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Highlights & Quotes Mark Falcoff, a Latin American expert at the American Enterprise Institute, was an active supporter in the 1980s of the Nicaraguan Contras and supported the work of PRODEMCA, a purported pro-democracy outfit that channeled U.S. aid to anti-Sandinista political forces. Falcoff is the author of AEI's Latin American Outlook, which is published monthly.

According to Group Watch, "PRODEMCA, or Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America . . . was a passthrough organization for [National Endowment for Democracy] grants to the anti-Sandinista political opposition in Nicaragua. It also placed full-page ads in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Washington Times calling for congressional funding of $100 million in lethal and nonlethal aid for the Nicaraguan contras. PRODEMCA received funding for its media work from Carl Channell's National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty. Channell's various enterprises acted as conduits for financial aid to the contras in the network coordinated by Natl Security Council aide Oliver North." (5)

As part of the U.S. Delegation to the 2003 U.N. Human Rights Commission Conference in Geneva, Falcoff referred to “the right to food, the right to clean air, the right to proper disposal of toxic wastes” as “confected, rights that can exist only on paper.” He advocated “eliminating so-called NGO participation, which adds absolutely nothing to the deliberations.” He also argued that the U.S. delegation should abandon the commission, saying: “The worst thing you can do -- from a career diplomat’s point of view -- is to walk away from a commission. But that, I submit, is precisely what we should be doing.” (4)

Falcoff's books include Panama's Canal: What Happens When the United States Gives a Small Country What It Wants, 1998: A Culture of Its Own: Taking Latin America Seriously, 1998; The Cuban Revolution and the United States, 2001; and Cuba the Morning After , 2003. (1)