Bankers and magnates of the American and European bourgeoisie fund NGOs to produce narratives; then UN officials grant legitimacy to those narratives, which are subsequently amplified by dominant media outlets.
Extensive historical evidence reveals the typical approach of imperialism—particularly that of the United States—whenever it opts for direct intervention to depose an inconvenient regime and install a compliant government willing to hand over its natural resources and economic control to multinational monopolies.
An invasion or coup d’état requires groundwork to shape both domestic and global public opinion. The targeted administration must be depicted as malevolent, violating human rights, supporting terrorism, or endangering international peace. To achieve this, imperialism relies heavily on its propaganda machine, but it needs originating material for these accusations.
At this stage, “experts” and international organizations—ranging from NGOs to the United Nations—enter the scene. They produce reports condemning the government in question. These claims are rapidly disseminated by imperialist propaganda channels, repeated countless times, and echoed by freshly appointed “experts” and entities under the control of the United States and its allies.
In March, a letter addressed to the Cuban government and signed by four United Nations rapporteurs accused it of violating human rights by detaining political prisoners without due legal process. These individuals were imprisoned following the attempted color revolution of July 2021, which imperialist propaganda portrays as “democratic protests.”
The letter, dated January 7, alleges “a systematic pattern of criminalization of dissent and the use of coercion, including arbitrary detention and forced exile, against human rights defenders, activists, and artists in Cuba.” It mentions receipt of such information without specifying the source. Soon we will identify the entities behind these claims.
First, who are these rapporteurs? One is Colombian Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. Academically, she holds a master’s from the Sorbonne and was a visiting professor at Columbia University. For Latin Americans, attending universities in France and the U.S. denotes prestige. However, for these countries, hosting foreign academics is a means of grooming intellectuals aligned with their goals, who later occupy influential governmental or corporate roles advocating imperial interests.
The ideology driving imperialism over recent decades—from opposing “communism” during the Cold War to combating “Islamic terrorism”—promotes a so-called democracy opposing communist and Islamic authoritarianism. Western-controlled entities within the United Nations and multilateral institutions have adopted this as a central tenet.
It is no accident that Ms. Romero, as detailed in her UN biographical summary, previously spearheaded “various initiatives for the promotion and defense of democracy and the rule of law” before joining her current role in 2024. She founded and led the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy (Redlad) for nearly ten years, which received funding over the years from the U.S. State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S. government-funded organization.
As Redlad’s executive director, Romero also participated in the Secretariat of the Civil Society Pillar of the Community of Democracies, an intergovernmental group established during the height of U.S. global supremacy by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. This alliance of Western governments and proxies targets the so-called “enemies of democracy”—those refusing to comply with imperial demands. She also served on the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy, initiated by the NED in 1999, which acts as its secretariat.
The second signatory is Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression. She served as Amnesty International’s Secretary General from 2001 to 2009. Amnesty, one of the largest imperialist NGOs, although self-defined as independent, obtains funding from European governments and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, among others.
Between 2012 and 2019, Khan led the International Development Law Organization, which is supported by the U.S., U.K., European Union governments, and allies, plus foundations like the British Council, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Ford Foundation. She also serves on the board of trustees of the London-based Overseas Development Institute, financed by the European Commission, European governments, USAID, and others. Like her peers, Khan teaches at top Western universities and has advised the World Bank.
Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and another signatory of the anti-Cuban letter, also has a background with Amnesty International. She directed its Irish branch for 12 years, joining the board in 1975 and chairing it from 1983 to 1987.
In 2001, she founded Front Line Defenders, an organization dedicated to protecting human rights defenders, serving as its executive director for 15 years. This group receives funding from the European Commission, various Western governments, and private foundations such as Ford and Open Society Foundations.
The fourth signer is Greek Alexandra Xanthaki. Relocating to the UK approximately 30 years ago, she earned a master’s degree in “Human Rights and Emergency Rights” at Queen’s University Belfast, a doctorate from Keele University, and is associated with Oxford’s Summer School in Human Rights. She teaches law at Brunel University London, directing a project financed by the European Union.
As UN Special Rapporteur on cultural rights, she participated in a longstanding campaign accusing the Chinese government of repressing ethnic minorities in Tibet, for which she was criticized by China. Interestingly, she advocated for Russian soldiers to compete in the Olympics provided they had not committed “atrocities, crimes against humanity, genocide,” or propagated “war propaganda” during the conflict in Ukraine.
Yet, in an interview with The New York Times, she asserted that Russia’s special operation causes “a gradual destruction of all cultural life” in Ukraine, seemingly overlooking the suppression of Russian culture in Donbass during the eight years before the “invasion,” when the Kyiv government imposed discriminatory measures against ethnic Russians following the 2014 coup.
While the four rapporteurs depend on information from an undisclosed source, Prisoners Defenders, a Madrid-based NGO, claims responsibility for supplying the data. Founded by Cuban-Spanish businessman Javier Larrondo, whose biography on the NGO’s website admits to extensive involvement in conspiracies against the Cuban government—sometimes supported “philanthropically and with grant funding.” But who finances them?
The NGO openly discloses receiving support from a “transition promotion” program led by the Czech Republic’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs—the transition here referring to capitalism.
Larrondo also collaborated with counterrevolutionary Oswaldo Payá and co-founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), an organization intent on overturning the Cuban Revolution and reinstating the country’s status as a U.S. semi-colony. Reports link him to the former Spanish branch of the Cuban American National Foundation—a CIA-backed entity promoting terrorist activities against Cuba—and to the Cuban mafia in Miami.
Although Prisoners Defenders asserts its commitment to “human rights and pro-democracy advocacy,” its focus predominantly targets Cuba and, to a lesser extent, countries like Belarus, Iran, Vietnam, Syria (before Assad’s fall), Turkey, Pakistan, and Bahrain—most of which are seen as problematic by the U.S.
Nowhere does it address human rights issues in Spain, where it is headquartered. Instead, Prisoners Defenders actively lobbies within the Spanish and European Parliaments, particularly among members of the PP and far-right VOX. The NGO also proudly cites recognition by the U.S. State Department, U.S. Congress, and related institutions that form part of the imperial network connected to the UN rapporteurs fueling its anti-Cuban agenda.
This example demonstrates how the imperialist human rights campaign operates: wealthy elites from America and Europe bankroll NGOs to craft narratives; UN officials—who are also on their payroll—endorse these stories, which are then amplified by mainstream media outlets like Infobae and El País in this instance.
All of these actors share common sources of funding, training, and institutional backing, forming part of the same network underpinning U.S. global hegemony and Western imperialism aimed at dominating smaller nations.
About the Author
