as foreign agents," quotation marks were not seen as necessary.

Second, does Nicaragua impose tighter rules than other countries? Again, the answer is no. Rules introduced in 2020 required nonprofits to register as “foreign agents” if they receive funds from abroad: The AP report (6/2/22; ([link removed]) picked up by the Guardian, 6/2/22 ([link removed]) ) puts this in scare quotes, but the term is borrowed from the far heavier requirements ([link removed]) that have applied in the US since 1938 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The Financial Times (4/10/20 ([link removed]) ) dubbed the Nicaraguan legislation “Putin’s Law,” erroneously linking it to Russia, not the United States.

The US has some of the world’s strongest and most detailed powers, but they are not unique: The Library of Congress has examples ([link removed]) of 13 countries with similar legislation. In Britain, the government consulted last year ([link removed]) on the introduction of a “Foreign Influence Registration Scheme,” which is similar to FARA. Nicaragua’s law is not exceptional, and nor were its consequences in reducing NGO numbers; when Australia introduced similar laws in 2014, there were 5,000 nonprofit closures ([link removed]) in the following year as a result.

An important factor is that Nicaragua, like other countries, has to comply with international regulations that address the risks posed by unregulated nonprofits. These include widespread international concern ([link removed]) that nonprofits are susceptible to money-laundering.

Whether deliberately or out of ignorance, media ignore the fact that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), set up in 1989 by the G7 governments, imposes rules that apply globally. In 2020, Nicaragua was praised ([link removed]) by the FATF for “largely complying” with its requirements. FATF specifically endorsed the tougher controls and the sanctions for non-compliance that the government introduced, including the threat of withdrawing an organization’s legal status.

Third, have nonprofits been given time to comply with the rules? According to the Guardian (6/2/22 ([link removed]) ), “the government was not giving them an opportunity to get in line with new legal requirements,” yet I know this to be untrue. I have talked to leaders of several nonprofit organizations who have completed the process or are working their way through it. The rules are tough, and the government ministry is under-resourced for the task it has been given, but hundreds of NGOs are taking steps to comply. Many of those who fail the test are given the option of reconstituting themselves as businesses without tax-free status.


** Rules apply to good and bad alike
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Lobe Log: About Archives Authors Contact NED Pursues Regime Change by Playing the Long Game

In testimony to Congress, the heads of the groups that funnel US government money to overseas NGOs "boasted about their ability to change foreign governments" (Lobe Log, 7/3/18 ([link removed]) ).

Do the media ask if Nicaragua might have introduced these stringent laws because of obvious transgressions by nonprofits? No: On the contrary, the media assume that the NGOs’ complaints about the rules are justified.

The reports make only dismissive reference to the recent history of abuses by some Nicaraguan NGOs. They ignore the key fact that some of them existed principally to channel millions of dollars in US funding into activities that blatantly interfered in Nicaraguan politics. They ignore the largesse of agencies funded by the US government, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, which poured money into Nicaraguan NGOs after President Daniel Ortega was voted back into office in 2007, with the specific aim of training people to oppose his government and create the conditions for regime change.

That the NED, USAID and other US agencies use national NGOs in this way is hardly a secret. Global Americans (1/5/18 ([link removed]) ) reported that the NED was “laying the groundwork for insurrection” in Nicaragua in 2018; Lobe Log (7/3/18 ([link removed]) ) revealed that the National Endowment for Democracy had bragged to Congress about its efforts to create young disciples of regime change, and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (10/2/19 ([link removed]) ) described in detail the indoctrination process in which they took part.

Of course, this interference has been happening for decades across the world. Six years ago, Telesur (6/8/16 ([link removed]) ) showed how it worked in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. Similar activities funded by the NED and allied agencies have been carried out in Croatia ([link removed]) , Russia ([link removed]) , Ukraine ([link removed]) , Poland ([link removed]) and many other countries ([link removed]) .
NYT: Nicaragua Seizes Universities, Inching Toward Dictatorship

The New York Times (2/14/22 ([link removed]) ) speaks of Nicaraguan private education in the past tense, writing that "universities had been among the last remaining centers of resistance"—before going on to acknowledge in passing that six colleges remain private for every one that was nationalized.

The Financial Times (4/10/20 ([link removed]) ) went so far as to quote the NED’s Aimel Ríos, who urged tougher international pressure on Nicaragua: “It does seem that is the only language the regime will understand,” he said. The obvious conflict of interest went unchallenged. Contrast this with the media’s hypervigilance about any suggested interference by Russia ([link removed]) or China ([link removed]) in Western politics.

For example, local “human rights” bodies have been totally partial in their work, becoming little more than propaganda merchants, as I have shown elsewhere ([link removed]) . Many of the medical bodies now closed also existed mainly as propaganda organizations ([link removed]) , rather than as genuine professional institutions—particularly during the pandemic, when they attempted (with some initial success) to deter people from using the public health service.

Some private universities have lost their status for failing to produce accounts, and have been taken over by the state. Far from the impression given by the New York Times (2/14/22 ([link removed]) ), I have been told by various academics working with their former students that they are much happier now that they have access to better, state-run facilities. Their fees are fixed and they no longer have to pay extortionate fees (in some cases, $1,000) to graduate.

The Washington Post (6/2/22 ([link removed]) ) picked out for criticism the closure of the "94-year-old Nicaraguan Academy of Letters." Yet one of its board members admitted ([link removed]) that it was in “total administrative disorder” and had never complied with requirements to file its accounts, even though it was receiving $62,000 in government funds each year.


** 'To advance US interests'
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Open Democracy: Nicaraguan government outlaws feminist groups serving vulnerable people

In Nicaragua, a country that has experienced a century of military occupation, CIA-backed guerilla warfare and ongoing efforts at regime change, openDemocracy (6/1/22 ([link removed]) ) presents a registration requirement for NGOs that take foreign money as "a policy of sweeping away any form of organization that is not under state control."

Perhaps the wildest claims about the importance of NGOs have been made by openDemocracy (6/1/22 ([link removed]) ), a nonprofit web outlet that claims it "challenges power, inspires change and builds leadership among groups underrepresented in the media." Many services for women, such as reproductive health services, “are vanishing,” it says, repeating claims made by a Nicaraguan NGO that refuses to comply with the new laws. Without them, apparently, “prospects…are bleak.”

The article seriously misrepresented the situation of women’s health in Nicaragua, which has one of the best public health services in Central America, free to all. It has, for example, reduced maternal mortality ([link removed]) from 92.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006, to 31.6 in 2021, a reduction of 66%. In part, this is due to its 180 casas maternas, which offer dedicated care to pregnant women. The state also provides family planning free of charge in all health centers, including tubal ligations for women who do not wish to have more children.

It is true that many NGOs provide healthcare, often with foreign funding, and most of these are perfectly happy to register under the new legislation and continue working in cooperation with the health ministry.

It is of course almost inconceivable that Nicaragua can be given any credit in the media for its achievements in healthcare, or many other aspects of social provision. As FAIR has pointed out on various occasions ([link removed]) , corporate media are consistent in making every news story an attack on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, with no attempt at balance or genuine investigation of stories presented to them by the government’s opponents, especially those coming from the hostile Nicaraguan media.

The US State Department begins its summary of its policy on “US Relations With Nicaragua,” updated last September ([link removed]) , with the surprisingly honest statement that “the US government works to advance US interests in Nicaragua.” Sadly, the international media appear to do the same.


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