Weaponization

Why are many Latin American countries shutting down nonprofit organizations? Amnesty International claims it has the answer: in every case, it’s part of a drive to restrict human rights and “tear up the social fabric.” Amnesty’s new 95-page report (in Spanish, with an English summary), criticizes governments across the political spectrum for attacking what it calls “civil society organizations.” But Amnesty ignores the history of many such organizations and therefore why governments might be justified in closing them. Here we focus on the report’s deficiencies in relation to Nicaragua, Venezuela (two NGOs interviewed in each) and Cuba (none).