On November 7, the Reuters news agency released a communiqué from the US State Department under the title “The Kremlin’s Efforts to Covertly Spread Disinformation in Latin America”.

In the text released, it is intended to involve the international news agency focused on Peace and Nonviolence Pressenza and other independent media in an alleged campaign to “promote Russia’s strategic interests in the region at the expense of other countries, openly and covertly co-opting local media and influential people to spread disinformation and propaganda”.

The aim of such a campaign, according to the note, would be “to whitewash its propaganda and disinformation through local media in a way that is organic to the Latin American public, in order to undermine support for Ukraine and spread anti-U.S. and anti-NATO sentiment.”

In the face of this open attack on freedom of speech and press freedom, our agency states:

  • That we do not maintain any organic contact with the government of Russia, nor with any of the agencies mentioned in the communiqué.
  • That we denounce the absolute falsehood of an alleged financing by the Russian government or entities dependent on it. Pressenza, in order to maintain an independent journalism, is an agency that is financed through small individual contributions and is sustained thanks to the generous and voluntary work of hundreds of journalists and collaborators who defend the need to expand a journalism of Peace and Nonviolence.
  • That our agency, which emerged in the framework of the First World March for Peace and Nonviolence in 2009, far from supporting or justifying war or the interests of power of any particular power, has consistently and coherently promoted the need for peace, disarmament, non-violent conflict resolution and denuclearization.
  • That it is intended to mislead public opinion with the claim that our editors or writers would use “aliases to conceal their true identity and ensure that information is whitewashed in a way that is organic to the intended audience.” All of our editors and writers appear under their respective names on the Pressenza website and, as is de rigueur in journalism, we take particular care to do so in the case of opinion pieces, except in the case where the personal safety of the journalist is compromised.
  • That it is an outright lie that Pressenza participates in an anti-American campaign by publishing content organized by Russian official bodies to penetrate the “Western information sphere”, which we consider not very pluralistic as it is controlled by a few monopolistic companies with similar discourses.
  • That beyond any conspiratorial consideration in relation to the dissemination of content to “weaken Ukraine and spread anti-American and anti-NATO sentiments”, our agency, for its own reason of being, considers NATO obsolete and harmful and opposes the constitution and action of any militarist bloc, as well as any action aimed at interfering in the legitimate yearning for self-determination of each of the peoples of the world.
  • That we condemn the allusion to the participation of journalist and regular contributor to Pressenza Oleg Yasinsky in a “group of actors of malign influence”, improper language that seeks to associate him with dark intentions. Oleg has been practicing for many years a journalism of integrity committed to humanist causes.
  • That Pressenza deplores the attitude of the State Department, which tries with this type of communications to stain the good name and professional ethics of those of us who maintain a critical attitude towards any attempt to violate free speech and the possibility of public opinion to access different points of view, alternative to the story that continues to feed violence and revenge as ways to follow for humanity.
  • That this type of actions, enlisted in the logic of communicational warfare, do nothing to contribute to a world that leaves behind the pretensions of domination of some nations by others or of some human beings by others, regardless of their condition or cultural belonging.
  • That we urge the Department of State and the concerned instances to rectify the terms of the communiqué.
  • We consider that it is time to make a real contribution to the pacification of the planet, to the cessation of armed conflicts and armament, to the demobilization of armed contingents, abandoning the idea of hegemony and exceptionalism and embracing the humanist values that permeated the best moments of the history of the United States.