DISINFO: The US and the EU are carrying out a destabilisation campaign in Latin America
SUMMARY
Nicaragua denounced that the US and the EU are carrying out a campaign aiming to destabilise the situation in Latin America. Information and communication technologies are being used to destabilise the states and governments of the region. Some interventionist states influence this field to create a world of false and manipulated information, aiming to discredit some states and governments and create the conditions for regime change.
RESPONSE
This unsubstantiated claim is a mix of several recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives, portraying Western countries as evil powers always conspiring to undermine their enemies, namely through information wars. These narratives are an attempt to deflect any criticism for the illicit actions of Russia or its allies, as here.
In this case, the claim was made by Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister, Denis Moncada. Nicaraguan officials have repeatedly denounced an international campaign against their country after the current repressive wave launched by Nicaragua’s government against the opposition in June and July 2021, including the arrest of at least eight potential presidential candidates and a wider crackdown on the press that included a criminal investigation against 13 Nicaraguan outlets, attracted worldwide condemnation and media attention.
The actions of the Nicaraguan government have been widely considered by international observers, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch or the Committee to Protect Journalists, as an authoritarian ploy to neutralise dissidence and consolidate president Daniel Ortega’s grip over the country, part of a years-long repression strategy against the opposition. As a response to these denunciations, Nicaraguan authorities have been launching constant baseless allegations, amplified by pro-Kremlin disinformation, about a supposed foreign plot to undermine Ortega’s government.
The disinformation claims may also refer to popular protests in Cuba, whose communist regime is a close ally of Nicaragua’s Sandinist government, which were quickly framed without evidence by pro-Kremlin outlets as a foreign-orchestrated colour revolution (see here for our previous debunk).
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that a UN human rights report on Venezuela aims to delegitimise the upcoming legislative elections, that a media campaign against Nicaragua may be preparation for a military intervention, that violent pro-Maduro thugs are Western media propaganda, that a Twitter campaign against Evo Morales may be run by the CIA, that the West refused to call the coup attempt in Venezuela ‘a coup’, or that an alleged US dirty war in Facebook against Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico is a new Condor Plan.