Nicaragua

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 16, 2018 8:21 pm

With Cynical Theater Nicaragua’s Opposition Erase Their Crimes to Facilitate US Intervention
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 15, 2018
Tortilla con Sal, July 15th 2018

Events in Nicaragua over this weekend of July 13th-15th show how refined the techniques of psychological warfare have become with the political opposition here using social media to create events that never happened and erase their own criminal terrorist attacks. The crisis in Nicaragua began with a fake “student massacre” that never happened. Now Nicaragua’s opposition have faked a non-existent assault on a church in Managua dutifully reported as a government attack by the Washington Post and turned a relatively incident free evacuation of opposition gangs from the National Autonomous University into a pitched battle that never happened. Both those incidents have served as cover to ensure the opposition’s terrorist crimes get zero coverage.

On Thursday afternoon July 12th, armed opposition activists from the group in Chontales operating roadblocks controlled by Francisca Ramirez anti-Canal movement and local rural workers leader Medardo Mairena infiltrated an opposition peace march in the town of Morrito on the eastern shore of Lake Nicaragua on the highway to the Rio San Juan. They attacked a police post and the local muniicpal office murdering four police officers and a primary school teacher, wounding four municipal workers and kidnapping nine police officers. Subsequently later that evening the police officers were set free, six of them with injuries.

The following day the government held the annual Repliegue across the country to commemorate a key event in the 1979 victory over the Somoza dictatorship. In Managua the opposition gangs occupying the National Autonomous University since the protests began on April 18th, attacked a group of Sandinistas on their way to participate in the commemorative even. This year rather than the traditional march, the Repliegue took the form of massive caravans of vehicles both in Managua and also in all Nicaragua’s major urban centers. Among the group attacked by the UNAN gangs , one Sandinista supporter was killed and nine injured. But, as usual, the Nicaraguan opposition are falsely claiming the death was one of their supporters. After the attack, the opposition gangs then set fire to a classroom module and a preschool facility on the UNAN campus.

To give propaganda cover to their crimes, the opposition then staged a phony attack on the Divina Misericordia church coordinated by the extreme right wing Bishop Silvio Baez, and fake scenes of students taking cover from gunfire at the UNAN. Baez first claimed that priests had been killed, before retracting that all too obvious lie. There are photographs of opposition journalists/photographers filming opposition activists pretending to be attacked. But despite the obvious fakery, those false stories have been published in international media. In reality, the opposition gangs in the UNAN were indeed cleared out by the police but mostly by negotiated agreement, most of them left on buses leaving behind a totally trashed university, piles of weapons and drugs. The evacuation on buses was widely reported on local opposition TV channels but no international media has given coverage to that humdrum reality.

Outside Managua the government has negotiated agreements to clear roadblocks only to find that in several cases the opposition refuse to honor the agreements. The opposition extremists need to keep up the violence so as to sabotage efforts at National Dialogue and project the false image of a repressive government without popular support. The exact reverse is true as it has been ever since April 18th. Armed opposition extremists has carried out extremely aggressive attacks involving murder and arson on the police, government institutions, private businesses, ordinary passers and then blamed the government. By now national opinion in Nicaragua is well aware of the opposition’s false claims. The great majority of people want an end to the violence and serious political negotiations which the opposition have deliberately avoided. Only hard core opposition supporters believe the transparently fake claims of government repression, because most ordinary Nicaraguans are well aware of the terrorist crimes and repression they have suffered at the hands of opposition extremists

Within Nicaragua the opposition hardly bother to conceal the invention and artifice. Their false political theater is almost entirely to impress overseas opinion. Paul Abrau, director of the Inter American Commission for Human Rights has already decided what really happened without even bothering to investigate. He has denounced the non-existent attack on the church in Managua but has said precisely nothing about the murder of five people by the opposition in Morrito. Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro has condemned the non-existent attack in the UNAN. Extreme right wing US Senator Marco Rubio has falsely claimed that US government personnel have been attacked and threatened Daniel Ortega. All of this sinister cynical theater has set the scene for Luis Almagro to change his previously moderate position on Nicaragua and give the US government an institutional pretext on which to intensify sanctions against Nicaragua’s government and its people.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2018/07/ ... ervention/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:42 pm

Sandinista revolution is admired by Latin American peoples
Thursday, July 19, 2018 | Pedro Ortega Ramírez

Image

Sandinista revolution is admired by Latin American peoples
International guests who accompanied the Nicaraguan people on the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista Popular Revolution, expressed their pride in participating in the celebrations of the triumph against the Somoza dictatorship.

Pablo Monsanto, General Secretary of the Convergence Party of Guatemala, indicated that the Sandinista Revolution has always served as a source of inspiration for the Latin American peoples and mainly for the Central Americans.

" It is a pleasure to witness how the people of Nicaragua respond to the call of Commander Daniel Ortega to strengthen the revolutionary process in this country, this is the best response that there can be from the people to the enemies of the Revolution, to the enemies of Sandinismo, not only from Nicaragua, but throughout Latin America, "said Monsanto.

He pointed out that the militancy of his party is in solidarity with the people, with the FSLN and the Sandinista government that suffered the blows of an attempted coup d'état, which has been defeated and with it the intentions of imperialism.

" In Nicaragua it is totally regrettable that the situation that this country is experiencing has happened, because only three months ago Nicaragua was considered the most prosperous country in Central America, with an economic growth of more than 4.7% above the other Central American countries. , all in Central America said and admired that the government of Daniel Ortega has fostered development, growth and social benefit for all, "quoted Monsanto.

Meanwhile, the representative of the Alternative Revolutionary Front of the Common (FARC) of Colombia, Eloísa Rivera Roa, indicated that the FSLN's struggle and everything that Comandante Daniel's government has been developing for families has been admired from his country. .

" Our party is with the government of Nicaragua and all these uprisings there are, we all know that they are sponsored by imperialism, that it wants to put an end to the revolutionary forces of all countries and the development of society ," Rivera said.

COPPPAL rejects the Coup d'etat attempt

The President of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPPAL), Manolo Pichardo indicated that his visit is to give the organization's support to the development process promoted by the Sandinista Government, led by Comandante Daniel.

" At this moment we wanted to come because Nicaragua is living a special moment and I think it needs the support of all the democratic forces of Latin America and the world, because we understand that the situation that Nicaragua is going through is also going through other peoples that are developing democratically and it seems to us that this is part of a continental conspiracy that seeks to take out the progressive forces that won power through elections and want to remove them by non-electoral means, "said Pichardo.

https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/v ... americanos
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:27 am

Pepe and the crazy
Carola Chávez
JULY 20, 2018, 1:20 PM
2

Image

Pepe Mujica, the humble old man, the one who drives a volkswagen of all his life, the one who steps on the brake with his flip-flop -never the accelerator-, always a teddy bear that everyone wants because how can he not love that old man with the face of Goblin who lives in a little ranch and does not bother anyone?

Pepe the old man calm, prudent, except when there is an open microphone and you get the "one-eyed" and the "old crazy", in the process of forming UNASUR, the "crazy as a goat", in full guarimba against the government of Maduro ... And Pepe and his language always in perfect synchronicity with some fierce attack of the oligarchy, always become the flag of those who attack us, there with their flip flops and their nested nails, which, if you notice, is the only thing to the elites bothered them about Pepe.

A little while ago I saw Pepe in Jordi Évole's program, which went on a pilgrimage to the famous chacarita to show the world that one can be revolutionary and harmless at the same time and that is very good. There was Pepe, emphatically disheveled, as always, telling Jordi how disgusting is regional politics, listing generalities, ignoring, carefully, the great progress made in the era in which the continent marched mostly to the passage of peoples; separating himself from everything, with his nose wrinkled, like trying to get rid of a cockroach ... And the interviewer, famous for cornering his interviewees, smiling, listening like a child to the storytelling of the square. One hour of shit narrative, describing a continent of shit, with shit presidents and some shitty towns that allowed themselves to return shit, where Pepe floated angrily on an impolite board. Nobody was saved except him, the humble old man who claimed in front of the camera that in his long and humble life he never knew a political leader who was not shit. And all those who hate Fidel and Chávez loved Pepe, the patriarch of inoffensive revolutions. The pride disguised as humility.

Today Pepe returns to be featured in the media that celebrates his last pepada: Amid a brutal attempt at colorful revolution in Nicaragua, with a trail of dead, the most violent violence, when the Sandinista government has liberated almost the entire country of the guarimbas and tracas, when the last coup center is about to suffocate, Pepe leaves, always opportune for the enemy, and declares: "in life there are moments in which it is necessary to say I am leaving". And - surprise! - those who have to go are not the bloodthirsty vigilantes, no, Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas have to go, and give way to those who have tortured, raped, murdered anyone who seems Sandinista. They have to leave and line up, neatly, to be erased from the map. Oh, Pepe!

That is why, while the owners of the world satanized Chavez, they sold us to Pepe with his cart, his flip flops, badly dressed and disheveled, yes, but harmless. And the worst thing is that many buy it and swallow the story that the revolutionary quality is measured in flip flops and sweaters with rolls, while more rolls, more revolutionary ...

And since they sell us to Pepe, they also sell us to Iván Duque, who travels to Washington in tourist class, like any mortal who can pay for a plane ticket; and the Croatian Prime Minister, whose salary is discounted to go to the World Cup, and the Holland who cleans the coffee he spilled, and even the King of Spain, who takes his daughter to school, without a driver or anything, you ... And they sell us the idea that the important thing is to appear ordinary, but without bothering the owners, yes; not like Nicolás, who according to Pepe, "is crazy like a goat".

Anyway, I get my accounts, I give them their flip-flops and I stay with my crazy.

http://misionverdad.com/Opinion/pepe-y-el-loco

Google Translator

Dunno who this guy is but he sure fits a familiar mold.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 24, 2018 1:29 pm

Hiding in Nicaragua, Ortega's battered opponents plan comeback
Diego Oré

MANAGUA (Reuters) - For almost six hours, one of the leaders of the resistance to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega hid in a house while police and paramilitary groups laid siege to the last opposition stronghold, which finally fell this week.

<snip>

“The big hunt is under way and we have a price on our heads,” said Guardabarranco, who took refuge in several safe houses and spent the night in the mountains before reaching his current location, which he asked remain secret to protect him.

“They’re going house by house, taking us one by one,” he added, saying the leaders had separated for their own safety.

<snip>

Despite the law, the Roman Catholic Church is harboring many protesters fleeing pro-Ortega security forces.

“It’s a risk we run, but we can’t stand aside when people need us,” said Leonel Alfaro, vicar of Managua’s cathedral.

more...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nica ... ce=twitter
That's another way of saying, "The coup failed, but the U.S. is not giving up."
Courtesy ✪James Saint-Franc✪ @sirjamesa12
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 24, 2018 1:59 pm

In Nicaragua, is Operation “Contra 2” Failing?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 22, 2018
Alex Anfruns

Image

Thrown under the spotlight since mid-April, the homeland of Sandino is still facing an intense political crisis. From now on, the crisis seems to be approaching its final resolution. On the one hand, the Nicaraguan people are mobilizing more and more alongside the authorities to help them dismantle barricades in insurgent spots. And on the other hand, in one week two big demonstrations for peace took place. Against the wishes of an opposition camp and spokespersons of the US administration, the message of Daniel Ortega during the march for peace of July 7 in Managua was crystal clear: “Here it is the people who set the rules in the Constitution of the Republic. They will not change overnight by the will of some coup leaders. If the putschists want to come to the government, let them seek the people’s vote in the next elections. With all the destruction they have provoked, we will see what support they will have.” But these facts are minimized by the private media and major news agencies, which continue to hide the evolution on the ground and blow on the embers of the dispute. Which side will tip the scales?

A dreadful propaganda scheme

In a recent article, I examined a number of contradictions in the treatment by international media of Nicaragua. Notably, one can recognize one of the principles of war propaganda which is to reverse the aggressor and the victim. The scheme works as follows: first, an opposition sector, one that refuses dialogue with the government, plans to control some parts of the capital and other cities by means of barricades. These areas are then considered “liberated from tyranny”, and thus represent the hearth of insurgency that must recur throughout the country, to defeat the operations of “repression” of police forces. This tactic of deploying barricades has been theorized as an effective means of preventing the authorities from gaining control over the national territory, because it is “impossible for the government to have enough personnel to control every inch of the country”. The first obvious thing to emphasize is that this is not a completely spontaneous crisis that emerges from a massive popular mobilization, but that there is indeed an insurrectional plan in place capable of standing up to the authorities for months. We are witnessing the first phase in the development of an unconventional war to overthrow a democratically elected government.

Then, a number of clashes take place in these areas “liberated” by the opposition. At this point, it is not trivial to note that the activists who defend these barricades are no longer peaceful protesters that the mainstream media has portrayed. Images of hooded youths handling homemade mortars and other explosive devices are impossible to conceal. In fact, they even contribute to the creation of a “romantic” dimension of popular resistance in the context of face-to-face contact with the professional police corps. This is where the second phase of the unconventional war comes in, namely the decisive role of media corporations that contribute to the production of a dominant and one-sided narrative of the crisis. It is easier to identify with a young demonstrator who is rebelling than a young police officer compelled to use force to enforce the law. Thus, when there have been deaths around the barricades, it becomes complicated for an outside observer to know the truth.

Who is not concerned with these victims?

A simple and quick tour of private media news will make anyone realize that the idealized dimension mentioned above serves only to delegitimize government action. No one is asking themselves this simple question: “Was the victim a pro-government Sandinista helping the police dismantle the barricades, or an opponent who defended them?” Many testimonies in favor of the first version have been systematically dismissed! Indeed, the role of the private media is fundamental in order to give maximum credibility to the opposition’s side of the story. Would the latter be manipulating the victims’ memory with the complicity of some private media in Nicaragua? This is quite a strong point for us: what about the many cases of victims whose membership in the pro-government camp has been proven?

In the framework of the peace talks, the Nicaraguan government first accepted that the IACHR (Note: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, organ of the Organization of American States (OAS)) lead a human rights observation mission. But it went on to denounce that its report does not include the description of many cases of attacks against civilian victims, including public officials, as a result of the violence unleashed by the opposition. Are the dice loaded? Here are some recent examples that illustrate a much more nuanced situation than that described by some media:

– On June 19, the authorities launch an operation in Masaya to release the Deputy Director of the National Police Ramon Avellan and his agents, who were entrenched in the police station, surrounded by barricades since June 2. Every night, protesters fired mortar at the police station, accompanied by threats: “What do you think? That there were only “güevones” (rascals) in this fight? Here again, here is my little sister… ” Then, the mortar fire would start again near the police station… Under the pretext of playful action, a video shows how protesters positioned behind a barricade sing menacing songs against General Avellan, accompanied by shots. According to the Pro-Human Rights Nicaraguan Association ANPDH organization, as a result of the police rescue operation, six people – including three whose identity remains to be verified – were murdered in several surrounding neighborhoods.

– On June 30, in the context of an opposition march, a protester was shot dead. Recorded a few minutes before the tragedy by a journalist who was there, a video shows how opposition members surround a private security officer and ask him to handover his weapon, simulating a hostage situation in order to justify their action. Then, the images show a person who stands behind the agent, points a pistol at his temple and steals his rifle. Later, the protesters will attribute the death to government repression.

– On July 3, two people were kidnapped in Jinotepe by a group of armed hooded men: police major Erlin García Cortez and Enacal worker Erasmo Palacios. Three days later, Bismarck de Jesús Martínez Sánchez, a worker from the Managua City Hall, was also kidnapped. A week later, relatives had still not received any sign of life from them.

– On July 5, the lifeless body of National Police officer Yadira Ramos was found in Jinotepe. She had been kidnapped, raped and tortured. She had been forced to get off her vehicle and her husband had been killed on the spot.

– On July 6, FSLN member Roberto Castillo Cruz was killed by opposition hoodlums who held barricades in Jinotepe. His son, Christopher Castillo Rosales had been killed just a week before him. In a video published shortly before his own murder, Castillo Cruz denounced the murderers: “This criminal gang of the right has killed my son, I only ask for justice and that peace prevails so that our children do not lose their lives!”

– On July 8, during a nighttime clash in Matagalpa, a 55-year-old man named Aran Molina was killed while rescuing Lalo Soza, a Sandinista activist who was under attack. The following day, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) paid tribute to him through a procession. The same day, two other people were killed: social worker Tirzo Ramón Mendoza, executed by hooded people after being kidnapped, and a third victim whose identity remains unknown.

– On 9 July, the authorities dismantled the barricades that prevented free movement in the towns of Diriamba and Jinotepe. Many residents then testified about the many violent actions of the opposition, including torture against the Sandinistas. At the same time, representatives of the Episcopal Conference arrived. Citizens of Jinotepe then entered the church, where they found opposition members disguised as members of the clergy. Residents accused church officials of protecting them and not saying anything or doing anything to stop the violence unleashed in the last two months. In Diriamba, the inhabitants also discovered an arsenal of mortars hidden in the church of San Sebastian.

– On July 12, a criminal gang attacked the Morrito Town Hall in Rio San Juan. A historical Sandinista fighter, Carlos Hernandez, was kidnapped there. Seriously wounded and unable to escape, a youth Sandinista activist, two police officers and their superiors are murdered. A Sandinista activist received a bullet in the abdomen. Later, schoolmaster Marvin Ugarte Campos would succumb to his injuries. The version of the opposition? It says the massacre was … a “self-attack by paramilitaries”!

It seems that some deaths and violent acts have no value, while others are erected as martyrs for a sacred cause. In the end, does everything depend on the prism through which we look at reality? Are we already placed in a camp in a conflict without knowing it or even suspecting it? In this case, would it be a waste of time to try to form one’s own opinion from fact analysis? The search for peace and truth prevents us from succumbing to such resignation.

In a remarkable 46-page work entitled “The monopoly of death – how to inflate figures to assign them to the government”, Enrique Hendrix identified the numerous inconsistencies in the various reports presented by the three main human rights organizations, the CENIDH (Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights), the IACHR and the ANPDH. Comparing the various reports from the beginning of the crisis to the date of the last reports presented (from April 18 to June 25), he concluded that the three organizations recorded a total of 293 deaths. In 26% of cases (77 citizens), information on the deaths is incomplete and remains to be verified. In 21% of cases (60 citizens), the dead are persons murdered by the opposition, either public officials or Sandinista militants who were murdered for helping the authorities dismantle the barricades. In 20% of the cases (59 citizens), the dead were protesters, opposition members or people who erected barricades. In 17% of cases (51 citizens), the dead do not have a direct relationship with the demonstrations. Finally in 16% of the cases (46 citizens), the dead were passers-by who did not take part in the clashes.

As can be seen in this study, the balance sheets of these organizations are sorely lacking in rigor and mix all sorts of victims (fights between gangs, road accidents, murders in the context of vehicle theft, conflict between land owners, police officers, a pregnant woman in an ambulance blocked by barricades …). Conclusion: if we take into account the exact circumstances of each death, it is obvious that we cannot attribute the responsibility to the government alone. In light of these elements, we have the right to challenge the international media about their lack of objectivity. Why such an alignment with a sector of the opposition who has declared itself fiercely hostile to any dialogue?

Who is not interested in dialogue?

This propaganda mechanism is completed by the “blackout” of other information that is not considered relevant. However, while the media focuses on the clashes, other sectors of the opposition continue to participate in the various sessions of the “dialogue tables for truth, peace and justice”, organized to listen to different points of view and seek to establish responsibility in the wave of violence ravaging the country. Moreover, the final conclusions of the various human rights observation missions in the country had not yet been made, they were to be discussed and include new elements. But what can we expect from the dialogue between the two parties, when a number of observers have already decided in advance that the government alone is responsible for the violence?

All over the world, the role of the police is to repress in case of “disturbance of public order”. But we struggle to understand why the authorities would order it to attack civilians wildly and arbitrarily at the same time as the peace dialogue is taking place. On the other hand, one could expect such an attitude from those who, refusing to participate in the dialogues, would seek to sabotage it, having an interest in the derailment of this process. In this case, it is not unlikely that hooded thugs have been posing as police forces on several occasions.

In any case, it is no less credible than the version of these same hooded thugs, who say that the government of Daniel Ortega would have given the green light to disguised civilians to destroy infrastructure and kill other civilians! Still, the government did not deny that at the beginning of the crisis some police officers sometimes acted using disproportionate violence, and it responded that justice will have to determine their responsibility in actions punishable by law. The National Assembly, for its part, has launched an initiative to create a “Commission for Truth, Justice and Peace” with the aim of reporting on the responsibilities of human rights violations within three months.

But in the fairy tale that the mainstream media is manufacturing from dawn to dusk, and on the internet 24 hours a day, it is not even conceivable that the government of Nicaragua is facing difficulties whose causes would be complex and numerous. The media hype and the positions of foreign political figures serve as irrefutable proof! As has been the case in Venezuela in recent years, taking the public hostage in this way is an insult to its intelligence. Of course, not everything is explained by the tentacles of the imperialist octopus. But for those who are interested in the history of inter-American relations for the last two centuries, it is not serious to forget about its weight and consider that this influence is a thing of the past.

How to export democracy in dollars

It seems that few observers are really shocked by the rapid progression of these events, which are shaped like a breadcrumb trail towards a single objective: condemning the Ortega government and demanding early elections. That’s where the hiccup is: Latin American countries where assassinations of trade unionists, peasants and social leaders have been a common thing for years, where the peace efforts of governments are considered, at best, as totally ineffective, and at worst as non-existent, such as Colombia, Honduras or Mexico, are not at all worried about the image of their “democracies”. There is something wrong, isn’t it? To shed some light on this mystery, a reminder of the history of the twentieth century is worth the detour.

The coups and destabilizations fomented from abroad, such as in the Dominican Republic or in Guatemala, show that in the second half of the 20th century the Latin-American context was still marked by the military interventionism of the Monroe Doctrine and the “manifest destiny” of the United States. It was nothing more than an imperialist policy of controlling the resources and raw materials of Latin America, now presented as an anticommunist “crusade” in the context of the Cold War. On the other hand, the dominance of the United States would not be limited to a demonstration of force based on the “regime change” and the sending of troops on the ground, but it would also take forms of cultural domination, in particular through the so-called “development aid” policies.

In his speech in January 1949, US President Harry Truman described non-industrialized countries as “underdeveloped” countries. Thus, in 1950, the American Congress passed an Act for International Development (AID). On September 4, 1961, a US Congress law replaced the AID by USAID, which was to implement a new, more comprehensive vision of “development assistance” directed anywhere in the planet. As can be seen in the coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, the anti-communist struggle was only a pretext. The main concern of the US government was to prevent the development of national consciousness within the armies and police of “underdeveloped countries”. That is why, from 1950 to 1967, “the United States government spent more than $ 1,500 million on military aid to Latin American countries.” (1)

After the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, John Kennedy announced the Alliance for Progress in 1961. It was a similar initiative to the Marshall Plan in Europe. Between 1961 and 1970, the Alliance for Progress provided $ 20 billion in economic assistance to Latin America. One of the objectives was the stabilization of the regimes that fought against communism and the influence of Cuba.

“John F. Kennedy and his advisers are developing an action plan for the region, the Alliance for Progress, consisting of a $ 20 billion investments for economic development and massive military assistance. The decade of the sixties is marked by the formation of a new generation of Latin American military and the transfer of capital and technology from the US military to Latin America. The Pentagon and the CIA draw their strategy to halt the advance of socialism: the US Army-run Panama School trains the cadres of the Latin American armed forces “. (2)

Under the fallacious concept of “development aid policies”, the “creation of strong armies and police” and “military aid to reactionary and pro-imperialist regimes” served to offer to the monopolies “the most favorable conditions of exploitation of underdeveloped countries “. (3) In other words, this “aid” represented above all a political weapon in favor of the economic interests of the countries of the Global North. These were represented in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), founded in 1961 and also known as the “Rich Country Club”. It consisted of 27 countries, mostly those of North America, Western Europe and Japan.

Resistance emerges sooner or later

But the new reality resulting from decolonization in Asia and Africa also represented an awareness: the strength of the liberated countries now resided in their unity. This would enable them to exercise some orientation on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly, and to defend the autonomous “right to development”. Thus, in the 1970s, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) would play an important role in defending the interests of the Group 77. Created in 1964, UNCTAD was characterized by the Common Declaration of the 77 countries as a “historic turning point”.

The invasion and the military occupation of Nicaragua by the United States makes it possible to better appreciate the historical value of the Sandinista Popular Revolution and the resistance to the interferences which it showed in the 1980s. The scandal of the financing of Contras by the CIA through the drug trade in Central America was proof that these plans are not infallible. Despite the many interferences and destabilizations suffered throughout history, the peoples of the South have an advantage over the powerful: collective memory and intelligence.

After the dictatorships’ repression, the debt crisis and the rule of the IMF in the 1970s and 1980s, Latin America was to experience many social revolts in the 1990s, paving the way for the arrival of new progressive governments in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela or Bolivia. The next step was to launch the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a regional cooperation body created in 2004 to defeat the proposed Free Trade Area of ​​the Americas (ALCA in Spanish) by the United States.

What remains today of yesterday’s meddling?

Since the 1990s, at the end of the Cold War, US aid no longer had the pretext of restraining communism. It then took the form of “counter-terrorism” or “security and anti-drug policies”. Here are the main recipients of US aid in Latin America: $ 9.5 billion for Colombia; $ 2.9 billion for Mexico; and since 2016, aid to all countries in the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) has exceeded that of the first two. (4) Which explains why we systematically condemn some countries and not others… regardless of reality and the degree of violence.

Yet the Cold War is not over in the minds of some. Thus, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro believes it is necessary in 2018 to comply with White House requirements, and to harass night and day countries such as Nicaragua or Venezuela at the risk of being ridiculed. Indeed, when in a special session of the OAS the US spokesperson has just criticized the violence in Nicaragua and attributed it exclusively to the government, can we take his word for it? It would be better to remind him that his country does not have the slightest legitimacy to talk about Nicaragua, because it invaded and occupied it militarily for 21 years, then went on to support the clan of the dictator Somoza for another 43 years!

The “conservative restoration” of recent years, with the “soft coups” to overthrow Lugo in Paraguay, Zelaya in Honduras, Rousseff in Brazil; the failure of the peace process in Colombia, the judicial persecution against Jorge Glas, Lula Da Silva and now Rafael Correa, is the ideal context for the OAS, this obsolete organization, to try to put an end to the memory of the social achievements of recent years.

Since the US did not invent hot water, to reach their ends they must use the means at hand. Unsurprisingly, Freedom House, funded among others by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), decided to create a special task force to fight the FSLN in Nicaragua in 1988. It is always opportune to hear NED Co-Founder Allen Weinstein: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection.”. (5)

Today, the interference keeps going through the financing of opposition movements, framed by training programs for “young leaders” ready to defend tooth and nail the values ​​of the sacrosanct “democracy” and to overthrow “dictatorships” from their countries of origin. From 2014 to 2017, the NED has dedicated up to $ 4.2 million to Nicaraguan organizations such as IEEPP (Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policy), CPDHN (Human Rights Permanent Commission in Nicaragua), Invermedia, Hagamos Democracia and Fundacion Nicaraguense para el Desarrollo Economico y Social. When we remind this to young opponents and their sympathisers, they pretend not to understand…

While it may have been extremely effective in some countries like Ukraine in 2014, the pattern we have described must be confronted with the reality and political traditions of each country. In Nicaragua, the FSLN is the dominant political force that has won democratically in the last three elections. It is significant that opposition sectors that rely on the support of the US, the right wing, and local employers are forced to use references to Sandinismo in an attempt to gain credibility. However, this practice goes too far when it tries to compare the Sandinista government and the dictatorship of Somoza, thus demonizing Daniel Ortega.

The march for peace convened by the FSLN on July 13, in tribute to the 39th anniversary of the historic “tactical retreat” of Sandinism in Masaya, was a new show of strength of the Nicaraguan people and its willingness to defeat the violent strategy of the opposition. Will the peoples of the world live up to the solidarity that this moment demands?

Notes

1) Yves Fuchs; La coopération. Aide ou néo-colonialisme ? Editions Sociales. Paris, 1973, pp. 55 (Cooperation. Help or neo-colonialism?)

2) Claude Lacaille; En Mission dans la Tourmente des Dictatures. Haïti, Equateur, Chili : 1965-1986. Novalis, Montreal, 2014. p 23. (In Mission in the Torment of Dictators. Haiti, Ecuador, Chile: 1965-1986)

3) Gustavo Esteva, “Desarrollo” in SachsWolfgang (coord.) Diccionario del Desarrollo, Lima, PRATEC, 1996. p. 52.

4) https://www.wola.org/es/analisis/ayuda- ... noamerica/

5) Washington Post, 22 September 1991.

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Wed Jul 25, 2018 3:43 pm

After the Failed Coup, After All the Lies, Nicaragua Rebuilds
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 23, 2018
Stephen Sefton, Tortilla con Sal, July 23rd 2018

Nicaragua is entering a new political phase of reconstruction in multiple senses, now the US backed right wing coup attempt has failed. The country’s political opposition have suffered another catastrophic failure. After months of intimidation and insecurity, savage violence and economic blockade at the hands of the country’s extremist opposition, people in Nicaragua long for a return to peaceful social and economic life. Overseas, Western media and NGOs have confirmed their role as propaganda outlets for the US government and its allies.

Media from the Guardian and the New York Times to the BBC and Al Jazeera as well as phony progressive media like Democracy Now have misrepresented the crisis as have human rights organizations like Amnesty International. All have deliberately omitted overwhelming evidence of crimes, violations and abuses by Nicaragua’s opposition. The destruction of Sandinista radio stations, the well documented strategy of torture and intimidation to terrorize ordinary people, the murder of 22 police officers and dozens more Sandinista supporters as well as 400 police officers injured with gunshot wounds are only the most egregious omissions.

These deceitful Western media and NGOs also omitted the taking hostage of hundreds of truck drivers for over a month, the destruction by opposition terror gangs of public sector buildings, vehicles and equipment running into hundreds of millions of dollars, attacks on over 60 schools, damage and destruction of over 50 ambulances, attempted murder of and threats against Sandinista student leaders: the list of omissions is damning. Similarly, these same media have used staged fake news of disappearances and non-existent police attacks as well as falsely claiming the protesters were mainly peaceful students. Mendaciously attributing all deaths to the government, phony opposition human rights NGOS and the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights have inflated the casualty list with people whose deaths had nothing to do with the protests.

In tune with that policy of systematic falsehood, practically no Western mainstream media reported the overwhelming demonstrations of support for President Ortega’s government on July 19th.

Image
Managua, aerial photos showed hundreds of thousands of people packing the main Plaza de la Fe and the adjacent boulevard. To avoid the threat of violent opposition ambushes, instead of the traditional July 19th celebration with people traveling from across Nicaragua to the capital Managua, separate events were held in Nicaragua’s main urban centers, also with massive participation. By contrast an opposition march held in Managua on Saturday July 21st attracted barely 1000 participants

Image

Few observers familiar with Nicaragua will be surprised at this outcome. The government always had the support of the labor movement and the great majority of people in the popular economy that generates around 70% of employment in the country. The opposition coalition against the government consisted of right wing big business, reactionary Catholic bishops, US government funded NGOs and related groups like the foreign-funded anti-Canal movement, regional organized crime, Colombian finance interests and embittered ex-Sandinistas now allied with right wing US politicians. A look at how the attempted coup developed explains much about why it failed.

Social media massively reproduced the initial big lie about a non-existent massacre of students on April 18th provoking widespread outrage. Then between April 19th and April 22nd opposition extremists ruthlessly exploited legitimate protests, creating provocations and attacks on public and private property causing numerous deaths and injuries. Opposition media and US funded NGOs falsely blamed all the casualties on the government, provoking both more widespread outrage locally and also feeding an international diplomatic offensive. By Monday April 23rd, opposition demands switched from repeal of proposed legislation to a non-negotiable demand for the government resign.

President Ortega proposed a national dialogue, but the opposition then started operating roadblocks and intensifying violent provocations. The political wing of the coup, the reactionary Catholic bishops and US funded NGO representatives, extorted concessions from the government as a precondition for participating in the dialogue, including the withdrawal of police to their stations. Also something international media practically never report. Then through May and June the opposition continued extremely violent provocations causing numerous deaths, attacking police quartered in their stations and strangling the economy with their roadblocks.

While international condemnation developed based entirely on false opposition propaganda, the coup attempt’s momentum inside Nicaragua collapsed. By mid-June popular opinion had reacted strongly against the roadblocks, the intimidation and delinquency, the torture and abuse, the murders and the wanton destruction. A great majority of people were deeply angered by the economic and social effects of the roadblocks, which caused serious, widespread hardship for ordinary people who live from day to day or week to week. In addition to their own personal difficulties people came to realize the broader reality of the coup.

Few people in Nicaragua now believe the propaganda lie about a government crackdown on peaceful protests. Regular legitimate peaceful protests took place throughout the crisis but these were constantly abused by provocateurs to create incidents causing death and destruction. Nor do most people in Nicaragua believe the lie that the people leading the protests after the first few days were students. Most middle-class students who began the demonstrations on April 18th avoided serious violence and few took part in the roadblocks. Most less well-off public university students soon realized they’d been duped and used as cannon fodder by opposition extremists. However, overseas opinion continues to be fooled by Nicaragua’s opposition media offensive.

People in North America and Europe, trapped in a propaganda bubble, are denied the real life information and they need to be able think freely for themselves. All Western mainstream media and most alternative media operate an endless garbage-in garbage-out feedback loop. Their anti-democratic betrayal of people’s right to truthful news intensifies in inverse relation to the decline of US power and influence and the consequent desperation of US and allied elites. In Latin America, their victims include countries like Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua and leaders like Nicolas Maduro, Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, Lula da Silva, Rafael Correa and Cristina Fernandez : any government or leader challenging US dominance in the region.

Although the coup attempt failed internally in Nicaragua it achieved the momentum needed to sustain an international offensive, setting in motion probable sanctions at a time when Nicaragua needs to rebuild all that has been destroyed both materially and morally. Faced with looming economic and diplomatic attacks the Sandinista government is likely to strengthen the popular economy even more than before and rethink domestic policy in the context of the political polarization that has supplanted the previously successful model of consensus and alliances.

With little popular support, the country’s political opposition seems committed to continue destabilizing the economy by promoting foreign intervention. The Catholic church is finished as the principal moral arbiter in Nicaragua after committing political and social suicide by supporting the coup’s murderous sadistic violence. Big business is discredited as a trustworthy interlocutor for economic policy because it was the popular economy that sustained the country through the crisis. Grass roots based evangelical churches now have a stronger voice in national life than before because they very publicly rejected the cynical hypocrisy of the Catholic bishops. These are important changes for Nicaragua.

In institutional terms, the national police have strengthened their moral prestige as they re-establish citizen security. The army stayed completely out of the civil conflict generated by the coup attempt. Its prestige too has been enhanced. Both institutions categorically support the government. Politically, the FSLN has consolidated its core support of over 50% of Nicaraguans. It seems extremely unlikely there will be early elections before those scheduled in 2021. Nicaragua has entered a new phase, balancing between the inherent political instability caused by a weak, divided opposition and the economic attack threatened by sadistic, vindictive US and European elites. Despite everything, the government has committed to rebuilding Nicaragua, better than before.

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 27, 2018 1:33 pm

Nicaraguans celebrate the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista triumph. Dan Kovalik, 2018.

When the smoke finally clears, if it ever clears here, the coverage of the recent events in Nicaragua will be looked upon as quite possibly the most effective, and equally sinister, misinformation campaigns ever waged upon a nation. The good news is that the Nicaraguan people, while initially confused by this campaign, have quickly caught on to what is really happening. Hopefully, we in the Global North will catch on soon.

Max Blumenthal, Thomas Hedges and I travelled to Nicaragua during the week of the annual celebration of the overthrow of the US-backed Somoza dictatorship on July 19, 1979. As we were reminded during our stay in Managua, 50,000 Nicaraguans (out of a total population of about 2.5 million) died in the struggle to overthrow Somoza in the late 1970’s. However, this was of little concern for the US, or the OAS which the US has always dominated.

Nicaraguans Celebrate The 39thAnniversary of the Sandinista Triumph (Kovalik, 2018).

Thus, in 1978, even as Somoza was attacking major cities with advanced weaponry supplied by the US, UK and Israel – weaponry which included “armored personnel carriers, Sherman tanks, U.S.-made troop transports and light observation helicopters equipped with machine guns and rockets, several two-engine, rocket-equipped Cessnas, artillery, and an awesome assortment of automatic weapons”– the most the OAS would do is agree to a US proposal for a political mediation in Nicaragua between Somoza and the “moderate” (i.e., non-Sandinista) opposition.

Similarly, as Noam Chomsky has noted, Nicaragua under the brutal Somoza regime warranted little coverage by the mainstream media. As he explains, “n the ten years prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television — all networks — devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972. From 1960 through 1978, the New York Times had three editorials on Nicaragua. It’s not that nothing was happening there — it’s just that whatever was happening was unremarkable. Nicaragua was of no concern at all, as long as Somoza’s tyrannical rule wasn’t challenged.”

However, this all changed when the Sandinistas took over the Nicaraguan government and when the US began funding the Contras (largely former Somoza National Guardsmen) and their terror campaign against the Nicaraguan population. Then, the mainstream media worked hard to undermine the legitimacy of the Sandinistas and to downplay the criminal nature of the Contras. According to Fair & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), analyzing media coverage of the Contra War:

In many ways the media have functioned as a sieve for what Abraham Brumberg, former editor of the USIA journal Problems of Communism,described as a “flood of distortions, exaggerations and plain unvarnished lies about the Sandinistas that issue forth almost daily from the administration.”. . .

From the beginning, this administration has sought to focus media attention on every (real and imagined) peccadillo of the Sandinistas while downplaying the far worse human rights records of other Central American nations. Even after the signing of the regional peace plan, the media continued to reflect Reagan’s obsession by focusing primarily on Nicaragua. . . .

Meanwhile, Contra abuses were whitewashed by a propaganda blitz that hit America’s three most influential dailies . . . .

Fast forward to today, and the media, little concerned about Nicaragua since the end of the Contra war in 1990, and little impressed with the Sandinista government’s remarkable achievements in health care, poverty reduction, community policing, infrastructure development and economic growth since re-taking power in 2007, is now again covering Nicaragua on a daily basis. The media’s current interest has been piqued by the prospect that the Sandinista government might be overthrown, and the media is hell-bent upon helping such a process along with coverage even more one-sided than it gave to the Contra War.

For its part, the OAS, still dominated by the US, has also been activated into overdrive, lending a hand in the regime-change effort by blaming all of the violence happening in Nicaragua on the government while ignoring the violence of the opposition. At the same time, the OAS, and the press as well, also ignore the violence committed by US client states such as Colombia which is engaging in the wholesale slaughter of peace advocates, human rights leaders, land rights activists and indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders. In this way, one is given the impression that it is the Nicaraguan government which is somehow a unique evil in Latin America.

In many ways, the story being put forward by the mainstream media and the OAS is the exact opposite of what is really happening in Nicaragua. Thus, far from the mainstream media tale of peaceful protesters being mowed down by a brutal regime, what we heard on our trip to Nicaragua more closely jibes with the analysis of Atilio Boron, acclaimed Argentine intellectual and winner of UNESCO’s International José Marti Prize, who explains that, when they perceived a weakness in the Sandinista government after the initial announcement of mild social security reforms in mid-April, the right-wing “threw themselves with all their arsenal into the streets to overthrow Ortega. They transferred many of the mercenaries that staged the ‘guarimbas’ in Venezuela to Nicaragua and are now applying in Nicaragua the same recipe for violence and death taught in the CIA manuals [for the Contras].”

Of course, given that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – the successor to the CIA’s regime-change operations abroad – has provided millions of dollars to the groups leading the anti-government operations in Nicaragua and has indeed admitted to “laying the groundwork for insurrection,” this should be none-too surprising.

The case of Monimbo — a historic neighborhood in the town of Masaya, Nicaragua, and the last major area cleared of the opposition street barricades (or, tranques) — is quite instructive. While the mainstream media has invariably portrayed the tranques in such areas as being set up and manned by brave youths who were trying desperately to protect their neighborhoods from imminent police attack, residents tell a very different story.

We spent an hour with one resident of Monimbo, a former local Sandinista official, who had just come to Managua for the celebration of the 1979 Sandinista Triumph. She asked not to be named because she still fears reprisals by opposition forces in her town who have been targeting Sandinista loyalists for harassment, assault and even murder. This woman, who we shall call Maria, wept uncontrollably as she recounted how her neighborhood had been terrorized by those on the tranques who paralyzed the local economy, prevented free movement, burned down public buildings, ransacked shops and destroyed residents’ homes.

Every day, as Maria, a wife and mother of two children, went through the tranques to go about her day, she was harassed, intimidated and put in fear for her life and physical integrity. As she explained, “I was not afraid that they would kill me. I am not afraid of dying. What I was afraid of is that they would rape me.” Here, she was referring to other incidents in which rapes were carried out by people manning the tranques. As just one example, we learned of a female police officer who was kidnapped and raped by these forces over a three-day period.

Maria referred to those on the tranques as criminal elements who were well-supplied with water, food, weapons and even drugs. She then explained how she cried tears of joy when, on July 17, she saw government forces approaching her neighborhood to remove the tranques. She indeed referred to this act as one of “liberation” which finally brought her neighborhood relief after three months of virtual imprisonment.

And, far from fearing police activity in her neighborhood, she and her husband (who also wishes not to be named) felt frustration that the police had not acted more swiftly and resolutely to deal with the tranques. But, they explained, it was President Ortega’s orders for the police to remain in their barracks, and for residents not to take matters into their own hands, in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. And so, for three months, the police were locked down in their barracks, surrounded by the right-wing opposition forces who prevented water and food from reaching them. Indeed then, as Maria explained again with forceful tears, it was the police who were being laid siege to, and not the well-supplied protesters.

While Maria and many of her friends were prepared to fight the protesters destroying their town, and others like it, they heeded Ortega’s orders. In the end, they believe that Ortega was right to urge such restraint; that it was indeed such restraint, led by the disciplined Sandinistas, which saved many lives, preventing what has turned out to be possibly 300 dead from becoming possibly thousands dead. But you will never hear this in the mainstream press.

Similarly, while the mainstream press repeats the oppositions’ vague and unsubstantiated claims about government press censorship, it is in fact the extreme opposition which is censoring the press through violence. Thus, during our stay in Managua, we met with the staff of RadioYa!, a an independent, left-wing radio station which also happens to be the most popular radio station in the country and the most popular left-wing station in Latin America. The staff, now working out of a makeshift studio, is still in shock after their permanent radio station was burned to the ground by the right-wing opposition. Making it worse, 22 staff people, including a pregnant woman, were in the radio station when it was set ablaze. They were lucky to get out alive, but still live in fear of violent reprisals – so much so that some of them sleep in the station overnight for safety’s sake. As the staff explained, other left-wing media outlets have been similarly attacked, while no opposition outlets have been attacked. Moreover, they explained that we were the first Western reporters to bother to listen to their story.

We also visited the remnants of a credit union, named after Che Guevara, which had served poor and working people with small loans and with banking services which they would not otherwise be able to obtain because of their inability to keep significant funds in their accounts. This credit union too was burned down by the right-wing opposition, along with the computers and paper files inside. They even managed to destroy all of the vehicles on the property. Again, this was typical of the institutions targeted for destruction by the opposition – institutions which serve the poor and working class and which provide a social good to the community.

As another example, the opposition forces (most of whom were not themselves students) took over public universities, such as the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), trashed these universities, and prevented classes from being held. At the same time, the opposition did no harm to private universities.

All this, never discussed by the mainstream media, demonstrates the class nature of the opposition. It is aligned with the bourgeoisie against the working class, and has spent three months in an all-out assault upon working class institutions, individuals aligned with the Sandinista revolution and Sandinista symbols. In other words, the uprising by the opposition is not a revolution, but a US-backed counter-revolution, just as the Contra movement was in the 1980’s. And, the mainstream media has painted over the true nature of this opposition and their brutal tactics, just as it whitewashed the brutality of the Contras. That so many on the US left do not see this is truly disappointing.

The good news is that the Nicaraguan people are not fooled. After some initial confusion, they have now rallied around the Sandinista government. This was evidenced, as we witnessed, by the throngs who came out on July 19 with their red and black Sandinista flags to celebrate the victory over Somoza in 1979, and to celebrate the current victory over the right-wing.

This was also evidenced by the ubiquitous playing of the new hit song, “Daniel Se Queda” (Daniel Stays), a song written by Nicaraguan campesinosand demanding that Daniel Ortega remain as President even if it may hurt the opposition’s feelings. As the song’s chorus goes, “Even if it hurts! Even if it hurts! The Commander stays here. Daniel, Daniel, the town is with him.”

And, Nicaragua is undoubtedly better off with Daniel staying. For this proposition, I leave you again with the poetic words of Atilio Boron:

Conclusion: the fall of Sandinismo would weaken the geopolitical environment of the brutally attacked Venezuela and increase the chances for the generalization of violence throughout the region.

While in the Forum of Sao Paulo that just took place in Havana, I was able to delight in the contemplation of the Caribbean. There I saw, in the distance, a fragile little boat. It was handled by a robust sailor and, at the other end, there was a young girl. The helmsman looked confused and struggled to keep his course in the middle of a threatening swell. And it occurred to me that this image could eloquently represent the revolutionary process in Nicaragua, in Venezuela, Bolivia or anywhere.

The revolution is like that girl, and the helmsman is the revolutionary government. There is no human work safe from error; mistakes can be made that leave the helmsman at the mercy of the waves and endanger the life of the girl. To top it all, not far away was the ominous silhouette of a US warship, loaded with lethal weapons, death squadsand mercenary soldiers. How to save the girl? The helmsman could jump into the sea letting the boat sink, and with it the girl, delivering it to the mob of criminals thirsty for blood and ready to plunder the country, steal its resources and rape and then kill the young girl.

I do not see that as the solution. More productive would be that some of the other boats that are in the area approach the one in danger and make the helmsman stay on course. Sinking the boat that carries the girl of the revolution, or surrendering her to the U.S. ship, could hardly be considered revolutionary solutions.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27 ... nicaragua/

Pretty good piece considering who was on that trip...
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 28, 2018 11:34 am

Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega: ‘The Coup Was Defeated’
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JULY 24, 2018
https://i0.wp.com/www.el19digital.com/f ... .jpg?ssl=1
teleSUR, July 24, 2018
English Transcript Provided by Tortilla con Sal

Interview with President – Comandante Daniel Ortega with the Journalist Patricia Villegas on teleSUR

Journalist Patricia Villegas

We extend at this time, greetings from the City of Managua, Capital of Nicaragua, to the President of this Central American Country, Comandante Daniel Ortega. Comandante, thank you very much for making time for TELESUR, both in English and in Spanish.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Thanks, Patricia.

Patricia Villegas

How does a situation like the one that has been unfolding during the last three months reach Nicaragua? How did this happen to the Sandinista Revolution?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Actually, this is nothing more than an accumulation of violence, which did not disappear from our Country. That is to say, we had achieved peace, then later, in the period from 1990 to 2007, when we had other governments; that is, we turned over the Government in 1990 after the elections, and the governments that came to power after that represented the Somocismo which had been overthrown; therefore, they came with all the intention of cutting off the head of the Sandinista Party, they sought to extinguish Sandinismo.

That made that each Election that we had to go to, during those 17 years we went to three Elections, all the big economic groups would unite, the Representatives of the North American Government would come to tell the People that they shouldn’t vote for the FSLN because that meant the return of war with the United States. Planting fear in the population.

Meanwhile, extremist groups that had been part of the Contras, which did not understand peace, did not understand Reconciliation, mobilized in the rural areas, assassinating Sandinistas; many Sandinistas were murdered during that period, although the Army was playing its role, trying to control these armed groups, that also killed peasant families, simply because they did not lend them the support they wanted.

And these groups, that we refer to as criminals, fell into the hands of drug trafficking organizations, which operate in the boarder regions, and yes, presenting themselves as “Freedom Fighters”, looking for ways to disappear Sandinismo. That is to say, it was not enough for them to have the government, but they wanted to extinguish Sandinismo.

And when we were able to gain back the Government in 2007, these groups became more relevant, to the extent that the right wing press began to call them “freedom fighters”, and they also started to project them on social media, through the Media, from Miami, from Costa Rica, they were based in Costa Rica, in Miami, and the right wing media here in Nicaragua highlighted them, positioning them as if they were combatants that were fighting against a Sandinismo that had returned to bring war to Nicaragua, when rather a period of Peace, Stability, Understanding and Reconciliation had began.

But in spite of that, the bases of that which was Somocismo kept alive, of what was the Contra; one part of the Contra was reconciled, and even became our allies, but another part was never reconciled, and it is that part which continues in this attitude.

Patricia Villegas

And it is the one that has been expressing during the last three months.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

They express themselves in Liberalism, in the Liberal Party, which is Somoza´s Party, it is Somocismo! In other words, here we are combating Somocismo once again.

Patricia Villegas

Is it a repetition of the war of the 80´s?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

That is so, in a new circumstance where they began to organize these groups, they started assassinating in the rural areas, not only Sandinistas, but also attacked the Police; they would take over small Police Units in the rural areas, killing the Police, assassinating them. Then, when the police acted and managed to fight them off, and they fell in combat, then they were called “martyrs”, then came the Human Rights Organizations from all over to advocate for the “martyrs”, and the right-wing media, here also, and right wing organizations portrayed these criminals as victims. It is a permanent campaign! Therefore, as I say, here we have been accumulating forces of violence, of revenge, of hatred, which failed to disappear in these years, in which we achieved 11 years of stability, security and peace with that persistence.

Patricia Villegas

What broke the balance in this case, exactly what the international media was saying, Your proposal, your governments proposal, to approve a provisional reform. Is that what breaks the balance or that latency let us say, but with a predominance, of course, of Sandinismo in the exercise of power in your mind?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Actually, that was an element. The rupture begins to present itself from what was the Understanding, the Alliance in the Economic Sphere, which we had with the Nicaraguan businesspersons. Businesspersons who were not Sandinistas, logically, businesspersons who did not forget the period of the Triumph of the Revolution, when most of them left for Miami, which most of them supported the Counterrevolution, not all, but most of them did.

Many of these businesspersons, welcomed our openness to build an alliance between workers, private sector and the government, which could allow Nicaragua with a very fragile economy; you know that it is the second most fragile economy, after Haiti, could grow in a sustainable way, growing the Nicaraguan economy, improving the conditions of the Country, sharing benefits; the businessmen won, and I would say they were happy, they were satisfied.

Patricia Villegas

And why, if they did well, did the relationship fracture?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Why does the fracture happen? Because in the United States there has always been a group of congressmen seated in Florida, enemies of everything that is Revolution, enemies of Cuba, enemies of Venezuela, and therefore, also enemies of Nicaragua. They are the ones that welcomed the counterrevolutionaries in the 80´s, those North American congressmen, who promoted the financing of the war by the United States against Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Now, they could not understand, nor could they assimilate that the FSLN had returned to Government, they could not! After they had fought so much for us to never return to power by way of elections, they could not understand that in the end we would have returned through the electoral route, they could not accept it. And then came an entire campaign, for what? To go taking away what the Americans call cooperation from Nicaragua, which we rather see it simply as an investment, because Nicaragua provides services to the United States fighting Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime; in addition, the number of migrants going from Nicaragua to the United States is very low. That is, it provides an invaluable contribution in relation to what the United States gives Nicaragua, but they started making cuts.

And later, what came to shake this alliance the most was the initiative known as the Nica-Act, a Law aimed at blocking Nicaragua’s access to funds from multilateral organizations. That split the Private Sector: Some businessmen in favor of the Nica-Act and making arrangements for the Nica-Act to be approved; Other businessmen did not agree with the Nica-Act, because they understood that it would do a devastating damage to the whole Country, it was not about damaging the Government, it was damaging the entire National Economy.

Therefore that is where the fracture started, the fracture that already divided the business sector with respect to the understanding that they had with the Government, which was an understanding strictly in the Economic-Commercial Order, it was not Political; they, logically, ideologically, did not fit, and whenever they could they came out against the Government. They always forwarded their criticism to the Nicaraguan Government in the Political Institutional aspects.

Patricia Villegas

Now, those Businessmen have also declared in the last hours, you have done so in the Public Square, that one of the losers in these three months of violence is the Country´s Economy, growth projections are quite less than what was presented at the beginning of the year.

Have you dialogued with them again? Would you sit down here again? Would you again make an agreement with that Business Group, for the Prosperity of the Country, as it did at that time; or has that opportunity already passed, since you clearly identify that the problem is not even the provisional reform, but rather the aspirations of this business sector?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Let’s say, the poison is placed by the Nica-Act, that is, American interventionism in Nicaragua. This is the root of the problem. If the United States respects Nicaragua, and respects what we Nicaraguans say, regardless of ideology, and respects an Agreement between businessmen, workers and government, a country that is advancing, that has security, stability, and is growing, then, the business sector would be working with Nicaragua. And the reforms would have been approved, because everyone was clear that they were necessary, the International Organizations had already been here, they had met with them, with the business sector, and it was clear that the reforms had to be approved, and that they had to put their part as Businessmen, just like the Government and the Workers, in order to get the reforms approved.

Patricia Villegas

Would you put the reforms back on the table?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

But working it some more, we need to work on them some more, because they are indispensable, the reforms are essential; that is to say, the Social Security cannot be sustained, more so with the blow that the Economy has recently suffered, the blow is severe, the possibility of collecting revenue to sustain the Pension System has been seriously affected.

Therefore, today it is more urgent than ever to approve this reform, and we have to look for ways to get it approved. We need to achieve consensus, especially with the Social Security Affiliates. Why? Because the other problem is that, when the Businessman is taxed with a few more points, then there is discmfort. They did not like the 3.5 increase that would be applied to them in that reform, which would be applied gradually, 2 points for this year, 1 point for the year 2019, and 0.5 for the following year. It was a gradual reform.

Then they reacted, even though they knew that the reforms were necessary, they had already spoken with the Agencies, they themselves had said that the reforms were necessary; but when the reforms were approved, then they attacked them, and that was, shall we say, the signal to reactivate a plan that had already been underway, and that was gaining strength weeks before with the Indio Maíz forest fire. That’s when the full-fledged plan began, already with all the resources that were being provided to them by the United States, Organizations from the United States, preparing people, preparing cadres.

Patricia Villegas

Did you see it coming, Comandante? Did you see the situation that you are facing come?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Of course! With Indio Maiz we were seriously worried, because the movement started, they started to mobilize public opinion through the networks, this is a very sensitive issue, logically, Nature, the Environment, and blaming the Government for the fire! They turned it immediately, since this conspiracy has international networks and they already have international brands, then the brand appears immediately at a Global Level, and then the protest emerged condemning the Government of Nicaragua for allowing the Indio Maiz Reserve to burn.

Actually, American experts sent by the same Government of the United States came, experts in forest fires, they have large fires, right now they have a large fire and, when they learned about the situation here, they told us that this was going to last long, that this was going to last for months. Then, I said: This got complicated for us, it got complicated for us because the conditions were there for this Plan to develop, where they had already collected more weapons than what they already had and with which they had been carrying out crimes in the rural areas and towns.

It turns out that, in the area where the Indio Maiz Reserve is located it rains intensely, however it hadn’t rain for some time. When it did rain, suddenly it started to pour by the “bucket” as we say, and the fire subsided. Then the Indio Maíz plan fell for them.

Patricia Villegas

But in your reading, was that, say, the first great impulse of the conspiracy?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

That’s right, and it left them, let’s say, already in motion, and a bit frustrated because the fire went out. Then we put forth the reforms, and then they jumped on it.

Patricia Villegas

You have told me about the background to the events that generated violence since April in your country; you have also spoken to me about one of the key players from your perspective President Daniel Words Ortega, the business sector; but there is also another important question that I am going to ask you once we return from this first break, and it is the Church, the role of the Church in a country as Catholic as Nicaragua, and in the difference between the Local Church and the vision of Pope Francisco.

Comandante, in the first segment of this interview, I was asking you about the actors of this conflict in recent months in your country. In a very detailed manner you described the role of the business sector with whom the Sandinista Government, had made an alliance for the development of Nicaragua, and the role it has played in generating violence.

But I asked a question and it remains unanswered, and I want to clarify this. Would you invite them back to work together with you, in a room just like the one we are in right now?… Would you sit down again with the business sector, which has been most active in this stage of violence?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Yes, we started with the principle that dialogue, understanding and consensus is necessary; we maintain that principle, regardless of the situation we are currently experiencing.

Patricia Villegas

Are there any signs of them wanting to sit down again?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Not. That is, the business leaders have not given us any signals, but the businessmen that are not represented in this association, who are participating in meetings called by the government to address specific issues that have to do with the different Sectors of the National Economy are participating. That is a positive signal.

But still the leadership, which logically has great influence, is still undecided, let’s say, they are still under the influence of the forces that have shocked our country. We are open to dialogue and agreements, taking into consideration the new conditions, starting from the new reality we face; because history cannot be repeated either, that is, that moment that we enjoyed with sufficient balance, with enough harmony, will not be repeated.

Patricia Villegas

What would these new conditions be?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I believe that the new conditions would have to be based strictly on the role of the private sector, in terms of contributing to the development of the Country’s Economy and, not as much as we had incorporated them into the Alliance, because it was an Alliance, where we started from the fact that they could participate, comment on different topics, including Laws. We did not approve any Law if it was not in consensus with the private sector.

We maintain the willingness to do so regarding laws, approve them in consensus with the private sector; but other fields where, I would say, the scope was exceeded by giving them participation, I don’t think they themselves want it, because it would make them appear as if they are again folding to the Government, because, the extreme right, that is mobilized in this coup, in this conspiracy, would accuse them, blame them for being accomplices of the Government, for having made an alliance with the Government.

Patricia Villegas

Would the new conditions also be for the Church? And there I return to the question that was left in the air when we closed our first segment of the conversation, because that alliance also included the Nicaraguan Church, in a highly religious country.

Will the hierarchy of the Church sit back down here after it has been known, its public, notorious, videos are known, widely distributed by Social Networks, of Churches as places where there have even been snipers, where weapons have been stored? The priests of the Nicaraguan High Hierarchy have been very active in these acts of violence; have denounced your government as an oppressive regime. What happens with that Church? Would it sit down again? What reading do you have of that Church, of your relationship, for such a religious People, as this one?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I would echo the words of Cardinal Brenes, this Sunday, when he said to the parishioners who were there in the Temple, he told them, that we have to fight for Peace, that Peace is most important, and that we all have a demon inside, and that the Priests have two demons inside, he said. That is to say, and I believe that it is a reality that we all have these internal elements, Love and Hate are in there, suddenly Love prevails, Hate suddenly imposes itself in all fields.

And I believe in the words of the Cardinal when he said he is for Peace, and I know that not all the Episcopal Conference acted in this attempt … No! It was the case of some Priest, where either their Bishops didn’t know, or they were tolerated by their Bishops, but the fact is that some priests allowed their temples to become barracks, where people who were captured in the roadblocks were even tortured there, and outrageously, even in the presence of a Priest. Of course, we are Humans, in the end we are Humans.

Patricia Villegas

Would you forgive then, I am interpreting your words, and would you sit here again and Dialogue?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Yes, yes, of course! We are willing to converse, not only with them, but with everyone.

Patricia Villegas

Are the conditions there Mr. President?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I would say that it is necessary to create them, because even now the messages that have come out do not help to create those conditions, but rather tend to move away from the conditions. But, the Message that Cardinal Brenes gave on Sunday, is a message that would be like giving a signal, a starting point to begin working toward the necessary conditions.

Patricia Villegas

And do you also read Pope Francis’ message with that perspective?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Yes, he is always for Peace, unquestionably; He is very firm in that, in defending the Struggle for Peace.

Patricia Villegas

Dictator, murderer, director of paramilitary groups, these are terms, words, expressions that have appeared widely in the World’s Media. I want to ask you directly, President Ortega: Has the Government of Nicaragua sponsored paramilitary groups to persecute the population, what is the battle of the news that floods the media?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Here what is known as paramilitary groups, we already know what the concept of a paramilitary group means, to what it is linked; but in our reality, when we speak of paramilitary groups, we have to talk about these groups that I have mentioned to you, that have been organized for years now, and that took more strength from 2007, killing peasants, assassinating soldiers, assassinating police officers; many of them also falling in combat with the police or the army, where the Right Wing is presenting these criminals as “patriots”.

That is to say, these are the groups that I could call paramilitary in Nicaragua, because they are organized by the Right, armed by the Right, sponsored by Intelligence Organizations, which come, logically, from the United States, and which are the ones that began armed attacks on April 19; because on April 18, when the law was enacted, the law was announced, then there were some protests, with minor incidents

Patricia Villegas

But were there many discontented people, honestly dissatisfied with the Law?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Those who appeared were not the retirees, they were not the ones receiving pensions, they were not the insured, they did not protest, they were in accordance with the Law. Those who came out to protest were the political groups of the right that have ignored the Government; those who called for abstention in each election, those were Non-Governmental Organizations and Parties of the Right.

They appeared to protest, there were some incidents with some young people from the Sandinista Youth, and the most that happened there was a stone, which hit the head of one of these NGO leaders. And that was all that happened, because the police quickly arrived to avoid violence, the police were careful, without hitting anyone, until the situation subsided, the groups withdrew, and the night was quiet.

The following night, in an unexpected way, armed groups appeared attacking police headquarters, attacking Municipal Buildings, throughout the country, attacking the Offices of the FSLN and the homes of Sandinistas throughout the country. That is, attacking… and they were armed, they were armed! They were not unarmed, they were armed! Then the fighting started, there were battles, confrontations.

Patricia Villegas

Who against whom?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

The Coupe Right, in its military expression, let’s say, attacking the authorities, like the Police, and attacked the local authorities, where the FSLN is governing. Logically they were not going to attack a Local Government where the Right is governing, but attacking the Municipal Buildings where the FSLN governs, to look for ways to take them over; but as the attacks were foreseen, Comrades from these Local Government Buildings begun entrenching, fighting back, defending themselves; they were being attacked with AK rifles, Buildings were being attacked.

Patricia Villegas

If I understand you well, your government has not financed or sponsored paramilitary groups. That would be your response to that number of headlines that today is in the different media around the world?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

It´s that, if we are going to talk about paramilitaries, the only paramilitary groups are the ones on the Right; they are groups, I would say, the way I see it…right? We have Armed Forces, Army, Police, which are Constitutional Forces; and at the same time, clandestine armed forces, which are what have become the instrument of death of the right wing coup.

Patricia Villegas

There are many young people in some of those violent mobilizations, I have seen photographs, videos, of boys with artisanal weapons. Have you identified this before these months of violence? Could you anticipate that there was youth training? Has this surprised you? And I ask you at once Comandante, are these images in many cases very similar to those experienced during the times of “Guarimbas” in Venezuela?

There are also similar symbols: There is a boy who plays the violin in Managua, like a boy who plays the violin in Caracas; and there is a girl who shouts, in the midst of supposed attacks by Nicaraguan Authorities, saying: “I am fighting for my Country, for the Democracy of my Country”, as a girl in Maidan, Ukraine shouted, as a girl in Altamira shouted, in a Venezuelan Plaza. Are there any similarities to this? And I ask this for the youth element of this attempted coup.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Yes, there are similarities, and not only similarities that are spontaneous, there has simply been a preparation here, there has been funding for that preparation, for what? To transfer the experience of those other countries where this type of coup has taken place, transfer them to Nicaragua.

Even, here they have come from Venezuela, Venezuelans have come, from those who have participated in the “Guarimbas”, of those who are experts in the management of Social Networks, to transfer that experience here. And they have also traveled; young people financed by agencies of the United States, have traveled to Venezuela, as they have traveled to the United States, to assimilate a greater experience.

Now, as to what these younger boys are, there are some who are unquestionably students, but others who are not students at all, these are the gangs of impoverished people, who have been here in Nicaragua and we have been working with them, so they can begin leaving the violence and are incorporated back into their families, the workforce, schools. All that we had been working with these gangs.

In other words, gangs have been in Nicaragua all this time, during these 11 years, work was been done with gangs. I remember even, in an event with the Police, we had just won the Government, the Police had been doing a job with the gangs, so that the gangs delivered their artisanal weapons, and in return they were given Sports Equipment, they were given materials for school that is, they were given elements so that they could change their attitudes.

Artisanal weapons were already a reality in Nicaragua, without the gangs getting to the levels of the Mara. It was a gang that in the presence of the police, well, there it stood. Suddenly they clashed with the police, but then, the Police endured and, communication was achieved within the neighborhoods, with family members, with the families of the neighborhood that have children who are not gang members and who feared the gangs.

Patricia Villegas

And all this emerged in the middle of this situation?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Then, these gangs were incorporated as a shock force as well; that is, they incorporated them, they paid them.

Journalist Patricia Villegas

With payment?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

With payment. In all the Municipalities of the Country they were paid to incorporate them.

Patricia Villegas

Commander, how does a Country recover from this? It is said that there are even more than 200 victims of these acts of violence. Are you already thinking, let’s say, in the nearest Future, how can you heal these wounds?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

The hardest thing is always to heal the wounds that cause death. The Economy, of course it is a hard blow for the Country, but well, the material can be recovered, but Life cannot be recovered, and when we have so many dead, so many dead! Today, three Sandinista Brothers killed by these groups that I call paramilitaries, in Rural Areas, in the Department of Matagalpa … Policemen killed! They are entire families that are hurt and want justice.

Patricia Villegas

Will there be Justice?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

We are on that, we are in that fight, so that Justice is done.

Patricia Villegas

Even though you have said in this Interview with TELESUR that you are willing to Dialogue, to sit down again with the Private Sector, with the Catholic Church. Do you also guarantee the search for Justice in the midst of all these facts?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Of course! Of course! There must be Justice, so that at least, if Life cannot be recovered, there is Justice; This is a signal that helps the Family of the victims feel…

Patricia Villegas

And if it were found that there was an excess of Public Officials involved in some acts of violence, do you guarantee that same Justice?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

It’s even, Justice is even, of course, Justice for all!

Patricia Villegas

We are going to ask you about an element that seems structural in these months of crisis, and it is the Geopolitical Vision, who is causing it, but also how to get out of it?

Commander, let’s talk about the Geopolitics of what you have called an ongoing coup d’état, a coup d’état in progress. You have explained to us in the first part of this Interview, that it began even before April 18th or 19th; You have explained to us the role of Local Businessmen, the role of the Church, also of the so-called paramilitary groups, financed, as You have indicated it was during the War of the 1980´s, by internal and external factors. But who are these external factors? You have said American imperialism, but let us talk concretely about whom, naming them, where does the money come from? Have you identified them? What are you going to do? What is the plan?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

The Political Base is in Florida, it is in Miami, the Political Base is there; that is, there are Congressmen, there are Senators, who feel like it is their duty to put an end to the Sandinista. And since they could not put an end to the Sandinistas during the war of the 80s, and the Sandinistas survived, although leaving the Government, they continued fighting, and retook the Government, so they are the ones who have taken the task, a a task that obsesses them, and we see clearly how these Congressmen, these Senators, clearly mark Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
They are the 3 Countries that they mark the most.

Patricia Villegas

They are the three “jewels of the crown” at this time, so to speak.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

They are marking them. They are marking them. Then, from there stems Initiatives of all sorts, from what is to seek financing for these groups, raising funds, via the Government of the United States.

Patricia Villegas

There are 31 million dollars from USAID, at least what is declared, for Nicaragua.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

That is so. Then they look for funding to be approved by the United States Government and, at the same time, they move funds though other ways, so that these people can develop their conspiratorial plans.

Patricia Villegas

You and your People managed to defeat the Americans in the war … Are you going to do it now too?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I am sure that we will consolidate Peace. I would say, we have been ablt to defeat the Coup.

Patricia Villegas

Do you already feel that you defeated it?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I feel so; I feel that the Coup, as it was already being implemented… Of course, they are going to insist, because they going to stay with their arms crossed, and even more so when we are seeing initiatives in the United States, even the Congress of the United States, to take more actions against Nicaragua.

Patricia Villegas

Is a Direct Dialogue with President Donald Trump possible? Do you think that this could, at a certain moment, stop or modify the United States Strategy towards Nicaragua?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I think it would be ideal, but the policies toward our Countries are being managed by these extreme right wing groups, who even negotiate with US Government to introduce legislation against our Countries, in exchange for approving Laws that are of interest of the Government, internally in the United States. Meaning, they have that power, because they have a few votes that help them negotiate over there.

Patricia Villegas

And they have votes in the Organization of American States as well.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

That is so.

Patricia Villegas

Did you expect that reaction from the Organization of American States against your Government, against your person? There was, in addition, good relations with the Secretary General, at least that is what was seen in the Media. Tell us if it was like that.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Well, we have had a respectful relation; a Process to strengthen and improve the Electoral Mechanism in Nicaragua was worked out and has been worked with the OAS. A job is there, toward 2021.

Patricia Villegas

Some see that as a concession to the Organization of American States.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

It is possible that they see it that way, but we must take into account that in Nicaragua it was essential, it was necessary to move this type of initiative, either with the OAS or with any other Organization that would accompany Nicaragua; the relationship with the OAS was established.

Logically, what is happening now comes to put a cloud over this effort, why? Because what we are seeing in the OAS is how a group of countries that have rallied against Venezuela, now join in against Nicaragua; That is to say, Countries that are governed, it is not the fault of the Peoples logically, the Peoples I am sure do not share these Policies of those Governments, but, Countries that are governed by those who have a revengeful mentality.

That is, they do not understand that reaching to the Government does not mean imposing policies on other countries with which there do not have ideological and political affinity. Different is the maturity, the seriousness of the Left Forces, which have been and are in Government in Latin America, we have been respectful of that Principle. That is, when CELAC was installed, the Left, which was a majority, did not try to impose anything on the Political Forces of the Right Governments.

Patricia Villegas

But we are facing a CELAC and a UNASUR practically, let’s say, deactivated, or very beaten; a Group is set up, which is the Group of Lima, against Venezuela, it is the same Group that in the Organization of American States we saw operating against Nicaragua, is that kind of battle coming at the Geopolitical Level?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

The problem is that now we have a Latin America that is polarized by a Right that is acting with a revenge mentality, a revenge mentality that takes them to become interventionist; because what they have done with Venezuela, what they are doing with Nicaragua, is simply called interventionism.

Patricia Villegas

Are they charging Nicaragua, in any way, their firm position in the face of the attempts against Venezuela in the Organization of American States, in ALBA and in all Multilateral Organizations? Does that position have anything to do with what has happened?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Yes, that is why there is revenge. Revengefulness, why? Because they do not understand that Nicaragua has Affinity and Solidarity with Venezuela, with Cuba, they cannot understand it! They would like Nicaragua to submit to their dictates, and their dictates are, at the same time, subject and subordinated to the dictates of whom?, of the North American Policy, and of the most closed, poisoned and though American policy, which is the one that is incubated there in Florida.

Patricia Villegas

How are you going to defeat those enemies, let’s say, of the Latin American and Caribbean Integration; who have driven this Coup d’etat against you?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

They will be defeated by their Peoples. Everything has its time. It is the Peoples who will defeat them. To the extent that their Peoples defeat them, then we will have Governments, regardless of their ideology, which will be more respectful Governments, more lovers of Latin American and Caribbean integration; that is, to think in a really constructive way, for the benefit of everyone.

Patricia Villegas

Is there Dialogue with those Governments, or is that Dialogue closed at this time?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

We have normal relations, but in this field we have only deep contradictions, logically, because we are clashing with them there in the OAS.

Patricia Villegas

There are some voices that were once Sandinistas or that claim to be Sandinistas, about which I would like to ask you, President-Commander, they are a reference to Nicaragua in the whole world and that now they have been very heard and are hypercritical toward you, toward your Government, even toward the Vice President of the Country; I speak, for example, about the Poet Ernesto Cardenal, of those who make up the Sandinista Renovation Movement.

What would you say to them if you had them in front of you, in front of what they say about your Government, your actions, not only in this crisis, but fundamentally in this crisis? They have a lot of space in the Media.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

What they are saying is not new, they have been repeating it for years … Since when? When they decided to separate from the Sandinista Front.

Patricia Villegas

Have they been key in this stage of the coup, or do you not give them that role?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Let’s say, they provided them with a voice to campaign against Nicaragua; they help the coup, logically, by joining these campaigns; but, really they had separated from the FSLN after 1990. That is to say, while we were in the Government, none of them separated, they occupied their posts, and they did not separate, they were there. We left the government, then they separated and began to speak out against the Sandinista Government of the 80´s, they sought to wash their hands, to wash their hands… They were saying they had nothing to do with that, and became critical, when obviously they had been part of that process.

Then, that Movement was formed, that Movement that ended up turning to the Right, and allied with and supported candidates of the Right in the National Elections. That is the best proof we can have of who they really are; that is, they stopped being Sandinistas a long time ago.

Patricia Villegas

But it is these voices who some people listen to and that have generated statements such as those of Pablo Iglesias, of “Podemos”, in Spain; of former President Pepe Mujica, you have read them; of the Chilean Intellectual, Manuel Cabieses. Could you answer them through this Interview with TELESUR, those Leaders, say, of these Progressive Movements in the World, and who are clearly understanding the Nicaraguan situation in another way?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Well, I have to respect them, I have to respect their points of view, their opinion, an opinion that I think is based on friendships, why? Because logically they are Intellectuals, they are Friends, they know each other, and then they echo what one another says, and immediately the other echoes. It’s as simple as I see it. So there, it is very difficult to understand, I could only say that if they knew a little more about what happened in Nicaragua, about the History of Nicaragua, what I am pointing out, that they left the FSLN after the loss of the election.

They did not leave before! Ernesto was Minister of the Sandinista Government until April 25, 1990, which was when we handed over the Government. He did not leave before! Before, he was very radical, very supportive of the Sandinista Government. And leaving Ernesto, others left, even Vice President Sergio Ramirez, who was my Vice President! He also left. Well, they decided to take another path, they cannot be forced, they decided to take another path; the bad thing here, let’s say, the dishonest thing is, to take another road and washing your hands, as if to say: I had nothing to do with everything that was done in the 80s. Like they were not part of the Sandinista Government.

Patricia Villegas

Comandante, we are running out of time in this Dialogue with TELESUR, look, I was asking a lot of questions, they are still there in the pipeline; but before concluding I would like to ask you: An error and a success of yours, of your Government, of your Team in these months of violence? Let’s start with the error, what went wrong? What would you not do again?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

I think that mistakes are inevitable, they are inevitable! If we can call them mistakes, because we could say, it was a mistake that these ex-Sandinistas we are talking about, like Ernesto Cardenal, like Sergio Ramírez, that is, those who left the FSLN, that it was a mistake to have had them in the FSLN, for them to have been a part of the Leadership of the FSLN, to have Sergio as my Vice President of the Republic, that I had taken him as candidate to the Vice Presidency in the 1990’s Elections.

You could say that this was a mistake … But no, it was a stage, they are stages of the struggle where, well, we needed the Convergence, let’s say, a convergence that was not really solid in ideological terms, but it was a convergence required by the political juncture, it paid off as soon as it allowed progress in the Revolutionary Process in Nicaragua.

Therefore, what could be considered an error, the Alliance with the private sector, I do not consider it a mistake, why? Because it allowed Nicaragua to advance for 11 years, as it had never advanced before! And that remains in the memory of the people, it is in the memory of the people, it is very fresh in the memory of the people! And it is very fresh in the memory of the people how overnight, with the attempted coup, the whole country was blocked off, insecurity was created, the terror in the population, the paralyzed economy; then there is the contrast between Nicaragua until April 18th, and Nicaragua, under the terror of the coup plotters, after April 19th.

So, I think it’s hard to talk about mistakes when it comes to processes where forces are gathered; forces come together, individualities come together, they add up, help to advance; suddenly they are detached, suddenly they go to the other side, but hey, they played their role in the Stage.

And there are those who then say to you, yes: But how is it possible that you had this Vice President, if you knew that he was never from the left, that he came from Somoza’s Family? That’s what they say to me, and the Comrades asked since back then why was Sergio Vice President? They complained. But it had to be understood that it was part of an effort to add, to add wills, add different sectors, and be able to better resist the aggression that the Revolution was suffering after its triumph in 79.

Patricia Villegas

And the success? Something you say: We have done this fundamentally well, to have the Political Intelligence to understand what was happening, to know how to read the enemy. Many people have told me: The President won Peace, because he knew how to calculate the timing of this Coup. Do you consider it that way?

Comandante Daniel Ortega

So it is. They began to open up, they started to show their nails, as we say, they were taking them out, and we logically, avoiding, avoiding, avoiding falling into provocation, avoiding the appearance of an overreaction, which confused them, they began to believe that we were weak, they thought that the People had ceased to be Sandinistas. Some of them told us that the FSLN had no strength. So, what did do? We allowed them to carry out their strategy, and to say clearly, what they really wanted, which was to overthrow the Government.

Patricia Villegas

And early elections, then? You already said that there will be no Early Elections.

Comandante Daniel Ortega

That´s right. They are still trying to overthrow the government. They are still repeating the speech: the government must go!

Patricia Villegas

At the first session of the National Dialogue: “You have to go.”

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Yes, that’s what they said. Then they took out what was their strategy; we remained calm, patient, they began to think that we were weak, that we were defeated, that is what they gathered! We waited for the right moment to take the step, to restore Peace, to reestablish Peace in Nicaragua, to normalize the Country.

Patricia Villegas

And defeat the Coup, as you told us today in this Dialogue with teleSUR. Comandante, thank you very much for your time. And many thanks to you too, for having teleSUR on your screens at home. You know, there’s always more here!

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 07, 2018 9:20 pm

U.S. empire’s hidden hand in push to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government
By Eli Clemente GrijalvaAug 06, 2018

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U.S. empire’s hidden hand in push to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government
Supporters of the FSLN. Photo: La Voz del Sandinismo

For months, the corporate media has been pushing a narrative about a popular uprising against the “dictatorship” of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua. A closer look, however, reveals the fingerprints of U.S. imperialism all over this effort to destabilize and remove from power a popular left-wing government that stands up for the country’s independence.

Politicians in the United States, particularly Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Ted Cruz, have been pushing aggressively for years to get the Nicaragua Investment Conditionality Act (NICA Act) passed. This act would impose harsh sanctions against the country, preventing it from getting international loans used to finance social programs like the country’s universal healthcare and universal education.

Over the years, the U.S. government has used agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to provide enormous amounts of funding and training to various “pro-democracy” groups in the country. These organizations all do the covert work similar to CIA operations, something NED founder Allen Weinstein has openly stated.

In June, student protesters visited the United States to talk with President Donald Trump, Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and USAID director Mark Green about regime change. The delegation from the Nicaraguan opposition included Zayda Hernández, Migueliuth Sandoval Cruz, Fernando Jose Sanchez, and Victor Cuadras Franco Ordonez. This visit was financed by Freedom House, an anti-communist, imperialist think tank partnered with the NED and funded by the State Department. After this visit, Rubio, Cruz and Ros-Lehtinen authored a letter calling for harsh sanctions against Nicaragua.

Also in June, a delegation led by Félix Mariadiaga, director of the Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos y Políticas Públicas (Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policy; IEEPP), and Radio Darío director Aníbal Toruño spoke at the Organization of American States to voice opposition to the Sandinista government. The IEEPP has received over $200,000 from the NED in the past 3 years. Radio Darío is a right-wing radio program also openly financed by the NED. While in the United States, Mariadiaga was charged in Nicaragua for his role in the wave of anti-government violence. The State Department released a statement of support for him.

Yerling Aguilera is a researcher at the Universidad Politecnica de Nicaragua (Polytechnic University of Nicaragua; UPOLI) and is employed by the IEEPP. She has recently published articles in the Washington Post denouncing the “authoritarian regime” and openly calling for regime change.

The NDI claims to have trained 2,000 “young leaders” in Nicaragua. Between 2014 and 2017, the NED has sent over $4.2 million to about 40 different “democracy” groups in the country, and USAID has funneled more than $30 million into the country.

The Movimiento Cívico de Juventudes (Civic Youth Movement, MCJ) is a “youth democratic participation group” created and funded by the NDI. It is made up largely of graduates from the NDI’s Leadership and Political Conduct Certification program. The chairperson of the NDI is former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, famous for publicly defending the genocidal sanctions against Iraq in 1996 that resulted in the death of half a million children, and its board of directors as a whole consists of a variety of former and current U.S. government officials and business executives. Opposition figure Jessica Cisneros is a member of the MCJ. Davis José Nicaragua Lopéz is the general secretary and founder of the MCJ, along with being the coordinator of NDI operations in Nicaragua.

Any government that defies the dictates of the U.S. government immediately becomes a target. Sometimes regime change efforts take the form of overt military intervention, but more often they are hidden behind a network of U.S.-aligned political forces who represent the interests of domestic elites at the expense of their own country’s sovereignty. This is the case in Nicaragua today.

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sun Aug 12, 2018 10:10 pm

Nicaragua: The Best Way to Prepare for New Destabilizaton Attempts
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 12, 2018
Gustavo Espinoza

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A conversation with Carlos Fonseca Terán, Vice Secretary for International Relations of Nicaragua’s Sandinista Front for National Liberation

“The best way to be ready for new destabilizaton attempts is to deepen the model of popular participation in decision taking…”

Compañero Carlos, how do you assess what’s going on right now in Nicaragua? How do yu describe it or evaluate it? What’s your opinion with regard to the process your country is living through in the days?

Well, what we are living though in Nicaragua is the application of the regime change format for governments not allied to the United States, which has been applied in many parts of the world, in Ukraine, in Arab countries, in Venezuela. A format which has certain characteristics for each reality. In our case it has had different phases.

The first of these was generalized chaos. Later, the coup attempt combined mass calls to action and peaceful demonstrations with acts of violence, attacks against Sandinistas and destruction of public buildings, private houses and also the dismantling of symbolic structures like the Trees of Life in Managua.

So that combination was the departure point for the following stage which was terrorism. They prepared politically for the stage of terrorism after applying a formula because in the stage of the combination of peaceful demonstrations with acts of vandalism and violence, they developed a formula to create false massacres. That formula consisted of attacking Sandinistas with armed groups and then presenting the deaths from both sides without distinction, the product of a confrontations started by them but as if the dead were all victims of a massacre carried out by police and paramilitaries.

That is the formula they applied to make the whole world think that here was a genocidal government that killed civilians. As time has gone by, the reality has managed to come to light in more detail. And more and more people are realizing the deceit of all this manipulation.

After this stage, as I was saying, came the stage of terrorism in which the modus operandi of the attempted coup was to install roadblocks on highways and barricades in the cities. In the latter case, the role of the right-wing media was to generate collective hysteria by means of false news about fictitious confrontations, fictitious attacks, such that many people, lacking information, set up barricades not because they were against the government but because they wanted to prevent the block where they lived being a scene of confrontation, as a form of self-defense.

Also the right wing media achieved a higher television audience because they were permanently presenting false news. When people sought out the government media and found other things, not news of what was going on, or rather there was also news of what was happening but it was as things happened with real news. While in the right wing media they repeated the same news all day, mostly false events. So people thought that if they watched the right wing media they’d be better informed. It was a self-deceiving way of feeling informed, which is a natural need. So that allowed the right wing media to increase the number of people viewing them. That contributed a lot to the psychological warfare by means of which people are lied to so as to encourage hatred and to assign blame, be they Sandinista or opposition supporters, and from there springs fear.

And the fear manifests as aggression in the case of the opposition supporters while among Sandinista supporters it manifests as a mental state of low self-esteem among other things. At least, that was what the coup promoters had in mind and in the end it didn’t work out for them. Because, for example in that stage of terrorism, by means of the roadblocks they managed to capture Sandinistas and they severely tortured them, they murdered them, raped women and furthermore filmed what they were doing so as to intimidate Sandinistas as part of the psychological war. It was by no means spontaneous.

They did so deliberately because they had previously prepared public opinion so that people would think when they saw those acts of barbarism that it was ordinary people taking the law into their own hands and, if one can put it this way, punishing people responsible for genocide. But it didn’t work out like that . They didn’t intimidate Sandinista opinion. Instead they inflamed it. And people generally didn’t view things as the coup promoters expected. Instead they began to give us the benefit of the doubt. The people who had believed we were murdering peacefully demonstrating civilians began to give us the benefit of the doubt based on the broadcasting of those images by the coup promoters themselves. One of the best ways of seeing the falsity of the accusations of massacres is that during the stage where political demonstrations were combined with violence, the middle classes demonstrated in Managua’s big roundabouts and got together quite large numbers of people and nobody bothered them. At that time the police were off the streets in their stations at the request of the coup promoters themselves. The objective was to be able to move on to the stage of terrorism.

With the police off the streets, they were able to take over various cities that later on were retaken by the police and rescued from the extortion into which they had fallen at the hands of the forces supporting the coup who were then losing room for maneuver in every sense. because people began to open their eyes. Some people at east giving us the benefit of the doubt and other people realizing they had been fooled. But it’s a fact that it’s easier to deceive people than t help them see they have been deceived because if you make them see they have been fooled you are hurting their self-esteem. That is a process that takes more time while deceiving people takes a matter of minutes by means of well thought out techniques of manipulation.

So then began the offensive stage seeing that in the National Dialogue these people did not show the least disposition to get things back to normal. They started by asking the President to resign, then they asked for elections to be brought forward, and we can say that’s where they have stuck, because the issue of social security reform, the pretext of social protest then turned out as self-evidently a political maneuver aimed at overthrowing the government and it’s important to point out that these people promoting the coup wanted to use the dialogue as a mechanism of extortion.

So they created their false massacres and that served them as a pretext to suspend the dialogue. To whom exactly? To the false mediators who were in fact on the side of the opposition. That became absolutely clear when they asked the President of the Republic to reply within 48 hours on the issue of bringing forward the elections with a fixed date. So progress was made once that stage pf terrorism ended and the urban centers were retaken such that the coup promoters had no cities under their control, no roadblocks, no barricades and no people either because people were resisting by then. The coup promoters could no longer call on the number of people they had at the start, fewer and fewer people turned out for them, precisely because people realized they had been fooled and other people who hadn’t reached that point were doubting that we really had committed the genocide we were accused of. Yet other people, among supporters of the coup themselves, continued to believe their lies but were afraid. In other words, fear took hold of them too and affected them more than us.

The campaign of fear blew back on them. They didn’t intimidate Sandinistas and they ended up generating fear among their own supporters. And that is more or less how things have been working out in our case where a soft coup has been tried, which has nothing soft about it. According to the analysis that’s been done, it’s very clear that there are similar numbers of dead on our side to the dead on their side. In part that’s explained by the fact that we were on the defensive for most of this maneuver, because the orders to Sandinistas were to defend themselves but not to attack, so as to avoid contributing to a growing spiral of violence.

In fact that reached a limit during the stage of terrorism when the decision was taken to go on the offensive because the situation that had come about was unsustainable. They went so far as to lay siege to the police in their stations and Masaya was the most emblematic case where the police were for a long time under siege by the terrorist groups and the police, with the armament they had, could perfectly well have broken the siege with blood and fire but they didn’t, precisely so as to avoid unnecessary deaths.

So really things were the reverse of what the right wing media have presented. The responsibility, the level of restraint, of respect for life on the part of the Sandinista government I think has no historical precedent. A government that accepts taking its police force off the streets so as to remove pretexts for the opposition that says we are massacring people, that concedes everything while the opposition concede absolutely nothing. That is a demonstration of incredible restraint, of responsibility and care for people lives, in this case on the part of the government and the police.

The damage caused to the country by these terrorist groups are immeasurable, did you never suspect they were preparing actions of this kind? Did you never think of preparing the population to confront this type of action? Or did you think it cud never happen because Sandinista policies had done enough to merit the people’s acceptance and support?

Well, to understand the effect that can be produced by the manipulative capability of psychological warfare techniques used in the war imposed upon us, one thing is to be well aware that the plan is ready to be put into action and another thing is to confront its concrete results. So, although we knew that the imperialist enemy and its subordinate forces or the forces the enemy has inside our country were ready to carry out that maneuver to overthrow the government, it’s not until the moment they implemented it that we were able to begin addressing the situation.

There’s something important to bear in mind. One thing is support for the government, or rather, the number of people in agreement with the government, content with the government, who think the government is doing a good job. Quite another thing are the people who support the government because they identify with the political, social, economic project under way, who feel it belongs to them, which is always a smaller number than the people who are content with the government.

But the people who are happy with the government in very many cases do not have enough information nor are they psychologically prepared to manage to resist a psychological warfare offensive of the kind that has been implemented in Nicaragua. So they readily change their minds and can turn against the government from one moment to the next, thanks to the kind of manipulation we have had in this case. Furthermore, in this situation for our part we had not yet developed the antibodies to address this kind of warfare, because it is very new and very difficult to confront for the first time. But now we have faced it, we have developed the means to address it, which we didn’t have to begin with.

On another point, this has also helped us become aware of the need to strengthen the political model of popular participation in government decision making, because without that mechanism that we have created, the model collapses. If we had developed that model more and earlier, institutionalized it, deepened it, then his situation would not have occurred. Because the reforms to the social security system, for example, would have been produced by popular participation and people would have had ownership of them and been sufficiently well informed, and that’s without including the organic structures of the Sandinista Front, and would have been fully convinced of the need for those reforms and so the manipulation that took place, misrepresenting the reforms as the opposite of what they were, would not have been possible.

But they were presented back to front, using some easy to misrepresent elements of the reforms to do so. And since people were misinformed, that created the perfect situation enabling space for the opposition to create the initial confrontations. And via a series of maneuvers present a situation in which they portrayed us as massacring students, which is absolutely false. But that is what was believed initially by a number of people, which in turn set off the crisis in which afterwards we were all affected.

Another thing is the need to strengthen the content of our political work in the organic structures of the FSLN as a party. That is another need being argued. And this kind of situation makes us aware of the need to use methods of political leadership and styles of work that allow us sufficient strength in our ranks to be able to achieve the aim of strengthening the model of popular political leadership in the government’s decision making so as to prevent opportunities for the enemy to carry out his kind of maneuver, generating this kind of crisis and prevent them from managing to apply this format for overthrowing governments.

From that point of view, let’s say the enemy wanted to create a political crisis and overthrow the government. They won’t achieve that but nor is imperialism going to give up the idea of liquidating the Sandinista process. Things will happen that have been more or less announced. One is external pressure. The OAS resolution is a step in that direction. The Lima Group is demanding sanctions against Nicaragua. Some governments in the region will take action in that regard. External pressure is going to be felt in various ways. That means they’ll try to block access to credit and foreign investment to try and promote under supply of goods, provoke economic crisis so as to create disturbances and then they’ll start talking about a humanitarian crisis in Nicaragua to see if they can bring about a more serious intervention. A third element it seems to me is that they are going to try and stoke internal convulsions, social unrest, because there are always internal conflicts that are difficult to resolve, above all in relation to workers’ incomes or class confrontation. For example, I understand labor organization is weak among Nicaraguan workers. So that offers employers the chance to attack workers more easily and that could provoke a reaction by organized labor or workers against the employers and that gives rise to even sharper class confrontation. ¿How do you think those challenges should be met?

Well, as I said earlier, the best way to be prepared for these new attempts at destabilization is to deepen the model of popular participation in government decision making and to strengthen the organic structure of the Sandinista Front. That will allow us to do the things we didn’t do before. for example, when it was decided to reform the Social Security system, the private business sector employers’ organization COSEP was totally opposed to it and that signaled the breakdown of the model of consensus we had successfully promoted for ten years between workers, private sector employers and the government. As a result of that model we had managed to achieve a minimum wage much greater than the increase in the minimum wage under previous governments over a longer period of time, such that this consensus was beneficial for workers and its results were also approved by the private business employers. When the employers broke with the consensus and when it became clear something might happen because no previous decision had ever led to that kind of breakdown , we should have had a comprehensive political, organizational contingency plan…people’s assemblies, for example, a series of things that would have allowed us better political and organizational conditions to be able to address this kind of situation.

As they have already put us on guard and created the antibodies we need, the defense mechanisms against this kind of situation that I agree with you they are in effect going to use to continue trying to destabilize the country, they are going to have to deal with a Sandinista movement much more politically well prepared and one which, despite all the weaknesses I mentioned, was able to overcome a coup attempt which even President Nicolas Maduro has said was worse than the one used against Venezuela.

And really the levels of violence, the cruelty, the versatility of the model, the simultaneous ways it was put into action here, made it perhaps the best application yet of attempts at regime change to date. Even so we were able to confront and defeat the attempt at regime change. As I said earlier, first they wanted immediate capitulation, then they resorted to demanding early elections. What happened? This kind of model is designed for the short term. if it doesn’t work in the short term it doesn’t work at all.

But, even though they haven’t got what they wanted in the short term, they are betting that they have managed to hurt and politically weaken the Sandinista movement so that it may be possible that elections will not give us a favorable result. That is why they want to bring forward the elections. They think the sooner the better because it will not give the Sandinista movement time to regroup and roll back the obvious exhaustion this whole situation represents. But, as time goes by, what they have done will become more and more obvious and that increases our chances of winning the next elections.

So they are betting that the coup attempt was strong enough politically to stop the Sandinista Front winning the next elections while of course for them to get what they want they are going to continue to promote destabilization using a whole series of measures as you have correctly pointed out.

Faced with that, we are much better prepared now than we were before the crisis So for example those kinds of things we mentioned they were already promoting. What they are now going to do, for example the Nica Act and suchlike, they were already promoting that. We were less prepared to successfully address that than we are now. That means that not only are we ready to face the use of this regime change format but also we are better prepared to face successfully what they had already begun preparing against us and which now, of course, they are going to intensify because they have more space internationally and there, among a whole series of other things, they have hurt the economy. So they have more favorable conditions to apply more effectively the policy of attrition they had been applying before, but for out part too we are better prepared to successfully face down that strategy.

Well, Compañero, you are here in Peru and have visited the Casa Mariategui and you know what Mariategui thought about Sandino and his struggle at the time. What message can you give people in Peru who get the enemy’s information via the big communciations media and have a distorted vision of what’s happening in Nicaragua, which contrasts somewhat with the work we do to inform people better. What ideas can you give people in Peru about this current situation?

Well we think it’s fundamental to argue the need for solidarity, which is vital for us. And in our efforts towards that objective we need to achieve increasingly more solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution against these regime change attempts cooked up by US imperialism. And it’s fundamental that we manage to reinstate common sense, because common sense is among the first casualties in psychological warfare.

For example, we see situations here like, when the National Dialogue was being used by our adversaries to apply political extortion against the government, we had great difficulty reactivating the talks. And when we managed to do so and there was even a moment when we not only managed to reactivate the talks but it was even agreed to remove the roadblocks, then at that point the mediators suspended the talks. And every time we managed to reactivate the talks the cup promoters faked a violent attack supposedly by us, massacring people.

Common sense tells you that is absurd. It’s absurd the idea that after we have achieved significant progress in the talks that a few hours later we are going to turn up and machine gun a demonstration or burn someone’s house down. It’s just absurd, because the first question one asks when investigating a crime is “who benefits from this?” and in this case, obviously, the people who benefit from these crimes were the people promoting the coup. So it’s ridiculous to think we would do such things when something even our enemies have to acknowledge is that we are not known for being stupid. So we are certainly not going to do something so stupid.

Common sense tells you that. But in psychological warfare common sense disappears. So at an international level this case does have to do with common sense and so it follows that people who think it is true that we have massacred people and committed barbaric crimes, they should take the trouble to listen to what we have to say. They should give us the benefit of the doubt and listen to our version of events.

Because, why should they believe what right wing news media say about us if they are our adversaries? After all, it’s our enemies who are making these accusations. If you listen to something about someone that their enemies say it’s hardly what you might call objective evidence. Right? For that reason it’s important to listen to the other side as well, the side that is being accused.

On that score, spreading reliable information is very important, for example the videos of the tortures they practiced, all the crimes they committed. They themselves decided to leave evidence of the barbaric things they did, of the real nature of what they did. And that too has helped us with many people managing to realize the reality of what we have been going through.

Many thanks and a warm embrace to the people of Peru.

Articles on the Situation in Nicarágua, by Carlos Fonseca Terán, Deputy Secretary of RRII of the FSLN

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2018/08/ ... -attempts/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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