Awakened to the new geopolitical agenda in the Caribbean

The dawn of a new geopolitical agenda in the Caribbean region

Deo Adjuvante, Non Timendum

“With God as My Helper, I Have Nothing to Fear”

The Bombastic geopolitical politics of the region 

Dr. Kevin J Turnquest-Alcena
Nassau, N.P., The Bahamas

As we sit and meditate in The Bahamas, our region is waking up to a new geopolitical agenda.  Guyana is heading to the polls on the first of the month, Jamaica follows with its general election on the third, and Venezuela shows signs of anxiety and paranoia.  We must be mindful of one fact: America will not invade Venezuela.  Instead, we must learn to recognize the art of propaganda and the craft of deceit.  These two forces dance like partners in a Machiavellian tango.

Brazil sits quietly, watching as the wider region anticipates a shift in direction.  This is the complexity of our world: nations caught between hope and manipulation, where the ambitions of men can easily pull us into conflict.  And when that conflict erupts, history reminds us there are no heroes, only survivors.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” — Sun Tzu

We must understand that the strength of a nation lies not in war, but in the wisdom to avoid it.  We should reflect deeply on the lessons of Vietnam and Afghanistan, where decades of bloodshed proved that there are no true winners in wars of intimidation.

Point One: The Role of Regional Unity

One of the greatest weaknesses of the Caribbean has been its fragmentation.  Each island often pursues its own agenda while outside powers exploit division.  The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was designed to strengthen cooperation, yet its voice is too often muted on global stages.  If we fail to speak as one, we risk being manipulated as many small pieces rather than one strong collective.

“Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” — Mattie Stepanek

Point Two: The Economic Battlefield

Geopolitics is not only about armies.  It is also about economics.  Foreign powers use loans, trade deals, and aid packages as weapons of influence.  The region must be careful not to trade independence for short-term financial relief.  Debt diplomacy is as dangerous as military occupation because it shackles future generations to decisions made in desperation.

“It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.” — Margaret Thatcher

Point Three: The Importance of Youth and Education

The future of the Caribbean does not belong to the politicians of today but to the youth who will inherit tomorrow.  Education must prepare our young people not only for jobs, but for leadership, diplomacy, and critical thinking.  If our region fails to invest in its human capital, we will remain vulnerable to external manipulation.  A population that cannot think critically is easily swayed by propaganda.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela

Point Four: Climate Change as a Political Weapon

The politics of the region cannot be separated from the reality of climate change.  Rising seas, stronger hurricanes, and environmental stress place small island nations at risk.  Wealthy countries make promises of aid and green funding, yet often use climate negotiations to exert influence over poorer nations.  For the Caribbean, survival itself is political, and climate change is now part of geopolitics.

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” — Native American Proverb

Point Five: Venezuela and the True Prize of Oil

At the center of much of this regional tension is Venezuela, a nation that sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world.  This wealth of natural resources makes Venezuela a constant point of contention.  For decades, outside powers have eyed Venezuelan oil as if it were a prize for the taking.  Yet we must be clear: Venezuelan oil belongs to the Venezuelan people, not to Washington, Beijing, or any foreign capital.

Exiled Venezuelans who were driven away by political repression yearn to return home not only to reclaim democracy, but also to reclaim the oil wealth that rightfully belongs to them and their children.  Oil should be a national inheritance that lifts Venezuelans out of poverty, not a bargaining chip in global power games.  The true prize of Venezuela’s oil is the survival and prosperity of Venezuela itself.

“Natural resources should serve humanity, not dominate it.” — Wangari Maathai

Point Six: Security and Migration

Instability in one nation often spills into its neighbors.  The Caribbean has seen waves of migration from Venezuela and Haiti, placing pressure on small island states with limited resources.  This is not just a humanitarian challenge but also a political and security issue.  Increased migration fuels debates about border control, law enforcement, and social stability.  How the region responds will determine whether it embraces compassion and order, or allows chaos and division to spread.

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Point Seven: Macha Positioning and Geopolitical Posture

Another layer of politics in the region is what can be called macha positioning.  This is the display of strength, the flexing of influence, and the posturing of nations without committing to open war.  Countries use military exercises, diplomatic statements, and economic alliances to show dominance and intimidate rivals.  It is a game of appearances, where leaders project toughness to secure leverage at the negotiation table.

The danger of macha positioning is that it can create unnecessary tensions.  Pride and image become more important than peace and cooperation.  History shows us that wars have often been sparked not by necessity, but by leaders refusing to lose face.  The Caribbean must be wise enough to avoid becoming a stage for these dangerous displays of bravado.

“It is not power that corrupts, but fear.  Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.” — Aung San Suu Kyi

“More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego.” — Albert Einstein

“War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” — Bertrand Russell

Conclusion

The Caribbean stands at a crossroads.  Its unity, economic independence, and the education of its youth are the pillars that will determine whether the region thrives or falters.  Climate change and migration test our resilience, while Venezuela’s oil reminds us that the true wealth of nations lies in the hands of their own people.

Macha positioning and external pressures challenge our ability to act with wisdom rather than ego.  To navigate this complex landscape, the Caribbean must prioritize cooperation over division, long-term vision over short-term gain, and vigilance over impulse.  Only by putting people first, respecting sovereignty, and embracing strategic patience can the region safeguard peace and prosperity for generations to come.

August 29, 2025

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The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Abides in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba - for a Change?

Regime Change in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba is on The U.S. Agenda

US Reinstates Funding to Propaganda Outlet: NED - Weaponizes “Democracy” in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba

By John Perry and Roger D. Harris

The brief freeze and rapid partial reinstatement of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding in early 2025 helped expose it as a US regime-change tool.  Created to rebrand CIA covert operations as “democracy promotion,” the NED channels government funds to opposition groups in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, meddling in their internal affairs.

Regime change on the US agenda

In 2018, Kenneth Wollack bragged to the US Congress that the NED had given political training to 8,000 young Nicaraguans, many of whom were engaged in a failed attempt to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.  Wollack was praising the “democracy-promotion” work carried out by NED, of which he is now vice-chair.  Carl Gershman, then president of the NED and giving evidence, was asked about Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who had been re-elected with an increased majority two years prior.  He responded: “Time for him to go.”

Seven years later, Trump took office and it looked as if the NED’s future was endangered.  On February 12, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk froze disbursement of its congressionally approved funds.  Its activities stopped and its website went blank.  On February 24, Richard Grenell, special envoy to Venezuela, declared that “Donald Trump is someone who does not want to make regime changes.”

Washington’s global regime-change operations were immediately impacted and over 2,000 paid US collaborating organizations temporarily defunded.  A Biden-appointed judge warned of “potentially catastrophic harm” to (not in her words) US efforts to overturn foreign governments.  The howl from the corporate press was deafening.  The Associated Press cried: “‘Beacon of freedom’ dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither.”

However, the pause lasted barely a month.  On March 10, funding was largely reinstated.  The NED, which “deeply appreciated” the State Department’s volte face, then made public its current program which, in Latin America and the Caribbean alone, includes over 260 projects costing more than $40 million.

US “soft power”

Created in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan following scandals involving the CIA’s covert funding of foreign interventions, the NED was to shift such operations into a more publicly palatable form under the guise of “democracy promotion.”  As Allen Weinstein, NED’s first acting president, infamously admitted in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”  In short, NED functions as a “soft power arm” of US foreign policy.

The NED disingenuously operates as a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit foundation.  However, it is nearly 100% funded by annual appropriations from the US Congress and governed mainly by Washington officials or ex-officials.  In reality, it is an instrument of the US state—and, arguably, of the so-called deep state.  But its quasi-private status shields it from many of the disclosure requirements that typically apply to taxpayer-funded agencies.

Hence we encounter verbal gymnastics such as those in its “Duty of Care and Public Disclosure Policies.”   That document loftily proclaims: “NED holds itself to high standards of transparency and accountability.”  Under a discussion of its “legacy” (with no mention of its CIA pedigree), the NGO boasts: “Transparency has always been central to NED’s identity.”

But it continues, “…transparency for oversight differs significantly from transparency for public consumption.”  In other words, it is transparent to the State Department but not to the public.  The latter are only offered what it euphemistically calls a “curated public listing of grants” – highly redacted and lacking in specific details.

NED enjoys a number of advantages by operating in the nether region between an accountable US government agency and a private foundation.  It offers plausible deniability: the US government can use it to support groups doing its bidding abroad without direct attribution, giving Washington a defense from accusations of interference in the internal affairs of other countries.  It is also more palatable for foreign institutions to partner with what is ostensibly an NGO, rather than with the US government itself.

The NED can also respond quickly if regime-change initiatives are needed in countries on Washington’s enemy list, circumventing the usual governmental budgeting procedures.  And, as illustrated during that congressional presentation in 2018 on Nicaragua, NED’s activities are framed as supporting democracy, human rights, and civil society.  It cynically invokes universal liberal values while promoting narrow Yankee geopolitical interests.  Thus its programs are sold as altruistic rather than imperial, and earn positive media headlines like the one from the AP cited above.

But a look at NED’s work in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba suggests very much the opposite.

Venezuela

Venezuela had passed an NGO Oversight Law in 2024.  Like the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act, but somewhat less restrictive, the law requires certification of NGOs.  As even the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) – an inside-the-beltway promoter of US imperialism with a liberal gloss –  admits: “Many Venezuelan organizations receiving US support have not been public about being funding recipients.”

The pace of Washington’s efforts in Venezuela temporarily slowed with the funding pause, as US-funded proxies had to focus on their own survival.  Venezuelan government officials, cheering the pause, viewed the NED’s interference in their internal affairs as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.  In contrast, the US-funded leader of the far-right opposition, Maria Corina Machado, begged for international support to make up for the shortfall from Washington.

WOLA bemoaned that the funding freeze allowed the “Maduro government to further delegitimize NGOs” paid by the US. Hundreds of US-funded organizations, they lamented, “now face the grim choice of going underground, relocating abroad, or shutting down operations altogether.”

With the partial reinstatement of funding, now bankrolling at least 39 projects costing $3.4 million, former US senator and present NED board member Mel Martinez praised the NED for its “tremendous presence in Venezuela… supporting the anti-Maduro movement.”

Nicaragua

Leading up to the 2018 coup attempt, the NED had funded 54 projects worth over $4 million.  Much of this went to support supposedly “independent” media, in practice little more than propaganda outlets for Nicaragua’s opposition groups.  Afterward, the NED-funded online magazine Global Americans revealed that the NED had “laid “the groundwork for insurrection” in Nicaragua.

One of the main beneficiaries, Confidencial, is owned by the Chamorro family, two of whose members later announced intentions to stand in Nicaragua’s 2021 elections.  The family received well over $5 million in US government funding, either from the NED or directly from USAID (now absorbed into the State Department).  In 2022, Cristiana Chamorro, who handled much of this funding, was found guilty of money laundering.  Her eight-year sentence was commuted to house arrest; after a few months she was given asylum in the US.

Of the 22 Nicaragua-related projects which NED has resumed funding, one third sponsor “independent” media.  While the recipients’ names are undisclosed, it is almost certain that this funding is either for outlets like Confidencial (now based in Costa Rica), or else is going direct to leading opponents of the Sandinista government to pay for advertisements currently appearing in Twitter and other social media.

Cuba

In Latin America, Cuba is targeted with the highest level of NED spending – $6.6 million covering 46 projects.  One stated objective is to create “a more well-informed, critically minded citizenry,” which appears laughable to anyone who has been to Cuba and talked to ordinary people there – generally much better informed about world affairs than a typical US citizen.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez criticized the NED’s destabilizing activities, such as financing 54 anti-Cuba organizations since 2017.  He advised the US administration to review “how many in that country [the US] have enriched themselves organizing destabilization and terrorism against Cuba with support from that organization.”

Washington not only restored NED funding for attacks on Cuba but, on May 15, added Cuba to the list of countries that “do not fully cooperate with its anti-terrorist efforts.”

The NED: Covert influence in the name of democracy

Anyone with a basic familiarity with Washington’s workings is likely to be aware of the NED’s covert role.  Yet the corporate media – behaving as State Department stenographers and showing no apparent embarrassment – have degenerated to the point where they regularly portray the secretly funded NED outlets as “independent” media serving the targeted countries.

Case in point: Washington Post columnist Max Boot finds it “sickening” that Trump is “trying [to] end US government support for democracy abroad.”  He is concerned because astroturf “democracy promotion groups” cannot exist without the flow of US government dollars.  He fears the “immense tragedy” of Trump’s executive order to cut off funding (now partially reinstated) for the US Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of the Voice of America, Radio Marti, and other propaganda outlets.

Behind the moralistic appeals to democracy promotion and free press is a defense of the US imperial project to impose itself on countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.  Those sanctioned countries, targeted for regime change, need free access to food, fuel, medicines and funding for development.  They don’t need to hear US propaganda beamed to them or generated locally by phonily “independent” media.

- Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, the US Peace Council, and the Venezuela Solidarity Network.

- Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and writes for MR Online, the London Review of Books, FAIR and CovertAction, among others.

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Captain IBRAHIM TRAORE needs more than just Cheerleaders!

Let's Use our Platforms to Support Capt. Ibrahim Traore and become virtual citizens of the Burkina Faso Global Massive

STOP TALKING ABOUT IBRAHIM TRAORE AND TAKE ACTION!

By Professor Gilbert Morris

Nassau, NP, The Bahamas

African and Caribbean people are delusional and talk too much!

Who cannot love Capt. Ibrahim Traore…when he embodies all we have longed for against both colonialists and our own post-colonial leaders.

But with all that is arrayed against him…why all the celebration and constant feckless barking…vainglorious noise-making!

We have no understanding of power and none of the people speaking loudest and celebrating pan-African nonsense have the power to help him.

He is living under threat for his life: he needs more than cheerleaders.

What Traore needs is time…but there is none.  Those who wish to end his regime are working every angle, whilst his fans are thinking their incessant barking and insipid noise-making is action!

Shut up so he may work in silence.  Don’t poke the imperialist bear until he has had the chance to steel his country against the imperialists who are now trying to defeat him.  Let him go dark and emerge in 300 days having strengthened his defences through deals.

Use your platform to reveal and shame every imperialist who threatens him.  Make sure every post has 100 million likes and shares.

That is action!

You want to make a real practical difference:

1. Create a fund.

2. Use an African app.

3. Raise money for schools and medical care in Burkina Faso.

Everyone…give money to this cause and let’s make ourselves virtual citizens of the Burkina Faso Global Massive!

Support with systems, not talk!

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