After Honduras, Nicaragua? Several Important Articles http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/after-honduras-nicaragua-several-important-articles/

USAID’s CamTransparencia program is managed by the Casals & Associates, an affiliate of the paramilitary multinational DynCorp. It is important to point out that both DynCorp and Casals & Associates have a long history in Nicaragua.On January 25th this year, the Casals & Associates website announced that DynCorp had bought 100% of the company’s shares (13). Details of the value of the purchase were not made available.

“the acquisition brings together the complementary skills, experience and capacity of Casals and DynCorp International to strengthen the strategic expansion of DynCorp International into the international development field,” reads the communiqué announcing the move. “Together they offer a best in class combination of competencies to provide services supporting U.S. defence, diplomacy and international development initiatives and objectives.”

Casals & Associates has much experience in terms of “supporting the democratic transition” [SIC!] in Nicaragua. According to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Website (14), in 1995 USAID awarded its first bilateral anti-corruption contract to Casals & Associates specifically to advise the Nicaragua government, which at that point was confronted with a national economy in ruins after years of war.

The objective of the project was to improve the government’s capacity to reduce the potential of waste, fraud and other forms of abuse of resources by establishing an integrated auditing system and an integrated financial administration system. What happened next is well known in Managua – a gory electoral fraud against the FSLN in the national elections of the following year and two neo liberal governments whose officials stole the chilling sum of C$18,000 million (some US$900 million) of public funds.