Nicaragua

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 17, 2022 2:24 pm

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy

Please see below for information on a delegation you could join in April!


China to Invest in Electricity and Telecommunications
The People’s Republic of China will invest up to US$564.1 million in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Nicaragua, as reported by Minister of Energy and Mines Salvador Mansell on Feb. 8. China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC South) will invest US$357.4 million, of which US$251.3 million in the Mojolka hydroelectric project on the Tuma River, Department of Matagalpa, and US$106.1 million in the El Hato solar project in Terrabona, Department of Matagalpa. They will also invest US$101.6 million for new power transmission lines between the municipalities of Terrabona, Mulukukú and Boaco. Another US$40 million will be invested in the commercial management and electricity distribution systems and US$8 million for the construction and modernization of the National Load Dispatch Center. CCCC South will also invest US$49 million in the electric mobility project: promoting the introduction of electric vehicles in the country, accelerating the deployment of the charging infrastructure, and creating local capacities for the operation and maintenance of the new technology. In telecommunications, they will invest US$8 million in a Data Center to operate the telecommunications network and expand coverage with microwave systems in remote sites with limited coverage, such as San Juan de Nicaragua. The Energy and Mines Ministry is already working with ZTE and Huawei and with the Chinese government and the Russian Federation to promote social and commercial projects through loans and attracting investors. “The great advantage is that we already had these projects ready and the current infrastructure allows it, so this will give us great opportunities,” said Mansell. The government will continue to promote a series of electric infrastructure projects with the support of the People’s Republic of China, Korea, India and the Russian Federation. (Radio la Primerisima, 8 Feb. 2022)

Nicaragua Expanding Electricity Generation
Nicaragua is expanding its capacity for generating electricity with financial assistance from several international sources. The country has extensive experience in the use of solar energy and has also passed laws for its implementation. In 2006, in the Caribbean Coast Region, only eleven communities had electricity; today all municipalities in that region have electricity. The government is also promoting the Microgrids Study of the North Caribbean Coast which aims to contribute to clean energy micro-grids. These will be developed in localities without access to electricity to create early warning systems and contribute to economic development. They will improve the lives of vulnerable people by providing a reliable, clean and affordable system that will expand opportunities for education, employment, health, and community safety. The project is being funded with an investment of US$10 million from the Inter-American Development Bank. At a Latin American level Nicaragua has one of the most diverse energy matrixes in the region: at the beginning of the year 75% of generation was based on renewable sources (solar, hydro, wind, geothermal and biomass). In addition, the installation of a natural gas-based plant in Puerto Sandino by the North American company New Fortress Energy is progressing. A new solar plant installed on Corn Island in the southern Caribbean has a capacity of 2.2 MW of electricity. The US$251.3 million Mojolka hydroelectric project in the Department of Matagalpa, to be executed by China Communications Construction Company Limited, will build a 103 MW capacity plant and a solar energy project, El Hato, will be financed by the People’s Republic of China in Terrabona, Matagalpa. (Informe Pastran, 14 Feb. 2022)

Nutritional Census Shows Great Results
The Nicaragua Ministry of Health issued a report on the 2021 Nutritional Census carried out to study the nutritional status of children between the ages of 0 to 14 in rural and urban areas of the country. The report states that “the census surveyed 1,292,122 boys and girls in 2021, finding that between 2016 and 2021 acute malnutrition of children between the ages of 0 to 6 years was reduced 25% and chronic malnutrition fell 32%. Acute malnutrition between the ages of 6 and 14 fell 26.5% and chronic malnutrition was reduced by 8.6%.” MINSA Health Services Director General, Carlos Cruz explained that “with this data, programs like Zero Hunger, Family Gardens, School Lunches, Food Production Packages and the Family Support Plan will be strengthened, enhancing the efforts to eradicate malnutrition through adequate nutrition guidelines, vaccination and periodic weight and height monitoring of children.” (Nicaragua News, 14 Feb. 2022)

National Radiotherapy Center Remembers Nora Astorga
Health authorities from the National Radiotherapy Center paid tribute to the heroic guerrilla fighter Nora Astorga on February 14th, the 34th anniversary of her death. In this center that bears her name, Astorga’s legacy is reflected: thanks to the investments made, up to 40,000 radiation treatment sessions a year are carried out, attending daily about 200 patients from different parts of the country. In 2020, the second linear accelerator to fight different types of cancer was inaugurated there with an investment of US$5 million. (Radio la Primerisima, 14 Feb. 2022)

Hospital Acquires High Resolution Cardiology Unit
The authorities of the Dr. Alejandro Dávila Bolaños Military School Hospital inaugurated the first High Resolution Cardiology Unit in Nicaragua which will help people who for years have been waiting for cardiac procedures of this magnitude. With this, the military hospital becomes a pioneer and unique in the management of cardiac pathologies treated with state-of-the-art technology. The deputy director of the hospital, Colonel Dr. Noel Vladimir Turcios, said that four years ago this hospital signed an agreement with the international organization World Heart Caregivers that develops programs and first class sustainable cardiac medicine. The unit is made up of a multidisciplinary team of specialists such as cardiovascular surgeons, electrophysiologists cardiologists, interventional cardiologists of congenital diseases, adult and pediatric cardiovascular anesthesiologists, specialists in cardiac imaging and diagnostic studies. “All the members of the cardiology unit are Nicaraguans who are updated on a daily basis to be at the forefront of medical knowledge and modern techniques to respond to the treatment of complex cardiac pathologies that previously could not be treated in the country,” said Turcios. (Radio La Primerisima, 15 Feb. 2022)

University Fees Cheaper under New Public Administration
According to agreements made by the National Council of Universities (CNU), the National Polytechnic University (UNP), reported that, under the new administration, the debt of all students who have outstanding payment commitments is forgiven, so that they can enroll without any problem. The University also announced that registration will be US$10 (in Córdobas) on all campuses and monthly tuition at the central campus will be US$30 and $25 at regional campuses. (Radio La Primerisima, 14 Feb. 2022)

Third Rubén Darío International Festival of the Arts a Success
On February 13 in Estelí, Rivas and Matagalpa, the III Rubén Darío International Festival of the Arts “Aquí nos Ilumina un Sol que no Declina” (Here We Are Illuminated by a Sun that Doesn’t Set) came to a close. It was a weekend marked by a cultural and artistic splurge in each of the venues; with the representation of around 700 national, local and international artists, as well as the participation of 100 protagonists in cultural and creative fairs. The festival was full of art and Rubén Darío with varied cultural agendas such as: painting and engraving exhibitions, fashion design and shows, traditional and modern dances, puppet theater, poetry recitals, musical concerts and film screenings. Of these three consecutive festivals, this 2022 festival has exceeded expectations, with more participation in all the activities. The government is committed to generating cultural spaces that promote art, dynamize the economy, and immortalize the poet Rubén Darío. (Nicaragua News, 14 Feb. 2022)

For Humanitarian Reasons Hugo Torres Trial Had Been Suspended
A court had ordered some time ago the definitive suspension of the oral proceedings and public trial against Jorge Hugo Torres Jiménez, who was accused of “performing acts that undermine the independence and sovereignty” of the country. Representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office had made the request on humanitarian grounds, due to the health of Torres. Torres died Feb. 12 in a hospital in Managua of cancer. In a press release, the Prosecutor’s Office said that from the moment Torres presented deterioration in his state of health he was transferred to a hospital in the capital to be adequately attended. There he was always accompanied by his children and his son-in-law. The Public Prosecutor’s Office said it will continue to contribute to maintaining security and respect for the norms of peaceful coexistence, as well as tranquility, tolerance and respect for the law. See Public Ministry Report: HERE (Radio La Primerisima, 12 Feb. 2022)

Organizations outside the Law Lose Legal Status
On Feb. 14 the National Assembly approved a decree that cancels the legal status of six non-governmental organizations which were operating outside the laws. The organizations are: María Elena Cuadra Women’s Movement, PEN International-Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH), the Center for the Promotion of Youth and Children, the Blanca Araúz Foundation for the Promotion of Women and Children and the Ibero-American Foundation of Cultures (Fibras). In a statement, the Ministry of the Interior said that these organizations failed to comply with their obligations under the laws that regulate non-profit organizations: they did not release their financial reports according to the fiscal periods and with detailed breakdowns; their boards of directors are not active; and they have not reported previous donations from abroad, which has hindered the control by the Department for the Regulation of Non-Profit Organizations. The Department of Non-Profit Civil Associations of the MIGOB will proceed to cancel the respective registration of each of the six associations. The legal representative of each will be informed so that they deliver the legal books, the seal and other documents. Regarding their assets, if their disposition has not been previously established in the event of a possible liquidation, they will become property of the State in accordance with the law on the matter. (Radio La Primerisima, 15 Feb. 2022)

Five US Agents Found Guilty on Feb. 9 and 10
Nicaraguan courts found four opposition leaders guilty on Feb. 9 for the crime of conspiracy to undermine national integrity, bringing to14 the number of US agents found guilty. Medardo Mairena was found guilty of conspiracy or “treason.” Pedro Mena, José Antonio Peraza and Alexis Peralta were also found guilty. [In February 2019, a Criminal Court judge sentenced Medardo Mairena to 216 years for the murder of four police officers and a school teacher and the kidnapping of 9 police officers on July 12, 2018, in the municipality of Morrito, Rio San Juan, and other crimes committed during the coup attempt. He was also found guilty of ten kidnappings, organized crime, and aggravated robbery. Mairena’s actual sentence was to have been 30 years because that is the maximum allowed by Nicaraguan law. Also sentenced to 210 years was Pedro Mena. Co-defendant Orlando Icabalseta was sentenced to 159 years. All benefitted from the 2019 Amnesty Law.] Alexis Peralta was found guilty of violating the cybercrime law. José Antonio Peraza was a member of the political council of the National Blue and White Unity, and former director of the Movement For Nicaragua; he was found guilty of conspiracy. A fifth agent, Miguel Mendoza, was found guilty on Feb. 9 for leading mobs of criminals in the destruction of Managua’s public infrastructure in 2018. In one of those events a Guatemalan journalist was crushed to death when the crowd pushed over a large metal tree. More recently from his social networks he disseminated fake news and made calls for violence and military intervention against his own country. (Marcio Vargas on Channel 4’s Izquierda Visión 9 Feb. 2022; various small media outlets on Facebook, 10 Feb: NicaNotes 2019)

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 24, 2022 3:43 pm

NicaNotes: ‘The mouse kills the cat’: Augusto Cesar Sandino’s rebellion against the US: How Sandino fought for Nicaragua’s independence, lost, and remained a hero for its people
February 24, 2022
By Dan Kovalik

(Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.)

[This article originally appeared on rt.com at https://www.rt.com/news/550092-augusto- ... icaraguan/ on Feb. 21, the anniversary of Sandino’s assassination.]

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Sandino in San Rafael de Norte with some of his men, including Santos López on the right.

Before Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, before Ho Chi Minh and before Mao began his Long March, there was Augusto Cesar Sandino.

While Sandino is not a household name in much of the world, as these others are, he was one of the most important and successful guerilla fighters of the 20th century, successfully driving the US Marines out of Nicaragua against nearly impossible odds. His image, with his iconic Tom Mix cowboy hat tilted to one side, continues to be the most ubiquitous symbol in Nicaragua – a country led by the Sandinista Front, named in his honor.

Unlike the aforementioned revolutionaries, Sandino was not an intellectual and he was not a Marxist. Rather, he was a mechanic from a small town outside the city of Masaya, Nicaragua, and a member of Nicaragua’s Liberal Party. Sandino was not a revolutionary by training or study; he was drawn into the armed struggle in response to the US Marine invasion and occupation of his country which began in 1911 with the goal of ousting Liberal Party President Jose Zelaya. As the US State Department itself explains, American opposition to Zelaya stemmed from his intention to work with the Japanese government to develop a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua which would rival the US-controlled Panama Canal. This flew in the face of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which holds that the US has sole dominion over the Western Hemisphere and the right to intervene in any country therein to prevent the influence of other nations.

The US was able to put in place a succession of Conservative Party presidents to its liking with the backing of the US Marines. The US was thereby able to ink a deal with the Nicaraguan government which gave the US and US companies significant control over Nicaragua’s treasury, finances and railroad. However, this did not sit well with the Nicaraguan people who, eventually, revolted. As the US State Department explains (in an incredible act of understatement), the US’ attempt to “prevent local management of finances … caused considerable nationalist concern in Nicaragua.” To quell the resulting unrest and civil war which broke out between the Liberals and Conservatives, the US, which withdrew the Marines in 1924, sent an even greater Marine force to Nicaragua in 1925.

It was this Marine invasion which sparked the rise of Augusto Cesar Sandino, who led hundreds of mostly peasant guerilla fighters to repel it. As historian Michael J. Schroeder explains, Sandino, who “had become a Liberal general in the civil war, launched his rebellion, sacking the US-owned San Albino gold mine and issuing proclamations against ‘Yankee cowards and criminals’ and the ‘worm-eaten and decadent’ Nicaraguan aristocracy” that served US interests.

Sandino and his forces, though not great in number and certainly not as well-armed as the United States Marine Corps, proved to be a formidable force which could neither be caught nor vanquished. Sandino soon became a legend, and “even China’s Kuomintang carried standards bearing his image.” As the late, great Latin American writer Eduardo Galeano wrote in his acclaimed ‘The Open Veins of Latin America’:

“The epic of Augusto César Sandino stirred the world. The long struggle of Nicaragua’s guerrilla leader was rooted in the angry peasants’ demand for land. His small, ragged army fought for some years against twelve thousand US invaders and the National Guard. Sardine tins filled with stones served as grenades, Springfield rifles were stolen from the enemy, and there were plenty of machetes; the flag flew from any handy stick, and the peasants moved through mountain thickets wearing strips of hide called huaraches instead of boots. The guerrillas sang, to the tune of Adelita: ‘In Nicaragua, gentlemen, the mouse kills the cat.’”

And so, in its desperation to somehow subdue Sandino and his gang of merry men and women, the US increasingly turned to the new form of warfare which it continues to wage today – the aerial bombing of town and country.

Summing up the testimony of those who lived through the US assault, Schroeder describes the US aerial bombings as “a remorseless faceless enemy inflicting indiscriminate violence against homes, villages, livestock, and people who, regardless of age, gender, physical strength, social status, [and who] lacked any defense except to salvage their belongings.”

According to a fellow combatant of Sandino, quoted by Schroeder, who lived through the aerial bombing and the sacking of Ocotal, Nicaragua, which followed, “the aviation did much damage to the population between loss of life and loss of property, causing thirty-six deaths in our forces. …. Sandino’s troops stood up to the planes as best they could, downing one enemy plane (a Fokker), and after this the Sandinista troops withdrew, and that’s when the Yankee troops entered the already destroyed town, causing the greatest destruction, sacking the images and bells from the ruins of the church and throwing them in the river … There were hundreds of deaths here, among them children, women.”

Still, Sandino and his mostly peasant liberation army persisted, and successfully drove the US Marines out of Nicaragua in 1933, but not before the Marines were able to shore up the National Guard under the leadership of Anastasio Somoza. Not able to defeat Sandino on the field of battle, the only method left for Somoza was chicanery. And so, on the promise of an improvement on the 1933 peace deal, Somoza lured Sandino to Managua where he was assassinated on February 21, 1934. Sandino’s remains disappeared and have never been found. Meanwhile, Somoza – “a son of a bitch, but … our son of a bitch” as FDR would quip – declared himself president of Nicaragua with the backing of the United States and turned quickly to repressing Sandino’s followers and supporters.

Somoza and his two sons ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist (and US military assistance) for the next 45 years. However, Sandino’s example inspired the creation of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1962. The FSLN, again a primarily peasant movement in a mostly agrarian society, waged a guerilla war against Somoza and his National Guard, culminating in the victory of the FSLN and the ousting of the last Somoza in 1979. But Somoza did not leave without a fight; in the end 50,000 Nicaraguans died, mostly through the aerial bombings of his own cities, reminiscent of the US bombings in the 1920s and early 1930s.

In addition, 100,000 were wounded, 40,000 orphaned, and 150,000 became refugees. And, when Somoza fled the country, he took its treasury, ensuring that huge swaths of Nicaragua would remain in ruin from his air campaign for years to come.

The FSLN, once victorious, made sure that Sandino’s memory and legacy would be preserved. At the same time, Sandino is one of those historical figures, like Jose Marti in Cuba, which nearly all parties claim in Nicaragua. Indeed, the worst accusation one could level against a leader or activist in the country is that they have somehow betrayed Sandino and his legacy, and this charge is made often.

Indeed, it is now fashionable amongst disgruntled Sandinistas, the mainstream press in and outside Nicaragua, and amongst even the left in the US and Europe, to claim that the current FSLN leadership, including President Daniel Ortega, have abandoned Sandino’s legacy and the Sandinista Revolution. Even the dictator Somoza, before being gunned down while exiled in Paraguay by Argentine revolutionaries in 1980, made such a claim, putting out a book shortly before his death entitled ‘Nicaragua Betrayed’. It is now even common in some circles to hear claims that Ortega is in fact “the new Somoza.”

As my good friend S. Brian Willson, a Vietnam veteran turned peace activist who lost his legs protesting a train carrying an arms shipment from the US for Central America in 1987, said to me, the essential promises of Sandino and the Sandinistas have been fulfilled. And these essential promises to the Nicaraguan people were and are: (1) independence and sovereignty in the face of the US and its attempts to determine Nicaragua’s destiny; and (2) land reform, education, and a decent life for Nicaragua’s large agrarian population. Brian, who has lived in Grenada, Nicaragua for years, knows what he is talking about.

Ortega and the FSLN have largely made good on both these promises, according to a majority of Nicaraguans. And that is why, much to the chagrin of many leftist intellectuals, Ortega remains popular in Nicaragua, particularly among peasants, workers and the poor. Ortega and the FSLN have given many hectares of land to peasants; instituted free education and health care; put money into affordable housing for the poor; electrified the country and built up the infrastructure; and significantly reduced poverty and extreme poverty, with nearly 100% of the food Nicaraguans eat grown and raised by the peasants themselves.

The Sandinistas also kept Nicaragua free from US interference, most notably by winning the brutal Contra War of the 1980s in which the US financed, trained and directed former leaders of Somoza’s National Guard to try and violently retake the country. The resulting conflict killed 30,000 and left the country and economy in ruin. Thankfully, Nicaragua has now more than bounced back.

I have been traveling to Nicaragua since 1987. And it was back then that I saw my first images of Sandino and learned of his fight against the US Marines. I even met an old man in Ocotal who fought with Sandino and who proudly sat on his front porch in the old uniform he wore in battle. I have watched a country with once shocking levels of poverty and underdevelopment become a prosperous and developed society. If Augusto Cesar Sandino, who continues to look upon Nicaragua from statues and paintings, could see his country today, I believe he would be proud.

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Briefs
By Nan McCurdy

Number of Cooperatives Has Tripled since 2007
During the III National Meeting of Cooperatives held Feb. 21 in Managua, Karla Somarriba, Associate General Director in the Ministry of Family and Cooperative Economy (MEFCCA), announced that the number of cooperatives grew from 1,722 in 2007 to 6,010 in 2021, of which 500 are headed by women. She noted that “the Creative Economy Model promoted by the Nicaragua Government encourages and strengthens cooperative organization in all economic sectors, with the purpose of guaranteeing food security and economic sovereignty for all Nicaraguans.” (Nicaragua News, 22 Feb. 2022)

More Houses for the People
The Nicaragua Institute for Urban and Rural Housing (INVUR) presented a report on Feb. 15 on the “Casas para el Pueblo” Low-Cost Housing Program that the Government is implementing. The report states that 126,376 affordable homes were built between 2007 and 2021, contributing to reduction of the housing deficit. INVUR General Director, Olivia Cano, stated that “over the next five years, INVUR plans to build 50,000 low-cost homes financed through the General Budget with support from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, the World Bank, and the People’s Republic of China, benefiting the at-risk population.” (Nicaragua News, 16 Feb. 2022)

National Assembly Approves Cooperation Agreements with China
On Feb. 16 the National Assembly approved the bill entitled “Framework Cooperation Agreement between the Governments of the Republic of Nicaragua and the People’s Republic of China” which aims to strengthen the relations of friendship, solidarity and cooperation between the two nations. This ratifies the various agreements and conventions that both nations have signed since December 9, when they signed a joint communiqué of mutual recognition with the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the development of friendly ties of cooperation. With the approval of the framework agreement, the agreements already signed and ratified are: 1) The Framework Cooperation Agreement (general cooperation); 2) A Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation within the framework of the Economic Belt and Road and the Maritime Silk Road of the XXI Century; 3) An agreement on the mutual exemption of visas for holders of diplomatic passports, service passports and public affairs or official passports; and 4) Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua on the establishment of a political consultation mechanism. With these agreements ratified, work will continue towards a Free Trade Agreement. (Radio La Primerisima, 17 Feb. 2022)

Meeting with High Level Russian Minister
On Feb. 17 in Managua, the joint commission of Nicaragua and Russia developed a peace agenda in which economic issues related to relations between the two countries were addressed. The Russian delegation was headed by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov who stated “our task is to expand trade and economic cooperation. The purpose of our visit is to look at areas of trade, scientific and humanitarian cooperation.” President Ortega said “with Russia we have always met in a struggle for peace, and the best reference that humanity has, in the defense of peace, is the blood, the heroism of the Russian people, when they confronted fascism, Nazism, and defeated them, saving Europe, saving the United States, saving humanity. That cannot be forgotten.” He also denounced the new aggressions against Russia. “These are times when again empires are attacking peace, and they are attacking peace in the way they are attacking Russia.” He went on to say, “We express to President Putin our solidarity in this struggle that the Russian people are waging for peace. We are sure that, once again, peace will prevail over the attempts of war, of expansion, of the imperialists of the earth.” Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said that the delegation he heads is in Nicaragua at the request of President Putin “to expand and strengthen cooperation between our peoples. In the last year, the exchange of goods between our countries has grown 3 times; it exceeded US$160 million. We are in conditions to multiply several times this amount of exchange of goods between our countries; this is our commitment.” https://radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias ... operacion/ (Radio La Primerisima, 17 Feb. 2022)

Millions of Sandinistas Remember Sandino
On the morning of Feb. 21 Sandinistas all over the nation participated in a tribute to General Augusto C. Sandino, who was assassinated under orders of Anastasio Somoza Garcia with the approval of the US ambassador 88 years ago, on February 21, 1934. The “Diana,” (a ride or drive through the streets) was carried out on motorcycles, bikes, on foot, on horseback, and in vehicles, carrying red and black flags and singing songs about Sandino and the Sandinista Popular Revolution. See fotos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias ... a-sandino/ (Radio La Primerisima, 21 Feb. 2022)

Daniel Calls for No War on Sandino Anniversary
In his speech on the 88th anniversary of the US-backed assassination of national hero Augusto Sandino, President Daniel Ortega supported the decision of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to recognize the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics saying, “The step taken today by President Putin to recognize those provinces [Donetsk and Lugansk] that are populated by [primarily] Russian citizens – I am sure that there they will submit them to an election or referendum as in Crimea; I am sure that people will vote for annexation to Russia, as Crimea did, returning to the situation before the fall of the Soviet Union, because it is a Russian population that is not subject to the dictates of the NATO, European Union and the United States.”

The president recalled that in 2014 the US and Europe successfully supported a coup in Ukraine. He said, “They [US and Europe] were constantly promoting acts of terrorism, crimes, destabilizing actions against an elected government that had good relations with Russia. Let’s remember that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, moreover the Russian population in Ukraine is very high. There was a NATO conspiracy of the Europeans, of the Yankees, to overthrow that elected government. And in the end they resorted to terrorism and the international campaign of defamations against the government, until in the end the coup d’état succeeded.” He went on to speak about sanctions, saying that presently “there is a front of struggle for the defense of sovereignty, of the self-determination of the peoples, who are against sanctions. The US is constantly attacking countries with economic sanctions like China, Russia, Belarus, a large number of countries such as the criminal blockade of Cuba and Venezuela.”

President Ortega indicated that an announcement of war, as is happening with the fierce campaign promoted by the United States through their media, is already affecting the world economy. “There are no winners in a war, how can there be from an action of a military nature? Immediately the world economy is affected,… the stock exchanges fall…. That is to say, from now on, damages are produced to the world economy and that produces damages to our economy as well.” He added, “May God enlighten the minds of the leaders of the United States, of President Biden…., so he won’t … provoke a hecatomb on planet Earth, which is already suffering a hecatomb due to the damage suffered by nature, the ecological damage… and that we can join with all the countries of the world, both large and developing countries, to put an end to poverty, hunger, misery, so that pandemics such as this one do not find our countries in deplorable conditions.” (Radio La Primerisima, 21 Feb. 2022)

Our Principles of Sovereignty Are Not for Sale
Arturo McFields, Nicaragua’s representative at the Organization of American States said on Feb. 18 that the country’s principles are not for sale and that they are inalienable rights of all peoples. The diplomat stated that, while Nicaragua is withdrawing from what he called “this decadent organization,” it sees from a distance how this “ministry of colonies” advances myopically, deaf and dumb before the injustices of the US, stumbling over realities that it wishes to ignore, hiding murders, xenophobia, drug trafficking, inhuman blockades and even coups d’état.

McFields mentioned the Guantanamo prison, where there were U.S. specialists in torture. He also recalled the deaths in Canadian Indigenous schools where new mass graves are still being found. Canada has no morals to speak of human rights, he said. McFields recalled the case of Chile, where the carabineros attacked the eyes of hundreds of young university students and raped young women in detention. For a year this report was hidden from the on-site visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Let’s not talk about the OAS response to Black Lives Matter in the US, he said, where Antigua and Barbuda remained cowardly silent so as not to offend the empire. We never saw a tweet from the OAS about the death of George Floyd or Brianna Taylor, the ambassador pointed out. (Radio La Primerisima, 18 Feb. 2022)

Exports Growing
Exports have grown 20% this year with relation to the same period in 2021, according to Edward Centeno, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. This means almost US$600 million in exports; last year in the same period US$460.4 million dollars were generated. “We are in a process of sustained growth of the country’s exports.” Agricultural goods represent 42.5% of total exports and the main products are: gold coffee, beef and cheese. “All products have been experiencing an increase in exports,” he stated. The main destinations are the US, Central America, Mexico, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. In the 15 years of the Sandinista government, cocoa yields have also increased, and are three times more than 15 years ago. The main destinations for cocoa are Guatemala, Belgium, El Salvador, Italy, United States, Honduras, France, Costa Rica, Russia and Germany. (Radio La Primerisima, 20 Feb. 2022)

Puerto Sandino Port Modernized
On Feb. 18 the Nicaragua Port Authority inaugurated the modernization of Puerto Sandino in León department. The US$4.5 million in investment financed by the General Budget includes reorganization, new administrative and operational facilities, expansion and modernization of docks to provide better service. (Nicaragua News, 21 Feb. 2022)

41 New Ambulances
To strengthen immediate response to medical emergencies, the Ministry of Health delivered 41 fully equipped ambulances to healthcare centers and hospitals throughout the country. The US$1.6 million purchase of new ambulances was provided by the General Budget. (Nicaragua News, 18 Feb. 2022)

More than 9,000 Jobs Created so Far This Year in Small Business
Vice President Rosario Murillo presented the report on growth of new small business ventures noting that 1,047 new businesses were created between January 16 and February 15, 2022, generating 5,235 new jobs in sectors such as sale of food products, miscellaneous stores, transportation services, credit centers, pharmacies, veterinary services, mechanical and carpentry workshops. 1,856 businesses have been established in 2022, creating 9,280 new jobs. (Nicaragua News, 17 Feb. 2022)

House Arrest for Pallais, Aguirre Sacasa and Cruz Due to Health
In a statement from the Public Prosecutor’s office, the precautionary measures for Arturo Cruz, 68; Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, 77; and José Pallais Arana, 68 were changed from preventive imprisonment to house arrest due to their health status. They are accused of conspiracy to undermine the national integrity [conspiracy and treason].

The statement said, “The Public Prosecutor’s Office, for humanitarian reasons, asked the judicial authority to change the precautionary measure from preventive detention to home detention, which was authorized by the corresponding judicial authority.” Cruz, Pallais, and Aguirre were transferred to their homes on Feb. 18. (Articulo 66, 19 Feb. 2022)

Found Guilty of Conspiracy or Propagating False News
This week the following people were sentenced to eight years in prison: Mauricio Díaz, Luis Rivas, executive president of Banpro and regional CEO of Grupo Promerica; and María Oviedo and Suyen Barahona, president of the Unión Democrática Renovadora (Unamos, formerly MRS) were sentenced to nine years; Miguel Mendoza was sentenced to eleven years. They were all found guilty of conspiracy. Nidia Barbosa, member of the Alianza Cívica por la Justicia y la Democracia (ACJD), was convicted for propagating false news under the “Special Law of Cyber Crimes.” Freddy Navas, part of the so-called Campesino Movement, one of the most violent organizations in the attempted coup of 2018 and one that set up hundreds of roadblocks where unthinkable atrocities took place, was convicted of conspiracy; then by the sentencing court, received 10 years. (Articulo 66, 19 Feb. 2022, Confidencial, 19 Feb. 2022)

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 10, 2022 2:59 pm

NicaNotes: Nicaragua vs. Costa Rica on Elections and Government
March 10, 2022

Please join us for a webinar in English and Spanish:
Nicaragua’s Advances in Labor Relations;
Sunday, March 13: 3pm ET, 1pm Nicaragua, and please spread the word, thanks!
https://afgj.org/sunday-march-13-webina ... -relations

Nicaragua vs. Costa Rica on Elections and Government
By Fiorella Isabel

[Fiorella Isabel is an independent journalist on Substack, and host of the news show The Convo Couch. She covers U.S politics, foreign policy, elections, and the surveillance state.]

On November 7, 2021, Nicaragua celebrated presidential elections; three months later, on Feb. 6, Costa Rica had what turned out to be their first round of presidential elections; the final round will be held April 3. These neighboring countries’ elections were treated like night and day by the United States government and its media. The United States did everything they could to attempt to sabotage the Nicaraguan elections and US media did not say one positive thing about them; whereas for the US government and media the Costa Rican elections were hyped as some of the best in Latin America.

On November 16, 2021, the Biden administration barred Nicaraguan Officials including President Daniel Ortega, from entering the United States in response to Nicaragua’s refusal to entertain allegations that their November 7 Presidential elections were fraudulent. With over 75% of the vote the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) pulled another victory for its president, Daniel Ortega.

In stark contrast Costa Rica is constantly hailed as the beacon of democracy by the U.S and yet has some problematic issues when it comes to the current structure of its democracy. “The Citizens’ Audit On The Quality Of Democracy In Costa Rica,” showed many elements of undemocratic practices occurring in the country. On February 6th, Costa Rica had its first round of elections with 25 candidates. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) calculated that former President of Costa Rica, Jorge Figueres, with 27.29% and Rodrigo Chaves, of the Party for Social and Democratic Progress (PPSD) with 16.66%, were the top vote-earners and will go to a second final round on April 3, 2022. All 57 seats of the national legislative assembly are also up for grabs. According to the TSE, 40% of eligible voters stayed away from the first round of electoral voting. A higher percentage of eligible voters participated in Nicargua’s election (66%) than in Costa Rica (about 60%).

Even before the November 7, 2021, Nicaraguan elections even took place, the US propaganda machine made up of US government agencies, the US-controlled Organization of American States (OAS) and corporate media, called the election illegitimate, pushing false news and disinformation to attempt to subvert the validity of Nicaragua’s elections.

Two of the primary pieces of disinformation repeated again and again to turn lies into “truth” was that President Ortega was jailing his opposition and that he was highly unpopular. After the elections, the US falsely claimed there was a low turnout ; Nicaragua’s election turnout at 66% of the eligible voters is the highest in any country in the America’s in recent years. The graphic below combines percentage won of eligible voters participating, and Nicaragua also comes out on top.

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The opposition media in Nicaragua and the US made many false claims for which there is no proof. The final count from Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) noted the FSLN won more than 75% of the votes of those who turned out, 66%.

In reality, Ortega was not jailing actual opposition party candidates and continues to be very popular, if not revered by the majority of people in Nicaragua. Some 77.5% of Nicaraguans polled days before the election, expressed that in order for the country to advance socially and economically, the FSLN should govern the country, extremely similar to the percentage win of the FSLN. The FSLN’s presidential win has increased in each election since 2007 primarily because the standard of living and ease of access to health, education, electricity, potable water, cheap food and credit has risen every year. But this data didn’t stop U.S President Joe Biden from signing the RENACER Act, using false accusations as reasons to impose crippling and internationally illegal sanctions on the country. In reality both independent journalists and election observers verified that Nicaragua’s elections far surpass those of most countries, including but not limited to both the U.S and Costa Rica, a close ally to the U.S, in terms of direct democracy, organization, and security.

Dispelling the Claims against Nicaragua’s Elections

The United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars to attempt to destabilize the Sandinista Government, even prior to the 2018 coup attempt which they funded. Many Nicaraguans were on the US payroll and/or laundered money for themselves and the coup through their nonprofit organizations. “Progressive” Democrats like Congressman Ro Khanna released statements in favor of sanctions on Nicaragua with the excuse that Ortega’s fury against his rivals justified the need to defend “democracy.”

On the false US claim that President Ortega jailed candidates, having interviewed locals, journalists and officials in Nicaragua, none of those who were investigated, indicted and detained, either in their homes or in jail, were candidates. In fact, according to an interview with Brenda Rocha, President of the CSE, who lost an arm at age 15 in a 1983 US-backed Contra attack, Ortega was not jailing any actual ballot-worthy opponents. The five people indicted for crimes such as money laundering, conspiracy and treason, who claimed to aspire to the presidency, were never actual candidates.

To be a candidate in Nicaragua you must be proposed by and run for a legal party; none of the five were even members of a party in 2021. Their “aspirations” to be president were part of the US propaganda campaign against the elections. The US press continually referred to them as “pre-candidates.” Let’s say one of them had been part of a legal political party and proposed by that party for president, they would have been disqualified by electoral law for a number of reasons. Two of the five who the US claimed to have been candidate “wannabes,” had lived more than six months of the previous four years outside of Nicaragua, disqualifying them from running for president. And all broke an electoral law that in order to run for office you cannot have committed any crimes. One of them, Medardo Mairena, was found guilty of murder and other crimes in the 2018 attempted coup but was freed as part of an amnesty in June 2019. The only requirement to keep all your rights was to not commit crimes. But they ended up once again getting millions in funding via NGOs from the United States in an attempt to overthrow the Sandinistas government.

Many of the Nicaraguan – US agents came from the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) a faction of upper class Sandinistas who got tired of no longer having the upper hand in government during the 1990s and broke off to work with US-friendly neoliberal governments. The group is no longer aligned with Sandinistas in any way, has changed their name to eliminate the word Sandinista, and abandoned anti-imperialism and socialism from their platform, but the western media constantly uses them to suggest that “Sandinistas” disapprove of Ortega. Wikileaks cables show a staunch history of the MRS meeting regularly with the US embassy, acting as informants and spies on behalf of the West.

There were more than 260 journalists and other foreigners from more than 21 nations accompanying and monitoring the November election. The election ballot was agreed upon by all participating parties with six opponents for the presidency. For basic facts on Nicaragua’s very secure electoral system see here. No one from any political party was allowed to mass campaign (more than 250 people) due to COVID-19 restrictions; US-directed propaganda claimed only the FSLN campaigned. The US shamelessly lied about there being no advertising for any party other than the Sandinistas, something easily proven entirely false by independent media who were following the election on the ground and in real time. Western outlets like the New York Times flagrantly lied about closed voting centers while many observers and journalists were there witnessing no such thing. That same day Joe Biden released a statement calling the Nicaraguan election a “pantomime” sham election. Western mainstream media failed to cover the elections on the ground but proceeded to write smear pieces about several independent journalists. Business Insider wrote a propaganda piece alleging journalists were paid (with no evidence) by the Sandinista government and were swayed to be “uncritical” of the elections.

The reality was that from the moment polls opened at 7AM to the time they closed at around 6 PM, the election process was extremely well-organized and people were in a celebratory mood. There were computers at every voting precinct with aides to help voters find their polling station. In Nicaragua there are 13,459 polling stations (mainly in classrooms) in some 3,100 voting centers (mostly schools) in every corner of the nation. Most citizens walk less than one kilometer to their voting center.

The website to look up your voting center and polling station worked very well, but there were also polling station lists plastered on the walls of each voting center (school). Upon entering your particular polling station along with the polling station board officials, there were also members of participating parties there to monitor the process (poll watchers). More than 80,754 poll watchers from seven parties had been trained and sworn in.

Journalists and observers (who had to wear special vests) were also able to monitor the entire process, as long as they did not disturb voters. A voter would go up to the table and check in with their official ID (held by more than 95% of the population age 16 and over) and their name and picture would be found on a list. Then they were given a ballot and went to mark it in private and place it in the urn. Once they voted their thumb was marked with black ink that would stay on for days to ensure that no one committed fraud by attempting to vote again. Except for the first and last hour of the voting day, lines were short and in one of the larger precincts we timed a person who took 8 minutes to vote. Once polls closed, the counting process was done by the voting station board; party poll watchers monitored and all signed the polling station results and received a copy. One copy of the “acta” was pasted outside the school so anyone could know the results by 8pm. The original of the “acta” was transported with those same people from the polling station, by bus and with police security, to each departmental electoral board office. The results were also submitted electronically to Managua, the capital, where the members of the Supreme Electoral Council were posting updates to the media and the official website.

Costa Rica, the Capitalist Haven & Privatized Counterpart to Nicaragua

Costa Rica, a favorite for U.S expats and often highly praised in Western media, is a US capitalist dependent country, where many things like health care that used to be fairly good for the population have been privatized in recent years. The country is dominated by tourism and the private sector. According to a recent audit, over 80% of people think that justice is not equal in Costa Rica and “that it facilitates cover-ups of crooked politicians.” Costa Rica is also the only nation in Latin America that’s a Catholic state, not a secular state. Costa Rica says it doesn’t have a military, but their Civil Guard effectively operates as such. There was a large movement of organizations against CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) in Costa Rica, but the US and the wealthy pressured for it. When it was ratified in 2006, this led to more concentration of economic power as well as privatizations.

This particular 2022 election has come down to two candidates, one extremely problematic and the other not offering any real change, sort of a reformist social democratic candidate. The platforms of both include social austerity (social spending cuts), more privatizations of state-owned entities, taxes on workers, not on the wealthy or large businesses, more free trade, and tax havens to hide fortunes – everything the United States wants.

The more progressive candidates got about 8% in the legislature, but did not fare well in the presidential elections.

Jose Figueres, currently the favored candidate, comes from a political dynasty and was already President of the nation at the age of 39, in 1994, under the National Liberation Party (PNL). His father was rabidly anti-communist and took power by military force. Like many US approved intelligence assets and DC beltway politicians, Figueres studied at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard. While President, he privatized much of the country, shutting down the National Railway System and closing down the oldest state-owned bank, Banco Anglo Costarricense. He attempted to slash the teacher’s special pension fund, which led to a series of strikes, including the longest in Costa Rican history. Described as a centrist, technocrat with a vision for national development as “Green Capitalism,” he wants to open Costa Rica more to world trade.

More troubling is Figueres ex-title as CEO and executive director of the World Economic Forum (WEF) where he resigned in 2004 in the midst of allegations of financial misconduct related to receiving US$900,000 for consultancy work in telecommunications with the Alcatel Corporation. Although Figueres was never charged by the Costa Rican Attorney General’s office, the Paradise Papers shows evidence against him. But ultimately, he is a very familiar name, and that alone is on his side.

In this election Figueres proposed and defended making English a “co-official” language to give Costa Ricans more “opportunity” but this is opposed by many who find it humiliating to focus more on being good laborers for corporate America.

Rodrigo Chaves also attended Harvard and sold himself as a social democrat but more as a technocrat. He worked at the World Bank and served as minister in the current government. He wants to make English mandatory in schools and his strategy for running is based on “anti-corruption” on a national front. Sexual harassment complaints against him have been brought up even in debates.

Chaves, like most Costa Rican politicians, does not offer the fundamental changes needed to break the country free from Western reliance both economically and politically. Neither candidate proposes social improvements in employment, health or education. Whoever wins, business as usual will continue benefitting the wealthy Costa Ricans and foreigners, most of whom are US citizens.

In contrast Nicaragua remains ahead of most Latin American countries in health statistics, social infrastructure, gender equity and food sovereignty, where 90% of its food comes from within the country. Nicaragua is leaving the OAS (Organization of American States) to protect its own electoral sovereignty. On December 9, 2021, it recognized China over Taiwan, and will be working with the superpower to invest in infrastructure. Nicaragua is number one in the world for women in ministerial positions, number 3 for women in Parliament and number one in the Americas in gender equity. It is no wonder that with rapidly increasing advances in economic development, infrastructure, and equity, that Nicaragua has become a threat to the power elite in the US. In spite of targeted sanctions and smears, Nicaragua is a nation to be emulated by many, including its Central America neighbor, Costa Rica.

_________________________

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy

Nicaragua Number Three in the World in Percentage of Women in Legislature

The Interparliamentary Union’s “2021 Women in Parliament” list of countries with the best gender balance in their legislative bodies states that Nicaragua with 50.6% of women holding seats in the National Assembly, ranks third worldwide with women in legislative positions, surpassed only by Rwanda (61.3%) and Cuba (53.4%).
(Nicaragua News, 4 March, 2022)

Good News on Vaccination Coverage

Vice President Rosario Murillo reported the good news that 63.18% of the population has received its complete vaccination schedule against Covid-19 and 86% have received at least one dose making Nicaragua number one in Central America. 9.47 million doses of vaccines have been administered to people over two years of age. 1,250 communities will have health fairs this week where mobile clinics and specialists will treat more than 96,000 people. “We try to take everything in health every week from community to community,” Murillo said. (Radio La Primerisima, 3 March 2022)

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Government Meets the Property Titling Needs of the People

Between 2007 and 2021 the Sandinista government, through the Attorney General’s Office provided property titles to more than 552,288 families around the country, including the two Caribbean regions and Indigenous territories. The Attorney General of the Republic, Wendy Morales, told INFORME PASTRAN that since 2007 they have legalized all the indigenous territories of the Caribbean giving legal security to 22 indigenous territories comprising 315 communities and an extension of 38,426 square kilometers of titled area. This work was achieved with different instances such as the National Commission of Demarcation and Titling working according to the law that governs them. Morales pointed out that “we have no more titles pending to legalize in the Caribbean Coast, the last titles that were issued were in 2021 in the area of Jinotega del Alto Wangki, which was completed by agreements with some native families in the communities.” All the municipalities have been covered and now every week 2,500 titles are delivered to the same number of families, 10,000 titles per month. (Radio La Primerisima, 3 March 2022)

Summary of 2021 Loans to Nicaragua

Nicaragua received more than US$800 million in 2021 from Multilateral Financial Institutions for the management of liquidity resources of the Central Bank and attention for the Covid-19 pandemic. Loans received: US$353.5 million were obtained as Special Drawing Rights with the International Monetary Fund, US$200 million from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration and US$300 million from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). (Radio La Primerisima, 4 March 2022)

Support for Small Producers

The Ministry of Family Economy allocated US$84,269 to 100 small producers for the establishment of small businesses in rural areas of Estelí, Carazo, and Rivas. The financing was provided by the Rural Area MSME Microloan Program and is part of the Creative Economy Model being implemented by the Government to promote integral economic development in Nicaragua. (Nicaragua News, 3 March 2022)

Solar System in Village of Pearl Lagoon

The National Electricity Transmission Company inaugurated a 69-panel solar system in Sawawas community, Pearl Lagoon municipality, Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region, benefiting 359 inhabitants. This is part of the Supply and Installation of Solar Panels in Rural Areas Project of the National Program for Sustainable Electrification and Renewable Energy that the government is implementing in all municipalities. (Nicaragua News, 4 Mar. 2022)

Nicaragua Has Leading Role on Promoting Actions in Relation to Climate Change
On March 8, Nicaragua, representing Latin America and the Caribbean, participated as Vice President in the Bureau of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; Nicaragua was elected to this position in 2021 at COP 26, Scotland. The Latin American and Caribbean region was represented by Javier Gutiérrez, Secretary of Climate Change of the Presidency of Nicaragua, who is Vice President and member of the UN-Climate Change Bureau. The objective of the meeting was to approve the framework for the negotiating sessions that will take place in 2022, in particular the meetings of the Subsidiary Bodies that will take place in June 2022, as well as the preparation for the Climate Summit (COP 27), to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Important issues such as financing for adaptation, loss and damage, capacity building and technology transfer were discussed. (Nicaragua Sandino, 8 March 2022)

Nicaragua Urges UN to Stop Manipulating Human Rights

The Government of Nicaragua called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to recognize and respect the rights of the peoples of the world and to stop manipulating and instrumentalizing human rights for other purposes and hegemonic pretensions.
The Nicaraguan delegation stated that international bodies and organizations, such as the UN Council value the application of human rights in a disparate manner among countries, being permissive and tolerant with the barbarities committed by the powers, and irrational with those developing countries, such as Nicaragua, affecting the dignity and sovereignty of the peoples who seek to carve their own destiny. Nicaragua also disapproved of the so-called human rights updates that let through only the voices of some sectors with political, ideological and economic interests. The Nicaraguan delegation affirms that the approach to human rights that this international organization should have is within the framework of respect for the identity, sovereignty and historical development of each country. See full statement: http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/14047 (Radio La Primerisima, 7 March 2022)

Nicaraguans Believe Sanctions are War

On March 2 the M&R Consultants polling firm presented the results of its national survey “Nicaraguans and their Perspectives on the International Environment.” The survey indicates that 91.8% of Nicaraguans believe that sanctions being imposed on Nicaragua harm all Nicaraguans; 71.4% maintain that the imposition of sanctions is one more manifestation of the interventionist policy of the United States in the internal affairs of Nicaragua; 72.4% disagree with activities carried out by Nicaraguan nationals with the purpose of promoting sanctions against the country; 84% state that Nicaragua under no circumstances should allow itself to be subjected to the tutelage of countries or international organizations; 70.2% believe that the Organization of American States violates the principles for which it was created because it intervenes in the internal affairs of some member states to promote the interests of the United States; 64.8% agree with the decision of the Nicaragua government to withdraw from the OAS, given that the organization disrespects the sovereignty and self-determination of some countries; and 88.1% of those surveyed maintain that for Nicaragua to prosper it must act according to the interests of the country, without foreign interference. (Nicaragua News, 3 March 2022)

Fishing Packages to Strengthen Food Security

In support of artisanal fishing activities in Corn Island, Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region, the Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture delivered 76 Fishery Packages consisting of materials to make nets, thermoses, and tools to make 3,800 shrimp pots to increase the yield of artisanal fishing, strengthen food security and family nutrition in the communities. The donation is part of the Zero Hunger Program that the Government is implementing throughout the country. (Nicaragua News, 8 March 2022)

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 18, 2022 1:55 pm

NicaNotes: Without Farming and Art, There is no Revolution
March 17, 2022
By MB Grimes

(Grimes is a 2021 Friends of the ATC intern and delegation participant.)

[Like many of you reading this, we know that participating in delegations to Nicaragua changes lives. The Friends of the ATC solidarity network in the past 5 years has hosted 10 delegations with a focus on incorporating young people into international solidarity organizing. In this article (originally published by Friends of ATC), MB Grimes shares reflections (and those of fellow delegates) after participation in the Friends of ATC Agri-Cultural Work Brigade. Information about the upcoming 2022 June Agri-Cultural Work Brigade and July Food Sovereignty & Agroecology Delegation can be found immediately following the article.]

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Members of the 2021 Friends of the ATC Agri-Cultural Brigade and their Nicaraguan hosts gather for a final picture before leaving the countryside to return to the city.

As the 2021 Friends of ATC Agri-Cultural brigade comes to an end, participating members including myself return to our lives with a shifted perspective, a stronger understanding of Nicaragua and its struggle, culture and people, as well as hope and inspiration.

Like-minded individuals from the United States, Mexico, Japan, Hong Kong, Borinquen, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua gathered together in Nicaragua from September 3-13th, 2021, to build solidarity, exchange knowledge and culture, and learn through experience — specifically in the campo (countryside) of Nicaragua through agroecology. Members of the delegation eagerly gathered in Managua first to learn the history of Nicaragua and the Sandinista Revolution, which included touring the capital city, discovering historical sites, and enjoying community offerings in Managua, such as the beautiful Luis Alfonso Velasquez Park and the Salvador Allende Port. We learned that 45% of the population in Nicaragua live in the campo, and over 90% of the food consumed in Nicaragua is produced within the country.

The following day, we split into two groups to begin our travels to the rural farming communities of Santa Julia with the Cooperative Gloria Quintanilla R. L and La Montañita community at the ATC’s agroecological demonstration plot on the Cruz family farm. Both groups had profound experiences at each location, focusing largely on discussions with community members, cultural and food exchange while also working and living the life of a campesino (peasant farmer). In La Montañita, community members shared information about government social programs and country-wide advancements since the end of the neoliberal period (1990-2006). Since the beginning of Daniel Ortega’s presidency, the country has increased access to electricity from 54% to 98.5% [now 99.1%], increased renewable energy from 25% to 75.9%, all while rolling out literacy programs, affordable housing, school nutrition programs, and de-privatizing health care and education. As I talked with community members, I noticed a heavy emphasis on the role of women and youth in their fight, reiterating their commitment to gender equality and youth activism and engagement. Not only were there insightful conversations, but learning opportunities on how to use agroecology as a means for food sovereignty and to build solidarity.

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After a couple of days in each community, the groups joined together at the Latin American Agroecological Institute (IALA) to continue learning alongside campesinxs in Nicaragua and participate in hands-on work in the campo. We harvested and learned about the processing of beans, made animal feed, prepared beds for planting, milked cows, and shared knowledge with one another, while also quickly learning the hard working reality for campesinxs and their long days in the fields. While some members conducted interviews with community members in preparation for information sharing in their home countries, others helped paint a mural at IALA to represent agroecology, food sovereignty and solidarity. A passionate, artistic participant mentioned to me that “no revolution happened without art” which fueled my desire to complete the mural as a means for solidarity. We collectively acknowledged the high volume of murals and art throughout the country, with strong imagery and messages to the public about the struggles in Nicaragua.

We left IALA with full brains and full hearts, new friendships and… smelly clothes. It was time to return back to Managua to close out our brigade with more learning and sharing, but also fun. We spent our last day touring the home of Sandino in Niquinohomo, a monumental experience for many as the legacy of Sandino lives on powerfully in Nicaragua and around the world. We explored Masaya and its volcano, visited a famous market and were treated to a live music performance from Diego Aguirre, a musician well known in Nicaragua.

As the delegation came to a close, I felt overwhelmed with knowledge and new insight. We collectively learned an immense amount from the people in Nicaragua but also from one another. I noticed throughout the delegation that each member had different strengths and weaknesses, and when combining these we become stronger as we fight for the rights of the peoples of Nicaragua and also globally.

From my own observations, I noticed that the reality of campesinxs in Nicaragua is starkly different from the picture painted by mainstream, neoliberal news. Nicaraguans take pride in their country, their president, and their revolution. There are numerous existing programs that increase access to basic needs; people feel the government is there to support them.

From here, it’s up to us to spread our knowledge, challenge the norm presented by the mainstream media, and fight for the rights of workers. Overall, I would recommend this brigade as a means to educate oneself on the true realities of the people in Nicaragua and to stand in solidarity as they continue their fight.

Here are what some of the other brigadistas shared about their experience:

“It’s inspiring to be in a country that has not only had a successful revolution but has been able to overcome a coup attempt and continues to build resources for its people. Nicaragua is an example of successful anti-imperialist struggle that more people should know about.”
– Troi Valles, USA

“I can already feel that this delegation will prove to have been one of the more transformative and inspiring times of my life. After going through the Agri-Cultural Brigade Delegation, I feel much more confident and capable than I was before: in my Spanish skills, in my ability to contribute physical labor, in my ability to adapt and try new things, and in my personal power and responsibility to be an active part of collective struggle and transformation (among others). I also made many friends and established many good connections, which is very important for our goal of international solidarity.”
– Jade Johannesen , USA


Visit Nicaragua this summer with Friends of ATC (2022)

Friends of the ATC is the solidarity network with the Nicaraguan Rural Workers’ Association. The ATC is a founding member of the international social movement, La Via Campesina. We invite you to join this historic organization in revolutionary Nicaragua in these upcoming summer opportunities! Full information can be found on the Friends of ATC website. Limited scholarships available through the Ben Linder Scholarship Fund (for more information, please write info.friendsatc@gmail.com)

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Join us for the 2nd Agri-Cultural Work Brigade in Nicaragua which will make contributions in two significant areas of the Sandinista Revolution: culture and agriculture. In addition to studying the history of art, theater, music, agrarian reform, and farming, all grounded in the Sandinista Popular Revolution, delegates will get to work. There will be opportunities to contribute to ATC agroecological farms, and work on a collective art project to be announced. Come make music, art, and grow food with us! Applications due: Friday April 15th, 2022 info.friendsatc@gmail.com for application)

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Food Sovereignty & Agroecology Delegation, July 12th – July 22nd, 2022

This delegation is an introduction into Nicaragua’s efforts to achieve food sovereignty through the experiences of the ATC. The delegation will visit local agroecological farms and rural communities growing food for the nation. Delegates will also have a chance to exchange with different popular sectors of society in order to understand Nicaragua’s current context and struggle against US imperialism. This delegation will conclude celebrating the 43rd anniversary of the Sandinista Popular Revolution. Applications due: Wednesday, May 12th, 2022 (email info.friendsatc@gmail.com for application)

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-03-17-2022
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 26, 2022 2:08 pm

NicaNotes: Nicaragua Defangs US Regime Change Tactics by Renewing Partnership with China and Leaving the OAS
March 24, 2022
By Ben Gutman

This article was first published on January 20, 2022, by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) at https://www.coha.org/nicaragua-a-renewe ... e-tactics/]

(Ben Gutman is an independent writer, researcher, and organizer. He is currently working on the outsourcing of US border militarization to Guatemala in collaboration with the Guatemala Solidarity Project and the Promoters of Migrant Liberation. Jill-Clark Gollub, COHA’s Asistant Editor, and Patricio Zamorano, COHA’s Director, contributed as editors of this essay.) Endnotes follow the article.


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Chinese Embassy official Yo Bo visits the National Assembly and meets with its president, Gustavo Porras. (Photo: Radio La Primerisima)

In a bold and consequential decision with rippling geopolitical implications, Nicaragua recognized the “One-China Principle” and resumed diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for the first time since the beginning of the neoliberal period in 1990.[1] This was announced December 9, 2021, shortly after a meeting of the China-CELAC Forum in which CELAC’s 32 Latin American member states[2] agreed to adopt a China-CELAC Joint Action Plan for Cooperation. The strengthening of Chinese ties with Western Hemisphere partners in a forum without US presence comes as a red flag for US hegemony and control over its own “backyard,” which, since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, has been firmly fenced off from other “external” global actors seeking influence in the region. However, unlike the last two centuries of US imperialism, China offers an approach that respects the rule of law and national sovereignty.

The replacement of Taiwanese investment with the sustainable socio-economic development model of the PRC’s “Belt and Road Initiative” in Nicaragua on January 16 is particularly threatening to regional US economic domination. In 2014, Nicaragua partnered with a Chinese firm to initiate construction of a second shipping lane connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in addition to the current US-dominated Panama Canal.[3] The anti-Sandinista opposition party Unamos (formerly known as the Sandinista Renovation Movement or MRS), whose leaders frequently met and provided information to the US embassy, helped organize an NED-engineered pseudo-movement in opposition to the project, which eventually came to a halt during the political violence of 2018.[4] The potential relaunch of the Nicaraguan canal project could prove to be a pivotal point in the US’s New Cold War and flailing bid to remain the world’s lone superpower.

Nicaragua leaves the OAS, the de facto diplomatic branch of the US in the Americas

On November 19, following the re-election of President Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan government announced its withdrawal from the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), joining Venezuela and Cuba in what former Bolivian president Evo Morales called “an act of dignity.”[5] In an official letter to OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada repeated previous condemnation of the OAS as an “instrument of interference and intervention” with the “mission to facilitate hegemony of the United States with its interventionism against the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.”[6]

As reported by John Perry for COHA, the OAS produced a 16-page report within 48 hours of the alleged “illegitimate elections” that contained no evidence of fraud on election day. In lockstep with the White House’s perverse and ridiculous claim of support for the “inalienable right to democratic self-determination of the Nicaraguan people,” Almagro’s coup-fomenting false narrative of fraud came straight out of the US/OAS playbook used during their facilitation of the 2019 coup d’état against Morales’ MAS party in Bolivia.[7] The OAS was constructed by the US as an anti-socialist alliance of right-wing regimes at the onset of the First Cold War, and its delegitimization of the 2021 Nicaraguan election reflects continuity of its role as “Ministry of Colonies” of the United States, as it was referred to by Fidel Castro.[8]

Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the OAS and its reestablishment of relations with the PRC are bold decisions that flex Nicaraguan sovereignty and communicate to developing countries that a path of resistance against Western coercion leads to independence, inclusive development, and promising new opportunities. The Sandinista Front’s defeat of a three-year long US regime change operation, which culminated in the inauguration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on January 10, 2022, has translated the sacrifices made by the Nicaraguan people into a concrete plan to further the egalitarian principles of the Sandinista Revolution.

Against a militarized and neoliberal model for Central America

With support from the fastest growing economy in the world with a population of 1.4 billion, in addition to an array of other governments and solidarity movements, Nicaragua has earned the ability to lead a more aggressive charge against Washington’s proposed militarized security and neoliberal development model for Central America.[9] Such a model which aims to enrich corporations through private investment and austerity to the detriment of the poor and working-class remains the antithesis to the Chinese and Sandinista revolutions. During his inauguration speech, President Ortega elucidated this key point, stating that the “Chinese revolution and the Sandinista revolution [have] the same north star, the same path, the same destiny, which is to end poverty.”

As the process of poverty alleviation runs contrary to the exploitative goals of Western imperialists, the US and EU levied coordinated unilateral coercive measures against Nicaraguan officials on the day of President Ortega’s inauguration.[10] However, the strategy of relentless hybrid warfare used to isolate and punish “enemy states” like Nicaragua has lost some of its impact. “The unipolar world is over. It’s a multipolar world,” said Black Alliance for Peace’s Margaret Kimberley at the inauguration. The Nicaraguan people’s defeat of US regime change attempts over the last three years is a remarkable accomplishment that helped the paradigm shift towards a multi-polar world. However, it is important to recognize the inevitable sacrifices that come with resistance, to dissect imperial destabilization strategies, and to reflect on the manufactured policies that have brought us to where we are today.

Revisiting the 2018 Attempted Coup, and the US media supported narrative

In Nicaragua-based journalist Ben Norton’s investigation titled “How USAID Created Nicaragua’s Anti-Sandinista Media Apparatus, Now under Money Laundering Investigation,” Norton presents documented evidence that the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation received more than $7 million of the $10 million funneled to Nicaraguan opposition media from the US’s soft-power arm the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) between 2014 and 2021.[11] The majority of this funding was distributed amongst some 25 publications including Chamorro Foundation-owned outlets that are widely quoted by the international press and elite US think tanks like the Open Society Foundation, which characterized El Nuevo Diario, Confidencial, and La Prensa (all Chamorro owned) as “the most important online news providers” in Nicaragua.[12] As reported by Norton, the foreign funding and cultivation of these opposition and media groups led to arrests under Nicaragua’s law 1055, which was then framed by the corporate media as an authoritarian crackdown against opposition leaders.

Many international corporate media outlets like the BBC framed “Nicaragua’s worsening crisis” in 2018 as “unexpected” and a result of grassroots movements peacefully protesting against a corrupt dictatorship.[13] This false narrative was exposed by John Perry in a report for The Grayzone titled “A Response to Misinformation on Nicaragua: It Was a Coup, Not a ‘Massacre.’” First, Perry points out that even anti-Ortega mainstream academics had admitted that US institutions like the USAID and NED were “laying the groundwork for insurrection,” debunking the narrative that the protests were organic and fortuitous.[14] Second, Perry makes it clear that in an attempt to facilitate the established “peaceful protester” narrative by white-washing violence perpetrated by coup-supporters, academics and corporate media engaged in the systematic omission of inconvenient facts including the murder of 22 police officers and the torture of Sandinista civilians. The Nicaragua-based anti-imperialist collective Tortilla con Sal published independent researcher Enrique Hendrix’s in-depth analysis of this bad-faith framing as well as additional evidence backing claims of torture used against Sandinistas.

Much like corporate media and billionaire-funded foundations, a Nicaraguan human rights industry intricately connected and funded by US and European governments pushed propaganda, including the decontextualization of deaths and faulty death count figures, to provide cover for US regime change goals masquerading as unprovoked government repression.[15] In the article “The Rise and Fall of Nicaragua’s ‘Human Rights’ organizations” published in the Alliance for Global Justice’s NicaNotes, John Perry relays how three vocally anti-Sandinista human rights groups wielded disproportionate influence over the narratives presented in international bodies such as Amnesty International and the UN Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR). For example, included in the UNHCR’s 2018 report on Nicaragua were detailed references to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH), which was created by the Reagan administration to whitewash Contra atrocities and received $88,000 from the NED and $348,000 from other US sources in 2018.

In June of 2019, to the dismay of many Sandinistas whose family members were murdered during the coup attempt, the Nicaraguan government passed an Amnesty Law pardoning and expunging the records of those involved in violent and treasonous acts as part of a national dialogue with the opposition.[16] This clemency came even after the opposition refused to ask the United States to end illegal unilateral coercive measures packaged as the 2018 NICA Act (passed in the US House of Representatives under unanimous concent with zero opposition), which opposition activists themselves had requested in 2015.[17] During coverage of the peace and reconciliation process and in a continuation of the 2018 information warfare campaign, corporate media outlets like Reuters took a rather one-sided approach highlighting the law’s “protection to police and others who took part in a violent clampdown on anti-government protesters,” but failed to mention the violent acts committed against the police by these so-called anti-government protesters.[18]

US Hybrid Warfare Revisited during the 2021 Nicaraguan Presidential Election

In the months prior to the November 7 election, the US government and its affiliated ecosystem of obedient corporate media, social media, and hawkish think tanks took aim at Nicaragua in an effort to further isolate the nation with the ultimate goal of regime change to a more business-friendly neoliberal leadership.

A USAID regime change document leaked to independent Nicaraguan journalist William Grigsby in July 2020 and analyzed in John Perry’s “The US Contracts Out its Regime Change Operation in Nicaragua” provides useful insight into US destabilization plans. This RAIN or Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua document provides Terms of Reference for a contract to hire a company to oversee the “transition to democracy” in Nicaragua. The word “transition,” an obvious euphemism for regime change, is used more than 60 times throughout the document to describe different post-election scenarios. In the case of a “delayed transition” or Sandinista victory, the hired company would provide “research and planning for USAID and for civil society leadership with discrete technical assistance.” In other words, the company would continue USAID’s work subverting Nicaragua’s democratic process by funding, training, and directing opposition groups and media hostile to the FSLN.

However, despite clear evidence that the US was engaged in a multidimensional destabilization campaign before, during, and after the 2018 coup attempt, even progressive publications like NACLA failed to accurately report on events in Nicaragua. In the article “How Can Some Progressives Get Basic Information About Nicaragua So Wrong?” John Perry and Rick Stirling dismantle a popular State Department narrative promoted by NACLA that the November 7 election was rigged because seven potential candidates were prevented from running for president, by laying out the real crimes of which they are accused and the dubiousness of their candidacies. While the corporate media pushed this narrative ad nauseum regarding Nicaragua, it was almost completely absent prior to the 2021 Ecuadorian presidential election during which neoliberal president Lenin Moreno jailed, exiled, and banned Correístas from running in elections.[19]

In addition to news media propaganda, a bizarre censorship campaign launched by social media monopoly Facebook in the days leading up to the November 7 election silenced around 1,300 Nicaragua-based accounts run by pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, as reported by The Grayzone’s Ben Norton.[20] Facebook justified this action by claiming that the censored accounts were part of a “troll farm run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party.”[21] In John Perry’s COHA article titled “Facebook Does the US Government’s Censorship Work in Nicaraguan Elections”, Perry points out that “many commentators suffered double censorship: blocked because they were falsely accused of being bots, then prevented from proving that the accusations were false when they posted videos of themselves as real people.” Facebook and other tech giants like Google and Microsoft have an extensive history of collaboration with the U.S. security state, often enjoying lucrative U.S. Defense Department contracts, and are known to have a revolving door with the public sector.[22] Norton shows this connection by exposing Facebook’s Head of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher as the former director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council who had also worked at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Despite intense and ongoing hybrid warfare targeting the integrity of Nicaragua’s 2021 presidential election, 65% of the eligible 4.4 million Nicaraguans voted and 75% of those voters chose to re-elect Comandante Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista Front. While the Nicaraguan government did prevent the OAS from sending observers given its role in the 2019 Bolivian coup, there were 165 election observers and 67 journalists from 27 countries present on November 7.[23] Members of delegations from the U.S. and Canada, including COHA’s Jill Clark-Gollub, who observed the elections held a press conference during which they characterized the election process as “efficient, transparent, with widespread turnout and participation of opposition parties.”[24] In the COHA report “Despite US led Dirty Campaign, Nicaraguans Came Out in Force in Support of the FSLN”, Clark-Gollub expressed her disbelief that corporate media and the Biden administration had declared the vote a fraud with as few as 20% of the electorate turned out to vote. “This flies in the face of my own experience,” Clark-Gollub said.[25] However, despite US and NATO rejection of the election results, 153 sovereign nations around the world supported Nicaraguan democracy by recognizing the election results at the United Nations.[26]

Conclusion: A Brighter Future for Inclusive Economic Development in Nicaragua?

After more than a century of US aggression, including three decades of global hegemonic control, Obama’s “pivot” to Asia in 2016 marked a paradigm shift and the start of a New Cold War against China. The People’s Republic of China’s unparalleled economic growth and eagerness to use its deep coffers to jumpstart economic development projects in the “third world” is a direct threat to neoliberal capitalist hegemony, as China offers developing nations an alternative to the predatory debt traps sprung by western lending institutions like the World Bank and IMF.

Mere weeks after Nicaragua’s resumption of diplomatic relations with the PRC, Chinese government representative Yu Bo extended an invitation to Nicaragua to join its Belt and Road Initiative during the newly established Chinese embassy’s flag-raising ceremony in Managua. Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada responded to the invitation with approval stating, “we are sure that we will continue working together, strengthening each day the fraternal ties of friendship, cooperation, investment, [and] expanding communication channels with the Belt and Road…”.

This bilateral economic partnership brings a potential scaffolding with which the “pueblo presidente” can “start with a clean slate” and get back on the road to the progress being made prior to April 2018. In the words of Comandante Ortega, this means “building peace to combat poverty…so that there can be roads and paths…so families can feel confident; their children can feel confident in their work; [and so] they feel confident in having a dignified life.” Nicaraguans can also feel confident that economic development in partnership with the Chinese will not come with the relinquishment of national sovereignty through coerced neoliberal structural adjustment programs or debt trap gangsterism.

If the Sandinista government chooses to reject future development proposals put forth by China through Belt and Road, they can expect good faith negotiation without the threat of violent hybrid warfare favored by the U.S. and NATO. In a 2019 interview, Jamaican-British rapper Akala explains this key difference in the context of Jamaican participation in the Belt and Road Initiative: “There are several projects that the Chinese have proposed in Jamaica that the Jamaican people said ‘no’ to, [so] the Jamaican government had to say ‘no’… what was the Chinese response? Was it to send the CIA in? Was it to overthrow the Jamaican democracy? Was it to cut off aid to Jamaica? No. They said ok, we proposed a business deal and you said no. Here’s another one.”

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Endnotes:
[1] Escalante, Camila. “China and Nicaragua to Collab on New Multipolar World.” Kawsachun News, 10 Dec. 2021, kawsachunnews.com/china-and-nicaragua-to-collab-on-new-multipolar-world.
[2] Officially formalized in 2011 as an alternative to the OAS, CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) is a cooperative venture among developing nations.
[3] Voltaire Network. “Nicaragua Could Bring Canal Project Back to Life.” Voltaire Network, 12 Dec. 2021, www.voltairenet.org/article215032.html.
[4] Norton, B. (2021, November 18). From Nicaraguan revolutionaries to US embassy informants: How Washington recruited ex-sandinistas like Dora María Téllez and her mrs party. The Grayzone. Retrieved January 15, 2022, from https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/05/nica ... ellez-mrs/
[5] JF, teleSUR/. “Withdrawal of Nicaragua from OAS Is an Act of Dignity: Morales.” News | teleSUR English. teleSUR, November 22, 2021. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Wit ... -0002.html.
[6] Norton, Benjamin. “Nicaragua Leaves US-Controlled, Coup-Plotting OAS: ‘We Are Not a Colony.’” Medium, 19 Nov. 2021, benjaminnorton.medium.com/nicaragua-leaves-us-controlled-coup-plotting-oas-we-are-not-a-colony-2ffe83c319ae.
[7] Curiel, John, and Jack Williams. “Bolivia Dismissed Its October Elections as Fraudulent. Our Research Found No Reason to Suspect Fraud.” Washington Post, 27 Feb. 2020, Washington Post Link HERE.
[8] Staff, Reuters. “Castro Says Cuba Doesn’t Want to Rejoin ‘Vile’ OAS.” U.S., 15 Apr. 2009, www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-castro- ... 7K20090415.
[9] Chomsky, A. (2021, March 30). Will Biden’s central american plan slow migration (or speed it up)? TomDispatch.com. Retrieved January 15, 2022, from https://tomdispatch.com/will-bidens-cen ... eed-it-up/
[10] Al Jazeera. (2022, January 10). US slaps new sanctions on Nicaragua on Ortega’s Inauguration Day. Elections News | Al Jazeera. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/ ... ration-day
[11] Norton, Ben. “How USAID Created Nicaragua’s Anti-Sandinista Media Apparatus, Now under Money Laundering Investigation.” The Grayzone, 26 June 2021, thegrayzone.com/2021/06/01/cia-usaid-nicaragua-right-wing-media.
[12] Perry, John. “NPR Should Ask Where Nicaraguan Non-Profits’ Money Comes From.” CounterPunch.Org, 23 May 2021, www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/24/npr-sho ... comes-from.
[13] BBC News. “Downward Spiral: Nicaragua’s Worsening Crisis.” BBC News, 16 July 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44398673.
[14] Waddell, Benjamin. “Laying the Groundwork for Insurrection: A Closer Look at the U.S. Role in Nicaragua’s Social Unrest.” Global Americans, 10 July 2020, theglobalamericans.org/2018/05/laying-groundwork-insurrection-closer-look-u-s-role-nicaraguas-social-unrest.
[15] Perry, John. “NicaNotes: The Rise and Fall of Nicaragua’s ‘Human Rights’ Organizations.” Alliance for Global Justice, 21 Aug. 2019, afgj.org/nicanotes-the-rise-and-fall-of-nicaraguas-human-rights-organizations.
[16] teleSUR/ov-MV. “Nicaragua Approves Amnesty Law To Bring Peace.” News | TeleSUR English, 9 June 2019, www.telesurenglish.net/news/Nicaragua-A ... -0001.html.
[17] Nicanotes: The revolution won’t be stopped: Nicaragua advances despite US unconventional warfare. Alliance for Global Justice. (2020, July 22). Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://afgj.org/nicanotes-the-revoluti ... al-warfare
[18] Lopez, Ismael. “Nicaraguan Congress Approves Ortega-Backed Amnesty Law.” U.S., 9 June 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-nicaragua-am ... SKCN1TA00U.
[19] Emersberger, J. (2021, February 16). Ignoring repression and dirty tricks in coverage of Ecuador’s election. FAIR. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://fair.org/home/ignoring-repressi ... -election/
[20] Norton, Ben. “Meet the Nicaraguans Facebook Falsely Branded Bots and Censored Days before Elections.” The Grayzone, 2 Nov. 2021, thegrayzone.com/2021/11/02/facebook-twitter-purge-sandinista-nicaragua.
[21] Company, Facebook. “October 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report.” Meta, 5 Nov. 2021, about.fb.com/news/2021/11/october-2021-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-report.
[22] Levine, Yasha. Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet. Icon Books Ltd, 2019.
[23] Norton, Ben. “Debunking Myths about Nicaragua’s 2021 Elections, under Attack by USA/EU/OAS.” The Grayzone, 12 Nov. 2021, thegrayzone.com/2021/11/11/nicaragua-2021-elections.
[24] Escalante, Camilla. “North Americans Debunk US & OAS Claims on Nicaragua Election.” Kawsachun News, 10 Nov. 2021, kawsachunnews.com/north-americans-debunk-us-oas-claims-on-nicaragua-election.
[25] Clark-Gollub, Rita Jill. “Despite US Led Dirty Campaign, Nicaraguans Came Out in Force in Support of the FSLN.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 12 Nov. 2021, www.coha.org/despite-us-led-dirty-campa ... f-the-fsln.
[26] Kohn, Richard. “NicaNotes: Nicaragua’s Election Was Free and Fair.” Alliance for Global Justice, 2 Dec. 2021, afgj.org/nicanotes-12-02-2021

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-03-24-2022

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Nicaragua qualifies as unfounded accusations by the Government of Colombia

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The Foreign Ministry of the Central American nation rejected the content of a letter sent by Colombia, which it affirmed is interfering. | Photo: el19digital.com
Published March 26, 2022 (5 hours 21 minutes ago)

Nicaragua stressed that "the narco State of Colombia uses its territory to sponsor (...) terrorist groups to alter the peace" in Venezuela.

The Government of the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, considered as unfounded the accusations made against him by the Colombian Administration, chaired by Iván Duque.

In a press release released on Friday, the Foreign Ministry of the Central American nation rejected the content of a letter sent by Colombia, which, it asserted, is an attack against the Nicaraguan people and is in itself an interventionist act.

The Nicaraguan agency released the content of a letter addressed to the representation of Panama before the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in its capacity as pro tempore president of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (Grulac), in which he refers to the note sent by Colombia.


MINREX - RESPONSE NOTE TO COLOMBIA.pdf from teleSUR TV https://www.telesurtv.net/teleSURTV/min ... olombiapdf

In that note, which Nicaragua stressed that it rejects "in all aspects of its content," the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs disqualified Managua's nomination for vice-presidency of the 37th FAO Regional Conference, which will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from March 28 to April 1 next.

The Foreign Ministry, in response, accused Colombia of the multiple murders committed against its citizens, highlighting that Bogotá does not make effective progress in protecting its population or in stopping the massive production of cocaine.

Likewise, he stressed that "the narco State of Colombia uses its territory to sponsor, finance terrorist groups to alter the peace in the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela."

The Nicaraguan government, on the other hand, reaffirmed that the nation is recognized by institutions, such as the FAO, in terms of food security, receiving several distinctions from that organization for merits in the fight against hunger.

https://www.telesurtv.net/multimedia/ni ... -0003.html
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Tue Mar 29, 2022 1:19 pm

Why is the Nicaraguan Government Demonized by Both Liberals and Conservatives When Nicaragua Has Seen Great Progress Under the Sandinistas?
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MARCH 28, 2022
Stansfield Smith

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Women Have Made Particularly Significant Gains Under the Second Sandinista Government Since 2006

Women, particularly those in the Third World, often find themselves with limited ability to participate in community organizations and political life because of the poverty and their traditional sex role imposes on them.

On them falls sole responsibility to care for their children and other family members, especially when sick; they maintain the home, cook the meals, wash the dishes, the clothes, bathe the children, clean the house, mend the clothes. This labor becomes unending manual labor when households have no electricity (consequently, no lights, no refrigerator, no labor-saving electrical devices), and no running water.

The burden of this work impedes the social participation, self-expectations, and education of the female population.

Women in the Third World (and increasingly in the imperial First World) face problems of violence at home and in public, problems of food and water for the family, of proper shelter, and lack of health care for the family, and their own lack of access to education and, thus, work opportunities.

In Nicaragua, before the 1979 Sandinista revolution, men typically fulfilled few obligations for their children; men often abandoned the family, leaving the care to women. It was not uncommon to hear the abuse that men inflicted on women, to see women running to a neighbor for refuge.

It was not uncommon to encounter orphaned children whose mothers died in childbirth, since maternal mortality was high. Common illnesses were aggravated because there were few hospitals and, if there were, cash payment was demanded.

After the 1979 Sandinista victory, living conditions for women dramatically improved, achievements the period of neoliberal rule (1990-2006) did not completely overturn. Throughout the second Sandinista period (2007- today), the material and social position of women again made giant steps forward.

The greatest advances have been made by poor women in the rural areas and barrios, historically without safety, electricity, water and sanitation services, health care, or paved roads.

The liberation women have attained during the Sandinista era cannot be measured only by what we apply in North America: equal pay for equal work, the right to abortion, the right to affordable childcare, freedom from sexual discrimination.

Women’s liberation in Third World countries involves matters that may not appear on the surface as women’s rights issues. These include the paving of roads, improving housing, legalized land tenure, school meal programs, new clinics and hospitals, electrification, plumbing, literacy campaigns, potable water, aid programs to campesinos and crime reduction programs.

Because half of Nicaraguan families are headed by single mothers, this infrastructure development promotes the liberation and well-being of women.

Government programs that directly or indirectly shorten the hours of household drudgery free women to participate more in community life and increase their self-confidence and leadership. A country can have no greater democratic achievement than bringing about full and equal participation of women.

Women’s Liberation Boosted with the FSLN’s Zero Hunger and Zero Usury Programs

These programs, launched in 2007, raise the socio-economic position of women. Zero Hunger furnishes pigs, a pregnant cow, chickens, plants, seeds, fertilizers, and building materials to women in rural areas to diversify their production, upgrade the family diet,and strengthen women-run household economies.

The agricultural assets provided are put in the woman’s name, equipping women to become more self-sufficient producers; it gives them more direct control and security over food for their children.

This breaks women’s historic dependency on male breadwinners and encourages their self-confidence. The program has aided 275,000 poor families, more than one million people (of a total of 6.6 million Nicaraguans) and has increased both their own food security and the nation’s food sovereignty.

Nicaragua now produces close to 90% of its own food, with most coming from small and medium farmers, many of them women. As Fausto Torrez of the Nicaraguan Rural Workers Association (ATC) correctly noted, “A nation that cannot feed itself is not free.”

The Zero Usury program is a microcredit mechanism that now charges 0.5% annual interest, not the world microcredit average of 35%. More than 445,000 women have received these low-interest loans, typically three loans each.

The program not only empowers women but is a key factor reducing poverty, unlocking pools of talent, and driving diversified and sustainable growth. Many women receiving loans have turned their businesses into cooperatives, providing jobs to other women. Since 2007, about 5,900 cooperatives have formed, with 300 being women’s cooperatives.

Poverty has been reduced from 48% in 2007 to 25% and extreme poverty from 17.5% to 7%. This benefited women in particular, since single mother households suffered more from poverty. The Zero Hunger and Zero Usury programs have lessened the traditional domestic violence, given that women in poverty suffer greater risk of violence and abuse than others.

Giving Women Titles to Property Is a Step Toward Women’s Liberation

Since most Nicaraguans live by small-scale farming or by small business, possessing the title of legal ownership is a major concern. Between 2007 and 2021, the FSLN government has given out 451,250 land titles in the countryside and the city, with women making up 55% of the property-owners who benefited. Providing women with the legal title to their own land was a great step toward their economic independence.

Infrastructure Programs Expand Women’s Freedom

The Sandinista government has funded the building or renovation of 290,000 homes since 2007, free of charge for those in extreme poverty, or with interest-free long-term loans. This aided more than one million Nicaraguans, particularly single mothers, who head half of all Nicaraguan families.

In 2006 only 65% of the urban population had potable drinking water; now 92% do. Access to potable water in rural areas has doubled, from 28% to 55%. This frees women from the toilsome daily walk to the village well to carry buckets of water home to cook every meal, wash the dishes and clothes, and bathe the children. Homes connected to sewage disposal systems have grown from 30% in 2007 to 57% in 2021.

Now 99% of the population has electricity compared to 54% in 2006. As we know from experiencing electrical blackouts, electricity significantly frees our lives from time-consuming tasks. Street lighting has more than doubled, increasing security for all. Reliable home electricity enables the use of electrical labor-saving devices, such as a refrigerator.

Today, high-speed internet connects and unites most of the country, reducing people’s isolation and lack of access to information. Virtually everyone has a cell phone, and free internet is now available in many public parks.

Nicaragua’s road system is now among the best in Latin America and the Caribbean, given it has built more roads in the last 15 years than were built in the previous 200 years. Outlying towns are now connected to the national network. Now women in rural areas can travel elsewhere to work, sell their products in nearby markets, attend events in other towns, and take themselves or their children to the hospital. This contributes to the fight against poverty and the fight for women’s liberation.

Better roads and housing, almost universal electrical and internet access, as well as indoor plumbing, greatly lessens the burdens placed on women homemakers and provide them with greater freedom to participate in the world they live in.

The Sandinista Educational System Emancipates Women

The humanitarian nature of the FSLN governments, as opposed to the disregard by previous neoliberal regimes, is revealed by statistics on illiteracy. When the FSLN revolution triumphed in 1979, illiteracy topped 56%.

Within ten years they reduced it to 12%. Yet by the end of the 16-year neoliberal period in 2006, which dismantled the free education system, illiteracy had again risen to 23%. Today the FSLN government has cut illiteracy to under 4%.

The FSLN made education completely free, eliminating school fees. This, combined with the aid programs for poor women, has allowed 100,000 children to return to school. The government began a school lunch program, a meal of beans and rice to 1.5 million school and pre-school children every day.

Pre-school, primary and secondary students are supplied with backpacks, glasses when needed, and low-income students receive uniforms at no cost. Now a much higher proportion of children are able to attend school, which provides more opportunities for mothers to work outside the home.

Nicaragua has established a nationwide free day-care system, now numbering 265 centers. Mothers can take their young children to day care, freeing them from another of the major hurdles to entering the workforce.

Due to the vastly expanded and free medical system, the Zero Hunger, Zero Usury and other programs, chronic malnutrition in children under five has been cut in half, with chronic malnutrition in children six to twelve cut by two-thirds. Now it is rare to see kids with visible malnutrition, removing another preoccupation from mothers.

Schools and businesses never closed during the Covid pandemic, and Nicaragua’s health system has been among the most successful in the world addressing Covid. The country has the lowest number of Covid deaths per million inhabitants among all the countries of the Americas.

Nicaragua has also built a system of parks, playgrounds, and other free recreation where mothers can take their children.

Throughout the school system, the Ministry of Education promotes a culture of equal rights and non-discrimination. It has implemented the new subject “Women’s Rights and Dignities,” which teaches students about women’s right to a life without harassment and abuse and the injustices of the patriarchal system. Campaigns were launched to promote the participation of both mom and dad in a child’s education, such as emphasizing that attending school meetings or performances are shared responsibilities of both parents.

Sandinistas’ Free Health Care System Liberates Women

In stark contrast to Nicaragua’s neoliberal years, with its destruction of the medical system, and in contrast to other Central American countries and the United States with their privatized health care for profit, the Sandinistas have established community-based, free, preventive public health care. Accordingly, life expectancy has risen from 72 years in 2006 to 77 years today, now equal to the U.S. level.

Health care units number more than 1,700, including 1,259 health posts and 192 health centers, with one-third built since 2007. The country has 77 hospitals, with 21 new hospitals built, and 46 existing hospitals remodeled and modernized. Nicaragua provides 178 maternity homes near medical centers for expectant mothers with high-risk pregnancies or from rural areas to stay during the last weeks of pregnancy.

The United States is the richest country in the Americas, while Nicaragua is the third-poorest. Yet in the U.S. since 2010, more than 100 rural hospitals have closed, and fewer than 50% of rural women have access to pre-natal services within a 30-mile drive from their homes. This has disproportionately affected low-income women, particularly Black and Latino women.

Nicaragua has equipped 66 mobile clinics, which gave nearly 1.9 million consultations in 2020. These include cervical and breast cancer screenings, helping to cut the cervical cancer mortality rate by 34% since 2007. The number of women receiving Pap tests has increased almost five-fold, from 181,491 in 2007 to 880,907 in 2020.

In the pre-Sandinista era, one-fourth of pregnant women gave birth at home, with no doctor. There were few hospitals and pregnant women often had to travel rough dirt roads to reach a clinic or hospital. Now women need not worry about reaching a distant hospital while in labor because they can reside in a local maternity home for the last two weeks of their pregnancies and be monitored by doctors.

In 2020, 67,222 pregnant women roomed in one of these homes, and could be accompanied by their mothers or sisters. As a result, 99% of births today are in medical centers, and maternal mortality fell from 115 deaths per 100,000 births in 2006 to 36 in 2020. These are giant steps forward in the liberation of women.

Contrary to the indifference to women in the U.S., Nicaraguan mothers receive one month off work before their baby is born, and two months off after; even men get five days off work when their baby is born. Mothers also receive free milk for six months. Men and women get five paid days off work when they marry.

The Question of Abortion Rights

The law making abortion illegal, removing the “life and health of the mother” exception, was passed in the National Assembly under President Enrique Bolaños in 2006. There had been a well-organized and funded campaign by Catholics all over Latin America as well as large marches over the previous two years in Nicaragua in favor of this law.

The law, supported by 80% of the people, was proposed immediately before the presidential election as a vote-getting ploy by Bolaños. The Sandinistas were a minority in the National Assembly at the time, and the FSLN legislators were released from party discipline for the vote. The majority abstained, while several voted in favor. The law has never been implemented or rescinded.

Since the Sandinistas’ return to power in 2007 no woman or governmental or private health professional has been prosecuted for any action related to abortion. Any woman whose life is in danger receives an abortion in government health centers or hospitals. Many places exist for women to get abortions; none has been closed or attacked, and none is clandestine. The morning-after pill and contraceptive services are widely available.

Sandinista Measures to Free Women from Violence

Nicaragua has created 102 women’s police stations, special units that include protecting women and children from sexual and domestic violence and abuse. Now women can talk to female police officers about crimes committed against them, whether it be abuse or rape, making it easier and more comfortable for women to file complaints, receive counseling for trauma, and ensure that violent crimes against women are prosecuted in a thorough and timely manner.

Women make up 34.3% of the 16,399 National Police officers, a high number for a police department. For instance, New York City and Los Angeles police are 18% women and Chicago is 23%.

The United Nations finds Nicaragua the safest country in Central America, with the lowest homicide rate, 7.2 per 100,000 (down from 13.4 in 2006), less than half the regional average of 19.

It also has the lowest rate of femicides in Central America (0.7 per 100,000), another testament to the Sandinista commitment to ending mistreatment of women. The government organizes citizen-security assemblies to raise consciousness concerning violence against women and to handle the vulnerabilities women face in the family and community. Mifamilia, the Ministry of the Family, carries out house-to-house visits to stress prevention of violence against women and sexual abuse of children.

Nicaragua is the most successful regional country in combating drug trafficking and organized crime, freeing women from the insecurity that plagues women in places such as Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

Women’s Leadership in the Nicaragua Government

The progress women have made during the second FSLN era is reflected in their participation in government. The 1980s’ Sandinista directorate contained no women. In 2007, the second Sandinista government mandated equal representation for women, ensuring that at least 50% of public offices would be filled by women, from the national level to the municipal.

Today, 9 out of 16 national government cabinet ministers are women. Women head the Supreme Electoral Council, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s office, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and account for 60% of judges. Women make up half of the National Assembly, of mayors, of vice-mayors and of municipal council members. Women so represented in high positions provides a model and inspires all women and girls to participate in building a new society with more humane human relations.

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No Greater Democratic Victory Than the Liberation of Women

The progress made in women’s liberation is seen in the Global Gender Gap Index: In 2007, Nicaragua ranked 90th on the index; by 2020, it had jumped to 5th place, exceeded only by Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden.

Nicaragua is a country that has accomplished the most in liberating women from household drudgery and domestic slavery because of its policies favoring the social and political participation and economic advancement of poor women.

Women have gained a women’s police commissariat, legal recognition of their property, new homes for abused women and for poor single mothers, economic programs that empower poorer women, abortion is not criminalized in practice, half of all political candidates and public office holders are women, extreme poverty has been cut by half, mostly benefiting women and children, domestic toil has been greatly reduced because of modernized national infrastructure, women have convenient and free health care.

In their liberation struggle, Nicaraguan women are becoming ever more self-sufficient and confident in enforcing their long-neglected human rights. They are revolutionizing their collective self-image and ensuring their central role in building a new society. This betters the working class and campesinos as a whole by improving the quality of life for all and is a vital weapon in combating U.S. economic warfare.

As Lenin observed, “The experience of all liberation movements has shown that the success of a revolution depends on how much the women take part in it.” Nicaragua is one more living example that a new world is possible.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/03/ ... ndinistas/

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Nicaragua Elected To Serve as Vice-chair of FAO Conference
Published 28 March 2022 (10 hours 0 minutes ago)

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Nicaragua was elected to occupy the Vice-Presidency of the 37th Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which began Monday in Quito, where the 33 member states will discuss climate change and the transformation of agrifood systems for greater sustainability and resilience.

"In the inaugural session, Nicaragua has been elected to occupy the Vice-Presidency for the next two years in the person of Comrade Minister Edward Centeno and to present in the course of the Conference the experience of our Country in the thematic sessions: better Environment, innovations in favor of agri-food systems adapted to Climate Change and that mitigate its effects and better production, innovations in relation to small-scale family farming," informed Managua, through a statement.

Nicaragua protested on Friday the opposition of Colombia for the charge of the FAO conference, which issued a "note of dissent," noting that the Central American country does not guarantee "the minimum rules of democracy."

President Daniel Ortega's administration responded with a long list of serious human rights violations in Colombia: from the increase of assassinations of social leaders to the cocaine production documented by the United Nations.

However, Centeno, nominated by Tomás Duncan, Panama's representative and president pro tempore of the Latin American and Caribbean Group (Grulac), was elected by 31 countries, despite Colombia's opposition and Uruguay's abstention.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Nic ... -0017.html
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 08, 2022 1:30 pm

Women and the Sandinista Revolution: Interview with National Assembly Deputy Irma Dávila
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 6, 2022
Kawsachun News

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Nicaragua continues to lead by example in its commitment to equal rights among women and men and far outpaces the rest of the world with its exceptional achievements in realizing high levels of women’s participation in government.

According to the ILO, the country places first in the world for having the highest number of women ministers. Ministers of Education, Health, Economy, Justice and Labor are all currently women. Nicaragua is one of only three countries to have exceeded gender parity in its National Assembly, ranking third in the world in women’s representation in national parliaments.

Outside of the country, these and many other women’s achievements under the Sandinista Revolution have been deliberately under-reported.

To hear more about the government’s commitment to bettering the lives and conditions of Nicaraguan women, we sat down with National Assembly lawmaker Irma Dávila, President of the Commission for Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs of the National Assembly of Nicaragua. Below is a transcription of the interview which we conducted in January at the National Assembly in Managua.

Interview with National Assembly Deputy Irma Dávila, President of the Commission for Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs of the National Assembly of Nicaragua, by Camila Escalante of Kawsachun News, Fiorella Isabel of the Convo Couch and Stephen Sefton of Tortilla Con Sal.

What does the Sandinista Revolution offer women under the presidency of Comandante Daniel Ortega?

Irma Dávila: Well, the restitution of Nicaraguan women’s rights has been a historical commitment of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. That is to say that it’s not only now that the Sandinista Front concerned about women’s rights, rather it has been a commitment ever since the Sandinista Front was founded. Today we are proud to share with you our progress whereby, thanks to the political will of our government, those rights are becoming a reality.

Today, gender practice in Nicaragua is reflected at the highest level, namely in the Political Constitution; our gender practices are constitutionalized and have been put into practice. We work from a model of equity, a model of complementarity, of equality, of justice. And from our government’s vocation of peace and humanism, we have been working for the empowerment and leadership of Nicaraguan women in all areas of life, in the political, economic, social, cultural, community and family spheres.

Today, women in Nicaragua celebrate the fact that we are subjects of economic development. Today, we women contribute actively to the country’s economy. We are participants in the great economic, social and political transformations our country is undergoing. In this sense, we feel very proud to have a government that has taken on this commitment with great responsibility, because today Nicaraguan women have access to rights we did not have before.

Today, women have access to health care, which is one of the most sensitive issues. Nicaragua has reduced maternal mortality, maternal and infant mortality via our community and family health model. We have maternal shelters in all the country’s municipalities where the mother and their newborn are cared for by medical specialists during childbirth. Today, we have access to education; women have access to all the educational modalities they were previously denied.

Access to housing, we have access to land. Under this revolutionary government, land titles are given to women, who are heads of families too, and we also have access to credit so that women can develop economically. We have access to the means of production and are now included in the employment model and in the social, cooperative, associative economic model, working to contribute to the gross domestic product of this country and to the fight against poverty.

Today, we women have rescued our dignity. Women are respected in this country and proof of this is that we are in fifth place in the recent study by the World Economic Forum. It examined several countries and found that Nicaragua, a small country in Central America, in Latin America, occupies fifth place in gender equity, which means that today women have access to health, education, the economy and political participation, closing the gap of inequality and poverty.

From the United States, the idea is promoted that they are the most advanced in feminism, in what they call feminism. However, women there don’t earn the same as men. How is it possible that a Central American country, a supposedly third world country, has been able to do better than a great power like the United States and other countries?

This has to do with political will and here in Nicaragua we have the political will of our President and our Vice President, a real commitment to equal rights for men and women. We have a model of equity and of complementarity that has been made possible with the Revolution. That’s why Nicaragua surprises people, because we are not only in the fifth place as examined by the World Economic Forum, but also the ILO places Nicaraguan women in the first place in the world, where there is the highest participation of women as ministers. We have Education, the minister is a woman, Health, the ministers are women, in the Economy the minister is a woman, in Justice there’s a woman, and for Labor there’s a woman.

We are the first country in the world to have the recognition of having the highest participation of women in these responsibilities, but not only in office, but also in the National Assembly. In parliament, we have the recognition of being in the fourth place in the region with the highest number of women parliamentarians. Recently, those of us who have been elected, out of 91 male and female deputies, we have 46 women and 45 men. That is to say that just over 50% of the elected Assembly are women. Added to that, we occupy the presidency of commissions, vice presidency and women hold the majority of the executive board.

Women are making decisions, elaborating laws, policies, programs, evaluating, approving and working on economic laws, political laws, social laws, laws of all kinds. Nicaraguan women participated greatly in the triumph of this Revolution, then in the first stage of the Revolution, and again since returning to government in 2007. It’s not possible to advance in the fight against poverty if women are not present. You can’t talk about democracy if women are not present.

So, what are we talking about? In Nicaragua, we are talking about a true democracy and we are demonstrating it because not only do we have the participation of women, when we talk about democracy we are also talking about access to health, access to education, access to housing, access to land, access to the means of production. Here we’re talking about a true democracy and a revolutionary model and those are the big differences.

You say that women here in Nicaragua now have access to credit which is very important for economic rights. What is some of the most important legislation for women’s economic rights, and what are some of the things that you want to see in this period?

Well, in Nicaragua we have a good legal framework. First of all, the political constitution establishes the equality of men and women and non-discrimination against women. Then there are a large number of laws for the protection of women’s rights. An important law that we have in our country is the Law of Equal Rights and Opportunities, which establishes 50% for women’s participation in elections and 50% participation for men. This has been put into practice in all national, regional and municipal elections.

That is why today women hold in posts in the judiciary, more than 50% are women, 57% or 58%. Similarly in the executive, there is also a high participation of more than 56% of women in the legislative branch. Everywhere we have a high participation because the laws are put into practice, that is to say, they are not laws that are merely written, but laws that have actually been put into practice. This has also led us to reform the Law of Municipalities for there to be greater participation of women as mayors, vice mayors and councilwomen in local governments.

We have also reformed the Electoral Law so that there is also greater participation of all women in all political spaces. One very important law is the Integral Law Against Violence Against Women. Our model against violence is a model of prevention. This comprehensive law serves to prevents, attend to and outline punishment for everything related to the issue of violence.

Our Family Code has many provisions for Nicaraguan women, for girls and boys and also for the elderly. We also have international instruments that we have ratified, such as the Belem do Para Convention and the Convention on non-discrimination against women and non-violence. The legal system has also been strengthened now that a law has been passed to punish all hate crimes, crimes that harm the dignity of women.

Our government also works to promote values to protect women, through education, through prevention, through family counseling in neighborhoods and communities, through counseling in the educational communities where we work with students and with all the educators in schools. We have a very strong legal framework and we have to continue working for the protection of the lives of women and their rights.

What methods or what tools does the government have to help single mothers, to help low income mothers, and how does the family structure relate to this new stage, in this century of modern women, who occupy many roles and so on?

Well, everything that our government works on is based on the model of the family and the community. For our government, the most important thing are the families and the government proceeds from the model of the family and the community. From early childhood, there are centers to educate children where they can receive school lunch and so the mother doesn’t have to worry about feeding her children because it’s provided by the school.

This government delivers 1,200,000 meals daily to all schools, to the countryside and in the city. They also receive healthcare in schools. At child development centers, the CDIs, women can drop off children to be looked after and educated so that women can work with piece of mind with a model that comprises all issues of food, health and education. Education here is totally free and children receive shoes, notebooks, backpacks, pencils, crayons, the supplies they need to perform their schoolwork. It’s an integral model and it’s worth mentioning that Nicaragua is recognized worldwide, by the FAO, as the country that cares best for children. We’ve reduced infant mortality and children are growing up healthier. They wont be drinking Coca Cola in schools, but rather the children are going to consume what may be available in the school gardens.

Our government recognizes this gender equity as an axis of human development. Therefore women’s rights are rights in and of themselves and also the axis of our country’s development. We feel very proud to live in this country and to have a President like Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario who don’t pass up on any opportunity to restore the rights of Nicaraguan women.

How do you respond to criticisms from the OAS and the United States that there is a humanitarian and human rights crisis in Nicaragua?

We’ve shown ourselves to be a country that has made great advances. We’ve made great progress and received great recognition for being country that has been reducing poverty and extreme poverty, from 48% to 24%. We are the safest country in Central America, with 99% of electricity coverage, and surprised many by successfully managing Covid and the country’s economy, without closing borders, all while continuing to work. Via the model of the Community, Cooperative and Associative Family Economy, we’re addressing the issue of production and achieving great economic growth.

We held dignified electoral process where we voted for sovereignty, independence, self-determination, and nobody can tell us whom we should elect or how to carry out our election because we decide the destiny of this country. Our country responds with great success, with great advances in human rights. We’re signatories to many international instruments to which other countries are not. We’re committed to human rights and the issue of women is a human rights issue. That commitment to human rights is why this government got the support of almost 3 million people in these recent elections. The destiny of this country is decided by the Nicaraguan people and we respond to criticisms with evidence, with work, with respect for human rights, for self-determination, for peace in this country.

What we want are two things: We want peace and we want to be able to work, men and women, in a complementary way, from a model of social justice, of equity, of equality, to continue to lift our country out of poverty, and second, we demand respect. Respect for our self-determination, our sovereignty, and our independence. Because here we Nicaraguans are the ones who make the decisions, with our constitutionally elected President and Vice President.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, on behalf of the entire National Assembly as a deputy, it is an honor to share with you our progress, it fills us with great pride and joy to share this progress with you because it is also your progress. Because as Nicaraguan women advance, so do you, from the different countries you come from, so a big hug for all of you and let’s move forward with this commitment, working hand in hand with all of you. Thank you for coming to share with us and get to know our country and our people.

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Apr 22, 2022 2:03 pm

NicaNotes: Women’s struggle in Nicaragua: from liberation fighters to building an alternative society (Part II)
April 21, 2022
By Erika Takeo and Rohan Rice

[This article was first published by the People’s Dispatch on November 04, 2021, at https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/11/04/ ... e-society/ ] [Erika Takeo is a member of the International Relations Secretariat of the Rural Workers Association (ATC) and Coordinator of the Friends of the ATC. Rohan Rice is a writer, photographer, and translator from London. You can find his work at: https://rohanjrice.wordpress.com/]

Continued from NicaNotes of April 7, 2022.

In the 21st century, the women’s movement has undoubtedly made huge gains at parliamentary level, yet it has also made a big impact in other areas of society. One of the most important actors in this regard is the aforementioned, ATC.

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Women founders of ATC including Lola Esquivel (center), El Crucero.

Working for liberation

The most essential component of Nicaragua’s economy has for centuries been its agricultural sector. Prior to the revolution, all available fertile land was forcibly converted into vast monocultural cash-crop plantations and worked by the local population, be that slaves, Indigenous people, or mestizos. From the moment William Walker’s men invaded in 1855 up until 1979, Nicaragua was a victim of this agro-imperialism. However, when the Sandinistas launched a comprehensive agrarian reform in the 1980s, land was democratized and given to peasant families, creating the base for Nicaragua’s food sovereign model today. Moreover, when men went to fight in the mountains during the US-funded counter-revolution in the 1980s, women took on agricultural jobs that had been traditionally held by men—carrying out the field work, driving tractors, applying inputs, tending to the animals—in addition to all of the traditional housework and childrearing. This was an important moment that showed that women too could carry out agricultural activities other than harvesting, breaking off from traditional machista ideas about the division of agricultural labor.

In the build-up to the Sandinista revolution, the ATC was founded with the goal of organizing peasants and farm workers in defense of their rights as well as to improve living conditions in the countryside. Shortly after the historical triumph, they made the decision to found the ATC’s Women’s Secretariat (later adding the ‘Movimiento de Mujeres del Campo’/MMC or Rural Women’s Movement). This space was perhaps the first in a Nicaraguan organization specifically created to address women’s issues, and in this case, to meet the demands of peasant and working-class women. The Secretariat and MMC have since their inception struggled for better wages, access to education, respect for women’s physical and moral integrity, and equal opportunities. This union has continually played a crucial role in defending the needs of both male and female land workers, especially during the first phase of the revolution when many workers left bondage for the first time in their lives to then define a new form of workplace that would transform society.

With the arrival of the neoliberal period in 1990 and the concomitant decline in workers’ rights, women’s organizing became even stronger as a response. ATC women led shutdowns of main roads in Managua to ensure that the land they had obtained during the 1980s agrarian reform was respected. They also spearheaded the creation of new autonomous zones in northern regions of the country, especially the department of Jinotega.

Today, the ATC has 18,000 women members in different social sectors. Both women and men are trained by the likes of the Francisco Morazán Peasant Worker School in gender relations and eliminating violence against women. These programs also work on fostering women’s leadership for rural movements; in the ATC itself the majority of both national and departmental leaders are women, not just the Women’s Secretariat.

Government social programs such as those organized by the Ministry for Family, Cooperative, Communal, and Associative Economy/MEFCCA, have a particular focus on women heads of households, providing them with the productive resources they need to run their own small business and contribute to the country’s economy. One such notable initiative is the Zero Usury program, that provides financing at an annual interest rate of two percent to women entrepreneurs, farmers, and producers. Women are also given quick access to credit and without the risk of being dispossessed of their land or belongings. This is in sharp contrast to the neoliberal system that, through private microfinance companies, charged rates of up to 11 percent per month, snatching from women the little they had because they did not provide support or training for the development of their businesses. Since 2007, the Zero Usury program has provided one or more loans to over a half million women in Nicaragua.

Another notable MEFCCA program is the Hunger Zero program (modeled on the one in Brazil), whereby all agricultural assets are put in the woman’s name, including livestock, inputs, and technology. This model, not seen anywhere else in Central America, has empowered economically rural women to be self-sufficient. These initiatives are crucial because they allow women to break the dependency on male breadwinners, giving them more autonomy and stopping the cycles of violence that have historically existed in the Nicaraguan countryside.

One example of where this has all come into action is the Gloria Quintanilla Cooperative in El Crucero, a nationally-recognized women’s coffee farmer cooperative. The 22 women members are leaders in their community that is made up of 79 families. With assistance from both the ATC and the Sandinista government, the women have organized to build an elementary school in the community, inaugurate a well for potable water, and all of the women farmers are trained in agroecological techniques that they implement in their plots, contributing to the national food sovereignty and security campaigns.

As shown by the Gloria Quintanilla Co-operative, raising employment for women cannot happen without increasing participation and standards of education. Before 1979, there were no public educational provisions for children of any gender under six years old. Schooling post-13 was rare. Illiteracy was at 50 percent with women forming a majority of the illiterate (Collinson et al, 1990). Responding to the successes seen in Cuba—over a thousand Cuban teachers came to Nicaragua in 1981 to assist in the education sector—the FSLN embarked on a ‘Literacy Crusade’. Within only a year, illiteracy was reduced to 12 percent, with women being the primary beneficiaries. This is reflected in the mass training of ‘popular teachers’ after the crusade, 95 percent of whom were women. Education thereafter became another key source of employment for women, especially in rural areas. As of 2017, 78 percent of the teachers are women. Starting in 2012, the government has promoted a program of specialization and professionalization of school teachers to improve the quality of the education system across the country.

This is an education system that under the FSLN has always been rooted in the popular pedagogy of Marxist thinker, Paulo Freire. In the second revolutionary period, his teachings are embodied in the creation of the Latin American Institute for Agroecology/IALA, an education centre established with the global peasant movement, La Via Campesina, and former Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. The IALAs, including the IALA campus in Nicaragua called IALA Ixim Ulew (meaning “land of corn” in Maya Quiche) are training centers for youth that come from social movements and rural areas providing political, ideological, and technical training in agroecology. Part of this training is about dismantling patriarchal systems that have acutely affected rural areas and replacing them with a model that not only acknowledges women as the cornerstone of agriculture, but values seed saving, fights machismo, builds shared responsibilities between women and men, and boosts food production. These concepts are included in the ‘popular peasant feminism‘ modules that are imparted at the IALAs.

Bertha Sanchez is an 18-year-old young woman from the department of Masaya. She is a single mother and is currently studying to be a specialized technician in Agroecology at IALA. In her testimony as an IALA student, she shared the following:

“My experience has been unique because, truthfully, I never thought I’d say, ‘I’m going to keep studying’. I am a single mother of a three-year-old child; I thought I’d just get a job and struggle from paycheck to paycheck. But by the grace of God, I now have the opportunity to continue studying. I like to work the fields. I have a plot where I grow vegetables…. I have to think about the fact that I have someone who comes after me, in this case my son. I need him to feel proud of me, to be an example of discipline and show him what it means to be from the countryside”.

While there are IALA campuses throughout Latin America, the IALA campuses in Nicaragua and Venezuela are unique in that their training programs are state-accredited, meaning that the students receive a valuable certificate in acknowledgment of the studies they have carried out.

Reproductive rights and healthcare
Women’s healthcare and reproductive rights are a major priority of the FSLN. With the reinstatement of the universal right to healthcare after 2006, a series of impressive achievements have been made that mean that women, and consequently their families too, are living healthier lives.

Through Nicaragua’s extensive public healthcare system, women receive access to free, high-quality, and culturally-appropriate healthcare from the Pacific to the Caribbean Coast. This includes a whole fleet of mobile clinics that tour the country to perform regular cervical and breast cancer screenings, along with the opening of a women’s hospital in 2015 to specifically treat women’s health issues.

The Maternal Waiting Homes program, that covers women from rural areas or with high-risk pregnancies, ensures accommodation, food, and prenatal training for pregnant women. In 2015, 51,189 pregnant women were housed in 174 Maternal Waiting Homes and in 2018, 61,648 pregnant women were housed in 178 of these homes. According to the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health, these types of programs have contributed to the 60 percent reduction of maternal mortality rates, going from 78.2 deaths in 2007 to 47 deaths per 100,000 live births registered in 2018.

Family-planning methods are widely available in the Nicaraguan public healthcare system, where five types of contraception are freely dispensed. The Ministry of Health also connects with local community health promoters to ensure that women can access their preferred birth control method without even having to leave their communities, helping to reduce teenage pregnancies.

Internationally, there is much attention around the case of abortion in Nicaragua. In order to understand why abortion has not been nationally legalized, it is important to understand some cultural components of Nicaragua. The large majority of Nicaraguans are Catholics or Evangelical Protestants, which combined with traditional peasant cultures, means public support for abortion is low. At all levels, but particularly at a governmental level, there is a greater focus on family planning (rare in other Catholic countries) and avoiding unwanted pregnancies, as well as ending and criminalizing violence against women. For example, rape is heavily criminalized, with average sentences of 25 to 30 years in prison, significantly more than the average 5-year-sentence rarely handed out in England, for example.

That all said, abortions can be carried out for medical reasons and so far there has not been a case of imprisonment nor a legal case brought against a woman who had practiced abortion.

The right to live in peace
Owing to the Sandinista Revolution, women in Nicaragua now have the political power and organization to struggle for their demands, whether it be land, education, potable water, or community health programs. These in turn support the working class and all Nicaraguans in improving their quality of life, on their own terms and according to their own needs and culture.

What should also be obvious from the above is that the Nicaraguan women’s movement is deeply engaged with the country’s political future and with women’s everyday lives. Whether fighting on a local, national, or international level, it is evidently an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist movement with a clear sense of identity and autonomy.

In this regard, the last word ought to go to Lea Moncada, secretary of the Gloria Quintanilla Co-operative:

“Now we are prepared for anything. The advice I could give is that we unite more, that we look out for the well-being of our country, of our nation, of our world. We are all human beings and we have to love each other because the big businessmen only look out for their stock market; they don’t look out for the proletarian class, the poor people, the working people, the peasant people.”

The authors would like to thank the Women’s Secretariat of the ATC, the Rural Women’s Movement, Magda Lanuza, Ada Farrach, and Jenny Bekenstein for their invaluable contributions, without which this piece would not have been possible.

This article was written in collaboration with the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign UK. On 7 November 2021, Nicaraguans voted in their national elections. The USA has begun a campaign to try to oust the incumbent socialist FLSN government. This article is part of a year-long series that seeks to present the truth of Nicaragua under the Sandinista government.

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy

Daniel Ortega Rated Second Best President in Latin America
President Daniel Ortega’s administration has a 70% approval rating, which places him in second position among the best presidents in the Americas, according to the “Panoptico de Opinión Pública” from M&R Consultores released April 20. (Ortega beats US President Joe Biden by a wide margin; Biden’s approval rating is 36%.) President Naib Bukele of El Salvador is in first place with 75% approval and President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador with 57% is in third place. After El Salvador, Nicaragua and Mexico some of the presidencies with relatively high approval are Luis Arce of Bolivia, 50.8%; Luis Lacalle Pou of Uruguay, 52% and Gabriel Boric of Chile 50%. On the lower end are Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, 25%, Alfredo Fernandez of Argentina, 25.2%; Ivan Duque of Colombia, 23%; Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica only 18%; Luis Lasso of Ecuador,37.6%; Laurentino Cortizo of Panama, 31%; Pedro Castillo of Peru, 23.1%. See data: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias ... americano/
(Radio La Primerisima, 20 April 2022)

CABEI Renews Credit line to Support Nicaraguan Economy
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and Banco FICOHSA Nicaragua renewed a global line of credit for US$20 million. With these resources channeled through their allied financial institutions, they support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), as well as other key sectors of the economy that in recent years have suffered difficulties. “[W]e continue to support the economic reactivation of various economic sectors in Nicaragua, promoting sustainable and equitable growth,” said CABEI Executive President Dr. Dante Mossi. (Radio La Primerisima, 18 April 2022)

More than a Million People Visited Beaches During Holy Week
Initial estimates indicate that during Holy Week more than 1.25 million people, including national and foreign tourists, went to the beaches. “The reality may be higher,” said Leonardo Zacarías, president of the Association for the Promotion of Sustainable Development, APRODESNI. He added, “They looked completely full. Some of the main beaches for tourism, Pochomil, Masachapa, Huehuete, San Juan del Sur, San Jorge, Granada, Ometepe, San Carlos, Xiloá, and El Trapiche, had a huge influx of people.” Initial estimates of foreign exchange generated by the holiday are more than US$100 million. Hotels and restaurants reported occupancies above 90%. Antonio Armas, who is in the tourism business, stated, “Definitely, Tola and San Juan del Sur beaches are the favorites. A lot of tourism is arriving from Costa Rica through Peñas Blancas, the numbers are encouraging.” Zacarias added, “There were also thousands of tourists in the Caribbean including at Corn Island and Bluefields. The national airlines have had full occupancy, the hotels very high, likewise the platform rentals also report excellent numbers. We had many people coming from Europe, the United States and Central America. Nicaragua is recovering after the pandemic and the hurricanes. And the tourists are beneficial. They are a recognition of [Nicaragua’s] tranquility, peace, joy and natural resources.” There was a major cleaning campaign during the holidays with the participation of more than 15,000 people from the municipalities to keep all the tourist areas clean. See photos: https://www.tn8.tv/nacionales/primeros- ... jw2mviX7ZQ (TN8, 18 April 2022)

Rural University Opened in Bosawas Reserve
The National Council of Universities (CNU) and the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast, in coordination with the Northern Caribbean Regional Autonomous Government, inaugurated a Rural University in the Mayagna community of Musawas, Sauni territory, Bonanza municipality. The goal of the new university is to guarantee the professionalization of Indigenous youth in the science of bilingual intercultural education. CNU President Ramona Rodríguez stated that “this is the first higher education center in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve that offers a space for Indigenous youth to access university education for teachers in their communities and is part of the restitution of historic rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples to an education in their own language”. (Nicaragua News, 13 April 2022)

Nicaragua Honored by Asia-Europe Social and Business Forum
During the XVII Asia-Europe Social and Business Forum held last week in London, the Nicaragua Government received the “Knights of Honour” award in recognition of the country’s excellence and diplomatic leadership in negotiation, persuasion and commitment to resolve global concerns and promote intercultural, commercial and tourism ties. Organized by media group AsiaOne Media Holdings of Singapore, the Asia-Europe Business and Social Forum was created to bring together and recognize business, social and political leaders from Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa who promote mutual well-being and collaboration in diplomacy, commerce and culture. (Nicaragua News, 18 April 2022)

Nicaragua Elected to UN NGO Committee
Nicaragua was elected by acclamation to the United Nations Non-Governmental Organizations Committee, during a meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) held last week. The Nicaragua Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Jaime Hermida stated that “the international community once again places its full trust in the great work of Nicaragua in this important Committee, where we will ensure that the relationship between the United Nations and NGOs is in accordance with the UN Charter, for the benefit of Member States and our peoples.” (Nicaragua News, 19 April 2022)

Second Delivery of Food for the Lunch Program Began this Week
The Ministry of Education began the distribution of 222,000 hundred weights of food for the school meal program in all schools in the country, which covers 60 days of food for children in public schools. The Vice Minister of Education, Francis Díaz Madriz, explained that 23,000 hundred weights of extra food were allocated for the dry corridor, to prevent malnutrition in children. (Radio La Primerisima, 19 April 2022)

Renewable Energy for South Caribbean Region
The National Electricity Transmission Company inaugurated a 165-solar panel system in Nueva Esperanza community, Pearl Lagoon municipality of the Nicaragua Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region, benefiting 860 inhabitants. The US$357,022 funding was provided by the General Budget of the Republic, with support of the Export and Import Bank of South Korea and is part of the Supply and Installation of Solar Panels in Rural Areas Project of the National Program for Sustainable Electrification and Renewable Energy, that the Nicaragua Government is implementing in the 153 municipalities of the country. (Nicaragua News, 19 April 2022)

8,000 Nicaraguan Migrants in Mexico
The National Migration Institute (INM) of Mexico announced it had rescued [from cartel smugglers] 115,379 foreign migrants during their entry and transit through Mexican territory between January 1 and April 13. Some 97,730 are of legal age (69,868 male and 27,862) and 17,649 are minors (10,226 boys and 7,423 girls). 14,105 minors were accompanied by an adult or guardian and 3,544 were traveling alone. Some 21,965 are from Honduras, 21,954 from Guatemala, 15,907 from Cuba, 8,270 are Nicaraguan, 6,931 from El Salvador, and 40,352 from other countries. Of the latter, 6,188 are people of non-continental origin: 2,754 from Asia, 2,140 from Europe, 1,282 from Africa and 12 from Oceania. The five states in the country with the highest number of foreign migrants are Chiapas, with 25,768; Mexico City, 13,213; Baja California, 11,507; Tabasco, 10,099; and Veracruz, 7,794. (Radio La Primerisima, 18 April 2022)

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-04-21-2022
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:21 pm

NICANOTES, NICARAGUA
NicaNotes: Becoming More Sovereign
April 28, 2022
By Fabrizio Casari

(Fabrizio Casari is an Italian Journalist who has made multiple trips to Nicaragua since living there in the 1980s.)

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Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada confirmed that Nicaragua was leaving the OAS and announced that it was withdrawing its ambassador to that organization.

Nicaragua ceased to be a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) with an announcement on November 21, 2021. And on April 24, in a firm communiqué, Managua announced that to implement the decision, the credentials of diplomats Orlando Tardencilla, Ivan Lara and Michel Campbell, who represented the Central American country in the OAS, had been withdrawn, and that Nicaragua “as of today ceases to be part of the deception of this monstrosity, [variously] called the Permanent Council, the Permanent Commission, the Conventions of the Americas.”

Managua then announced that since it is no longer present in any of the organization’s offices, there will be no need for the OAS headquarters in Managua. The existing one is being closed.

The decision to withdraw from a forum that, in defiance of all decency, continually meddles in Nicaragua’s internal affairs, despite the fact that it is not at all a forum for international jurisprudence, seemed as timely as it was unpostponable.

Colombia’s attempts to use the OAS to avoid compliance with the ruling of the International Court of Justice at The Hague (See NicaNotes Briefs) and the hostility shown in the convening of the next Summit of the Americas by the US while excluding Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are some of the elements that pushed the Nicaraguan government to further accelerate the procedures already initiated for the abandonment of the pigsty that is the OAS.

The two years stipulated by the OAS statutes to make effective the decision to leave refer only to obligations of a financial nature with which Managua has always complied and to loans granted within the institution, but which do not have to do with Nicaragua, which, by the way, is among the members of the OAS with the best economic indexes.

Thus, with yesterday’s decision, Managua simply withdraws from a coven useless for peace and cooperation and which only serves for imperial political aggression combined with continental servitude. Nicaragua thus joins Venezuela and Cuba in abandoning and consequently ignoring the OAS as a political entity representing the Latin American continent.

Far from complying with its statutes, the OAS is in reality an instrument of aggression against the progressive and socialist countries of Latin America, a sort of Latin American office of the U.S. State Department, designed to directly involve member countries in the implementation of U.S. policy at the continental level. In yesterday’s communiqué, the Sandinista government recalls that “since Nicaragua is not anyone’s colony, its membership in the Ministry of Colonies, as Commander Fidel Castro rightly said, is meaningless.”

The confrontation between the OAS and the Nicaraguan government (which had already been going on for several years and was further aggravated after the US campaign against Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia initiated by Trump and continued with Biden) had its repercussion in Nicaragua’s refusal to accept electoral observation [in November 2021] by the OAS, the US and the EU.

The decision not to invite the OAS as an electoral observer had several explanations, all of them very convincing. It was the result of a declared and manifestly preconceived and instrumental hostility, devoid of any substantive argument, which makes the Nicaraguan government the object of repeated and unjustifiable attacks from the point of view of the law and of the OAS statute itself. In any case, the OAS had already decided, even before the elections were held, that it would not recognize the result. So what would it have observed?

The growing interference of the body, which has transformed Nicaragua from a member country into a target of political attacks ordered by Washington, cannot be tolerated. The OAS, which has never made a secret of being on the side of the coup plotters, seemed increasingly convinced that it could exert political influence in the country, trying to set itself up as an unbeatable interlocutor at the legislative, regulatory and normative levels of the entire electoral process. This was a misappropriation of Nicaraguan national sovereignty that the Sandinista government would never have granted to anyone.

Since its foundation, the OAS has been an institution committed to supporting the U.S. system of control over the continent. In fact, there is not a single U.S. military aggression – direct or indirect – against Latin America as a whole that the OAS has not supported, and has even committed itself to giving it a kind of continental political-legal endorsement. More than a continental multilateral organization, the OAS continues to be the press office, the defense college and the political backdrop for the political-military pretentions of the United States over the whole of the Americas.

Luis Almagro as Secretary General has made the definitive leap from support of the U.S. initiatives to direct agent, from complementary troop to main protagonist of destabilization and coups, which have always represented the true face of the U.S. presence in Latin America.

Indicative of the new protagonism of Almagro’s leadership was the crusade against Venezuela, where he said that the option of a military intervention against Caracas could not be ruled out. The management of the Venezuelan dossier in collusion with Washington and the Venezuelan ultra-right, assisted on the ground by the Colombian narco-state, has failed by leaps and bounds. An example of this new role of direct intervention of the OAS was its role in the 2019 coup d’état in Bolivia, which snatched the legitimate victory from Evo Morales to hand over the government of the Andean nation to the pro-US Jeanine Áñez.

In the case of Nicaragua, the OAS’s role of political counterweight to the government has gradually manifested itself, with the timing of its statements dictated by the US, positioning itself in the role it has been assigned, that of supporting the [attempted] coup.

The identification with the reactionary latifundia by the OAS was exemplified by its taking on the role of political interlocutor with the Nicaraguan coup perpetrators, which took place through meetings that included many photos of the Secretary General in embraces with the coup leaders. Almagro should have refused the meetings, since the institutions and the government of each country are the interlocutor and the referent of the relationship with the OAS, not the opposition to it, a fortiori given the coup attempt.

Those images of Almagro with the coup leaders had a precise purpose: political support to the coup and the rejection of support for the Nicaraguan government. It formalized the transformation of the OAS from a multilateral organization, of which the Nicaraguan government was a member, into a political enemy. This was a betrayal of the internal loyalty of the organization and of its own role as guarantor of the internal constitutional order of each country, as established precisely in the treaty that created the OAS. Even more so when the action of the organization is linked to the defense of the constitutionality of each country.

Over the months Almagro’s position has become more radical, repeatedly proposing the discussion of Nicaragua in the OAS, which has thus lost any possibility of rehabilitating its image, now completely devoid of prestige and credibility.

As before with Venezuela, the relentless provocation against Nicaragua has turned the OAS into a broad version of the Lima Group. To even think of threatening the Sandinista government is a sign of historical ignorance rather than political incompetence. Sandinista Nicaragua, capable using its sovereignty and independence to resist the empire’s threats, certainly does not accept discussion with the local officials of the OAS. Without the OAS, Nicaragua is more than just itself. Without Nicaragua, the OAS is even less of what little it was.

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-04-28-2022

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Government of Nicaragua announces that it assumes an increase in fuels

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The cost of regular gasoline in the country is 47.84 córdobas (1.33 dollars) and diesel is 43.16 córdobas (1.20 dollars). | Photo: PL
Published 23 April 2022

The presidency of the Central American country stressed that the constant increase in the price of diesel and gas affects economies at the international level.

The Government of Nicaragua announced this Friday that it will again assume 100 percent of the increase in the price of fuel, so that the rates will remain without increase during the period from April 24 to 30.

According to a statement issued by the Nicaraguan Institute of Energy and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the presidency of the Central American nation constantly evaluates the impact of rising prices for the family economy and the main economic branches.

"The price of diesel should increase by 28.54 cordobas per gallon (0.5708 dollars), super gasoline by 9.61 cordobas per gallon (0.1922 dollars) and regular gasoline by 6.32 cordobas per gallon (0.128296 dollars), however, our government has decided to assume 100 percent of said increases," the text said.


He also added that gas rates, used in Nicaraguan homes, should increase by 30.00 cordobas for each 25-pound cylinder (0.84 dollars), however, their prices will remain frozen for 10, 25 and 100 pounds (one pound is equivalent to to 460 grams).

For the second continuous week, the price rates for fuels will not experience any variation, mainly, the costs of liquefied gas, hydrocarbons, and diesel, of greater national demand.

“We will continue to permanently monitor the behavior of international prices and the rest of the variables that make up the price of fuel, the corresponding actions and measures will be taken, which will allow mitigating the impact of the increase in these prices on the economy of Nicaraguan families,” stressed the Sandinista government.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/nicaragu ... -0033.html

Horrors! Look at how the people are being oppressed!
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon May 16, 2022 2:11 pm

icanotes: Who Wove the Petate?
May 12, 2022
By Winnie Narváez Herrera

[Winnie Narváez has a master’s degree in sustainable development and is studying for a doctorate in popular education at the UNAN in Estelí. She works with ÁBACOenRed / FUPEGC which is an initiative of educators who have been working with the Ministry of Education since the 1980s in teacher training.]

The art of weaving with different plants is an essential part of our Latin American history. In Totogalpa, an Indigenous Chorotega municipality of Madriz, in northern Nicaragua on the border with Honduras, there are two youth cooperatives and two adult cooperatives. The cooperatives belong to the Union of Cooperatives of Madriz (UNICOM R.L.) organized in the FECODESA federation in 2008. We met Blanca, Flor, Estefania, Emilse, Jose Santos, Santos Natividad, Misael and Rolando who shared with us different stories about the elaboration of their art and the challenge of cultivating plant materials in a dry area, and how all this is achieved by genuinely cooperating.

Weaving their history

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Estefanía Rivera of the village of Quebrada Grande

Weaving is learned in the family and passed from generation to generation. This is how Misael described it: “I come from a family that has made a living from weaving because my grandmother, my aunt, and others make petates [woven mats] with palm. My grandmother did this for nearly all of her 106 years, since she was a little girl, and she taught her daughters.”

The handicrafts are made at home and the learning method is through observation. This is how Flor tells it: “There are quite a few of us who weave here. The person who is interested says, ‘I want to learn.’ She arrives and observes and starts learning.”

The work is done by both men and women. In some cases, women are in charge of weaving and men are in charge of guaranteeing the material be it palm or tule (selecting it, cutting it, drying it). Others, such as José Santos or Emilse’s partner, also weave. Flor adds: “At home, my partner makes key chains. I taught him – first bracelets and then key chains. Now our daughter also makes jewelry boxes and bracelets.”

The new generations learn the art even if they do not always do it for a living. There are many people who work in other occupations, but there are also others who, even after going to university, continue to work in crafts and participate in fairs. Being part of an organization has helped keep them from migrating out of the area and has promoted different art activities that cover economic needs. Misael describes life in the cooperative as very dynamic.

There are also young people who learn to weave petates but later opt for other types of handicrafts. This is how Emilse tells it: “My grandmother worked in petate, my mom too. We didn’t like petate anymore and wanted to do something different. I have been working with pine needle handicrafts now for the last six years. I started with a design my mother brought me after she participated in a training course. My sister and I helped each other to develop more handicraft designs out of pine needles.

Friendship with Nature

The people we interviewed make handicrafts from tule, pine and palm. There are other people in the area who also make clay and jícaro gourd handicrafts. The tule or tolli in Náhualt [or bullrushes in English] are thick bushes that grow around water holes also known locally as chagüites. The natural size of each plant determines the size of the mat to be woven.

Of all the elements mentioned, the tule is perhaps the one that has undergone the greatest changes over time due to more drought in the area. The scarcity of water has had an impact on people’s relationship with the plant because it used to be very accessible along small creeks and ponds and now they often must buy it from those who have private property next to water. This is how Estefanía tells it: “The tule used to have no owner. It used to be found in any creek, but now it is scarce and thin. You pull it up and cut off the root, cut off the patita, and only the moño is left. There is a kind that is smaller used for a small petate, we call it the son of the tule. With the big plant you can make a big mat. You put it in the sun for a time. But we now buy it dried.”

In the case of the palm, it is a plant that takes 15 years to grow between 1 and 1.5 meters tall. It is cut and then dried for eight days. If it is cut when the leaf is open the tissue will be green and if it is cut when the leaf is closed and opened by force, it is dried and changes to the dry color, more of a brown.

Some people buy the pine needles but in Emilse’s case it is in her community so she goes out to select and cut them.

Flor explains how materials are used for other daily activities beyond handicrafts: “The palm is bought and put to dry just like the tule, in order to use it. In the village called La Ceiba there are several families that work with palm and tule. Well-selected material is very important for the process. What is left over from making petates is used to make brooms. And what is left over from that is used to tie nacatamales [a typical very popular corn tamale wrapped in the leaves of plantain then tied with the left over tule or palm and boiled].

Working in the handicraft business gained strength because the environmental conditions of the area demanded the search for new economic activities. This is how Misael explained it: “Seeing the conditions of the climate, the droughts for example, we had to look for alternatives [to planting corn] so that our socioeconomic conditions could improve. Crafts are an alternative that really gets us involved as a family because what we learn from our ancestors, we as young people can put into practice.”

Making art is not the only economic activity. The FECODESA Federation of Cooperatives, together with other institutions, has carried out participatory accompaniment of our communities for research, improvement and agroecological production of drought-resistant seeds. Blanca explains that the best alternative has been the millet plant [a kind of sorghum that grows in dry areas and with which people can feed animals and also use for tortilla-making instead of corn] because it requires much less rain than corn. But to obtain a quality seed required a lot of time and learning because the existing one was only suitable for animal consumption.

This is how Blanca describes the selection process: “The producer identifies certain seeds among thousands, saying ‘that’s the one I like.’ For example, this seed has good yield; this one has x,y and z characteristics. The producer is the one who lives their own reality. He says: ‘No, that one is no good because it isn’t good for tortilla-making.’ The one who selects the seeds does so also on the basis of their soil and climate.”

The Political Economy of Art

Those of us who do not make art are mere consumers and this also implies a responsibility: to know where the product we buy comes from and everything that makes its elaboration possible. Even at the local level there are prejudices that prevent us from recognizing the work of making art as an actual job, Flor shared this with us: “When I was walking in town with my roll of mats trying to make a sale some guys made fun of me and I felt that they were breaking my heart but I tried not to pay attention to them.”

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Emilse López, of the village of Capulín, makes handicrafts from pine needles.

The more distant a reality becomes, the more unknown it becomes, to the point that we get used to looking at handicrafts as faceless products, without history, and we even believe that we can decide on the costs and the price. This is how Emilse explained it at the meeting: “People say why is it so expensive? I recently went to a MEFCCA [Ministry of Cooperative and Associative Community Family Economy] training and a girl said that sometimes people ask ‘why so expensive’ but they don’t know how long it takes to make it.”

They travel approximately two hours from their villages to the municipal seat of Totogalpa to sell to families or to people who will then resell their art at a higher price. Emilse goes out to collect pine needles nearby every week. It takes two days to make one large basket or one purse, one day to make a small jewelry box and one day to make 24 pine needle earrings. In the case of the petates (mats), the tule costs C$50 córdobas (about US$1.50) and Flor and Estefanía require four days to make one large mat and one day to make a small one. To make one small palm basket takes José Santos one day. It should be noted that makers are able to get better prices now that the government has a whole process to promote the small economy as a national policy.

The solidarity economy based on the cooperative movement represents a process of justice in the face of the problems mentioned above because it unites people who are doing the same kind of work and this gives them the strength to think together about strategies to move forward. Estefanía said: “We still meet with the other artisans. If I don’t sell things, I sell them to another artisan from Totogalpa or elsewhere, or I will leave them in Yalagüina or Palacagüina so that the product doesn’t just sit. If I leave it too long at home, the mice or termites will eat it.”

In addition, the solidarity economy implies spaces for exchange, consumption and sale at fair prices for both those who sell and those who consume. This has allowed artisans and producers from all over the country to get to know each other and share challenges and successes from their activities while at the same time projecting and recognizing the work of each region. This is how Misael described it from the experience of the multisectoral youth cooperative: “Here we share. Maybe another artisan is making another product. One person is always in charge of marketing. I buy from someone and someone else buys from me; we are helping one another.

Flor says that in the 1990s handicrafts from tule were worth nothing. This process of economic promotion of the popular economy, in this case the formation of cooperatives, began in 2008, with the work of FECODESA in coordination with MEFCCA. Blanca explains: “It was not only the seed, but also the family, the economy, training and education. When I go to work, I say I will only work on this one kind of item, but before I know it, I am working on a lot of things.”

The artisanry work was also consolidated in 2013 with the creation of the National Fair Park in Managua. “We made contact with the family economy people (MEFCCA), we helped inaugurate that Fair Park. It was a great thing that we, the Chorotega people of Totogalpa, learned how to take our work to other areas to interchange with others.”

Regarding the fair, Misael also comments: “Now that there is are massive fairs, the producer is more enthusiastic about it.” [There are now fair parks all over the nation.]

Some further questions

How can we take on the challenge of water scarcity in our municipalities? What is our commitment or contribution to the improvement of the environment in our home area? Who defines the value of art? What commitments can we take on as consumers of traditional art from different latitudes? How can we take care of the tule and the water, the palm and our land? Our life?

Thank you to everyone who participated in this conversation and who traveled two hours from their communities to share their time, art, energy, history and challenges with us.

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy

Iran and Nicaragua Sign Important Economic Agreements

Nicaragua and the Islamic Republic of Iran signed three memorandums of understanding related to petroleum and agriculture at the end of three days of meetings between President Daniel Ortega, Vice President Rosario Murillo and a high-level Iranian delegation. Ortega emphasized that “the documents are being signed: The one that has to do with the oil trade, petrochemicals, petroleum products, explorations, and [construction of] a refinery. The other memorandum has to do with the entire agricultural and livestock sector. Iran can … process what farmers produce, add value to it and then take it to the Iranian market and to other markets in that region.” The third memorandum is between the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company and the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Nicaragua. “This includes the contract for the supply of oil derivatives between the Government of Nicaragua and the Government of Iran,” Ortega said. The President summarized saying that this is “good news, good actions for the benefit of our people. Here today … crucial issues were addressed that have to do with oil. Iran is a great oil producer. And we are seeing how we can develop business exchanges in oil, petrochemical and the petroleum trade; improvements and modernization of refineries; production of oil and gas fields; training of human resources and experts in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry; transfer of technology, provision of technical and engineering services, consulting services.” (Radio La Primerisima, 7 May 2022)

Electoral Law Reform Approved
The National Assembly approved a proposal to amend the Electoral Law to reduce the campaign period and speed up the time for the formation of the Departmental, Regional and Municipal Electoral Councils, among other aspects. A Special Constitutional Commission finished its consultation process with all parties on May 2 and presented its favorable opinion to the Assembly leadership which submitted it to the plenary that approved it with a large majority. Deputy Edwin Castro, coordinator of the FSLN bench, explained that the electoral reform guarantees the quality of the vote and that the Receiving Board that integrates the Voting Centers will have 600 members instead of 400. Now the electoral campaign will last 30 days in the case of the presidential election, and 20 days in the case of municipal or regional campaigns. Deputy Wálmaro Gutiérrez, stated that the reform contributes to the permanent process of modernization of the electoral system and significantly improves the rules of the game during elections. (Radio La Primerisima, 5 May 2022)

2022 Vaccination Campaign Great Success
During the National Vaccination Campaign, medical brigades, mobile clinics, and the 19 Local Health Systems (SILAIS) attended more than 2 million people from 2 month old infants to senior citizens. Nearly two million doses of vaccines for the prevention of many diseases were administered between April 19 and May 8th, as well as 1.74 million doses of anti-parasite medicine and 783,140 doses of vitamins A to children between 1 and 6 years old. The representative of the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) Ana Solís Ortega Treasure, stated that “For PAHO, it is always satisfying to see how the staff of the National Immunization Program works tirelessly to ensure that the vaccines reach the very last corner of the country. We are very pleased to see that the vaccination goal has been met and exceeded.” (Nicaragua News, 10 May 2022)

New School in Asang Indigenous Community
The Ministry of Education reported that US$1.15 million was invested to build and equip the new Joselyn Mercado School in the Asang Indigenous community, in the Waspam municipality, in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region, benefitting 445 students. This is part of the Project for Improvement of Educational Centers that the Government is implementing to ensure access to free and quality education. (Nicaragua News, 4 May 2022)

Sandinista Government Promotes Development in Indigenous Communities
During the 169th anniversary of the official founding of the Ulwa People of Karawala, Judy Abraham, President of the South Caribbean Regional Council said “our Indigenous communities are developing; they have grown with infrastructure for education, health and homes and our farmers benefit from production packages.” She explained that the communities have electricity generated by photovoltaic solar panels, which is inexhaustible and does not pollute, thus contributing to sustainable development. Abraham said that the Sandinista Government has restored the rights of the native peoples. “The history of this community says that our ancestors arrived here 169 years ago, and settled in Karawala. Our Ulwa Indigenous people live from fishing and agriculture. And Ulwa is the native language, but the people also speak Creole, Miskito and Spanish,” she said. (Radio La Primerisima, 7 May 2022)

Inauguration of Six New Schools
With an investment of US$2 million, this week the Ministry of Education will inaugurate six educational centers around the country. Salvador Vanegas, presidential advisor on educational issues, reported that MINED will also launch the “Education in the Countryside” strategy in the municipality of Tuma, La Dalia which will update teacher training in all modalities including multigrade, primary, secondary and adult education in the countryside. (Radio La Primerisima, 9 May 2022)

Two New Women’s Police Stations
The National Police inaugurated the 118th Women’s Police in the municipality of Santa Teresa, Department of Carazo. And on May 12 the 119th Station will be inaugurated in Wiwilí, Nueva Segovia. These special police stations provide security and support to families in situations of violence and risk. Jessica Leiva, head of the Ministry of Women, stressed that women must not be treated with violence. “The commitment we maintain is that we deserve to live in an egalitarian society, without stigmas, without stereotypes, without violence, a sustainable, peaceful future, with equal rights and opportunities, because women in all spaces contribute with experience, knowledge and skills,” she said. The police stations provide support to women who have faced situations of violence, and are part of a model of coordinated work between the institutions that make up the government cabinet. (Canal 8, 5 Mayo 2022)

Women Farmers with Production Alternatives in the Face of Climate Change
Thanks to training programs many women have learned to develop environmentally friendly agricultural practices and diversify their crops. Cándida Rosa Lazo, from San Lorenzo in the municipality of La Trinidad, Estelí Department, has not only learned to make use of the land, but also to be economically independent and to develop soil and natural resource conservation practices, and diversify her production to boost income. Carmen Benavides, from the Las Limas community in the same municipality, is 70 years old and has spent more than half of her life farming. For the last 10 years along with planting corn and beans, she now also raises barnyard animals. Carmen has adopted new technologies to cope with climate variability. She uses pig manure for the production of a liquid that serves as a foliar fertilizer in corn and bean cultivation. And when there is too much rain at the time when she needs to dry her beans she has learned to build solar dryers. She also incorporates stubble from the previous harvest to maintain soil fertility. She says that by applying environmentally friendly farming techniques she has the opportunity to increase her crop yields and resilience to climate change. (Radio La Primerisima, 5 May 2022)

89.7% Have Received One Covid Shot
Exactly 10,377,431 doses of Covid vaccines have been administered to Nicaraguans over 2 years of age and 69.7% are fully vaccinated. To date, 89.7% of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. Over 99% of pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women have been immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine; 81.1% of children between the ages of 2 and 11 with Soberana vaccine; 91.1% of children between 12 and 17 with the Abdala vaccine; 93.1% between 18 and 29 with Sputnik Light and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines; and 96% of those over 30 with Oxford/AstraZeneca, Covishield, Sputnik V, Sinopharm-BIBP and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. (Nicaragua News, 5 May 2022)

Chocolate from Matagalpa Cacao Wins Prize in Europe
Ara Chocolat of Paris won a Gold Medal in the combined European Craft Chocolatier Competition, with products made with cocoa from the Ríos de Agua Viva Cooperative in Kuskawás, a mountainous territory located in the municipality of Rancho Grande, Department of Matagalpa. The 2022 International Chocolate Awards were held on April 7. This artisan competition, in which chocolatiers from Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland and other European countries participated, awards prizes to artisan chocolate products, including filled chocolates/bombons, pralines, wrapped fruits and nuts, and chocolate creams made with Bean to Bar chocolate. Bean to Bar refers to small craft chocolate makers that buy small quantities of cacao and clean, roast, and grind the cacao beans themselves. (Radio La Primerisima, 4 May 2022)

President Ortega Supports China’s Initiative for Global Security and Peace
During the event to commemorate National Dignity Day on May 4, President Daniel Ortega recalled that President Xi Jinping called for a global solution to provide security for the whole world. President Xi proposed a Global Security Initiative to promote security for all people in the world on April 21, delivering a keynote speech via video link at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia 2022 annual conference.

President Xi stressed that it is necessary to persist in respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, not intervening in the internal affairs of other countries, and respecting the development path and social system independently chosen by the people of each country. (Radio La Primerisima, 4 May 2022)

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-05-12-2022
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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