By: Antonio García, Primer Comandante of ELN
U.S. Congressman Scott Perry in his X account had already been denouncing what now jumps out again among an endless number of scandals: “USAID financed Boko Haram, Al Qaeda with more than 697 million dollars (…) It financed the training camps for these terrorists. In Afghanistan and Pakistan it also financed terrorism with false programs.”
A strong and controversial denunciation made in previous years, now, in 2025, regains strength in the midst of the total change in US international policy, under the Trump administration.
At the beginning of February of this year, the new occupant of the White House, among many decisions he has made in his first month in office, made the radical decision of closing the Agency for International Development and Cooperation -USAID-.
He vehemently stated that much of the funds of this Agency have been used fraudulently, without a beneficial return for the United States.
This entity was created in 1961 and became a mechanism that, under the protection of “international aid”, had already been translated into a perfect mechanism of political interference in various countries, the objective was none other than to achieve the objectives and interests of the United States in the regions considered strategic for the northern country.
There are many cases that account for and ratify this statement, the case of the coup d’état and installation of a dictatorship in Chile, overthrowing the elected President Salvador Allende, more recent and under a similar logic stand out cases such as the support and promotion of the failed coup d’état against the then president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez in 2002, support and interference that extended to 2006, 2009 and later.
It is worth remembering that these actions of interference have been repeated throughout the region, just to refer to cases from the continent, they motivated the expulsion of USAID from Bolivia for supporting the opposition in the growing destabilization of the government of the time (2013), the same thing was done at the time by the then president of Ecuador Rafael Correa in expelling this agency from his country (2014).
In Cuba, for example, USAID financed destabilization actions through the use of social networks, the case called ZunZuneo. The list of actions is long and the denunciations profound.
Perhaps one of the acts of greatest interference has been to support and guide training processes aimed at public servants, judges, prosecutors, social organizations, but above all the media.
Almost 500 million dollars were allocated through the NGO Internews Network (IN) influencing a wide network of media, thus consolidating narratives related to the interests of the United States, that is, it ended up financing a wide network of manipulation and propaganda.
This extensive mechanism of manipulation has proven to be very effective in attacking and destabilizing governments not aligned with U.S. interests, generating a matrix of disinformation, a series of baseless accusations, but credibly edited to encourage hatred, as was the case of the proceeding against President Zelaya of Honduras, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, attacking everything that opposes its interests.
It has even been revealed how USAID has been key to activating destabilization processes against the government of Venezuela, with the participation of legal and illegal actors, media matrices from Colombia, as was done during the government of Iván Duque, when the network of destabilizing actions and deep corruption was conceived.
Now, this flood of information that comes to light, some open secrets, others unpublished data, does not imply anything satisfactory in the medium term, it is only the change of a foreign policy focused on threats, coercion, extortion and that rewards indignity and submission. Let this be clear to us.
However, this large amount of information is of great value to us.
Colombia is among the countries with the greatest “unconditional support” from this defunct agency, resources that were allocated, among others, to the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement, support for investigations and work of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), support for the issue of land, border, projects in strategic regions, etc.
It is good to keep in mind the reports presented to the Truth Commission in 2020, one in particular entitled: “From the beginning to the end. The United States in the Colombian Armed Conflict.” It leaves us with the question after reading it, because the one who has been the promoter of the war in Colombia since long ago, now serves as a “disinterested” promoter of Peace.
We cannot pass by and we are obliged to look carefully at the recipients of “hot money” from the “master of the North”, NGOs and some social organizations and even institutions of the current government, which regret Trump’s decision. They think that people swallow the “toad” that these monies come with well-intentioned purposes.
https://insurgenciaurbana-eln.net/dineros-calientes-de-la-usaid/