Nicaragua

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:02 pm

U.S. Cries Foul Because Nicaragua Stops It from Buying This Year’s Elections
June 10, 2021
By Rita Jill Clark-Gollub, an active member of Friends of Latin America in Maryland, and Assistant Editor/Translator at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

The corporate media is again awash with accusatory articles about Nicaragua, claiming that the government is disqualifying political opponents to give the FSLN an easy win in this year’s elections. Let’s take a look at what is actually happening, from new laws, to eligibility of political parties, to treatment of those accused of crimes. It is a combination of people engaged in real crimes claiming to be presidential candidates before they get arrested, an incredible amount of U.S. regime change money flowing into the country for years, and Nicaraguan government institutions trying to put a stop to it.

Context

The first and most important element of context is that Nicaragua is a country under attack. Since the 2018 coup attempt, documents have come to light indicating that the leaders of the violence were receiving tens of millions of dollars from such CIA front groups as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) through programs to “promote democracy” and “facilitate transition”—code words for regime change. Additionally, as revealed in August 2020, there is an ongoing USAID coup plot called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) which seeks to ensure that this year’s election results in a government to the liking of the U.S. The document even admits that the FSLN is likely to win in a fair election, in which case a “sudden, unanticipated transition” may be necessary. Finally, there is a very active effort in the U.S. Congress to impose additional and far-reaching sanctions on Nicaragua: the RENACER Act. Its “targeted sanctions” take blunt aim at virtually half the population—including all government officials and members of the FSLN party and their family members. This would be an unprecedented escalation of unilateral coercive measures that could potentially plunge this financially stable nation into the economic hardship currently being experienced by Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.

The various branches of the Nicaraguan government have responded. First, some important laws have been passed by the legislature in the past few months. The Foreign Agents Law (modeled on an 83-year-old law in the U.S.) requires nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to give an accounting of any foreign funding they receive, including who its donors are, what money was received, the purpose of donations, and a description of how the money was spent. This information needs to correspond to the NGO’s financial statements. Another recently enacted law is the Law to Defend the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace. The law says, among other things, that those who fund or lead a coup d’état or who facilitate or encourage economic or other sanctions against the Nicaraguan State or its citizens, may be charged with treason and prevented from holding public office. The Ministry of Justice is in charge of prosecutions under these and other laws.

Legal recognition of political parties and elections governance

Legal status has long been an issue given the infighting and splintering of opposition parties, particularly since the 2018 coup attempt and despite the best efforts of the U.S. embassy in Managua to form a united opposition. But new electoral reforms allow parties to receive government reimbursement for election campaigns, even if they enjoy less than 4% support. While polls show that if the opposition can unite around a single candidate, it could potentially garner up to 21% of the vote, such unity has remained elusive; meanwhile, the FSLN has consistently polled upwards of 60%. This makes it hard to swallow reports in the corporate media of the government eliminating opposition parties to ensure an FSLN victory. One such story is that of the Party for Democratic Restoration (PRD) which recently lost its legal recognition. But this was not done at the initiative of the government; rather, board members of the PRD itself asked the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) to annul its status because they accused the evangelical pastor leading the organization of ignoring the party’s own statutes and forming an alliance without its members’ agreement.

Another favorite theme of Nicaragua’s detractors is that the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), the fourth branch of government that oversees elections, is biased in favor of the FSLN. Recent electoral reforms included some of those suggested by the Organization of American States after the 2016 election. A new CSE was elected in May that includes one-third members from outside the governing party despite the FSLN having a super majority in the National Assembly, as detailed by Louise Richards in NicaNotes of three weeks ago. This CSE is also one of the most diverse electoral bodies in the region, including several indigenous and Afro-descendant persons, and a female majority. But Washington is still upset with its composition since none of its favorite politicians were elected by the National Assembly.


Enforcement of laws to protect national sovereignty

Last week the Director of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation (FVBCH), Cristiana Chamorro, was charged with money laundering and placed under house arrest after she refused to account for the millions of dollars she received from USAID and other U.S. government agencies and foundations in recent years. The day before, U.S. journalist Ben Norton published an extensive exposé of how her Foundation has been used to channel millions to an assortment of opposition NGOs and media outlets favorable to U.S. regime change plans. One of the most scandalous revelations in this article is how the vast network of Nicaraguan opposition media outlets has been cultivated and nurtured by USAID and the NED. Anyone who has been watching Nicaragua knows that these supposedly “independent” media in Nicaragua have been the main source of Nicaragua news reported here in the United States. In other words, in my country most people get information about Nicaragua from the CIA!

The sums of money that Nicaraguan journalist William Grigsby, Ben Norton, and others have revealed are astronomical for a poor country of 6.5 million people. In fact, the USAID website indicates that since 2015 it has spent US$160,586,742 on Nicaraguan NGOs. This sum must be put into context. It amounts to US$24.70 per person in Nicaragua. If a hostile foreign power wanted to do this to the United States, it would have to spend US$8.2 BILLION to cover the US population of 331 million. A comparison of the wealth of the two countries makes the figure even more outrageous. Nicaragua’s GDP is around $12 billion, while the GDP of the US is around $21 trillion—that makes the U.S. economy more than 1,750 times larger than Nicaragua’s. We can multiply US$160,586,742 by that figure to see that for the U.S. economy this would be like a hostile infusion of US$281 BILLION. No wonder Nicaragua has begun to ask for an accounting of the money. US citizens, who were so alarmed by reports of Russian interference in US elections, should be equally concerned and alarmed by this massive US interference in the elections of small countries like Nicaragua around the world.

A sad corollary to this is that Nicaragua is not receiving aid funds from the U.S. that it would like to receive and that might actually help people. The country was blocked from receiving COVID relief funds from multilateral organizations until the end of 2020; after Nicaragua took the first and hardest blows from hurricanes Eta and Iota in November 2020, it received only a fraction of the aid the U.S. sent to Honduras and Guatemala; and Nicaragua is excluded from the COVID-19 vaccine assistance that the U.S. recently decided to provide to other countries.

Cristiana Chamorro’s own statement about the propriety of her funds is rather bizarre: “The US State Department rejected the charges of money laundering against the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation based on audits they conducted that did not find evidence of money laundering or diversion of funds.” Not only does she expect the fox to guard the henhouse, she has forgotten which country she lives in. The charges against her also include depositing Foundation money into her personal bank account.

Chamorro and her supporters are calling this a political prosecution. Although at the very end of May and as the seriousness of the charges against her became apparent, Ms. Chamorro announced her intent to seek the opposition alliance’s nomination for president, she was never a viable candidate, was barely visible in the polls, and was never a model of “independent journalism.” Most importantly, not prosecuting her because she claims to be a candidate would be against Nicaraguan law. As Italian journalist Fabrizio Casari says, “That Daniel Ortega may fear her candidacy looks like hyperbole. [But] to think that the judiciary should stop the process just because she is a self-appointed candidate would be politicization of justice.”

The aforementioned Law to Defend the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace is being applied in some high-profile cases. Arturo Cruz, a businessman who had also thrown his hat into the ring for the opposition coalition’s nomination, was apprehended on June 5 upon arrival at the airport from the United States with a large sum of undeclared foreign currency. The prosecutor’s office indicates that there is strong evidence that he was in the United States calling for and collaborating in efforts to impose sanctions on Nicaragua, and that he was paid for this. Some wonder whether he brought in a briefcase full of cash because he wanted to be arrested, knowing that it would play well in the mainstream press. And on June 8 Felix Maradiaga was charged with violating that same law and also arrested. Maradiaga, a Harvard-educated Aspen Fellow who is a long-time recipient of NED funds through his own NGO, became notorious during the 2018 coup attempt as one of the masterminds of the violence. He benefited from the amnesty granted by the government in 2019 to all those involved in crimes related to the 2018 violence, and since then he has been traveling to the U.S. and international organizations, openly advocating for sanctions to be imposed on his country. Given the animosity he has created for himself among average Nicaraguans, it is astounding that he could call himself a presidential candidate. As we go to press, another person was arrested on June 8 and charged under this law. Juan Chamorro García had also been publicly calling for sanctions against his country to help facilitate the overthrow of the government. He has received millions of dollars from Washington, primarily through his NGO FUNIDES, some of it channeled through his cousin Cristiana at the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation.

Yes, the new laws to protect the country from foreign interference are being enforced, and there are likely to be more arrests. People are being prosecuted based on evidence, regardless of name recognition and social status.

Commentators have noticed another aspect of U.S. hypocrisy, which is that it complains when legal action is taken against its allies in Latin American politics, but turns a blind eye when clearly contrived legal maneuvers are taken against its enemies. This happened when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was prevented from running for election in Brazil and Rafael Correa was forced into exile from Ecuador, to name just two examples of “lawfare” waged against leftist politicians with US support.

What can we do?

It is very important for those of us in the solidarity movement to remember why the current Nicaraguan government is polling so strongly among the people: it has rejected neoliberal capitalism in favor of protecting the people and planet with policies that have brought more prosperity to more Nicaraguans since 2007 than at any other point in the nation’s history. For this it has incurred the wrath of the corporate-dominated government of the United States. Our role in this situation remains the same as it has always been: to advocate for our country to stop spending our tax dollars to meddle in other countries’ affairs. That is, to allow the Nicaraguan people to forge their own path, unencumbered by the old U.S. neocolonial mindset that purports to know what is best for people in other countries.

This week marks the four-year anniversary of the passing of an important Nicaraguan leader, Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, who was Foreign Minister in the 1980s and President of the UN General Assembly in 2008-2009. A quote of his is very apropos of this moment: “It is totally incomprehensible that anyone would call themselves a democrat while at the same time seeking the sponsorship of Washington for their electoral aspirations.” Some recorded interviews give more insights into his thoughts about the U.S.-funded opposition in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega’s continuation in office, and how the U.S. government defines democracy. Reviewing them is a great way to get guidance for this moment and honor the legacy of Fr. Miguel: “The United Nations Is Beyond Refo rm…It Has to Be Reinvented”–Fmr. UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto | Democracy Now! And “Reagan Was the Butcher of My People:” Fr. Miguel D’Escoto Speaks From Nicaragua | Democracy Now!

Briefs

By Nan McCurdy

CSE Swears in Departmental and Regional Electoral Councils

The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) on June 6, swore in people for the 102 positions, including proprietary and alternate officials, for the 15 Departmental and two Regional Electoral Councils. According to a CSE press release, out of the 17 Electoral Councils, 50% plus one are presided over by women: nine women have been appointed as presidents along with eight men; and out of the 51 positions of proprietary members of the Departmental and Regional Electoral Councils, 26 are held by women and 25 by men. An FSLN member is President of nine Departmental Councils in Managua, Esteli, Leon, Carazo, the RAAN, Masaya, Boaco, Matagalpa, and Nueva Segovia. In these nine Departments the First Members are part of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PCL). A PLC member is the president of the Departmental Councils in eight Departments: Rivas, the RAAS, Madriz, Chinandega, Granada, Rio San Juan, Jinotega and Chontales and in those departments the position of First Member is held by a member of the FSLN Party. The Electoral law awards the top positions in these bodies according to the percentage of the vote they received in the last election [2016]. (Radio La Primerisima, 6 June 2021)

CSE Describes Who Can Be Candidates

On June 3 the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) issued a decision that the legally registered parties must present candidates for elective offices who comply with the requirements established by the Constitution and the laws of the Republic. It is the obligation of the CSE “to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic regarding the requirements set forth in Article 143.” That article states: “To be President or Vice President of the Republic the following qualities are required:

1) To be a national of Nicaragua. Whoever has acquired another nationality must have renounced it at least four years before the election takes place.

2) To be in full enjoyment of his/her civil and political rights.

3) To have reached twenty-five years of age.

4) Have resided continuously in the country for the four years prior to the election, unless during said period he/she fulfills a diplomatic mission, works in international organizations or studies abroad.”

The CSE points out that citizens may not be registered as candidates for elective office who do not meet the qualifications, who have impediments or are prohibited in accordance with the Political Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua, Law No. 1040,

Law for the Regulation of Foreign Agents, and Law No. 1055, Defense of the People’s Rights. Law No. 1055 in Article 1 establishes: Nicaraguans who head or finance a coup d’état, who alter the constitutional order, who foment terrorist acts, who carry out acts that undermine independence, sovereignty, and self-determination, who request foreign interference in internal affairs, who call for military interventions, who organize with foreign funding to execute acts of terrorism and destabilization, who request economic or commercial blockades and financial operations against the country and its institutions, and those who demand, exalt and applaud the imposition of sanctions against the State of Nicaragua and its citizens, and all those who harm the supreme interests of the nation contemplated in the legal system, shall not be eligible for elected office.”

The decision of the CSE establishes that it must “comply with the constitution and laws. The CSE must follow up on any behavior contrary to such provisions by any candidate or citizen who wants to be a candidate.” (Radio La Primerisima, 3 June 2021)

US$17.5 Million from US and Europe to Fund Fake News for 2018 Coup

[The brilliant Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, a leading advocate of critical pedagogy wrote that manipulation of public thinking “is an instrument of conquest” and an indispensable means by which the “dominant elites try to conform the masses to their objectives.”]

The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation received at least US$17.5 million from US agencies and foundations as well as from European organizations from February 2017 to July 2018, leading up to and during the 2018 coup attempt. US$16.7 million was given by US agencies and foundations to finance media terrorism [lies, fake news and distortion to foment assassinations and hate, destabilize and create chaos in Nicaragua] to incite and maintain the coup attempt. The Foundation also received €679,530 from Europe. The attempted coup left families in mourning, many people traumatized as well as much destruction and severe damage to the economy resulting in unemployment.

The Foundation’s Director, Cristiana Chamorro, was accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the crimes of abusive management, ideological falsehood, along with money laundering, and given house arrest on June 2, 2021.

From the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) on Nov. 11, 2017, the Foundation received US$564,134 for a project “promoting independent journalism and freedom of expression.”

On March 9, 2018 the Foundation received US$6,722,325 from two of the Soros Foundations owned by New York-based tycoon George Soros. For the project, “independent and transparent journalism,” it received US$6,148,325 and from the Open Society Foundation on July 26, 2018, it received US$574,000 for the “independent journalism and citizenship” project.

The 2017-2018 funding of opposition media and journalists through the Chamorro Foundation by USAID, NED and Soros Foundations was US$16,696,312 million just before and during the attempted coup. This is only part of US funding provided by agencies like USAID, NED, IRI, Freedom House and foundations with close ties to the Council on Foreign Relations. Just USAID spent more than US$160 million on opposition organizations between 2015 and 2021.

Europeans also supported the coup attempt. The Foundation received €679,530 sent by European organizations, including OXFAM-INTERMON, EIRENE BMZ and HIVOS. On March 18, 2018, OXFAM-INTERMON gave €121,000 to “strengthen the media;” on May 21, 2018, EIRENE BMZ gave €348,000 for “Promotion of a Culture of Peace” project; June 9, 2018, HIVOS gave €210,000 to the project “Defending Freedom of Expression.” [This amounts to about US$828,695 in dollars.]

Several so-called “independent” journalists received money directly from the Chamorro Foundation: Luis Galeano, María Lily Delgado, Miguel Mora Barberena, Dino Andino, Gerald Chávez, Roberto Mora, Lucía Pineda, Wendy Quintero, Jenifer Ortiz, Héctor Rosales, Álvaro Navarro, Uriel Hernández, Uriel Pineda, Carlos Salinas, Jackson Orozco, Leticia Gaitán, Fidelina Suárez, Patricia Orozco and Anibal Toruño.

Much of the US-funded opposition media apparatus in Nicaragua was designed and funded by the US after the FSLN won the 2006 elections after 17 years out of power. A subversive front of newspapers, magazines, television stations and programs, radio stations and programs, websites, news agencies, and social media pages has been formed. Journalists and media outlets were paid for by the US (through the USAID, NED, and US foundations) and administered by the Chamorros, who specialized in fake media campaigns to try to promote anti-Sandinista hatred and mistrust of the government and, later, the 2018 coup. (Radio La Primerisima, 2 June 2021)

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Money received by the Foundation from US entities 2017-2018. (Radio La Primerísima)

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Money received by the Foundation from European entities 2017-2018. (Radio La Primerísima)

Juan Sebastian Chamorro Detained

A former official of the government of Enrique Bolaños (2002-2007), Juan Sebastian Chamorro García was arrested June 8. He is the fourth person arrested in the last five days for breaking the Foreign Agents Law or that of Defense of the Rights of the People which sanctions those who request foreign interference like economic sanctions. All four now in custody have promoted the intervention of the United States in Nicaragua and the isolation of the country from international support, with the purpose of overthrowing the democratically elected government of President Daniel Ortega. Chamorro received millions of dollars from the US government primarily through his NGO, FUNIDES. (Radio La Primerisima, 8 June 2021)

Investigation of Cristiana Chamorro for Money Laundering Continues

The Public Prosecutor’s Office continues investigations in the money laundering case against Cristiana Chamorro, Director of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation and daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Chamorro was granted house arrest during the investigation. (Radio La Primerisima, 3 June 2021)

Arturo Cruz Investigated for Requesting US Sanctions against Nicaragua

On June 6 the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a request for a 90 day extension to investigate Arturo Cruz Sequeira, for attempting against the Nicaraguan society and the rights of the people, according to Law No. 1055 entitled “Law for the defense of the rights of the people to independence, sovereignty and self-determination for peace.” In accord with article 253 of Law 1060, the extension of the investigation and judicial detention is due to the seriousness of the crime: provocation, proposition and conspiracy to undermine the national integrity. Because there is the probability that Cruz could obstruct the process, the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested that he be placed at the order of the Fifth Criminal District Court, within 48 hours for a special hearing for the protection of constitutional guarantees. The judge agreed to the Prosecutor’s request, extending the term for the detention and investigation for up to 90 days. On June 7 the Fifth District Criminal Court held a Special Hearing for the Protection of Constitutional Guarantees, requested by the Public Prosecutor for Cruz Sequeira. [Cruz was detained at the airport as he returned from Washington DC.] (Informe Pastran, 6 June 2021)

Felix Maradiaga Arrested for Acts that Threaten the Country

The National Police reported on the June 8 arrest of Félix Maradiaga Blandón, for breaking Law No. 1055 “Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace.” He is accused of requesting foreign interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs and carrying out acts of terrorism and destabilization against the population. Maradiaga demanded the imposition of sanctions against Nicaragua and its citizens and harmed the supreme interests of the nation, according to the press release. The press release said that police will carry out all pertinent investigative procedures and will refer Maradiaga to the competent authorities for his prosecution and determination of criminal responsibilities. (Radio La Primerisima, 8 June 2021)

CABEI President Praises Good Management and Excellent Relations

Nicaragua and the Central America Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) signed two loans on June 2 for US$100 million for the acquisition of vaccines against Covid-19 and for US$18.5 million for the improvement of hospitals nationwide. During the activity, CABEI president Dante Mossi noted that the bank is financing a total of 25 projects with Nicaragua, due to the good management and excellent international relations between the bank and Nicaragua. Mossi and the Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Iván Acosta, said that the two agreements will allow Nicaragua to continue the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic and strengthen the hospital network system. (Radio La Primerisima, 2 June 2021)

UNESCO Representative Congratulates Nicaragua for Not Closing Schools

The Regional Representative of UNESCO, Julio Carranza, congratulated Nicaragua on June 3 for the effort to maintain face-to-face classes during the health pandemic, he said it was a very wise measure. He emphasized that the Covid-19 pandemic has had the strongest impact on the education system worldwide. Despite online education strategies, he said that the quality cannot be compared with the face-to-face modality. “Nicaragua through the leadership of the Ministry of Education and the Government has had an exceptional trajectory compared to other places, because they have tried to maintain as much as possible the face-to-face classes and this will be noticed in the short and long term in different statistics,” said Carranza. On June 3, the Education Ministry held a workshop on capacity building for education advisors with the participation of the regional representative of UNESCO. (Radio La Primerisma, 3 June 2021)

Mechnikov Institute in Nicaragua to Supply Vaccines to Latin America

The Méchnikov Latin American Institute of Biotechnology (ILBM), a vaccine plant with Russian technology, is working to become a supplier of Covid-19 vaccines for Latin America. The general manager of the ILBM, Stanislav Uiba, explained that “negotiations are progressing with several partners to start producing anti-covid vaccines at the Mechnikov Institute,” where emphasis is placed on those biological products that need a temperature of between two and eight degrees Celsius for their preservation, given the particularities of the Latin American region. He also said that the ILBM seeks to start producing the Russian vaccine CoviVac, developed and produced by the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center. He mentioned that ILBM’s main product is flu vaccines, and it collaborates with regional institutions such as the Pan American Health Organization’s Revolving Fund, a solidarity cooperation mechanism through which vaccines, syringes and related supplies are purchased on behalf of its member states. (Canal 2, 4 June, 2021)

First Quarter Economic Information is Positive

The Central Bank published first quarter 2021 information on the economy which shows recovery: in this first quarter the GDP registered an inter-annual growth of 3.4%. April remittances totaled US$170.8 million, an increase of 39.8% over the same month last year (US$122.2 million). (Informe Pastran, 8 June, 2021)

Weekly Covid Report

The Health Ministry reported that during the week of June 1 to 7 there were 136 new registered cases of Covid, 111 people recuperated, and 1 death. Since March 2020 there have been 6,085 registered cases of Covid, 5,716 have recuperated and 188 deaths. (Radio La Primerisima, 8 June 2021)

https://afgj.org/u-s-cries-foul-because ... -elections
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 16, 2021 4:32 pm

Operation Danto – Breaking the Yankee Propaganda Apparatus in Nicaragua
June 16, 2021
By William Grigsby – Jun 13, 2021

The following is a transcript of the speech by William Grigsby on a recent episode of the program Sin Fronteras of Nicaragua’s Radio La Primerísima. Listen to the speech here:





What was the US instrument to overthrow the ”Sandinista Dictatorship” in the 1980s? The armed counter-revolution—the Contra. The US gave approximately 2 billion dollars to create it, train it, equip it, and maintain it. That was the instrument to defeat the ”Dictatorship”—Ronald Reagan’s freedom fighters against the “Sandino-communist horrible dictatorship” there in Nicaragua. [The Contra] murdering peasant women like the woman I just told you about, who was burned alive on her ranch; or the 16 peasants murdered on May 31, 1986 in Yale [Jinotega]. The armed counter-revolution, the Contra, was the instrument—to sow terror, to destroy bridges, schools, health centers, and to murder peasants for no other reason, simply because they were peasants, to destroy the cooperatives, to carry out attacks such as the mining of the Corinto port, the mining of the Sandino port, the mining of Bluff [in 1984]. Or the attack against the airport, twice. Destruction by armed means… even with all of this they couldn’t overthrow us [the Sandinistas].

The people of Nicaragua confronted them; those who not only nourished the Sandinista popular army and the Ministry of the Interior, but also continued working and sustained the war fronts with their work, with their sacrifice in thousands of privations—the new generations have no idea—the privations that we suffered in the 80’s as a consequence of the imperialist war. And suffering all that, the people of Nicaragua resisted, and defeated North American interference. They defeated it!

Operation Danto [an all-out offensive to beat the Contra in 1988 that destroyed many Contra bases in Honduras. It is considered to have defeated the Contra militarily and led more quickly to peace talks] was the culmination of the defeat of the armed intervention of US imperialism in Nicaragua.

Then came the Sapoá negotiations of ’88, then Esquipulas, and finally the 1990 elections where the North Americans defeated us by putting a gun to people’s heads saying ”either you vote for us or the war goes on.”

That was in the 1980s.

And what did they do before that? Since 1847/48, what did they do? They bought land for Americans, colonizing with Americans because they wanted the canal.

Then they brought in Walker to try to annex Nicaragua to the southern slave states. They failed.

And then they went down the economic road. And they overthrew [President] Zelaya with ”diplomacy” by putting in war frigates, ”I’ll shoot you if you don’t resign” they told Zelaya, and Zelaya surrendered.

And then they financed the war against José Madriz who was left as president after Zelaya’s resignation. They financed the war and forced him to resign. They installed their people in power. They totally intervened in the finances in Nicaragua, the national bank, the railroad, the treasury, customs, all of that was managed by Yankees. There is the history. There are photos to prove it, documents to prove it.

Then Sandino rises. How do they intervene? With troops, directly. And then they have him killed; together with the conservative oligarchy, the Chamorros, the newspaper owners of the time, the rancid oligarchy of Granada, Emiliano Chamorro, who had carried out the coup d’état against the liberals of the time, in 1926, the famous Lomazo. That one, Emiliano Chamorro, grandfather or grandfather, who knows what the hell he is to the current ones [he would be their 1st cousin twice removed – their great grandfather’s nephew]. That same one [Emiliano Chamorro] sponsors the assassination of Sandino. He later comes to an arrangement with Somoza. Somoza becomes the gendarmerie of Yankee interests, and that is the Yankee way of intervening in Nicaragua.

And that’s how they kept it up for 45 years, until the Nicaraguan people overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. The Yankees gave Somoza arms, training, advice, intelligence services, you name it, they gave it to him. And the people of Nicaragua defeated him. The same thing happened in the 80s, the same thing is happening now.

How did the Yankees intervene in Nicaragua in the 1990s? With Chamorro-Somozismo. How did they do it? Through international loans, through neoliberalism—”I give you money” knowing that the country was broke because they broke it. They bankrupted Nicaragua with the financial blockade and the blockade of imports and exports that they imposed during the 1980s. They bankrupted the country and said ”if you want to get out of bankruptcy you are going to have to do what I tell you, and what I tell you is to sell everything in the state and give it to my friends.”

And they began to sell everything at the price of ”wet hay.” Everything. The land, the companies, factories like the cardboard industry or the medicine factory, things like that. And they also took the land from the cooperatives, took the land from the peasants who had benefited from the agrarian reform and gave it to the Yankees, to all the Somozismo that came to Nicaragua, believing that they had it in their hands again. They intervened in the country, through the economy, they sent tens of thousands to unemployment. They caused the emigration of tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, a frightening wave of people who left the country starting in 1992, and that is in the migratory figures, there you can see the picture of how migration shot up. That is where it started.

They starved the people of Nicaragua. They took away all their social rights, they took away their education, they took away their health, they took away everything! They destroyed the roads, they left the people to look for what to do in the mountains, nobody took care of them, people died of gastroenteritis, diarrhea, they died in the mountains. That was the way to intervene.

And now, what is the way? The ideological apparatus. They have occupied, according to the circumstance that corresponds to them, they are occupying the mode of intervention. And now it is the propaganda apparatus to sow hatred, to condition the minds of the population.

What they did not know is the strength of the Nicaraguan people. They underestimated it, they undervalued it. First the people of Nicaragua defeated the military attempt of the counterrevolution in 2018, and they defeated it under the same conditions that they put in place. They put armed conditions, so did we and they were defeated.

And then the most important of all, the people of Nicaragua defeated the economic conspiracy against the country. And they defeated it with work. The country was NEVER paralyzed, neither during the coup, nor after the coup, nor during the pandemic. It has never been paralyzed, with the wisdom of Daniel directing the economy, and with the work of the people.

It has been a marvel. The peasant has never stopped working his land or watching his cattle. Nor has the self-employed stopped going to sell. This strength of the Nicaraguan people has allowed the economy to recover and has been the main defeat of the Yankees.

And now we are in Operation Danto. Operation Danto of the 2020s is this, breaking the heart of the Yankee propaganda apparatus in Nicaragua, which was their main way of intervening now, for the elections—conditioning public opinion, intervening, lying, instilling fear, instilling hatred for them to try to defeat the Sandinista Front and Daniel.

And again we are ”busting their ass!” That’s it. That is what it is all about. This whole operation that is being carried out from the prosecutor’s office as a spearhead is just that, to destroy the propaganda apparatus of US imperialism.

Let’s see what they do now, let’s see how good these journalists are now that they are going to run out of money. How will they pay the rent? The internet? Their salary? How are they going to pay for the car they just bought? The house they bought? The children they have in the private university? What are you going to do now that there will be no Yankee funds? Now that there will be no way to avoid the fiscal and governmental controls? What are you going to do? Are you going to get advertisements? Is COSEP (the private business council) going to save you? Do you think COSEP is going to save you? Do you think Pellas is going to invest a penny in you? Never. Because it does not make any profit for him. Because you are not one of their priorities. Never. Neither Pellas, nor Ramiro Ortiz, nor Tano Baltodano [Jose Antonio, owner of Café Soluble], nor the Zamoras, none of them (the wealthiest Nicaraguans), none of them are going to save you. They are dead meat.

Prove that you are independent journalists, let’s see, prove it! Pay your own expenses, work with your own agenda, don’t wait for Yankee guidance, let’s see if it is true.

So, simply put, Operation Danto is happening and there’s more to come. With Operation Danto, the Yankee propaganda apparatus is disarmed.

Let’s go to the elections! Let’s go! Only candidates who are fit to compete (who fulfill the legal requirements). Because there is the Narco-trafficker (Maradiaga), financed by the Colombian Narcos, financed by Uribe. That one is dead meat. And didn’t go roam around foreign lands for a year? The constitution says 4 consecutive years residing in the country are required, he went to wander for a year. There’s nothing for him to do. Kitty herself (Montenegro, of CXL party), she herself is going to get rid of him because she is not going to put her party’s legal status at risk for a drug trafficker who does not meet the requirements to be a candidate. She herself is going to brush Maradiaga aside.

Let’s go against whoever, whoever you put up—someone who fulfills the requirements and who also is not involved in war actions, in conspiratorial actions against Nicaragua, against the legitimately constituted government of Nicaragua.

Remember, our strength is the people of Nicaragua, and we work and advance, thanks to the people of Nicaragua and with Daniel’s leadership.

https://orinocotribune.com/operation-da ... nicaragua/
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:14 pm

The Run-up to Nicaragua’s 2021 Elections: Part Two
By: Alborada

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Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front Flags, Managua, Nicaragua, Aug. 28, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Published 19 June 2021

If the Sandinista government can continue its success in managing Covid-19, it will likely pay dividends at the ballot box despite increased interference by foreign powers.

This November, Nicaragua will hold elections for its next government. In the second of our two-part series, Alborada analyses the challenges for the country’s governing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

You can read part one here.https://alborada.net/nicaragua-election ... -part-one/

Electoral reforms: the Nicaraguan way

Integral to ensuring sovereignty and fairness in Nicaragua’s elections this year are the electoral reforms that were recently passed after intense scrutiny by 85 out of 90 sitting parliamentarians. There are two important aspects to these reforms. The first is the huge step towards gender parity, which is part of the wider FLSN campaign for gender equality. All electoral bodies in the future must constitute at least 50 percent women, necessitating wider representation on upcoming electoral lists.

In contrast, when such proposals have been put forward in countries such as the UK, they have continually been met with opposition. No such law enshrining women’s representation at the parliamentary level exists in the UK, but it now does in Nicaragua. This speaks to a broader system of electoral representation in the country, in which all citizens 16-years-old and over can vote. Photo ID cards with barcodes, which 95 per cent of citizens now possess, are used at the ballot box. A new ID card programme, which has set up 132 offices across the country, is pushing for 100 per cent attainment by November. Electoral turnout has averaged 70 percent since 1984.

The second amendment of note is the one restricting international financing of candidates and parties. In essence, it maintains national sovereignty over elections and an equal electoral playing field:

The financing system for parties or alliances of parties establishes that they may not receive donations from state or mixed institutions, whether national or foreign, or from private institutions, when they are foreigners or nationals while abroad. They may not receive donations from any type of foreign entity for any purpose. It should be noted that this same system of prohibition of foreign funds for the electoral campaign is also applied in countries such as Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, among others.

It’s certainly not a radical proposal but one that is necessary considering the 2018 events. It is this second amendment that led, in part, Cristiana Chamorro's disqualification for this year’s presidential race. Cristiana Chamorro is the daughter of former Nicaraguan President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the same former president installed in 1990 at the behest of the US after a decade of contra warfare. The Chamorro family owns La Prensa and Confidencial, newspapers funded partly by USAID. In 2020 alone, the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation received US$1,697,400 from USAID as part of a Media Strengthening Programme. Since 2015, they have received US$6 million. Using Spain's Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the European Union transferred €831,527 to the Chamorro Foundation.

The fact that Cristiana Chamorro – who is vice president of La Prensa – is in receipt of millions of dollars from foreign entities, which she then allegedly tried to launder, is in clear violation of electoral laws passed by the Nicaraguan parliament (which comprises various political parties aside from the FSLN). Many US media outlets, sourcing information from opposition media, have spun this as a clampdown on the FSLN’s opposition. But the fact remains that Chamorro has violated the electoral law.

Alongside these reports is the so-called banning of the Democratic Restoration Party (PRD). Once again, the PRD broke the country’s electoral law. Owing to the pandemic, parliament voted to extend the registration date for political alliances running for the presidency, including forming alliance pacts, by six months. This meant that alliances could register until 7 May 2021, six months before election day, when it has traditionally been one year. The PRD then attempted to register a political alliance after this date. This invalidated their candidacy. The ‘banning’ was, again, simply the Supreme Electoral Council following very clear electoral laws.


Even with Cristiana Chamorro and PRD out of the race, that still leaves 17 parties competing for November’s election, including six regional parties that broadly represent indigenous, autonomous movements. Of these 17 parties, 11 are grouped into alliances. This is a healthy, competitive democracy, remarkably different from the quadrennial two-horse race in the US that passes for an election. Critics of the FLSN continually point out that Daniel Ortega will be running for a fourth term, uttering the word ‘dictator’ in the same breath. Those same critics rarely point out that Angela Merkel has been Chancellor of Germany for 16 years straight, which is four terms already. Some have even called for a fifth term of Merkel.

The media attacks on Nicaragua’s upcoming elections show a clear bias. In tandem with the RENACER Act and RAIN mission, there is a blatant attempt by the US and its ideological allies to sow doubt around the legitimacy of the elections and, at worst, create violent dissent on the streets. We cannot forget this is all happening to the backdrop of Covid-19, of which the FSLN’s handling has been exemplary.

Covid-19 in Nicaragua

Part of the reason the US and its allies might be escalating the hybrid war is because of the way Sandinismo has handled the pandemic. A free public healthcare system, which has just a minuscule amount of the resources comparatively found in countries like the UK or US, has managed to keep Covid deaths to just 185 (at the time of writing) from a population of approximately 6.5 million. This is a remarkable achievement by anyone’s metrics. It has done this without having to result in the continual, debilitating emblematic lockdowns in other parts of the world. John Perry writes:

Nicaragua announced its strategy much earlier (in late January, when most Western countries were still dismissing the likelihood of a pandemic); it prepared wards in 18 hospitals to receive COVID patients, and reserved one hospital solely for this purpose; it put health checks in place at points of entry to the country with mandatory quarantines, and it began a program to combat misinformation being purveyed via social media (several rounds of house-to-house visits, a free phone line, streetside clinics and more).

What’s most impressive about Nicaragua’s response is that it has had just one COVID peak then subsequently ‘flattened the curve’ of cases and deaths. Half of its cases and deaths took place between mid-May and mid-July 2020, and since then Nicaragua has kept the virus at very low levels. Strict controls at the border and active door-to-door ‘health brigades’ have been essential in this and help explain how Nicaragua has avoided repeated lockdowns. From March 2020, Nicaragua has had the lowest level of infection and the highest recovery rate in the region.


The country also has one of the lowest death rates per 100,000 population in the world. Recent articles have questioned this, pointing out that statistics on excess deaths challenge the official Covid-19 death reports, but even if this turns out to be the case, Nicaragua has to be seen as successful in containing the pandemic and still enabling people to work and to feed their families, a very high priority in a country which lacks the resources to support people who lose their jobs because of the pandemic.

It paints the country in stark contrast to its neoliberal neighbors like Honduras, which today function as a narco-state neo-colony of the US. For comparison, Honduras has suffered 6,259 deaths from Covid-19 from a population of 10 million. That’s 623 deaths per million, compared with just 28 deaths per million in Nicaragua. The Ortega administration is receiving millions of doses of Sputnik V and Covishield vaccines, freely vaccinating almost the entire population of over-60s with one dose, with the second doses beginning on 7 June. As of 28 May, those under 60 are now receiving their free vaccinations from the country’s extensive ‘health brigades’.

The world has seen how quickly these Covid success stories can fall apart. But if the FSLN can continue its success in managing Covid-19 until November, it will likely pay dividends at the ballot box. Unfortunately, before then, we will have to witness increased shameless interference by global imperialist powers. It’s therefore incumbent on all internationalists, anti-imperialists, and socialists to defend Nicaraguan autonomy and its right to self-determination.

Organizations in the West like Friends of the ATC (Rural Workers Association), La Via Campesina, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group, and the Alliance for Global Justice are all doing fantastic work – hand-in-hand with Nicaraguans – to combat this political interference. We should push more groups, including trade unions, to participate. Meanwhile, journalists mentioned in part one like John Perry, Ben Norton, Stephen Sefton and Rick Sterling are doing essential investigatory work to provide English-language resources about Nicaragua and imperialist meddling. If we support these efforts, we support Nicaraguan sovereignty. We must not allow Nicaragua to become anyone’s colony, ever again.

This was produced in collaboration with the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group. For more information about NSCAG, click here. With thanks to John Perry for his suggestions.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/ ... -0008.html
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 21, 2021 1:27 pm

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Nicaragua’s political opposition as organized crime
Posted Jun 19, 2021 by Eds.

Originally published: teleSUR English translation from Tortilla con Sal by Stephen Sefton (June 17, 2021) |

Ever since they lost badly in the 2011 elections to the Frente Sandinista, Nicaragua’s political opposition has divided into conventional political parties working in the country’s legislature and an extra-parliamentary opposition based in local NGOs.

The U.S. government, in particular, gave up supporting Nicaragua’s opposition political parties financially so as to focus on consolidating an opposition bloc exploiting the figure of “civil society” but excluding the country’s main labor and rural workers’ organizations and the cooperative movement. The member organizations of this exclusive, bogus civil society were all financed either directly by the U.S. and allied governments or indirectly via foreign corporate and state-funded foundations.

After a period of accumulation of resources from 2011 onward, this extra-parliamentary opposition mounted the violent, U.S. designed coup attempt which lasted from April to July in 2018. But the main opposition political parties for the most part respected the country’s institutions and refrained from taking part either in the widespread extreme violence or in the national dialogue between the coup promoters and the government. For that reason, no leading figure from Nicaragua’s opposition political parties has been affected by the recent series of arrests of people from organizations that supported the 2018 coup attempt.

All those arrested face well-supported indictments for illegal activities that would incur criminal prosecution in the United States, any country of the European Union and practically every country in Latin America and the Caribbean. The main formal indictment against all the individuals under investigation is that of acting in violation of Nicaragua’s Law 1055, “Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace”. Under the law, it is a crime to seek foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs, request military intervention, organize acts of terrorism and destabilization, promote coercive economic, commercial and financial measures against the country and its institutions, or request and welcome sanctions against the State of Nicaragua and its citizens.

In addition, Cristiana Chamorro of the Violeta Chamorro Foundation, Juan Sebastian Chamorro of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES), Felix Maradiaga of the Institute for Strategic and Public Policy Studies (IEEPP) and Violeta Granera of the Centre for Communications Research (CINCO) may also face charges for money laundering and breaking the “Foreign Agents” law which requires all organizations receiving finance from overseas to register with the authorities, report the amount of money received and how it is used. The law strengthens the already existing Law 147 regulating non-profit organizations under the supervision of the Ministry of Governance (MIGOB) which obliges non profits to report annually on their sources of income and how the money was spent.

Despite numerous reports in international media to the contrary, none of the people arrested had been selected by any of Nicaragua’s political alliances or parties as possible candidates for the upcoming general election on November 7th this year. Cristiana Chamorro, Juan Sebastan Chamorro, Arturo Cruz and Felix Maradiaga had earlier stated they aspired to the candidacy of one of the political parties, most likely the Citizens for Liberty political alliance. But none of them was formally under consideration. In any case, as many observers have noted, the figure of their possible candidacy in the elections has served as a smokescreen to distract from the criminal charges against them, for which they would face prosecution in practically any country in the world.

The other main group of Nicaragua’s extra-parliamentary opposition facing indictment under Law 1055 are the leaders of the Unamos political movement, formerly the Sandinista Renewal Movement (MRS). These are former leading Sandinistas Dora Maria Tellez, Victor Hugo Tinoco and Hugo Torres and their younger colleagues Ana Margarita Vigil, Suyen Barahona, and Tamara Davila. With the cosmetic political makeover from MRS to Unamos, the MRS old guard have tried to play down their Sandinista past and links to their network of ex-combatant supporters. A relatively small but experienced and committed group of these ex-combatant MRS supporters played a key role organizing, directing and leading the violence of 2018 that resulted in over 260 deaths.

Former guerrilla hero Hugo Torres is reported by the UK Guardian noting in relation to the recent arrests of well-known opposition figures in Nicaragua “… that’s how life goes: those who once held their principles high have now betrayed them.” Torres should know. He has collaborated with U.S. government intervention in Nicaragua since at least 2005. Ever since then, until very recently, Tellez, Torres, Tinoco and other ex-sandinistas like Monica Baltodano and Henry Ruiz successfully fooled their foreign supporters by claiming they were loyal to some kind of authentic Sandinismo which they could never quite define.

Monica Baltodano posed as a super-revolutionary, fooling leftists in Europe especially, while all the time collaborating closely with Nicaragua’s right wing and accepting substantial funding for her Popol Nah NGO from the European Union and USAID. From 2007 to 2011, she served as a legislative deputy for the center-right social democrat MRS party of Tellez and Torres at the very time that party was allied with Nicaragua’s right wing. For example in the 2008 municipal elections they openly campaigned for oligarch banker Eduardo Montealegre, PLC political party candidate for mayor of Managua, when the PLC was still controlled by corrupt ex-president Arnoldo Alemán. For her part Baltodano has so far not figured in the current series of indictments.

Baltodano’s ex-sandinista allies in the Unamos leadership are accused of breaking the law against collusion with foreign powers, but that may well turn out to be less serious than their possible role in planning new attacks, similar to those of 2018. Between April and July that year, 22 police officers were killed and 400 suffered gunshot wounds at the hands of well-armed opposition activists. The MRS ex-sandinistas and their accomplices, like Medardo Mairena and Francisca Ramirez of the extremely violent Anti-Canal Movement and right wing Catholic Church bishops and priests, including Silvio Baez, Rolando Alvarez and Abelardo Mata, organized and supported widespread mass extortion and violence including murder, torture, arson, rape and other serious assaults affecting many hundreds of victims and their families.

After the 2018 coup attempt failed, the authorities refrained from arresting its organizers, instead focusing on people who had directly committed criminal offenses. Subsequently, the 2019 government amnesty meant that the MRS leadership, as well as Felix Maradiaga, Cristiana and Juan Sebastian Chamorro, Violeta Granera and their accomplices escaped prosecution and sentencing for their role in the coup attempt. In fact, the extremely violent events of 2018 were a massive exercise in organized crime and terrorism, during which the various components of Nicaragua’s opposition involved in it operated according to a very clear program.

For example, the MRS leadership coordinated experienced ex-combatants among their movement’s activists to help organize the violence more effectively, for example in Masaya. Felix Maradiaga coordinated with his contacts in local and regional organized crime networks to attack public buildings and run extortion operations out of Managua’s UPOLI and UNAN universities and at dozens of roadblocks. Medardo Mairena and Francisca Ramirez activated their Anti-Canal Movement thugs to do the same along the main highways leading to Nicaragua’s southern Caribbean Coast. Renegade local politicians of traditional political parties followed suit on the highway leading to the northern Caribbean Coast, for example at Rio Blanco and Mulukuku.

Right wing Catholic Church bishops and priests guaranteed logistics ensuring that churches in dioceses across the country served as headquarters for the violent opposition gangs. The private business organization COSEP also played an important role in logistics, as did opposition aligned NGO’s like the human rights organization CENIDH, and Baltodano’s Popol Nah, among others. In addition, human rights organizations like CENIDH, the Permanent Commission for Human Rights (CPDH) and the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH), all funded by foreign governments, systematically misrepresented human rights abuses, inventing abuses by the authorities and concealing innumerable abuses by violent opposition activists.

Like all those organizations, the Chamorro NGOs – Cristiana’s Violeta Chamorro Foundation, Juan Sebastian’s FUNIDES and Carlos Fernando Chamorro’s CINCO–also facilitated the coup attempt by distributing money they received from foreign governments and foundations. Felix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastian Chamorro and others traveled internationally projecting a false “freedom and democracy” narrative, appearing in influential European media like the BBC, among others. The Chamorro media outlets La Prensa and Confidencial and the plethora of online proxies they set up with USAID funding coordinated the massive online disinformation campaign to mislead national and foreign opinion.

This massive and complex operation had been planned by the U.S. authorities in coordination with their agents in Nicaragua over many years following the collapse of the traditional opposition political parties in 2011. Among other things, the current investigation is likely to determine whether or not the Chamorros, the Unamos ex-Sandinistas and their opposition allies, in addition to their illegal collusion with U.S. and allied government intervention, were planning another coup attempt in the context of this year’s elections. In any case, should those currently accused end up being prosecuted and sentenced for their crimes, few people in Nicaragua will have much sympathy for them.

https://mronline.org/2021/06/19/nicarag ... zed-crime/
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 23, 2021 1:30 pm

Nicaragua’s Speech to the UN Human Rights Council – Jun 22, 2021

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Gobierno de Reconciliación y Unidad Nacional
Unida Nicaragua Triunfa

NICARAGUA SPEECH
The Government of Reconciliation and National
Unity represents within this Council, the Noble,
Brave and Hardworking People of Nicaragua, with
their heads held high and the Pride of being
Protagonists of a History of Struggle for our
National Sovereignty, our Independence, and even
more so, in the Year of the Bicentennial.
We have the right to live in peace. We have the
right to respect. We have the right to Peace,
which we have been building so hard after
centuries of aggression, meddling and intervention by the United States of America and the
complicit European Powers, which have sought to
maintain imperialist and colonial domination
over our Free, Sovereign and Blessed Nicaragua.
2
We stand before this Council to ratify the Vigor, Glory and Historical Truths of the Nicaraguan People, who are emancipated and have risen
with a Soul of Victories, in the face of the
same aggressors. We have the Honor of defending
our Motherland, defending the Interests and the
Rights of a People that advance, in its own Values and Cultures, a People that have been recognized throughout the years, as an inspiration
and an example of Peoples in Struggle.
In recent days we have courageously lived and
confronted the same interventionist practices
that we have come to know and defeat, from William
Walker, American filibuster, white supremacist
and enslaver, self-proclaimed President of Nicaragua and even after that; even in the midst of
wars, interventions and military occupations of
the United States that murdered our Patriot Generals,
3
Fathers of our National Dignity, Benjamin Zeledón
and Augusto Sandino, or when the successive and
warlike American presidents have declared
themselves "contras", with great hypocrisy
and in the crudest of shamelessness...
Nicaragua has faced the indecent greed of the
United States and Europe, which has used all the
vices of its own decadence to try to dismantle
and dissuade National Honor, and the Spirit of
Sandinismo. The fact is that the immoral and
obvious imperial, colonial American and European
greed, the neocolonial greed with its alleged
manifest destinies, has always failed, buy has
always pursued, our strategic and privileged
geographical position.
We have confronted them with Bravery, Dignity,
Humility, Good Faith and with the Valuable
Experience of Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence,
with a Culture of Reconciliation and Concord,
4
which despite so many warlike perversions, is
maintained, and increased, between the Nicaraguan
People and the State.
Madam President,
Sister and Brother Delegates:
We stand before this Council to defend Justice
and Peace. The Right of Nicaragua to Live in
Justice and Peace. The Right to Live Without
Foreign Interference. The Right to Live our
Destiny of Heroic People, that will never submit
to the impositions of the Imperial Powers.
We come to this Council to say Enough. Enough
with the reproducing of the interventionist discourse of those who intend to dictate our Laws
and Decisions, our Ways and Models of Life, in
Organizations that supposedly should serve for
the defense of Human Rights, nullifying our
5
Sovereignty, pretending to impose attitudes that
are alien to our Culture and Idiosyncrasy, in
that arrogant, self-righteous and inappropriate
desire to dominate a Country and a People, which
owe their suffering and pain to Imperialism and
Colonialisms, in all of its forms.
Madam President,
Sisters and Brother Delegates:
We come to this Council to denounce the United
States, as well as the European Powers that are
its accomplices, and to denounce its immoral and
indecent Policy of aggressive, arbitrary, illegal, coercive and unilateral measures that violate all the Instruments of International Law.
We come to denounce, and will continue to denounce, Colonial Europe, and the United States,
"Invader of Our America"... as the Immortal and
6
Universal Nicaraguan Rubén Darío called them...
and so we denounce them here today, as invaders,
conquerors and assailants of the Law, of the
Heritages and of the Sovereignty of the Peoples.
We come to this Council to demand justice for
Nicaragua. Justice for Nicaraguan Families.
Justice for a People of Faith, of Values, of
Ideals that never surrender, of Communities
that, as our General Sandino said, we neither
sell, nor surrender, never.
In Nicaragua, Blessed, Sovereign and Always Free,
there are Laws. And those Laws are respected.
They are laws similar or equal to that of any
country in the world. But they, the Imperialists, they have them and apply them, while they
do not recognize our Right to apply our similar
Laws, of Defense of Loyalty to the Motherland.
7
They denounce us, because the people who are answering before Nicaraguan Justice, are their sad
and failed employees, unfortunately the Traitors
of always, who have committed crimes against
sovereignty, independence, security and peace in
our Nicaragua.
Anything else that is said in this Council is
part of the same strategy of defamation, of denigrating messaging, and of pretensions to humiliate and subjugate a country and a people that
owes nothing, and fears nothing.
We have come to denounce, repeatedly, that
American and European imperialists and their
interfering policies and actions, violate
international law and the Charter of the
United Nations.
8
Know, Brothers and Sisters of the World, that in
Nicaragua there is a Laborious, Dignified, Loving,
Supportive, Fraternal People, that identifies
with the best Causes, the Causes of Justice,
True Life, Freedom and the Rights to Work, Security and Peace, Health, Education, Prosperity...
Those are our Purposes, and those are the realizations of our Nicaragua.
We advance in spite of the Imperialists of the
Earth, in all their criminal complicities,
because we are worthy and hardworking, and
because we are nobody's Colony! And we are
moving forward with Joy towards the fulfillment
of the Goals set by the United Nations, for the
Good, Just, Harmonious, Sustainable Life, and
with the Right to Development for All!!

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233. ... 2-2021.pdf
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 24, 2021 1:26 pm

NicaNotes: What If It Happened Like This in the US?
June 24, 2021

Image
Women sesame farmers in Nicaragua taking in the harvest

What If It Happened Like This in the US?
By Kathleen Murdock and Becca Mohally Renk

(Kathleen and Becca work with the Center for Development in Central America, a project of the Jubilee House Community in Nicaragua.)


We have had a good many people to write us and ask us what in the world is going on in Nicaragua as they read all the international reporting. This is our attempt at trying to put the recent arrests in a way that people living in the United States might better understand. We found that if we did comparisons that maybe other people can get a feeling of what this little nation that we love so much is doing.

First let us explain some before we get to the comparisons between Nicaragua and the U.S.


1.USAID and other U.S. government entities have sent astronomical sums of money to NGOs for a poor country of only 6.5 million people. A comparison of the wealth of the two countries makes the figures even more outrageous. Nicaragua’s GDP is around $12 billion, while the GDP of the US is around $21 trillion—that makes the U.S. economy more than 1,750 times larger than Nicaragua’s. We multiplied the figures of money sent to Nicaragua by 1,750 to show what an equivalent sum would mean in the U.S.
2.When we compare populations we have adjusted this way: Nicaragua has 6.5 million people, the U.S. has 331 million. This number represents 8% of the population.


What if Russia sent $281 billion to U.S. non-governmental organizations?

That is the equivalent – adjusting for the country’s GDP – of what has happened in Nicaragua since 2015. USAID has sent $160, 586,742 to Nicaraguan NGOs mainly for “independent media” and “democracy and citizenship training for youth.”



What if Russia put $17.5 billion into Fox News, Breitbart and Infowars?

That is the equivalent of what has happened in Nicaragua since 2009. USAID has spent at least $10 million on opposition media outlets for “media strengthening programs.” Many of these outlets are extremely well-funded fringe operations with no more journalistic integrity than Alex Jones.

What if, instead of just one day, the January 6th attack on the Capitol had stretched to months of daily violent protests, and the insurrectionists had set up road blocks effectively paralyzing the country, leading to the loss of 6.2 million jobs? What if we later found out the insurrectionists had been funded by China?

In 2018 Nicaragua went through a similar scenario when opposition protests turned violent, then armed groups set up roadblocks throughout the country that became epicenters of violence, including torture and murder. The roadblocks crippled the economy and caused the loss of 130,000 jobs, which was catastrophic for Nicaragua. The opposition and its media apparatus blamed the government for the violence but police and Sandinistas were targeted and attacked, and now investigations are showing who was funding this violence in Nicaragua – the U.S. government.

What if the Q-Anon Shaman were let out on a general amnesty for all those involved in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, then he declared he wanted to be President of the United States and travelled to China to openly lobby its government to put economic sanctions on the U.S. and was arrested for treason on his return? Would the headlines read “Biden Regime Arrests Presidential Candidate?”

This is essentially what is happening in Nicaragua. On June 8 Felix Maradiaga was charged with violating laws against treason and arrested. “Maradiaga, a Harvard-educated Aspen Fellow who is a long-time recipient of NED funds through his own NGO, became notorious during the 2018 coup attempt as one of the masterminds of the violence. He benefited from the amnesty granted by the government in 2019 to all those involved in crimes related to the 2018 violence, and since then he has been traveling to the U.S. and international organizations, openly advocating for sanctions to be imposed on his country.” (Source: Rita Jill Clark-Gollub)

What if the Trump Foundation had received $12.3 billion from Russia?* What if, when asked how that money had been spent, Eric Trump refused to provide an accounting of the funds, announced the closure of the Foundation, transferred remaining Foundation funds into his personal bank account, declared he wanted to be President of the United States and when charged with money laundering, he disputed that by saying the Trump Foundation had already been audited by Russia and they found no malfeasance?

This is what has happened in Nicaragua. Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of former President Violeta Chamorro and Director of the Chamorro Foundation, has been charged with money laundering and placed under house arrest after refusing to account for the at least $7 million the Foundation received from U.S. government bodies in recent years which was allegedly channeled to opposition media outlets. Chamorro has been accused of transferring funds from the Foundation account into her personal bank account. She disputed the charges against her with this statement, “The US State Department rejected the charges of money laundering against the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation based on audits they conducted that did not find evidence of money laundering or diversion of funds.”

But what is the current situation really like for average Nicaraguans? Let’s keep the comparisons going for better understanding.



What if free health care were a right for every U.S. citizen? It is for every Nicaraguan, from general care, chronic and specialized care, medicines, exams, kidney dialysis and cancer treatment.

What if only 23,170 people in the U.S. had died from COVID? That’s 7 per 100,000 people, the number that have died in Nicaragua, according to a new study by U.S.-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that calculates COVID deaths adjusting for “excess” deaths.

What if every U.S. citizen had the right to a free education from preschool right through college and graduate school? Every Nicaraguan has that right.

What if every U.S. worker was given one month’s paid vacation, 13 paid holidays, and an extra month’s pay each year and pregnant women were mandated two months of paid maternity leave? Every Nicaraguan worker has these rights.

What if 50% of all candidates for public office in the U.S. were women? Nicaraguan law requires it. In fact, Nicaragua ranks 5th overall in the world for gender equality, 1st in women heading government ministries, 3rd in the world for political participation of women, and first out of 153 countries for educational attainment and health and survival. (Source: World Economic Forum and UN Women)

What if the U.S. deeded all lands west of the Rockies to First Nations? In recent years the Nicaraguan government has titled a full one-third of its territory to 300 Indigenous communities to be communally owned and managed.

What if 80% of the US population received a government subsidy to cover 45% of their electrical bill? 80% of Nicaraguans do.

What if 84% of the electricity the U.S. produced were renewable? 84% of Nicaragua’s energy production is renewable.

What if 26.5 million U.S. citizens were given title to houses or land? In Nicaragua half a million people have been titled land or homes since 2007, either new to them or family land that had lacked legal title.

What if police forces in the U.S. were demilitarized and trained in a community policing model? Nicaragua’s largely unarmed police force works with young people to promote a culture of peace which includes home visits to at-risk youth, community counseling sessions, organizing and running sports programs, teaching vocational classes, technical training, GED programs and even financing start-up businesses together with at risk youth.



These phenomenal improvements to quality of life are the reasons that Nicaraguans support the government – a recent poll showed that 77% of the population believes the Sandinista government is working for the good of the general population of Nicaragua.

But the U. S. government is committed to overthrowing the will of the people – as we know from a leaked U.S. State Department paper (RAIN), which laid out how the U. S. government would fund NGOs and opposition leaders, how they would use gangs to disrupt the peace and safety of the citizenry, and how they would declare the election a fraud, among other distasteful actions.

The last 150 years of Nicaraguan history is filled with examples of the U. S. interfering in its affairs. It continues.

We do not believe that the U. S. government would stand by and do nothing if it were Russia or China doing the same thing to them. Do you?

***********************************

Dear Nica Solidarity Activist,

There’s now a new discussion group dedicated solely to Nicaragua. (Of course, the U.S. is causing problems in countless other Latin American countries, but this group is for Nicaragua solidarity activists.)

To join: <https://groups.google.com/g/nicanet>

To post: <nicanet@googlegroups.com>

This Google group is the Nicaragua Network’s public forum for exchanging ideas and information among solidarity activists who are anti-US intervention in Nicaragua. It’s a group for people who support Nicaragua’s sovereignty and the Sandinista Revolution.

As administrator, I will approve all posts before publishing them. Posts are limited to topics, articles, and discussion about Nicaragua. Sorry, but posts about other countries or about matters that do not include Nicaragua explicitly will not be approved.

We Nicaragua solidarity activists sometimes don’t know what other solidarity activists are doing to support Nicaragua. This is a great way to share your news, reading lists, upcoming programs, etc. We await your submissions!

Please join the group and send in your contributions.

In solidarity,

Arnie Matlin for Nicaragua Network—a project of the Alliance for Global Justice <https://AFGJ.org>

P.S. Some people sign up without problems. Others get an error message. If you have a problem signing up, just send me a message and I’ll manually add your name to the Google group. <ahmatlingvcp@igc.org>

**************************

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The CIA: Attempting Coups in Nicaragua with Tax Dollars Through US Agencies and Corporate Foundations
by Nan McCurdy, originally published in Dissident Voice

Since the Sandinistas won the 2006 election their anti-poverty policies have had enormous success.

The country is 90% self-sufficient in food. 99% of the population have electricity in their homes that is now generated with 70+% green energy; International financial Institutions including the World Bank, the International Development Bank and The Central American Bank for Economic Integration praise Nicaragua for its excellent, efficient project execution. it has one of the best health systems in Latin America praised by the International Monetary Fund, with 20 new state of the art hospitals since 2007 achieving one of the lowest Covid mortality rates in the world. Poverty, extreme poverty, maternal, child and infant mortality have all been cut at least in half. Nicaragua is number one in the world in both women in politics and women in ministerial positions and it is fifth in gender equity behind the Nordic nations.

Many more advances for the majority of the population in education, housing and infrastructure have resulted in huge wins for the FSLN in the last two elections (2011 and 2016) and polls indicate that in the November 7 presidential elections they will garner at least 60% of the vote with at least 70% voter turn-out. Some 95% of the adult population have identity cards needed for voting. If the US public knew what this nation, impoverished by nearly 200 years of US war and aggression, has been able to achieve in fourteen years it would surely encourage them to demand better education, infrastructure and universal health care in the United States.

To prevent similar acts of sovereignty by small nations still considered colonies by the United States, the CIA prepared the way for the 2018 coup attempt and has never stopped trying to overthrow the Sandinista government since. The CIA uses US agents, many who pass themselves off as journalists or activists, as well as those eternally stationed at the US embassy; it has provided millions of dollars to hundreds of Nicaraguans acting as foreign agents as well as their nonprofit organizations that conspire against the Sandinista government like those recently arrested for money laundering, fraud and requesting foreign intervention.

The US helped grow the pro-US anti-Sandinista media in Nicaragua

Much of the US-directed propaganda apparatus was designed and funded by the US after the FSLN won the 2006 elections ending 17 years of three US-directed governments. A subversive front of newspapers, magazines, television stations, radio stations, websites, news agencies, and social media pages was formed. Journalists and media outlets were paid by the US (millions through the USAID, NED, IRI and US foundations) and much of it was administered by the Chamorro family media cartel, specializing in fake media campaigns to try to promote anti-Sandinista hatred and mistrust of the government.

Part of this has been known for some time. For example, in May, 2018 during the coup, Tom Ricker of the Quixote Institute described 55 NED grants awarded between 2014 and 2017 for US$4.2 million “as part of a U.S. government-funded campaign to provide a coordinated strategy and media voice for opposition groups in Nicaragua. NED grants fund media (radio, social media and other web-based news outlets) and opposition research. In addition, strategies targeting youth get substantial funding, along with programs seeking to mobilize women’s and indigenous organizations. Though the language is of support for “civil society” and “pro-democracy” groups, the focus on funding is specifically to build coordinated opposition to the government.”

US propaganda funds for 2018 coup channeled through Chamorro family media dynasty

On June 2, Journalist William Grigsby on his news analysis program, Sin Fronteras, revealed (see below) US documents which show that the CIA openly channeled US$16.7 million for the coup attempt, between February 2017 and July 2018, through the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation whose director Cristiana Chamorro is part of a famous family of oligarchs that count eight members as previous presidents; she is also the daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. She and her uncle are owners of the only daily, La Prensa, funded by the US for pro-Contra lies since the 1980s. Her brother Carlos Fernando has his own media empire. US funds to the VBCHF support these family businesses. Her now-deceased husband, Antonio Lacayo is widely considered to have exercised great power during her mother’s presidency from 1990 to 1997 overseeing some 7 billion dollars in privatization of state property, as well as privatization of education and health care. During the early 90s you couldn’t get so much as an aspirin at a government hospital without paying for it.

Image
Chamorro Family, 1990s, Cristiana and Antonio Lacayo are on the right , laprensa.com.ni

The US$16.7 million was given by US agencies and foundations specifically to finance media terrorism [lies, fake news and distortion to foment assassinations and hate, destabilize and create chaos] to incite and maintain the coup attempt. The Chamorro Foundation also received €679,530 from European government-financed organizations during this period. The attempted coup left more than 200 families in mourning, thousands of people traumatized as well as much destruction and severe damage to the economy resulting in the loss of at least 130,000 jobs.

The Foundation’s Director, Cristiana Chamorro, was accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of money laundering, and given house arrest on June 2, 2021. She closed the Foundation in February of this year saying she didn’t want to comply with the “Foreign Agents” law passed in October 2020, similar to, but not as strict as, the 1938 US Foreign Agents Act. Under the Nicaraguan law, organizations receiving foreign funding must report that funding and how it is used – thousands of nonprofits are doing this with no problem.

According to Grigsby and Liberal Party news analyst, Enrique Quiñones, there was still at least US$7 million in the Foundation account when she closed it and this money appeared soon afterward in three of her personal banks accounts.

The US$16.7 million given by the CIA during that short time-span was just the money given for fake news – to fund every kind of news media, programs, social media and to directly fund individuals. Many millions more were provided to other nonprofits and “Human Rights” organizations. It is telling that in a country of 6.3 million people there are four human rights organizations – all funded by the US government and one was even founded by the US government in the 80s to cover up for the Contra.

Within that US$16.7 million, US$9,409,853 was provided by USAID for individuals, projects and media. The National Endowment for Democracy gave the Foundation US$564,134 for a project “promoting independent journalism and freedom of expression” in November 2017.

The Soros Foundations – owned by New York-based tycoon George Soros – also financed fake news in Nicaragua through several organizations that are known to fund destabilization efforts around the world: US$6,722,325 was given by two of the Soros Foundations: US$6,148,325 by the Soros Foundation for the project, “independent and transparent journalism” given in March 2018 a month before the coup began, and $574,000 in July 2018, the month the coup was defeated, by the Open Society Foundation for the “independent journalism and citizenship” project.

The 2017-2018 funding of opposition media and journalists through the Chamorro Foundation by USAID, NED and Soros Foundations – US$16,696,312 million provided just before and during the attempted coup is a small part of funding provided by agencies like USAID, NED, IRI, Freedom House and foundations, like those of Soros with close ties to the Council on Foreign Relations.

USAID spent US$160 million on agents and agent organizations to try to topple the Sandinistas

The US began major destabilization attempts after the Sandinistas won the 2006 elections.

The bigger picture on USAID financing for destabilization in recent years is that it gave US$160 million to opposition organizations and individuals between 2015 and early 2021, information still available by year on the web; however, much information about recipient organizations has been removed. Most information about NED money has also been removed.

Official US documents presented by Grigsby in July 2020 provide more detailed evidence about which nonprofits and individuals benefitted from US$30 million right before the 2018 coup.

Breaking the Yankee Propaganda Apparatus

The USAID says this about their role in Nicaragua:
USAID/OTI partnered with independent media to operate and produce more targeted digital content during the political crisis. The program enabled independent media to preserve and promote democratic discourse, absent further economic destabilization or dramatic state intervention.
In a recent article Rita Jill Clark-Gollub writes:
Anyone who has been watching Nicaragua knows that these supposedly “independent” media in Nicaragua have been the main source of Nicaragua news reported here in the United States. In other words, in my country most people get information about Nicaragua from the CIA!
New laws passed in 2020 (a Foreign Agents Law and a law against terrorism, coups and inciting foreign intervention, which the US vilifies even though they are similar but less punitive than those of the US), and the recent arrests of US Foreign Agents are actions to try to limit US intervention and prevent coup attempts. The US will still get money to their agents, but it won’t be nearly as easy as before and this will limit their ability to carry out the kind of terrorist actions they did in 2018.

William Grigsby on June 2 described what is happening right now in Nicaragua:
[We are] breaking the heart of the Yankee propaganda apparatus in Nicaragua, which was their main way of intervening, now, for the elections – influencing public opinion with lies, instilling fear, instilling hatred in order to try to defeat the Sandinistas. This whole operation that is being carried out from the prosecutor’s office as a spearhead is just that, to destroy the propaganda apparatus of US imperialism.” He asked what all the journalist agents in Nicaragua will do without the salaries they were getting. “Are they committed enough to actually do independent journalism?
RAIN: the CIA destabilization plan in progress now

Nevertheless, Uncle Sam will still continue efforts to destabilize the country. US ambassador Sullivan is constantly seen meeting with the agents, even denounced by President Daniel Ortega:
This goes for the Yankee ambassador (U.S.) and other ambassadors; they like to meddle everywhere and want to make decisions for us; the Yankee ambassador (Sullivan) parades his candidates, promoting them as if he were Nicaraguan… The Yankee ambassador should not get involved here, nominating candidates, pressuring political parties so that the political parties accept the candidate the Yankee wants, the Yankee ambassador should not forget, Nicaragua is sovereign, Nicaragua belongs to Sandino…
In July 2020 William Grigsby received a USAID document leaked from the embassy. It details in couched terms US destabilization plans for “transition” in Nicaragua and even the contracting of a US company to head it all up. RAIN – Responsive Action in Nicaragua has since been deleted, but not before it was archived. RAIN is a blatant plan for destabilization and overthrow of the democratically elected government of Nicaragua. It is likely that much of what the US has financed in the last year is part of the RAIN plan.

The USAID document establishes three scenarios that they call “democratic transition in Nicaragua:”
RAIN will pursue these activities against a variety of scenarios generally falling under three categories: 1. Free, fair and transparent elections lead to an orderly transition [the US candidate wins] 2. A sudden political transition occurs following a crisis [a coup leads to a US backed government] 3. Transition does not happen in an orderly and timely manner. The regime remains resilient in the face of domestic and international pressure. It is also possible that the regime may remain in power following electoral reforms and a fair election, but without changes to the rule of law or democratic governance [i.e. without changes that benefit US corporations].
It is clear from the RAIN document that the U.S. government realizes that the Sandinistas will win the 2021 election by a large margin: that is another reason they have provided millions to agents, organizations and fake news media, hoping that they can put a dent in the 60% Sandinista win predicted in the polls, or to undermine the elections altogether.

The long-time US agents under investigation for very serious crimes are not leaders: there has not been even one small protest since the arrests began June 2 because those arrested have no “pueblo.” People know that the US funded the very violent coup attempt through them – and hold them accountable. The foreign media tout them as presidential candidates, which they are not. When some of them saw that they might be arrested they ran to try to inscribe with the CXL (Citizens for Freedom) party as pre-candidates thinking this might protect them from detention. They all had the opportunity to form new political parties, but they didn’t even try because they don’t have enough members to fulfill minimal requirements. And more importantly, 17 parties are participating in the November 7 elections that don’t receive foreign funding.

And while the United States wastes millions of tax-payer dollars destabilizing the country, Nicaragua effectively and efficiently makes social and economic advances lauded by international organizations and banks, like universal health care, education, affordable housing, social infrastructure, gender equity, conversion to green energy, natural disaster and climate change mitigation, free recreation, and job creation with the creative and popular economy. The majority of the safest population in Central America with the lowest Covid mortality rate and the lowest emigration rate, who are healthier, better educated and housed, with electricity and potable water, whose food is locally grown and available at a decent price, with parks, fairs, pools and sports stadiums to enjoy their free time, are unlikely to let Uncle Sam influence their vote in November.

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-what-if-it-h ... -in-the-us
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:52 pm

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What Media Don’t Want To Tell About Arrests in Nicaragua
June 27, 2021
By Peter Bolton – Jun 19, 2021

The US government and corporate media have been expressing their outrage about what they consider to be the growing dictatorial nature of the Ortega ‘regime’, but there is more to the story than they let on.

Nicaragua has been under heavy fire from the corporate-owned media lately. The government of Daniel Ortega has arrested several opposition figures in the midst of an upcoming election. The US government and corporate media have been expressing their outrage about what they consider to be the growing dictatorial nature of the Ortega ‘regime.’

But there is more to the story than they let on. A deeper investigation shows that the situation is not as clear-cut as they make out. And as is so often the case with Latin America, it falls to independent media to add some nuance and balance to the flagrantly right-leaning and pro-Washington coverage of the corporate-owned press.

Predictable one-sided coverage from CNN, The Washington Post, and The Guardian
On 9 June, CNN reported on a series of arrests of leading opposition figures in Nicaragua. It claims that this forms part of a long-established pattern within the Central American country, stating that “Ortega’s government has in the past not shied away from cracking down on the opposition.” The report even repeats a former Costa Rican president’s characterization of the saga as “the night of the long knives in the tropics”—a reference to Adolf Hitler’s purge of political rivals within the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany.

A week later on 15 June, the Washington Post and the Guardian both reported on further arrests made by Ortega’s government. Most of the Post’s article was taken up by an anecdote about the arrest of one of these opposition figures, Juan Sebastián Chamorro. The Guardian, meanwhile, characterized the arrests as an “unprecedented crackdown on the country’s opposition” that forms part of “an apparent attempt to crush any serious challenge in November’s elections.”

From reading these reports, one could be forgiven for thinking that Nicaragua has descended into an authoritarian nightmare bordering on the fascistic. But a deeper investigation shows that the situation is not nearly as black-and-white as these outlets make it out to be.


An opposition that’s bankrolled by Washington
First of all, we must keep in mind that Nicaraguan opposition have a history of being bankrolled by Washington. After all, both the right-wing opposition and dissident Sandinistas alike have received substantial funding from groups such as the Washington-based United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). USAID is essentially a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) front organization that has been heavily involved in US ‘regime change’ efforts around the globe. NED, meanwhile, was formed in 1983 with the explicit purpose to “do today what was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” according to US historian Allen Weinstein.

Ever since Ortega’s party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), was brought back to power via an election in 2006, Washington has channeled tens of millions of dollars through USAID to help opposition groups destabilize the country and overthrow the government. One of the major recipients of this money has been the Chamorro Foundation, which was founded by the family of the very person whose arrest the Washington Post detailed. Other people arrested by Ortega’s government include:

• Félix Maradiaga, founder of the Civil Society Leadership Institute, an NGO that has received money from the NED
• José Adan Aguerri, former president of the Superior Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), which has received money from USAID
• Violeta Granera, a member of the political council of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) movement, which journalist Ben Norton has described as “an integral part of the US- and EU-backed efforts to form an opposition alliance”
• Arturo Cruz, who is believed to have received money from the US government as part of an effort to impose sanctions on Nicaragua

Given the above, one then has to ask whether a country is obligated to tolerate the activities of organizations or individuals that take money from a hostile power (the US) with a long and prolific record of interfering in elections, propping up dictatorships, and even violently overthrowing governments that it doesn’t like all over the region. Needless to say, such behavior would hardly be accepted in the US itself given that treason is a capital crime according to US federal law.

Presenting US regime change engineers as ”foreign leaders”
Corporate media outlets, however, completely leave out this reality. Instead, they largely repeat statements from US-based supporters of regime change as if they were representative of global opinion. CNN, for example, claims that the arrests “sparked outrage among human rights organizations and foreign leaders”. But rather than telling readers who these “foreign leaders” are, they instead provide quotes from: US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, acting assistant secretary for US Department of State’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Julie Chung, and the hardline Cuban-American exile House representative María Elvira Salazar. In other words, CNN tries to pass off US government spokespersons and a Republican Party congress member, all of whom make no secret of wanting to overthrow the Ortega government and replace it with something more obedient to US interests, as representing the “Global reaction” to the arrests.

The “human rights organizations” it quotes, meanwhile, are the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and Human Rights Watch. The latter has been notorious for taking a pro-State Department line on Latin America and even contains former State Department personnel on its board of directors. The former, meanwhile, is led by an anti-government partisan who supports imperialist sanctions on her own country. As The Canary reported in December 2018, Jagger has not only expressed support for the crippling US sanctions already in place but even called for the European Union, Canada, and other Latin American nations to issue their own set of sanctions as well.

Remembering the history of US intervention
It’s important to also remember the historical context of US meddling in Latin America, and especially in Nicaragua, which has suffered from Washington’s regime change efforts since the early 1980s. After overthrowing the brutal US-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the Sandinistas, as they are colloquially known, faced a violent attempt from Washington to replace them with a pro-US government.

Washington even established a ruthless paramilitary organization called the Contras, which waged a protracted dirty war against the Sandinista government and civilians alike. Renowned for their ruthlessness, the Contras committed human rights violations including murder, kidnappings, and torture, and certainly met the US government’s own definition of ”terrorists.” In short, the Ortega government can hardly be blamed for charging opposition figures who take US money with “inciting foreign intervention.”

The likes of CNN, the Washington Post, and the Guardian, however, completely gloss over both this historical context and the funding of domestic groups that facilitate US intervention. We shouldn’t be surprised at their brazenly anti-government stance, though. The Guardian and Washington Post, in particular, have been notorious for their one-sided coverage of Nicaragua.

The Guardian’s ‘wildly inaccurate coverage of Nicaragua’
During an earlier round of anti-government protests in 2018, for example, the Guardian flagrantly misrepresented the situation by portraying the government as the sole committer of human rights abuses. As The Canary reported at the time, an open letter to the Guardian‘s editors signed by over a score of public intellectuals stated:

“Despite plentiful evidence of opposition violence, almost all your 17 reports since mid-April blame Daniel Ortega’s government for the majority of deaths that have occurred.”

The Open Letter To The Guardian On Its Wildly Inaccurate Coverage of Nicaragua added that the publication failed to report murders of government supporters committed by opposition supporters. These killings numbered at least 21 and went alongside recorded cases of attacks on public buildings and homes of government officials committed by anti-government actors.

One of the letter’s signatories, human rights lawyer and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Dan Kovalik, said to The Canary, “I am convinced that the mainstream coverage of the situation there represents the greatest misinformation campaign I have ever witnessed.”

He added: “There has been no mainstream coverage I have seen about the violence perpetrated by the extreme opposition, though that violence has been substantial.”

Clearly, mainstream outlets like CNN, The Washington Post, and The Guardian can’t be trusted to cover Nicaragua in a balanced and fair-minded way. Because, as we can see, they consistently and flagrantly misrepresent the situation in order to provide a smokescreen for Washington and its internal proxies. The need for independent media to cut through the propaganda and add some balance, therefore, becomes greater with every passing day.


Featured image: Indigenous people of Monimbo, Nicaragua, holding an electoral event for FSLN. Photo: Twitter / @MonimboS

https://orinocotribune.com/what-media-d ... nicaragua/
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:10 pm

Your organization is INVITED TO sign on!
June 29, 2021

As elections approach in Nicaragua, we call on the United States to stop interfering
“How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that they engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country.” President Biden, June 2021
Thirty-five years ago, on June 27, 1986, the International Court of Justice in the Hague ruled that the United States had violated international law by supporting the contras and mining Nicaragua’s harbors- in breach of our country’s international obligations “to not use force against another state, not to intervene in its affairs and not to violate its sovereignty”. The decision included the need to pay reparations, calculated at over $US 17 billion. The US refused to comply. Over 30,000 Nicaraguans died as a result of the war and their economy was totally destroyed by the time the war ended.

The US went on to interfere in the 1990 election, pouring in millions of dollars to create a candidate of choice and to threaten the people of Nicaragua with more war if they did not vote according to US dictates.

Following the Sandinistas’ return to power via elections in 2007, the US resumed efforts to undermine the Sandinista government, openly channeling over $200 million dollars through Nicaraguan non-profits and dozens of newly-created media outlets for regime change efforts. This culminated in a failed coup attempt that killed over 200 people in 2018.

In July 2020, a USAID document leaked from the US Embassy in Managua outlined an orchestrated plan, RAIN or Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua, financed by the United States to launch a government transition in Nicaragua over the next two years.

Right now, the Renacer Act is moving quickly through the US Congress with the explicit intent to interfere in Nicaragua elections, as stated in the title: Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform Act of 2021. The Renacer Act ramps up economic sanctions. It threatens Nicaraguan voters to vote for an opposition candidate if they do not want to suffer serious privation over coming years.

Our friends, family members, organizational partners, and communities in Nicaragua want the US to stop interfering. They tell us that the government cares about the poor, citing good governance from which they benefit directly: safety, food security, agroecology, access to health care and education, commitment to gender equity, disaster prevention and mitigation, energy diversification, best infrastructure and roads in the region, and programs to expand access to housing, water and electricity. Poverty and extreme poverty have been reduced by almost 50% from 2007 to 2017. Nicaraguans ARE NOT fleeing to the US border by the thousands, unlike their neighbors of the “northern triangle”.

US regime change operations in Latin America have a long, sordid history and continue to do enormous harm in the many places where they are active today. US sanctions in support of regime change are devastating to the most vulnerable people, and they are illegal.

As elections approach in Nicaragua, the US is directly interfering and, everybody knows it. We call on the US to stop interfering; it diminishes the standing of our country, and the US globally.

Please add your organization to the list of initial signers!

You are joining our initial signers: https://afgj.salsalabs.org/we-call-on-t ... nterfering

ÁBACOenRed, Estelí, Nicaragua
A Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing (LELO)
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party
Alliance for Global Justice, AFGJ
Big Apple Coffee Party
Black Alliance for Peace
Casa Baltimore Limay
Chicago ALBA Solidarity
Code Pink
Echoes of Silence
Embassy Protection Collective
Friends of the ATC
Friends of Latin America
Friendship Office of the Americas
Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace
Greater New Haven Peace Council, CT
International Action Center
Inter Religious Task Force on Centra America, IRTF
Jubilee House Community
Latin America Solidarity Committee—Milwaukee
Milwaukee Fair Trade Coalition
Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Nicaraguan Cultural Alliance
Pacific Northwest Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean
Peace Action of Wisconsin
Peace House, Ashland Oregon
Popular Resistance
Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC)
Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice
Racine Central America Solidarity Coalition
Rights Action (US & Canada)
Rochester Committee on Latin America, ROCLA
SanctionsKill.org Campaign
Task Force on the Americas
The Latin America & Caribbean Working Group of Massachusetts Peace Action
The Latin America Solidarity Coalition of Western Massachusetts
The People’s Forum
United National Anti-War Coalition, UNAC
United States Peace Council
US Women and Cuba Collaboration
Veterans for Peace, Linus Pauling Chapter 132
Veterans for Peace Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter
Victor Jara Siempre Canta
Workers World Party

Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA)
Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, UK
Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group, UK

https://afgj.org/your-organization-is-i ... to-sign-on
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 01, 2021 1:11 pm

NicaNotes: Nicaragua´s Inspiring Social and Economic Advances
July 1, 2021
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A woman receives her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination in Managua. There are 6,045 doctors in Nicaragua now compared to 2,715 in 2006.
Nicaragua´s Inspiring Social and Economic Advances
By Coleen R. Littlejohn


(Coleen is an International development economist who has lived most of her professional life in Nicaragua since early 1980, working for different local and international NGOs as well as the World Bank in Nicaragua, Liberia and Ghana. She has also worked in Colombia and Chile.)

Even as a young girl, I knew I wanted to work in socio-economic development, though I wasn´t really sure where or with whom. I received a master’s degree at a prestigious university in the US since I figured I would need that to help open doors for getting a job. I thought about the Peace Corps, but they were looking for beekeepers in those days. Years later I thought about going back to get a Ph.D. but my favorite professor from grad school told me it would be a waste of time. And he was right, because living and working in Nicaragua for most of the last 41 years in different types of organizations has been the most incredible learning experience of my life.

Nicaragua has been creating, especially over the last 15 years, a model of equitable, green, pro poor economic and social development, and I have been a witness to this. It is a model that should be studied and shared throughout the world. The seeds of this model were planted in the first couple of years after the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in July 1979 when there was relative peace and so much energy to start creating a new Nicaragua, especially in health, education and in the redistribution of assets.

There was the first national literacy campaign, a massive land reform, building of clinics and schools, promoting rural and urban cooperatives- and lots of other efforts. But the honeymoon did not last very long—US aggression intensified, to the point of exhaustion and then in 1990, 16 years and three presidents ago, most of the achievements were lost.

That changed with the elections of 2007, when 46% of Nicaraguans were still living below the poverty line. President Daniel Ortega finally had the chance of at least 6 years of peace to fulfill his dream of building a new Nicaragua, where the primary objective was wealth creation and poverty reduction through broadly shared economic growth. Key principles during those years and up to the present, included a commitment to sound macroeconomic and fiscal policy, as well as a healthy investment climate with private sector-led growth as a means to create national wealth and achieve poverty reduction and the reactivation of rural production, small and medium enterprises and targeted social programs – goals strongly aligned with the Millennium Goals for 2015.

I remember a meeting at a university in Managua when private sector and the government began to discuss a strategy to cooperate, a strategy which included labor unions in joint negotiations. I remember the government saying to the more endowed private sector that the state would not be giving them financing, they had their own sources, but that the government would work to create an effective business environment, with investments in energy, water, roads, etc. These were the times of 12 hour power cuts daily.

These strategies worked. Between 2007 and 2017, Nicaragua achieved incredible results in the reduction in poverty and extreme poverty, in economic growth, delivery of basic services in health, education, energy, water and sanitation, women and children´s rights, communication, foreign and local investment, land reform, agricultural development, and many other things. A new Nicaragua was emerging—especially after 2010 and when the country started to experience real socio-economic development.



The following examples speak for themselves:

Poverty was reduced from 48.3% to 24.9% and extreme poverty from 17.5% to 6.9%.

The country´s average growth rate between 2010 and 2017 was a booming 5.1%, one of the best in Latin America.

There were massive investments in basic infrastructure—you cannot reduce poverty without the basics. Today, Nicaragua is connected physically by the best highways in Central America, and in the top five in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum. High speed internet also connects and unites the whole country.

Ninety-eight percent of the population now has electricity compared to 54% in 2006. At least 85% is generated from renewable sources, up from 26% in 2006.

In 2006, 65% of the population had access to potable water but that rose to 91.8% in 2018 and the projection for 2023 is 95%.

Significant resources were appropriated for the economic, social, technical and physical integration of the Caribbean Coast. Those investments greatly facilitated the emergency response of this past hurricane season. Getting emergency supplies in 8 hours or less by road before and after the hurricanes struck, instead of 3-4 days or longer, makes a big difference.

Sixty-six percent of the national budget goes for health and education, not military spending. This has meant that the community-based preventative health system, a heritage from the late 70s and the 80s has been incredibly strengthened. From 2007 to 2020, eight new hospitals were constructed, eight more are now under construction, and there are 6,045 doctors in the country now compared to 2,715 in 2006.

Affordable housing has also been a major priority in the last several years and has being strengthened now with a US$214 million loan approved for the construction of 23,500 houses all over the country. And that is only one of the housing projects being implemented at present.

Since 2007, the government of Nicaragua has also made significant investments in grass roots agricultural production and urban microcredit programs prioritizing women. With respect to food security, Nicaragua produces at least 90% of the food consumed in the country.

Nicaragua became a major world tourist attraction. In 2007, 749,000 tourists arrived in the country; by 2017 that number had risen to 1.78 million. Tourism has started to increase again, despite the US raising travel warnings to the maximum level four for US citizens. The excuse is the pandemic, although other Central American countries are at three or below despite higher levels of cases and deaths. Nicaragua was recently awarded the Safe Travels Seal of Approval from the World Travel and Tourism Council in relation to Covid 19 Biosafety Protocols for tourists.

Private investments continue, though perhaps not at the rate of a few years ago due to the current world health crisis. Last year, however, a major investment in building a natural gas plant on the site of one of the most important ports on the Pacific was announced and it will be functioning before the end of this year. This will lower the use of imported petroleum considerably and serve as a back up to the renewable grid fed by wind, sun, biomass and hydro.



So what are some of the factors that have led to these achievements in Nicaragua socio-economic development process?

Careful development planning and evaluation have been key. The government began to create a national development plan about a year after assuming power in 2007. Those plans have been evaluated and updated every five years. The latest for 2021 to 2026 was recently announced and will soon be presented.

In addition, the President has consistently appointed very competent and highly experienced government officials in top ministry posts. Nicaragua´s ministries in all sectors have been very respected by their counterparts in the multilateral development agencies, including the IMF. This has led to productive negotiations and discussions with the Ministry of Finance, but it is always clear who makes the decisions – the government. I will never forget the parting words of an IMF representative who was finalizing his mission in Nicaragua. He said something to the effect that he had learned that macro-economic stability management was not a thing of a right or left government, but of a responsible government, doing the best for its people.

Poverty reduction has also been promoted by direct support for low-income sectors including subsidies for public transportation for all and energy subsides under a certain usage, benefiting 80% of the population. Special half pensions are available for those senior citizens who were not able to pay into the social security system for the required 750 weeks required for a full pension at the retirement age of 60.

Transparency in the use of both national and international funds has also been a major factor. Multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the IMF and the Central American Economic Integration Bank have all affirmed at one time or another that their portfolios in Nicaragua have been very well and transparently managed.



I would now like to talk about what are the major threats to the continued economic development of Nicaragua, and to most other countries, around the world. The first is natural disasters, including pandemics.

After the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in October 1988, the Aleman government received huge flows of emergency aid, but economic growth dropped to less than one percent the following year. Even worse, very little preparation was put in place to mitigate the damage of Hurricane Mitch at the time—to the extent that President Aleman ignored the appeals of the mayor of a small town near Leon to evacuate her people and no help came. Several thousand people died.

Contrast that to the recent response of President Ortega´s government to last year’s two Category 5 hurricanes, ETA and IOTA, the most devastating to hit the country in 40 years. The difference was that the very efficient and tested national system of disaster prevention and mitigation, coordinated by a government agency called SINAPRED, was activated a week before the first hurricane hit. One hundred thousand emergency volunteers were mobilized, 160,000 people evacuated, 1195 shelters and 2,300 safe houses identified before the hurricanes hit and supplies of food, mattresses, medicine, water, etc. were sent days earlier. No deaths were attributed to ETA but 16 died in IOTA, all related to people who refused to leave their homes or went back against advice.

On November 24th, the Minister of Finance estimated that the economic damage from the two hurricanes was over US$742 million dollars, equivalent to 6.2 % of Nicaragua´s GDP. Two days later, Nicaragua received a check for $30.6 million dollars thanks to the planning competence of the government. Anticipating a worse than normal hurricane season, Nicaragua increased its tropical cyclone insurance coverage from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility and, as a result, the country received the much needed payout under the excess rainfall and tropical cyclone policies.

With respect to COVID-19, Nicaragua’s strategic response to the pandemic, using its own resources in the initial stages, has resulted in the lowest number of infections and deaths and the highest recovery rate in the region (and in the world) while keeping all of its borders open under rigorous safety protocols. Nicaragua´s response to the COVID-19 pandemic merits international recognition.

But probably the major factor of Nicaragua´s economic successes during the last 14 years has been that it has been a country at peace, internally and with its neighbors, and no one, except for the US, considers Nicaragua a serious threat to their national security.

Internally, the country has ensured high levels of citizen security for her 6.5 million people though the development of community policing. Nicaragua has the lowest homicide rate in Central America and efforts to neutralize organized crime, gangs, and drug cartels have been very successful

Internationally, Nicaragua is one of the few countries in the world that has regularly used the international justice system, mostly in border disputes with neighbors such as Honduras, Costa Rica, and Colombia. In all of those cases, Nicaragua accepted and implemented the judgement of the international court, unlike the United States, 36 years ago when Nicaragua sought justice because of US financing of the contra and direct US attacks on the port of Corinto. Nicaragua won the case but is still waiting to receive a US$17 billion indemnization from the US.

Years later, the most dangerous threat to continued growth and prosperity for Nicaragua was the violence of the attempted coup in the spring of 2018 which caused more economic damage than the emergencies which followed the pandemic and hurricanes. By end 2018, economic growth dropped to -4%, and at the end of 2019 it was still at a negative rate of 3.9 %. Towards the end of 2019 however, there were signs that things were starting to improve, but then came COVID-19 and the hurricanes. GDP growth was again negative for 2020, -2.3 %. Three years of negative growth.

But that is predicted to change this year. Exports and family remittances are rising, multilateral aid from several sources has been renewed and despite the effects of the pandemic and the hurricanes, there is a good possibility, according to the President of the Central Bank, that growth this year will be between 2.5 and 3.5%.

Like Nicaragua, the whole world urgently needs peace, security, stability and a new economic order which gives priority to life, health, and the fight against poverty. If the so called “developed” nations really want to learn about development, they should come to Nicaragua to see the lessons learned instead of using their so-called development assistance to finance “regime change.” Instead of strengthening illegal sanctions on the country and its leaders, they should be asking advice and learning from the experience of a country, whose people are NOT participating in the lengthy marches to the US via Mexico to escape the corruption, violence and abject poverty of those countries in the so-called northern triangle, which has been receiving substantial “development assistance” from the United States and others, with little results.

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 05, 2021 1:31 pm

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New Documentary, Nicaragua Against Empire, Highlights Nicaragua’s Resistance to US Sanctions
July 4, 2021

Los Angeles, California, July 2 — Ramiro Sebastián Fúnez, an independent content creator, has produced and released a new documentary titled “Nicaragua Against Empire,” highlighting Nicaragua’s resistance to U.S. sanctions.

In March of 2021, Ramiro traveled to Nicaragua as part of a 13-member delegation. The trip was organized by the Sanctions Kill coalition and the Friends of the Rural Workers’ Association, known as the ATC.

The delegation traveled to Nicaragua to understand the effects of imperialist sanctions on ordinary Nicaraguans and how they’re fighting back. They also witnessed the wide range of social advancements carried out by the Sandinista Revolution.



For eleven days, the delegation traveled across diverse parts of Nicaragua. They visited the urban sprawls of Managua, the rural countryside of Estelí, and the tropical Caribbean coastline of Bilwi.

The delegation met and spoke with locals and grassroots activists to see the reality of Nicaragua. What they saw was completely different from what is portrayed on imperialist mainstream media.

This documentary, Nicaragua Against Empire, highlights Nicaraguan resistance to Western imperialism was recorded and produced by Ramiro as part of his participation in the delegation.

Friends of the ATC is a solidarity network with the Rural Workers’ Association that spreads awareness, builds solidarity and facilitates support for the struggles and initiatives of the ATC and the international movement La Vía Campesina.

Sanctions Kill is an international campaign launched in 2019 to end U.S. imposed sanctions and educate the public on the devastating impacts they can have on jobs, healthcare, food, water, education, transportation and more.



Featured image: Banner for the documentary Nicaragua Against Empire. Courtesy of Friend of the ACT.

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Hunger and Food Production in Nicaragua: How do we Feed the People?
July 3, 2021

By Rohan Rice – Jun 27, 2021

As hunger and food insecurity increases globally, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua has been working for the last decade to strengthen local food production and ensure food sovereignty in the face of sanctions

Food security should be top of every government’s agenda. However, since 2014 world hunger has been steadily increasing. In 2019, it was thought that around 750 million people—approximately in one in every ten people—around the world were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity. With the effects of Covid-19 on the global food supply, this number is expected to rise to 840 million in less than ten years.

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) uses data from the United Nations and other multilateral agencies to determine hunger levels in countries around the world. There are five hunger levels, ranging from low (level one) to extremely alarming (level five). Nicaragua’s hunger score is currently at a level two, ‘moderate hunger levels’, on their index. In 2000, at the height of neoliberal governance in Nicaragua, the country was at a level three, ‘alarming hunger levels’. Since the FSLN was elected in 2006, hunger has been declining rapidly. Overall there has a 40.8% reduction in hunger according to the index. Nicaragua is one of only 38 countries to reach the UN Millennium Development Goal of cutting malnutrition by half.

This is an even more impressive feat for a socialist country that has been under unilateral sanctions. As is evident from Venezuela, sanctions can have a severe effect on hunger, Venezuela currently rank at a level three on the GHI with the highest hunger levels of any country in Latin America. The central issue for Venezuela had been food imports: Venezuela imports around 70% of the food it consumes, leaving it incredibly vulnerable to blockades, like the one imposed by the US and EU.

The same issue now faces socialist Cuba. While hunger levels have been remarkably low in Cuba for decades, their reliance on food imports is finally catching up with them. Global food prices have surged 40% because of the pandemic and Cuba, who also imports around 70% of its food, is desperately struggling under the blockade to source enough for its people. As a result, the Cuban government has been forced to ration supplies.

Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has always been very aware of how food can be weaponized to destabilize a developing country. Consequently, they have embarked on a ‘food sovereignty’ campaign since 2007 to reduce Nicaragua’s dependence on foreign imports. This has been a remarkable success and Nicaragua is now estimated to produce around 80% of all the food it consumes. As a result, it faces no such food crisis.

Nicaragua’s food sovereignty model deserves some exploration as it has been a cornerstone of the Sandinista revolution. It illustrates a system of food production that is completely antithetical to the industrial food chain that has caused these widespread disparities in hunger levels and destroyed the natural environment.

Food sovereignty and agroecology

Nicaragua is a case study in how pursuing food sovereignty can help to reduce hunger levels within society. Food sovereignty is a system that ensures people have continual access to plentiful, healthy, and affordable food locally produced. Marlen Sánchez of the global peasant movement La Via Campesina in Nicaragua, suggests food sovereignty is a “historical process”, based on indigenous rights and protection of land, water, and life. She describes it as an inherently anti-capitalist food production system. While providing sufficient food for everyone is at the core of food sovereignty movements, Fanny Boeraeve of the University of Liege and others have suggested that for food sovereignty to be effective it must be prioritize sustainable agricultural farming methods. That is, methods that ensure a harmonious relationship with the planet.

Considering that the degradation of arable farming land has been the predominant cause for civilization declinethroughout human history, learning how we maintain high agricultural production while also protecting the environment is perhaps the conundrum of our time. Within this debate there are two predominant production models, agribusiness and agroecology. Nicaragua has been using both in its pursuit of food sovereignty, but through its collection of small land holdings, indigenous lands, and cooperatives, Sánchez suggests that Nicaragua is inherently an agroecological society.

Agroecology is a sustainable form of farming that combines contemporary knowledge and indigenous practices to cultivate food. Sánchez describes agroecology as one of the principal pillars of food sovereignty. It helps to regenerate the land destroyed by intensive farming through diversification of crops; developing natural pest controls (no chemicals); protecting and improving soil health; and using local, renewable resources. In animal farming, the rights, health, and respect of the animal are prioritized. Agroecology has even been proven to increase the nutritional value of the food.

In Nicaragua, agroecology is now being taught in agricultural institutes led by La Via Campesina. The Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA) Ixim Ulew, located in Santo Tomas, Nicaragua was the first to implement this program. The school was established in 2017 and accepted its first cohort of students in 2018. La Via Campesina work in tandem with Nicaragua’s Association of Rural Workers (ATC), who represent tens of thousands of farm workers and as an organization were integral part to the Sandinista revolution of 1979.

Students of IALA Ixim Ulew, whose course fees are heavily subsidized by the government, take what they learn back to their community to ensure everyone has access to healthy food. Their days are split in to three parts: 1) theoretical learning at the institute 2) practical skills training at the institute 3) community work. Carlos Alberto Rodriquez Valera is Venezuelan but lives in Nicaragua. He is a member of IALA and the ATC. This is how he explains the idea of food sovereignty:

“we have a chicken, we have a calf, we have diversified crops with which we not only protect ourselves from any imperialist attack, but also protect ourselves from natural disasters. Because if the rain effects my beans, I still have my corn. Or if these two crops are affected, I still have an avocado tree, or my chicken. Having so many different crops allows me to share with neighbor: I give them a chicken, they give me an avocado. This is the most popular way of explaining food sovereignty.”

More and more of Nicaragua’s small-holder farmers are adopting agroecology as part of the food sovereignty movement, including cooperatives like the Gloria Quintanilla Women’s Coffee Cooperative, an all-women’s coffee co-operative. This system of food production is as much a social model as anything else. As agroecology doesn’t depend on expensive farming technology, it allows more of society to participate in it. This in turn, expands food sovereignty which in itself alleviates hunger levels.

Agroecological farming is part of the ‘peasant food web’. To use the definition put forward by the ETC Group, the peasant food web is described as: “small-scale producers, usually family or women-led, that include farmers, livestock-keepers, pastoralists, hunters, gatherers, fishers and urban and peri-urban producers. Our definition includes not only those who control their own production resources, but also those who work for others to produce and supply food, and who have often been dispossessed of their land.” The alternative to the peasant food web is agribusiness. This is the other side of Nicaragua’s food production model.

Agribusiness in Nicaragua

The levels of hunger around the world are even more galling when one considers that a third of the food produced globally goes to waste. Vijay Prashad calls this ‘Food Apartheid’, one of the three apartheids of our time. He uses the word ‘apartheid’ as it is impossible to uncouple hunger from food production systems that are so unevenly developed around the world that it constitutes a form of apartheid. This unevenness finds its roots in capitalist agribusiness which dominates the global food supply and distribution.

Agribusiness, which encompasses powerful but very few transnational corporations (TNCs), runs the industrial food chain. This is the model of agriculture that produces food for-profit. It attempts to control the production and distribution of foods plus feeds through just a handful of global business. The focus of these businesses is making money from food production, rather than providing healthy nutrition for people and protecting the land that is being used. Agribusiness has both its ideological and financial roots embedded in colonialism, which from its inception abused the labour force of the Global South to produce food for the imperialist powers.

Agribusiness is not only immoral, but wildly inefficient. The industrial food chain feeds only 30% of the global population, but uses 75-80% of the earth’s land and 80% of fishable waters. It also consumes 90% of the total combustible energy used by the agricultural sector. The peasant food web is dramatically more efficient. Despite only having access to 20-25% of land and 20% of fishable waters, it produces 70% of the world’s available food.

It’s not just inefficient, the industrial food chain is problematic for multiple reasons. TNCs, often dispossess otherwise autonomous, indigenous peoples of their land and traditional food production and does so to feed select few people. If agroecology is a social practice, agribusiness is anti-social. Many families farm for subsistence, agribusiness denies them this right by progressively monopolizing land and fishable waters.

Agribusiness is also harming our environment. Not only does the destruction of forests by TNCs for animal husbandry and crop farming exacerbate the spread of zoonotic diseases (like Covid-19), but the disruption of these environments, namely the soil, speeds up climate change by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. Through monocultural cash-crop production, they also exacerbate crop diseases, like coffee rust, which disproportionately hurts small-holder farmers.

Across all of Latin America, the harm caused by agribusiness is widespread. The continent is increasingly being used as the world’s farm by just a handful of TNCs. 80% of deforested land in Latin America is simply used to grow animal feed, in particular bovine and pig feed. That is to say, the crop grown on these deforested land is not even directly consumed by the people.

In Nicaragua, there are three notable TNCs present, all of which are part of the very elite group of TNCs that control the entire industrial food chain. The first is Corteva, owned by DowDuPont and with an average revenue of over US$14 billion. They run a ‘biofortification’ program in Nicaragua. This is the selective breeding and modification of crops (mostly cassava, beans, and maize) to fortify certain traits, usually longevity, to accommodate the demands of the capitalist market. To monopolize the industry, rural women producers have been their designated targets for the program, as they were most prone to food insecurity.

The second is Sygenta, owned by ChemChina, average revenue of over US$13 billion. They run the FRIJOLNICA programme which: “provide[s] growers with inputs, technologies, access to credit, and technical support, so they could increase their income”. In reality, this is the promotion of Sygenta products that lock you in to using Sygenta products: Sygenta developed seeds, for example, that respond only to Sygenta produced herbicides. In their own words, the program was specifically set up to counter “geographical, agro-egological, and cultural” forms of bean production, and replace them with the Syngenta-way. However, the strength of local agroecological techniques has proven its worth, as yields among FRIJOLNICA growers and traditional growers are virtually the same. Like Corteva, Sygenta has specifically targeted small-holders and farmers co-operatives to break up the peasant food web and weaken local solidarity.

The final big agribusiness present in Nicaragua is Cargill, a privately held US-food corporation with revenues of over US$114 billion. Cargill supplies 65% of Nicaragua’s chicken and has a 68,000-square-foot refrigerated distribution center in the country.

Like the other two TNCs, Cargill wants to disrupt the peasant food web and hopes to turn community producers into private for-profit businesses: “When farmers tell you, ‘I used to be a producer, now I’m a business person,’ that’s when it really sinks in,” remarks Maria Nelly Rivas, Cargill’s Corporate Affairs Director. “We’re changing how people perceive their role in their communities because they now see their personal potential to succeed.” Rivas has specifically stated that she sees the company as a bridge between the USA and Nicaragua and they’ve been on a hearts and minds mission to ensure this. In collaboration with CARE, they have built kitchens in some Nicaraguan schools and taught the kids to cook Cargill products, establishing dependency and loyalty to the brand among the next generation.

How do we feed the people?

The FSLN government has done tremendously to combat hunger in Nicaragua. Through Sandinismo, thousands of Nicaraguans have been granted land titles to farm, indigenous communities earned land rights, and food security is a national priority – all of this is protected under Nicaraguan law. The campaign for food sovereignty has rapidly brought down hunger levels and simultaneously protected the Sandinista revolution from imperialist food blockades. 60% of Nicaraguans make their living from agriculture and most of these are small-holders, as part of the peasant food web they naturally provide most of Nicaragua’s food. But its food system, like its economy more generally, is one of compromise. Nicaragua has also made concessions to agribusiness: it allows neocolonial TNCs to operate, albeit under certain controls, and some local farmers are beginning to use unethical farming methods like artificial insemination.

What is evident, however, is that Nicaragua has developed a model that works for the people. It’s currently at a juncture where agroecology cannot provide quite enough food for all of society. Perhaps over time this sector will develop further and we will see the demise of all TNCs in Nicaragua. Or, it may be that Nicaragua maintain this current blended model to feed its people. The people of Nicaragua will decide and have the sovereign right to determine their own future. Either way, Nicaragua remains an integral case study in food sovereignty and hunger alleviation.



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

Rohan Rice is a writer, photographer, and translator from London. You can find his work at:https://rohanjrice.wordpress.com/

Featured image: The ATC which represents tens of thousands of farm workers helps run trainings on agroecological food production to help ensure healthy food access for all. Photo: ATC


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