It would be helpful to see more text.

Here is the complete quote:

El imperialismo ''todo lo penetra y lo manipula: consigue el Nobel de la Paz para Kissinger, convierte a Borges en el trovador del fascismo, instrumenta a Lefèvre como caballo de Troya? ¿A quién sirven los trabajadores de la cultura en América Latina'?

I'm not having trouble with the transation of the rest of the phrase or understanding it, and the more I look at it I'm almost certain that the best translation would be the gerund 'portraying', but as this is a translation for an important client I wanted to get the opinions of others who are professional translators like myself. Thanks.

the meanings i have for instrumentar are
to score
to orchestrate
to implement
to bring in
to manipulate

could be to manipulate but the wooden horse didn't exactly manipulate, did it.

Thanks for your replies. I think I'm going to go with portraying. I like the suggestion of manipulate but to me that doesn't quite carry the underlying meaning of the phrase in Spanish. Thanks again for your suggestions.

I think that implement or use might be a better choice. Just my opinion.

I like bring in, as the translation. It suggests that we are introducing these writers as something else, sort of "bringing in" a new way of referring to them or seeing them.