Category: Honduras

Creative Associates International (CAI): It’s Not Exactly the CIA, But Close Enough

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND — You have likely not heard of them, but Creative Associates International (CAI) is one of the largest and most powerful non-governmental organizations operating anywhere in the world. A pillar of soft U.S. power, the group has been an architect in privatizing the Iraqi education system, designed messenger apps meant to overthrow the government of Cuba, served as a front group for the infamous Blackwater mercenary force (now rebranded as Academi), and liaised with Contra death squads in Nicaragua. As such, it has functioned as “both as an instrument of foreign policy and as a manifestation of a broader imperial project,” in the words of Professor Kenneth Saltman of the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Creative Associates International (CAI): It’s Not Exactly the CIA, But Close Enough

Nicaragua – Varieties of Neocolonial Solidarity

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Just as in 2018, Nicaragua is once again the subject of the kind of mass international bad faith news coverage and perception management more usually associated recently with US and allied government offensives against Bolivia, Cuba, Iran, Syria and Venezuela. In Nicaragua’s case the current offensive is aimed at influencing the country’s elections scheduled for next November 7th. Currently, all the opinion polls show that, should President Daniel Ortega stand again for election, he and his FSLN party will win easily with over 60% support against around 20% for the the country’s right wing opposition.

Nicaragua – Varieties of Neocolonial Solidarity

Related:

Nicaragua’s opposition advocating US intervention

Partial list of US government funding to opposition organizations for the period 2017-2018 (Source).

Why Isn’t U.S. Policy Toward Nicaragua Working?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

After the U.S.-Russian summit in June, there was no apparent irony in President Biden’s response to a question about electoral interference. “Let’s get this straight,” he said. “How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries, and everybody knew it?” But of course much of the world does take this view; by one count the United States has intervened in no fewer than 81 elections between 1946 and 2000, many of them in Latin America. Biden’s question reveals a fundamental gap in U.S. foreign policymaking: Why do its leaders appear unable to judge how U.S. actions are seen by ordinary people in the countries they affect?

Why Isn’t U.S. Policy Toward Nicaragua Working?

US Influence and Neoliberalism are the Main Causes of Migration From Central America

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

US Influence and Neoliberalism are the Main Causes of Migration From Central America (Opens in YouTube)

In this episode of The Source, we interview Alejandra Mejía, who is Chief Editor of Migrant Roots Media. We talk about the ‘Policy Report: An Analysis of the Biden-Harris Administration Plan for Central America’ by Migrant Roots Media. We examine in what way the $4 billion strategy for Central America of the Biden administration “bolsters a neoliberal development plan”. We also discuss whether this approach is different from the one of the previous administrations – both Democrats and Republicans. Finally, we also talk about Kamala Harris’ first international trip as Vice President to Guatemala and Mexico and what came out of that visit.

Link to Report.

Alejandra Mejía is Chief Editor of Migrant Roots Media, an independent media platform which seeks to unearth the root causes of global migration. She received her BA in Comparative Literature and Latinx Studies from Williams College in 2017 and is currently an Assistant Editor at Duke University Press where she acquires books in Latinx History. Her politics and devotion to migrant justice are largely informed by her lived experiences as a working-class Central American immigrant in the United States.

Source: acTVism Munich