DISINFO: The US is funding a colour revolution in Mexico
SUMMARY
The government of Mexico sent a diplomatic note to the United States after US agencies funded a civil organisation whose leader is the leading figure behind the electoral coalition of the opposition block. From 2018 to 2020, the organisation Mexicans against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), founded by Mexican businessman Claudio X. González, received a total of 2.34 million dollars from US agencies such as USAID and NED, according to info available in their own database, through which the US government funds projects of development and the promotion of “democracy” abroad.
Claudio X. González is also the main orchestrator of the opposition coalition conformed by parties PRI, PAN and PRD for the midterm election of 2021 through the initiative Sí por México. The businessman has acknowledged that the main goal of this opposition alliance is to take the majority away from ruling party MORENA in the Chamber of Deputies, in order to control the budget prior to the presidential election of 2024.
RESPONSE
The narrative about a US-funded colour revolution in Mexico, explicitly stated through the use of the OTPOR fist symbol in minute 01:30 of the video, is misleading. In early June 2021, the government of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador officially protested the funding by US agencies of Mexicans against Corruption and Impunity - one of the organisations that it has described as “opposition groups”, and called it “an act of interventionism that violates [Mexico’s] sovereignty”. This disinformation video goes a step forward by deliberately mixing some facts in order to portray the US as being involved in an attempt to influence Mexican politics.
Although it is true that MCCI received funds from USAID and the NED, this funding started in January 2018, while Andrés Manuel López Obrador didn’t win the presidential election until July of that year. This disinformation narrative omits the fact that MCCI was also very critical of corruption during the tenure of López Obrador’s predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, and even before: while the organisation wasn’t funded until 2015, it also addressed high-profile corruption cases that took place in earlier years, such as the tenure of Felipe Calderón.
Through the figure of Claudio X. González, this disinformation piece also deliberately mixes the organisation Sí por México and the coalition of parties Va por México, who are openly opposed to López Obrador’s government and are promoted by González, with anti-corruption organisation MCCI. While González was one of the founders of the latter, he renounced its presidency in July 2020. MCCI stated again in November of that year that González had no role in the organisation, which itself is not related to Sí por México.
After the denunciation of the Mexican government, USAID announced that it will re-evaluate its programmes and funding for Mexico.
See other examples of similar pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that Mexico is next in Washington’s destabilisation list, that the US may designate drug cartels as terrorist organisations to have an excuse for military control over Mexico, that the US is preparing a military invasion of Mexico, or that the Obama Administration supplied the drug cartels with weapons.