US Public Funding Anti-Government Media, Journalists in Ecuador

[Judi Lynn]

US Public Funding Anti-Government Media, Journalists in Ecuador
Published 7 June 2016 (3 hours 23 minutes ago)

teleSUR report shows how the U.S. agencies are coordinating with government opponents in Ecuador.



U.S. agencies are financing political groups and journalists against progressive governments in Latin America and specifically the leftist Ecuadorean government, according to a teleSUR investigation shows.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), are among the bodies who provide funds to opposition NGOs who promote U.S. interests in Latin America.

One such organization, Fundamedios, receives funding from NED purportedly to monitor threats to freedom of expression, and to provide workshops and lectures on the condition of journalism in the country. However the group has been criticized for promoting materials and demonstrations from opposition parties.

Cesar Ricaurte, head of Fundamedios, also transfered funds to several opposition media groups, including the popular social media outlet Crudo Ecuador who received US$24,000. Gabriel Gonzalez, the founder of Crudo Ecuador, is employed as a social media expert by opposition mayor of Quito, Mauricio Rodas.

The U.S. agencies, who operate with public funds, are accused of giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to a network of Ecuadorean analysts, politicians and reporters, to create media outlets and organize anti-protests.

More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Public-Funding-Anti-Government-Media-Journalists-in-Ecuador-20160607-0026.html


LA forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/110851053

[pottedplant]

1. When will this stuff end?

Why can't we allow these people to live their lives without continuing to overthrow any democratically-elected Latin American government that refuses to follow our neoliberal policies? obama's little side projects are no different than those of Eisenhower and Nixon. But of course the media will pick up on this and let us know that our tax dollars are being used to destroy any semblance of a just society for the sake of installing a us puppet. Any day now.

[forest444]

2. The best part is that, far from being useful to U.S. interests, these puppets end up being a burden.

Case in point: the wave of right-wing dictatorships that, with Kissinger's direct and indirect help, took power across Latin America in the 1970s.

Those greasy, sticky-fingered little generals were very good at waving U.S. flags and glad-handing U.S. officials and executives (typically Republicans); but by 1983, all they left U.S. investors was the infamous, $300 billion Latin debt crisis - the same one that bankrupted, among others, Bank of America and Manufacturers Hannover (both of which had to be sold to foreign interests as a result). Many other Fortune 500 firms doing business in the region lost billions as well - to say nothing of how support for these regimes damaged U.S. standing abroad.

These U.S. firms, on the other hand, did best when market socialists like Brazil's Lula, Argentina's Kirchners, Chile's Lagos and Bachelet, Ecuador's Correa, and Uruguay's Mujica and Vázquez were in power.

"I can't stand Cristina Kirchner," one prominent U.S. executive in Argentina complained to some business rag a couple of years ago. "Why don't you leave, then?" the shill asked. "Because we are making so much money!"

I doubt he can say the same thing now that Macri, a GOP clone (down to his party's name), has pushed the country into a deep recession.