US Ambassadorial Nominee Confirms Role of NGOs in the Hybrid War Against Nicaragua

In the recording of the confirmation process for diplomatic personnel, Senator Tim Kaine asks the nominee for US ambassador to the Central American country if he has a clear picture on how he will support the pro-US factions in Nicaragua, to which the ambassadorial nominee responded that he will represent – as a good leader of proxy groups – US interests by intensifying efforts within and outside of Nicaragua’s territory, seeking to reverse the will of the its government. The crucial transcript reads as follows:

Senator Kaine: What space for US sort of pro democracy, pro human rights activity, or support for organizations that are engaged in pro human rights activities, what space exists within Nicaragua that you could promote, should you be confirmed?

Nominee Hugo Rodriguez: Thank you senator, you are exactly right, it has really been a really lamentable state of events, really since 2018 in Nicaragua, the space has been increasingly limited, however we still maintain a strong and well led USAID contingent in country, working with those human rights defenders and others NGOs that continue to operate in country and increasingly working with those who are operating or directing operations from outside of the country, so those spaces still exist, and if confirmed, I look forward to redoubling our efforts to make sure those voices are able to be heard across Nicaragua and across the region.

The Nicaraguan government took prompt action on this development in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee by revoking that same day the approval granted to the US ambassador nominee to Nicaragua.

The logistics of operation and deployment of Hybrid Warfare proxy cells / NGOs described by nominee Rodriguez serves as evidence and confirmation that the US coordinates these hostile, sabotage and political deception networks. Non-governmental organizations emerged in Nicaragua in the 1990s under the presidency of Mrs. Violeta Barrios de Chamorro whose government hastily privatized most of the country generating unemployment and extreme poverty.

In 1992 the foundations for an NGO government were created under the General Law on Non-Profit Legal Entities, Law No. 147 to develop social projects that received international funding which until now would be co-opted. As the years went by, certain groups – historically tied to US proxy factions – amassed a large number of NGOs seeking to distort the purpose of these organizations, forgetting their original intentions, they thus dedicated themselves to businesses with nebulous finances, the creation of anti-government cells, corruption and money laundering. Law No. 147, which has been in force since 1992, was recently repealed in March 2022 and replaced by Law No. 606, which is a more sophisticated set of regulations for the NGOs in the country.

Nicaragua recognized the need for reforms in Democratic Security and counter Hybrid Warfare in the legal sphere, first intervening with the NGOs directly involved with the 2018 coup attempt and then focusing on NGOs that are not complying with State regulations. The other NGOs that were not necessarily directly involved in the coup attempt are now being cancelled because they are hiding the information required to properly audit them so they are not complying with the regulations of Law No. 606. Since 2018, several rounds of audits have been carried out in this sector and hundreds of these organizations have had their legal status cancelled, prohibiting their existence on Nicaraguan soil.

Deputies of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN in spanish) indicated in February 2022 that the NGOs in question contravened the Law of Regulation of Foreign Agents, and the legislation against money laundering, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among others. Edwin Castro, FSLN deputy explained that,

“If they don’t present a correct board of directors, don’t present financial statements, don’t present accountability, etc., then the obligation is to call them, if they don’t comply, cancel them, start canceling them, there are thousands that have to be cancelled, but is not because of political reasons, simply a legal matter”.

For his part, Carlos Emilio López, another FSLN deputy spoke on how

“[…] no one is above the law, that is, these associations even if they receive funding from the US, even if they receive funding from Europe, that does not make them organizations that have a shield of impunity to do and undo whatever they want, whatever they desire, no, all natural persons in Nicaragua and all legal persons in Nicaragua have to comply with the Nicaraguan legal system.”

The NGOs based in Nicaragua are required to comply with certain laws passed by the National Assembly and regulated by the Ministry of Public Administration of the country. With this in mind, Nicaragua is practicing a policy of “democratic security”, based on counter Hybrid Warfare tactics and strategies aimed at reinforcing national models of democracy.

Even though the 2018 armed Hybrid War coup d’état was neutralized, it nevertheless has NGO networks that the US continues to support within Nicaragua – just as former nominee Hugo Rodriguez mentioned – waiting for new opportunities to come into play and carry out their primary objective of coup and removal of the Sandinista government from power. The NGOs have created a subversive system in Nicaragua and it is fully exposed in the role played by NED, USAID, Freedom House and other agencies that funded proxy networks to carry out their pro-US agenda in Nicaragua, and these in turn funded secondary organizations – helping them to evade state registration – creating particular funding networks. In this way the NGOs involved that generated destabilization in Nicaragua from April 2018 in violation of the Law had as a consequence the cancellation of their legal status.

The US power finds itself unable to stop its unworkable and obsolete unipolar paradigm, where it has an imperial monopoly on doing business with a given country, and defacto isolating it by making it impossible for that country to enter into bilateral relations with third countries that the West perceives as enemies.

Andrew Korybko pointed out in a recent article how this imperial narcissistic behavior demonstrated by US diplomatic personnel is a reflection of their own ‘Rules Based Order’ – which seeks to falsify authentic international law – from which their dominion operates, by rightly stating that even in India they behave like a viceroy. For we have already seen that this failure in the US approach to diplomacy is systemic whether in India, a state of the Big 8 or in Nicaragua, a sovereign Central American nation, both of the Global South, both of which have been struggling for decades for their sovereignties.

They are now facing, as are many other countries throughout the world, an upsurge in Hybrid Warfare everywhere due to the global transition to multipolarity. The US is in decline, its unipolar window of geopolitical and geoeconomic power has closed and in desperation it is increasing the pressure it puts on countries forcing them to choose between the Western Golden Billion partner countries and the multipolar countries. In the midst of the global systemic transition it seeks to micromanage what are by all means state decisions of the free people of the Global South, as part of the New Cold War, dictating which democratic security policies can or cannot be implemented to protect their societies or limiting with which countries relations can be established.

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Miguel Santos García is a Puerto Rican writer and political analyst who mainly writes about the geopolitics of Neocolonial conflicts and Hybrid Wars within the 4th Industrial Revolution and the ongoing New Cold War