Nicaragua

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 09, 2021 11:35 am

NicaNotes: Bringing the Voices of the Nicaraguan People to Congress
July 8, 2021

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Chickens of San Juan de Limay are being vaccinated for Newcastle Disease under a project supported by Casa Baltimore-Limay.

Bringing the Voices of the Nicaraguan People to Congress
By Casa Baltimore-Limay and Friends of Latin America

“These people do not have access to the US Congress or media – but their lives are heavily impacted by both. That is why we are bringing their voices to you… We are asking you to do no harm.”

On June 30th two Maryland-based solidarity organizations began meeting virtually with members of the U.S. Congress to speak against adoption of the RENACER Act that would impose devastating sanctions on Nicaragua. Casa Baltimore/Limay is a sister community project that has maintained strong ties since 1985; Friends of Latin America has been working for peace and understanding between the United States and the people of Latin America since the mid-1980s. The seven activists from these organizations were accompanied by Jenny Atlee of the Friendship Office of the Americas.

Barbara Larcom on behalf of Casa Baltimore/Limay told this story: Our organization began in support of Nicaragua’s sovereignty, opposing the US funding of the Contras in the 1980s, and we still support Nicaragua’s independence from the US today. We’re here to share our observations of Nicaragua, and its relationship with the US, based on our own experiences and our many communications with friends in Nicaragua.

First, we want to thank Sen. [Chris] Van Hollen for NOT cosponsoring the RENACER Act. We ask him now to use his voice and his vote to oppose the Act. The purpose of our visit today is to tell you (and him) loudly and clearly that your constituents do not want this bill to pass as it would cause harm and suffering to the Nicaraguan people.

Now I’ll refer to the Policy Briefing we sent you. We’re concerned that the RENACER Act, if passed, has the potential to place sanctions on well over half the people in Nicaragua:

Government officials
National Police members
Armed Forces members
Supreme Electoral Council members
FSLN party members and their families
Anyone else deemed corrupt by the United States
Thus it would cause serious financial harm to the Nicaraguan people and their national economy. Also, we’ve already seen the results of the NICA Act. Even though “basic human needs” are supposedly exempted, because of “over-enforcement” Nicaragua received no grants or loans from international financial institutions through all of 2019 and most of 2020, and then only a small amount of emergency aid. With the increased US pressure on these institutions required by the RENACER Act, the damage would be multiplied.

I also want to quote briefly from the statements we sent you from four residents in Limay, who spoke about the effects of sanctions and their feelings about their government. (We changed their names, just to ensure their security.)

Maria (a teacher): “The situation we’re living in doesn’t affect just one person; it affects all of Nicaragua. For us in education, for example: We depend on economic stability to pay for our expenses and our salaries. With sanctions, we’re not going to have the money for the economy to be solvent.”
Azucena: “They [the opposition] come from the US bragging that they’ve done this and that so they will do this or that ‘for democracy.’ What democracy? What do they call democracy? Maybe there’s ‘democracy’ for the rich and a different ‘democracy’ for the poor.”
The following are additional written submissions from Limay residents:

More from Azucena: There are so many things—the government seeks ways to help its citizens. In spite of the fact that the country is poor—made poor—we have new roads and highways. People say, “When have we ever had this?” “When have we had the opportunity to learn about vaccinating and caring for our pigs and cows?” said a very humble, simple woman. This moves one’s heart! The benefits that the population receives are too many to count. So what we’re asking of the Congresspersons is that they analyze how much harm they can do to the poor because you know we are very small on this isthmus between North and South America. They should think about how they can help and that there be no more reprisals, no more than what there have been.
Ricardo: Yes, actually, this is a difficult situation we’re living in. Any sanctions will affect us enormously. And every time they add sanctions, it seems they want to drown us. They’re affecting not just the government, but the people—all of us. Farming is the engine to develop a country, and some people receive help from a government agency, right? And that help would be cut off, it would not arrive. We ask you to end this, because we want to advance, with our own efforts (and also with the help of Casa Baltimore/Limay) to be able to see this country progress, that has suffered a lot for some time now.
José: The US itself seems, I don’t know, manipulative because—it’s like we were a puppet, a colony of the US. It doesn’t seem logical to me because we’re independent—small but independent. It seems they —the most powerful country in the world—want to choose who’s in control. They can’t be imposing sanctions any time they want to, any time they don’t like something. In fact there are people here who one way or another are asking for sanctions. Maybe they want it to be like it was in 1980 with an economic blockade whereby they had us by the throat….They say we live under repression, in a dictatorship where we can’t speak out, have no freedom of expression. But they can and do say anything they want. They wouldn’t be saying the things they say about Ortega if this were a dictatorship. If Somoza were here and someone published the word “dictator,” he wouldn’t publish again; he’d be dead. People say what they want, even obscenities about Daniel Ortega. Government programs to help solve the demands of many families, giving seeds to small farmers, for these people represent a problem. Giving out small business loans is a problem for them. It limits them; they call it oppression.
The RENACER Act is widely unpopular among people who are becoming aware of it. We sent you a copy of the organizational sign-on letter which went out only a few days ago. It has gotten over 40 initial signers [as of July 5th, 100 organizations had signed on], and it has now gone out for more signers. We also sent you the June 29 report from Informe Pastran on an M&R Consultants poll that shows unanimous rejection of sanctions by its sample of 1,000 Nicaraguan people.

Jill Clark-Gollub on behalf of Friends of Latin America: I’d like to talk about human rights in Nicaragua, and about sanctions.

Human Rights in Nicaragua. The RENACER Act purports to punish the Nicaraguan government for not having a fair elections system, violating civil rights, and perpetrating corruption. Allow me to address each of those points.
a) The Nicaraguan Supreme Electoral Council was recently reformed in response to suggestions from the OAS and is a very diverse body.

b) On civil rights, the people who have recently been charged and arrested in Nicaragua were not arrested because they are self-proclaimed “pre-candidates” in the upcoming election. In fact, some of them are not even eligible to run for office because they have not been living in the country for the past four years, and NONE of them has a strong backing among the population—they don’t even have the support of any political party. They are accused of criminal acts that include money laundering, acting as illegal foreign agents, and advocating for the overthrow of their government—all charges that would bring harsher punishment in the U.S. Opposition parties are in fact free to participate in the elections, and 17 of them are doing so. It seems that the policy of the State Department—through its embassy in Managua—has been to try to get the opposition to unite around a single candidate (in the hope of getting up to 21% of the vote), but that has not been possible. Now they seem to be resorting to Plan B—create chaos and try to delegitimize the elections.

c) And thirdly, the accusation of corruption rings hollow, when the US’s closest allies in Latin America are Colombia and Honduras—indisputably the most corrupt narco-governments in the region. In Nicaragua, government spending for the public good is visible everywhere. Since Daniel Ortega came into office in 2007, the country’s roads went from the worst in Central America to the best; 19 hospitals have been constructed and the public health workforce has been almost doubled; according to Johns Hopkins researchers, the country has the lowest COVID-19 death toll in the hemisphere; half a million families have been given houses and land; Indigenous communities are thriving like never before on the Caribbean coast; and education through graduate school is free and accessible to all Nicaraguans. In fact, the World Bank, IMF, Inter-American Development Bank, Central American Bank for Economic Integration—have all said that this government has one of the best records in Latin America at executing projects with multilateral aid funds.

Also, we should mention that the mainstream narrative in the U.S. is that the sudden spasm of violence in Nicaragua in 2018 was government repression. The people we know in Nicaragua do not see it that way; they came to view the real perpetrators as opposition agitators using U.S. funding to violently coerce the population into changing its government.

The Reality of sanctions in a given country:
Sanctions are war. They are just as deadly as bullets and bombs. We can look to the 39 countries the U.S. has sanctioned to see what this will bring to Nicaragua:

One study said sanctions caused 40,000 deaths in Venezuela between 2017-2018, while another said it has been 100,000 deaths. And we have all seen Cuba strangled over the past decades by economic and trade isolation from the United States—which is over-enforced; that is, all the U.S. allies are afraid—or outright intimidated—from doing business with Cuba. This has affected its development and ability to provide basic things like syringes to administer COVID vaccines (Friends of Latin America has been contributing funds for that).

Sanctions kill by destroying economies, causing hyperinflation, and unemployment so people cannot afford basic necessities. They drive capital flight from countries as corporations and banks seek to distance themselves and avoid being targeted by sanctions. As industries move elsewhere or can’t get the materials they need, jobs are lost. Basic infrastructure is harmed as funds and expertise are lost. (Sanctions Kill |)

A study found sanctions contributed to the deaths of 4,000 North Koreans in 2018, most of them children and pregnant women. In the early 1990s, U.S. sanctions against Iraq led to the deaths of as many as 880,000 children under five due to malnutrition and disease.

We do not want this for the inspiring people we met in Nicaragua who are changing their society for the better. I do not want this for my elderly mother in Nicaragua, or any of my family members.

Sanctions are illegal, immoral, and contrary to the interests of US citizens. Please, it is URGENT, tell Senator Van Hollen to STOP the RENACER Act!

Finally, we would like to offer to hold an information session in which members of Congress can hear from ordinary Nicaraguans what they think of this bill and US policy toward their country. We can provide you with representatives of a women’s group, our sister city, trade unions, peasant farmers, and Indigenous representatives—for which we could provide simultaneous interpretation over the Zoom platform.

Leslie Salgado, Chairperson and co-founder of Friends of Latin America: After the events of April 2018 in Nicaragua, some of us had questions as to what was actually happening in Nicaragua. That is one of the reasons why members of Friends of Latin America decided to organize a delegation to visit Nicaragua in January 2020. At that time, the State Department was warning US citizens not to travel to Nicaragua. I am glad that we traveled there because what we found is a country with friendly, kind, and hardworking people who welcomed us! We could go anywhere and talk to anyone without fear of being harassed or hurt. We met with several religious and community organizations not only in Managua but also in the countryside. What impressed me the most is that, in spite of what the US government has tried to do against Nicaragua for so many years, the people of Nicaragua do not hold grudges against the people in the US. Please stop applying sanctions and let the people of Nicaragua live!

Marilyn Carlisle: I would like to underline the fact that a majority of Nicaraguans are probably Sandinistas. If they all are punished by sanctions, and especially if their family members are included as RENACER is now written, we’re hurting a majority of the population directly, not simply indirectly, as we do (I believe) with Venezuela, Iran, etc.

Based on years of monthly phone, and, now Zoom, contact with our friends and board members who make the decisions and administer the funds for our Casa Baltimore Limay projects, as well as my observations during 6 or 7 visits, people have benefitted in food self-sufficiency, health, education, and so many other ways from this government that they would support neither its overthrow nor a change of government influenced (again) by the US.

Jennifer Atlee, Friendship Office of the Americas: This week marked 12 years since a US supported coup in Honduras in 2009 which has created a disaster on all levels with no end in sight. Unprecedented numbers of people are fleeing Honduras for the US. We don’t want this to happen to Nicaragua.

Rep. Jim McGovern recently made a statement about the devastating impact of US sanctions on Venezuela and acknowledged that the intent of sanctions is to do harm. We applaud that statement and urge Senator Van Hollen to consider it.

The people on this call have deep, long term relationships with people in Nicaragua. We hear from them on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. They tell us they support their government – that they live in a stable, safe, country that functions well and takes care of the poor, unlike the governments of the northern triangle which the US supports. These people do not have access to the US Congress or media – but their lives are heavily impacted by both. That is why we are bringing their voices to you and to Senator Van Hollen. We are asking you to do no harm.

Rick Kohn: The Biden Administration says it wants to address the refugee crisis from Central America by improving the conditions on the ground. Most of the immigration is coming from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. There is no net migration from Nicaragua. We need to ask why. What are they doing differently than Honduras, for example?

Since the Sandinistas came to power, poverty rates have been cut in half, there is opportunity including free education up through graduate school, public healthcare, low crime rates, and people polled say there is little corruption.

The goal of the sanctions is to overthrow the government of Nicaragua and replace it with a different one, like we did in Honduras. If successful, we will have a similar result to what we have seen in Honduras. However, it is unlikely to be successful in Nicaragua because the Sandinistas are too popular (as the media would say, entrenched), but instead the means to that goal is to create poverty and disruption, and that will cause more emigration from Nicaragua. We have a sanctions policy on Nicaragua that is in direct conflict with the Biden Administration’s goals of improving living conditions in Central America.

The US should continue to encourage trade with Nicaragua. Nicaragua has been complying with the Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) signed by a previous administration. Nicaragua has also been planting trees to capture carbon under World Bank carbon-capture programs. Some have argued that enhancing export agriculture or carbon capture can be harmful because the land may be used exclusively for export agriculture or for carbon capture, in which case it can cause domestic food shortages. In contrast, Nicaragua has increased agricultural exports and re-planted forests, but since they focused on improving agricultural and environmental efficiency, they have also attained food self-sufficiency. The US should encourage Nicaragua to continue trading agricultural commodities and carbon credits. We should study Nicaraguan policies to learn how they improved conditions for their citizens. It is in our own interest to see living conditions improve in Nicaragua and in all of Central America. Sanctions like the RENACER Act will do exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.

Scott Hagaman: Everyone has already eloquently covered what I wanted to say. In the interest of time, I’ll just say I urge Senator Van Hollen, not only NOT to support the RENACER Act, but to work actively to defeat it. Thank you.

Ellen Barfield: My husband and I lived in Nicaragua in 1996 during the Violeta Chamorro presidency. We saw the terrible social measures, maternal and infant mortality, and poverty that skyrocketed under that right-wing regime. And we had done election observing before Chamorro was elected, and were deeply ashamed to see full-page US-funded newspaper ads sternly demanding that Nicaraguans vote as the US required. They elected Chamorro out of exhaustion and despair after the Contra war years, and the lack of social programs caused great distress for the people. The Sandinistas take care of the people and the social statistics are very good now. PLEASE do not let the RENACER Act again destroy Nicaraguan society.

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-7-8-21
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 15, 2021 12:49 pm

NicaNotes: As the US intensifies sanctions against Nicaragua, 191 organizations say STOP INTERFERING!
July 15, 2021
Your group or organization can still sign on to this solidarity letter against US intervention in Nicaragua! Click here! https://afgj.salsalabs.org/we-call-on-t ... index.html

Not a group? Individuals can now sign on to the letter. Click here to add your name! https://afgj.salsalabs.org/stop-interfe ... index.html

Please share the letter widely with your organizations, with news outlets and members of Congress.

Read the letter and list of organizations that are demanding the US stop interfering in Nicaragua:

July 14, 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

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Last month was the 35th anniversary of the ruling against the United States by the World Court in the case filed by Nicaragua.

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.

Sincerely,

1199 SEIU
8th Day Church
A Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing (LELO)
ÁBACOenRed, Estelí, Nicaragua
ADDICTED To WAR
African Youth Coalition against Hunger Malnutrition HIV/AIDS
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
Allende Program in Social Medicine
Alliance for Global Justice
Alpiandes asociacion cultural de chileno italianos en Milan
Asociación Cipaltonal
Associazione Italia-Nicaragua
Associazione Nazionale di Amicizia Italia Cuba
AUSTRALIA SOLIDARITY WITH LATIN AMERICA
Axis of Logic
Baltimore Nonviolence center
Big Apple Coffee Party
Black Alliance for Peace
Bolivarian Circle Alberto Lovera NYC
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Canadian Campaign of Venezuelans and Friends Against “Sanctions’
Casa Baltimore Limay
CCDS
CCDS Peace and Solidarity Committee
Center for Global Justice
Chicago ALBA Solidarity
Chicago Anti-War Coalition (CAWC)
Choose Life Abort War Podcast For Peace
CINDY SHEEHAN’S SOAPBOX
CIVG Centro di Iniziative per la Verità e la Giustizia
Claudia Jones School for Political Education
CLS
coasap
Code Pink
CODEPINK San Pedro
Colombia Support Network
Common Sense ink.org
Communist Party of Ireland
Coop-Anti-War-Café Berlin
Coordinamiento Italia-Nicaragua
Corvallis (OR) Latin America Solidarity Committee
Cuba Solidarity Campaign
Cuba Solidarity Forum Ireland
Democratic World Federalists
Denver Peace Council
DSA International Committee
Dutchess Peace
Echoes of Silence
Emar Studio for Public Architecture
Embassy Protection Collective
Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA)
Environmentalists Against War
EPC
FAKB
Fernwood Publishing
Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice Canada
First Presbyterian Church
FMLN
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Frente Hugo Chavez para la Defensa de los Pueblos-Vancouver
Friends of Latin America
Friends of the ATC
Friendship Office of the Americas
FSLN
Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Good Shepherd Collective
Greater New Haven Peace Council, CT
Green Party Action Committee
Green Party Peace Action Committee
Green Party USA
Hands Off Latin America – Saskatoon
Hilo Fish Company
Housing Now, Ashland, Oregon
Inter Religious Task Force on Central America, IRTF
Interfaith Peace Network of Western New York
International Action Center
International Committee, Green Party US
Irish Chapter, the Network in Defence of Humanity
Italia-Nicaragua
JB Foundation
Jubilee House Community
Kentucky Interfaith Taskforce on Latin America and the Caribbean
Kingston RI Peace and Justice
Kommunistiska partiet
Latin America Solidarity Committee—Milwaukee
Latin American Solidarity Committee with Western NY Peace Center
Manhattan Local of the Green Party
Maui Peace Action
Miembro de la plataforma de solidaridad con Nicaragua, ámbitos religioso
Milwaukee Fair Trade Coalition
Mission and Justice Commission, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley
MLK Coalition of Greater Los Angeles
MN AntiWar committee
Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) – Canada
Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN)-México
Mt. Diablo Peace & Justice Center
NEU
New Creation Community Presbyterian Church
New York City Veterans For Peace
NH Veterans for Peace
Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group, UK
Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, UK
Nicaragua Solidarity Ireland
Nicaraguan Cultural Alliance
NIN
Nuevo País
Organization for the Victory of the People
Orinoco Tribune
Pacific Northwest Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean
Parallax Perspectives
Party of Communists USA
Peace Action Manhattan
Peace Action New York State
Peace Action of Wisconsin
Peace Coalition of Southern Illinois
Peace House, Ashland Oregon
People’s Defense Initiative
Popular Resistance
Portland Central America Solidarity Committee (PCASC)
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship
Progressive Peace Coalition
Protect Our Activists
Racine Central America Solidarity Coalition
Racine Coalition for Peace & Justice
Revolutionary Theory and Action Collective–Journal
Rights Action (US & Canada)
Rochester Committee on Latin America, ROCLA
RWW
Saddleback College
Sanber Tecnica
SanctionsKill.org Campaign
School of Americas Watch Austin
SGI-USA
Shoreline Study Center
Solidarity Committee of the Americas
Solidarity Committee of the Capital District
Solidarity- Bay Area
South County, Rhode Island Fellowship for Peace and Justice
South West London Branch CPB
St. Gabriel Peace and Justice
St. John’s Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America
Sunrise Movement DC
Sustainable Agriculture of Louisville (SAL)
Sustainable Orphanages for Haitian Youth
Svensk-kubanska föreningen
Syracuse Peace Council
Task Force on the Americas
The Great Socorro Womens March
The Latin America & Caribbean Working Group of Massachusetts Peace Action
The Latin America Solidarity Coalition of Western Massachusetts
The People’s Forum
The Workers’ Party of Ireland
Topanga Peace Alliance
Tortilla Con Sal
Total Home Maintenance
UMC
Unite
Unite North Metro Denver
United National Anti-War Coalition, UNAC
United States Peace Council
US Women and Cuba Collaboration
UTLA
Venezuela Ireland Network
Venezuela Peace and Solidarity Committee of Vancouver
Veterans For Peace
Veterans For Peace – NYC Chapter 34
Veterans for Peace Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter
Veterans For Peace Chapter 69 (San Francisco)
Veterans For Peace Seattle
Veterans For Peace Tucson, Chapter 13
Veterans For Peace, Chapter 136
Veterans for Peace, Inc., Neil Bischoff chapter 66
Veterans for Peace, Linus Pauling Chapter 132
Veterans For Peace, The Aloha Chapter 113 Hawai’i
Veterans For Peace,Chapter 63
VFP Chapter 10 Albany ,NY
Victor Jara Siempre Canta
Western New York Peace Center
White Rabbit Grove RDNA
Witness for Peace Southeast
Women Against Military Madness
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Tucson AZ
Workers World Party
Workers World Portland
World Can’t Wait
WORPHC
Ymgyrch Cefnogi Nicaragua/Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign
Yoga For Peace, Justice, Harmony With the Planet



Briefs

By Nan McCurdy



INATEC Reports 210,595 Students in Technical Courses

The National Technological Institute (INATEC) ended the first semester of 2021 with good results, contributing to the socio-productive development of Nicaraguan families and in the fight against poverty. An official INATEC report shows that the right to free education has been restored to 210,595 students in technical careers and courses, of which 71% are women. INATEC specified that it covers 37,681 students in 67 technical careers. There are 30,816 participants in Trade Schools and Field Schools; 71,983 participants in English language courses; 3,612 new teachers in technical careers and in English language didactics; and 66,503 women in the Zero Usury Program. INATEC improved the infrastructure in 38 technical centers in the departments of Nueva Segovia, Madriz, Estelí, Chinandega, León, Managua, Masaya, Granada, Rivas, Matagalpa, Jinotega, Chontales, Rio San Juan, Zelaya Central, RACCN and RACCS. (Informe Pastran, 13 July 2021)



Nicaragua Committed to Green Growth

The National Assembly approved a decree of adherence to the principles of the Global Green Growth Institute based in Seoul, South Korea on July 7. Assembly Deputy Arling Alonso, chair of the Environmental Committee, stated that “adherence of Nicaragua to the principles of this international institute reaffirms the commitment of the country to establish a national development model defined by a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability.” The Global Green Growth Institute seeks to promote eco-sustainable growth through research and commitments from member countries to create green growth plans, replacing the usual paradigm based on industrial development. (Nicaragua News, 8 July 2021)



Thousands of Seed Packages Will be Given all over the Country

Vice President Rosario Murillo reported that the Sandinista Government will give thousands of planting packages to farmers in the coming days for the second planting.

Between July 26 and August 31, production packages will be delivered to 26,000 families in Matagalpa, 34,000 in Jinotega, 22,000 in Nueva Segovia, 14,000 in Madriz, 10,000 in Chinandega, 9,000 in Leon and 7,000 in Managua. Murillo said that “The packages include beans, vegetables, sorghum, bananas, roots and tubers, fruits and sows.” (Radio La Primerisima, 12 July 2021)



New Record in Exports

The Nicaragua Export Processing Center (CETREX) reported on July 7 that exports totaled US$1.86 billion during the first semester of 2021, representing an18.1% increase in comparison to the same period in 2020. The products with highest demand on the international market were gold US$431 million; coffee US$359 million; beef US$320 million; sugar US$95 million; peanuts US$56 million and beans US$50 million. (Nicaragua News, 8 July 2021)



Community Members Warned about Land Scams in Protected Areas

Members of the Bosawás Ecological Battalion, accompanied the Inter-institutional Commission of Mother Earth, traveled to the community El Bálsamo N° 2, municipality of Siuna, in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region, to alert the community about land scams in the protected areas of the Cerro Saslaya National Park. According to an Army press release, two people were arrested for illegal land sales. Ramón Herrera, from the municipality of Cuá, and Ulises Centeno, from Los Cedros, municipality of Santa María de Pantasma, are the two citizens detained, according to the press release. They were handed over to the corresponding authorities. (Radio La Primerisima, 10 July 2021)



Training and Psychological Support Related to Addiction

The Nicaragua National Police presented a report of the Inter-institutional Program for Comprehensive Care and Development of Adolescents and Youth from the first semester of 2021. 3,741 families participated in workshops and received psychological care on prevention, identification, and treatment for addictions. The report noted that 111,908 youths attended community counseling programs and 11,017 police-community meetings for prevention of situations of violence and dangerous crimes were held. The Inspector General of the National Police, Commissioner Jaime Vanegas, said “the program seeks to offer social attention to at risk youth through educational, cultural and productive alternatives, establishing a relationship of trust between the Police and the community.” (Nicaragua News, 8 July 2021)



More Women on the Electoral Roll and Ready for Voter Verification

President of the Supreme Electoral Council Brenda Rocha announced that the provisional electoral roll for the 2021 elections exceeds 4.347 million registered citizens, of which 49% are men and 51% are women. Rocha said that out of the more than 4 million registered citizens, 1.598 million are between 16 and 25 years of age, and that new voters total 394,483. The locating of a total of 3,110 voting centers, including schools and community centers with the necessary characteristics was completed recently. Rocha said it was the largest number ever so that people don’t have to go too far to vote.

Rocha mentioned that the forms for the inscription of candidates for President, National Assembly deputies and the Central American Parliament have already been released, so political parties may work on their lists and present them on July 28. Rocha stated that they continue training personnel on procedures for attending to the population during the National Verification exercise scheduled for July 24 and 25. (Radio La Primerisima, 12 July 2021)



Catarina Sewage and Water Treatment System to be Operational by October

The new Catarina sewage and water treatment system will benefit 7,500 inhabitants. The US$2.08 million project, financed by the General Budget of the Republic with support from the Inter-American Development Bank, is 75% completed and will be operational in October this year. (Nicaragua News, 7 July 2021)



Covid Report for the week of July 6 to 12

The Health Ministry reported 225 new registered cases of Covid-19, 201 people recuperated and 1 death. Since March 2021 there have been 7,044 registered cases, 6,545 people recuperated and 193 deaths. (Radio La Primerisima, 13 July 2021)



Russia Denounces US Intervention in Nicaragua’s Internal Affairs

The spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajarova, denounced the fact that on the eve of the Nicaraguan elections next November 7, the United States has increased pressure on the Central American nation. In statements to the press, the diplomat called attention to “the powerful wave of external pressure on the legitimate government of President Daniel Ortega” to destabilize the country and oust the Sandinista National Liberation Front from power. Zakharova warned about the “blatant interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs.” She went on to say that “This pressure has little to do with the concern for a free democratic vote as declared by those exerting this pressure.” It has the obvious and undisguised objective of removing the Sandinistas from power, she continued. It is noteworthy that the current open and blatant interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs, including matters related to the financing of this interference, are clearly stipulated in U.S. legislative and regulatory documents. In November 2018, then president Trump adopted an executive order describing the situation as “an extreme threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” [Biden has not changed this]. In December 2018, the USA passed the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act, by which the Americans blocked the financing of Nicaragua by international banks and monetary agencies (IMF, World Bank, etc.), introduced restrictions on obtaining visas and other limitations for certain Nicaraguans, and abolished the “temporary protected status” for migrants from the country.

Zajarova went on to say that the circle of economic restrictions began to narrow in the midst of the pandemic. The White House drastically cut financial assistance to Nicaragua for social development, excluding the country from the list of Central American states receiving vaccines as humanitarian aid. It is working towards the exclusion of Managua from regional free trade agreements including the Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Central America and the Dominican Republic known as DR-CAFTA. The Association Agreement between the European Union and Central America could be affected as well. Attempts are being made to suspend Managua’s participation in the Organization of American States. At the same time, there are intensifying efforts, stipulated in US laws (Article 8 of the Nica Act), to involve US funded NGOs in anti-government work. Direct interaction with the opponents of the “regime” is personally coordinated by the US Ambassador in Managua, who holds regular meetings with them, explaining the orientations. This is known based on the experiences of many other countries, Zajarova said.

Zajarova continued, noting that, according to expert estimates, more than one billion dollars were invested in the Nicaraguan opposition through USAID and other US “humanitarian structures”. This money is not intended for social and humanitarian aid or the fight against COVID19, but serves to encourage the opposition forces.

She said that any steps of the legitimate authorities aimed at suppressing foreign interference are characterized by Western leaders only as “suppression of freedom. All this is very similar to the restrictions in force in the United States itself – for example, under the “Foreign Agents Act” passed in 1938 – FARA. In the context of such anxiety on the part of the US, it is surprising that Washington ignores mass beatings and even killings of protesters in other countries in Latin America and even justifies such actions. The global pandemic and the socio-economic crisis it has provoked in many regions, including Latin America, demonstrates that today the main line of defense of democracy and human rights lies largely in the ability to ensure state governance. However, the Western collective operating in Nicaragua hinders this, freedom of choice is replaced by the adjustment of the electoral process to a pre-programmed result that responds to the interests of political engineering from outside.

In conclusion, Zajarova said, “We categorically reject attempts at foreign interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs. We are convinced that the people of this country have the right to determine independently, without foreign interference, the future destiny of their country. We sincerely wish success to the Government, peace and prosperity to the Nicaraguan people, with whom we are united by close relations of friendship and strategic alliance. We will continue to monitor the situation in Nicaragua and will report our assessments of the future development of the situation.” (Radio La Primerisima, 9 July 2021)

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sun Jul 18, 2021 12:55 pm

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Fernanda LeMarieFernanda LeMarie via Creative Commons / Cronkite Borderlands Project

U.S. targets Nicaraguan presidential election: former solidarity activists echo imperial talking points
Posted Jul 17, 2021 by Roger Harris

Originally published: Pressenza (July 15, 2021 )

Before Henry Kissinger became a Clinton pal, liberals condemned him for saying: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” The 1973 U.S.-backed coup and bloodbath in Chile followed. Now Uncle Sam has a problem in Nicaragua, where independent polls predict a landslide victory for Daniel Ortega’s leftist Sandinista slate in the November 7th presidential elections.

The U.S. government and its sycophantic media are working to prevent Ortega’s reelection. On July 12, the U.S. slapped visa restrictions on one hundred Nicaraguan elected legislative officials, members of the judiciary, and their families for “undermining democracy.” A month earlier, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on President Ortega’s daughter, along with a military general, the head of the central bank, and an elected legislator.

These and other recent illegal U.S. sanctions on Nicaragua are designed to promote regime change and are based on the ridiculous charge that this poor and tiny nation is a “extraordinary and unusual threat to the U.S. national security,” when the opposite is the case.

The NICA Act of 2018, under the Trump administration, imposed sanctions, including blocking loans from international financial institutions controlled by the U.S. In August 2020, the Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) plan was revealed, which is a multi-faceted coup strategy by which the U.S. contracted corporations to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. RAIN calls for a “sudden, unanticipated transition” government to forestall what they admit would otherwise be a Sandinista victory in a free election. In a seamless handoff from the Trump to the Biden administration, the pending RENACER Act would further extended “targeted sanctions.”

U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and, indeed, in all of Latin America under the 1823 Monroe Doctrine has a long history continuing to the present. Back in 1856, U.S. citizen William Walker tried to impose himself as head of a slave state in Nicaragua, only to be assassinated four years later. In 1912, the U.S. began an occupation of Nicaragua, forcing the country to become a U.S. protectorate. The U.S. was ousted in 1933 in a war led by national hero Augusto C. Sandino, after whom the present revolutionary party was named. In the 1980s, the U.S. government proxies, the Contras, fought the new Sandinistas after they overthrew the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship.

Problematic premises
In the past, most U.S. progressives opposed the imperialism of their government. But more recently, as Jeremy Kuzmarov of CovertAction Magazine observed:

United States warmakers have become so skilled at propaganda that not only can they wage a war of aggression without arousing protest; they can also compel liberals to denounce peace activists using language reminiscent of the McCarthy era.

A recent Open Letter to the Nicaraguan Government from U.S. Solidarity Workers 1979-1990 reflects the U.S. imperial talking points. This U.S. open letter, dated July 1, is joined by one from Europeans, formerly active in solidarity with Nicaragua, and one from international academics, mainly in the field of Latin American studies. (Links to all three letters may be dodgy.) All three letters, likely coordinated, use similar language to make matching critiques and demands.

While other international activists from the 1980s still prioritize non-intervention and solidarity with the Sandinista government, the concerns expressed in the open letter should be respectfully evaluated. The open letter is based on the following problematic premises:

1The open letter claims the Ortega “regime” is guilty of “crimes against humanity.”

In fact, Nicaragua is by far the most progressive country in Central America under the Sandinista government.

Unlike the Guatemalans, Hondurans, and El Salvadorians in these U.S. client states, Nicaraguans are not fleeing to the U.S. in search of a better life. Poverty and extreme poverty have been halved in Nicaragua, and the UN Millennium Development Goal of cutting malnutrition has been achieved. Basic healthcare and education are free, and illiteracy has been virtually eliminated, while boasting of the highest level of gender equality in the Americas. Nicaragua, which enjoys the lowest homicide rate in Central America, also has the smallest police force with the smallest budget in the region. These are not the hallmarks of a dictatorship.

2The open letter claims the 2018 coup attempt was simply a “demonstration of self-determination.” While the open letter correctly notes that the events of 2018 reflected an element of popular discontent, it renders invisible the millions of dollars and many years of U.S. sponsored subversion in Nicaragua.
Social media campaigns of false information orchestrated by U.S.-sponsored groups fueled viciously violent protests. According to solidarity activist Jorge Capelán:

those who kidnapped, tortured, robbed, murdered and raped citizens here in Nicaragua in April 2018 were the coup promoters. They themselves recorded everything with their cell phones. They even set fire to murdered Sandinista comrades in the street.

Benjamin Waddell, a signatory to the open letter, admitted “it’s becoming more and more clear that the U.S. support has helped play a role in nurturing the current [2018] uprisings.” Dan La Botz, another Ortega-must-go partisan, provided the background:

U.S. organizations such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and no doubt the CIA had for decades, of course, worked in Nicaragua as they do everywhere in the world.

No substantive progressive alternative was offered by the opposition in 2018, according to William Robinson, another signatory to the open letter. Rather, 2018 was an attempt to achieve by violent means what could not be achieved democratically at the ballot box.

3The open letter claims the Nicaraguan government “in no way represents the values, principles and goals of the Sandinista revolution.” This stance arrogates to foreigners the role of telling the Nicaraguan people how to evaluate their revolution. The electoral process in Nicaragua makes clear that the Nicaraguans think otherwise.

After successfully overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictator Somoza and fighting the counter-revolutionary war against the U.S.-backed Contras, the Sandinista’s lost the 1990 election. Notably, outgoing President Ortega without hesitation obeyed the electoral mandate, the first time in Nicaragua’s history that governing power was passed peacefully to another political party. After 17 years of neoliberal austerity, Daniel Ortega won the presidential election of 2006 with a 38% plurality and went on to win in 2011 with 63% and 72.5% in 2016. Ortega’s ever increasing electoral margins suggest the majority of Nicaraguans support him as the legitimate leader of the Sandinista revolution.

Problematic proposals

Using the same loaded language as the U.S. government, the open letter calls on the “Ortega-Murillo regime” to release political prisoners currently being held, including “pre-candidates,” members of the opposition, and “historic leaders” of the Sandinista revolution; rescind the national security law under which these individuals were arrested; and negotiate electoral reforms.

Nicaragua has passed two recent laws: the Foreign Agents Law and the Law to Defend the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace. These laws, which the open letter wants rescinded, criminalize promoting foreign interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs, seeking foreign military intervention, organizing acts of terrorism, and promoting coercive economic measures against their country. These are activities, it should be noted, that are similarly prohibited in the U.S.’s FARA Act, after which the Nicaraguan laws were modeled.

The recent actions of the Nicaraguan government prosecuting people who break their laws is a normal function of governance. That some of the accused perpetrators may have political aspirations does not immunize those individuals from arrest for unlawful activities.

The letter from the aforementioned academics claims that among those detained are the “most prominent potential opposition presidential candidates.” In fact, none of the 17 political parties in Nicaragua have chosen their candidates, and “most of those currently under investigation do not belong to any legally registered party.” In fact, Stephen Sefton reports from Nicaragua that “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.”

One of the most prominent of those arrested is NGO director Cristiana Chamorro, charged with money laundering for receiving millions of dollars from the USAID, other U.S. government agencies, and allied foundations for regime-change purposes. In her defense, she incredulously claimed that the U.S. State Department had audited her and found everything to their liking.

The “historic leaders” of the Sandinista revolution are just that; people who had broken with the revolution long ago and since 1994 had collaborated with the U.S.-allied rightwing opposition and NGOs. More to the point, they are being charged with illegal collusion with foreign powers.

The open letter calls for “negotiating electoral reforms,” but electoral law in Nicaragua as in the U.S. is determined by the legislative process and not by negotiations among various power blocks. Nicaragua has implemented some but not all reforms mandated by the Organization of American States. The fourth branch of government, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), oversees elections. A third of the current CSE is composed of representatives of parties other than the ruling party, even though the Sandinistas hold a supermajority in the legislature.

The right of the Nicaraguan revolution to defend itself

While acknowledging “the long and shameful history of U.S. government intervention,” the open letter does not acknowledge the right of the Nicaraguan revolution to defend itself. On the contrary, their implied endorsement of the 2018 coup attempt is a call for regime change by non-democratic means and an implicit pass for U.S. interference.

The open letter’s finding that “the crimes of the U.S. government–past and present–are not the cause of, nor do they justify or excuse” the behavior of the current government in Nicaragua is a door that swings two ways. Whatever the alleged wrongdoings the Ortega government, that still does not justify the U.S. government’s regime-change campaign. The open letter is thunderously silent on current U.S. intervention, notably the punishing NICA and RENACER acts.

The Nicaraguan government has prioritized the needs of poor and working people and has made astounding progress on multiple fronts. That is why they are being targeted for regime change, and why the Nicaraguans have taken measures to thwart U.S. intervention.

The Trump administration specifically targeted the so-called “Troika of Tyranny”–Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua–with repressive illegal sanctions aimed at regime change. That policy of U.S. domination did not start with Trump, nor is it ending with the new U.S. administration.

The imperialists are clear on who they target as their enemy; some elements on the left are less clear on who is their friend and whether Nicaragua has a right to defend itself. If the signers of the open letter believe, as they claim, “in the Nicaraguan people’s right to self-determination…of a sovereign people determining their own destiny,” then the November 2021 election should be protected, free from interference by the U.S., its international allies, and its funded NGOs.

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:48 pm

CHUCK KAUFMAN, NICANOTES, NICARAGUA
NicaNotes: US Interference in Nicaragua’s Elections
July 22, 2021

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Some of the organizations that receive “democracy promotion” funding from USAID

By Chuck Kaufman

[This presentation was part of a Nicaragua Network webinar on July 18, 2021, that also included panelist Nils McCune. You can watch that webinar here. The next Nicanet webinar is August 22 and will feature Saul Arana and Sofia Clark. Register here.] https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bOI ... 12d6545788

(Chuck Kaufman has been on the national staff of the Nicaragua Network/Alliance for Global Justice since 1987. He has led many delegations including the one prior to the 2006 presidential election in which the US Ambassador admitted he had $12-13 million to spend on the election.)

My talk today is limited to US electoral interference since the 1979 Triumph of the Sandinista Revolution whose 42nd anniversary we celebrate tomorrow. There are new webinars each month covering other aspects of Nicaragua-US relations. I recommend you tune in regularly.

Let’s start with the first democratic election in Nicaragua’s history, that of 1984, organized by the Reconstruction Junta and the Council of State which had ruled since the 1979 overthrow of the dictatorship. Although eight parties or coalitions of parties ran in the 1984 election, when the Sandinista victory began to look inevitable, the Reagan Administration forced the leading coalition of right-wing parties to pull out of the race, giving the US the pretext to refuse to recognize the results. Other international observer groups found the elections to be primarily “free and fair.”

So already in 1984, we saw the United States place itself as the final judge and jury as to whether or not an election was legitimate. Legitimacy is not based on the facts or conduct of an election, but solely on US foreign policy objectives. So an election in Venezuela called by Jimmy Carter the best election ever monitored by the Carter Center can be delegitimized by the US and corporate media whereas a corrupt election like that of Honduras in 2013, where I myself witnessed vote buying and changing vote totals can be declared free and fair by the State Department’s stenographers in the corporate media.

Delegitimizing elections is one of the primary overt tools used by the United States to subvert democracy around the world. Covert actions are outside my mandate for today.

But the 1990 election in Nicaragua is where the US game plan for electoral intervention was written, perfected, and victorious. It is the game plan that has been used overtly to distort elections not just in Nicaragua, but around the world. Allen Weinstein, a founder and theoretical planner for the NED, noted in a 1991 interview with the Washington Post, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

US elites have no respect for democracy at home or abroad — especially abroad. Henry Kissinger lifted the curtain of illusion and told us a snippet of truth prior to the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende in Chile: “I don’t see why,” Kissinger said, “we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

Allen Weinstein was talking about the National Endowment for Democracy which was created by Reagan in 1983 and expanded by Bush Senior, Clinton, Bush Junior, Obama, Trump and now Biden. Nicaragua in 1990 was its first victory. Through the use of money and pressure, the US took advantage of Nicaragua’s lack of laws controlling foreign money in its elections to create a unified 14 party anti-Sandinista coalition united behind the candidacy of Violeta Chamorro, widow of the martyred anti-Somoza newspaper publisher, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro.

The US then spent more per Nicaraguan voter than George H W Bush and Michael Dukakis combined spent per US voter in our 1988 presidential election. At the same time the US warned Nicaraguan voters that the Contra War, which had cost them 40,000 sons and daughters, would continue if Daniel Ortega won reelection.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the US quickly declared the 1990 Nicaragua election to be “free and fair” when Chamorro won. I have always thought it interesting, and it is seldom noted, that when Daniel Ortega placed the presidential sash over the shoulders of Violeta Chamorro, that was the first time in Nicaragua’s history that governing power passed peacefully from one political party to another. The supposedly brutal autocrat Daniel Ortega achieved the first peaceful transition of power in his nation’s history.

Let’s talk a minute about the National Endowment for Democracy and its primary funder, US Agency for International Development. USAID, over the last 40 years, has been converted from a brick and mortar foreign aid agency to the coordinator of foreign election manipulation, which the US calls “democracy promotion.”

The NED is made up of four core groups – The International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute are affiliated with the two political parties. Warmonger John McCain was chair of the IRI until his death in 2018, and Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright is the long-time chair of the NDI. The AFL-CIO has its own affiliate, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity also known as the Solidarity Center and to round out the engines of empire, the Chamber of Commerce has its affiliate the Center for International Private Enterprise.

NED operates its own grants and also makes grants to its sub-groups like the IRI and NDI which they then administer. It’s a pretty sweet money laundering scheme which they call “democracy promotion” when it is actually just the opposite.

When we at Alliance for Global Justice first started tracking NED and its affiliates, it was easy to see what they were doing because it was right on their web pages. But especially after we helped reveal their role in the quickly reversed 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, they began hiding the names of their grantees and disguising where the money is going by allotting it through regional grants.

One way to follow the money is to track job announcements. Whenever there is an election Washington wants to influence, NED, IRI, NDI, and USAID job ads start to appear about a year earlier.

When I led a pre-election delegation to Nicaragua in 2006 to investigate US interference in the election that returned the Sandinistas to office, we met with an International Republican Institute staff member. She told us, “The relationship between the US and Nicaragua is like that of a parent and a child, and a son should not argue with his father!”

The National Democratic Institute and the IRI both ran a lot of the trainings of students and youth in Nicaragua prior to the failed 2018 coup effort. There are too many people in the US progressive movement who are still convinced of the realty of the fake social media videos the opposition was taught to produce in those “democracy” workshops.

The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, another core group of the NED, has been heavily involved in destabilizing Venezuela, but has not been involved much in Nicaragua so in the interest of time I’ll skip over it and the Center for International Private Enterprise.

USAID, NED, and its core groups also focus on funding opposition press. In Nicaragua, media ownership is concentrated in the hands of the Chamorro family and Nils may have more to say about that.

Following the electoral defeat in 1990, Nicaraguans suffered through 17 years of neoliberal governments that indebted them to the international financial institutions, destroyed the rural economy forcing workers into sweatshops, ended government subsidies for food, education, and health care. Grinding poverty and hopelessness replaced the pride and hope of the revolutionary years.

Daniel Ortega probably won the 1996 presidential election. The US funded an electronic system to compile the votes from the various municipalities and voting tables which gave highly questionable results. I was told personally by one observer that he overheard former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias say that Costa Ricans would never have accepted the results of the election. It was also said that Jimmy Carter told Ortega that he had to accept the results or be responsible for another Contra War.

The election of 2001 was again held under conditions controlled by the US and the International Monetary Fund and Daniel suffered his third defeat in a row. But it should be noted that throughout these dark years of neoliberalism the FSLN remained the largest party in the National Assembly where they were able to stop some of the worst depredations of what Pope John Paul II called “savage capitalism.”

By the 2006 election, Nicaraguan voters had been suffering under neoliberalism for 17 years with infant and maternal mortality skyrocketing, the rural peasant economy moribund, education too expensive for tens of thousands of families; prescriptions were free in the health care system, but there was no medicine, and electricity was available for scant hours a day.

The voters had had enough and Daniel Ortega squeaked into office with a bare plurality of 38%. That is the election I mentioned where our pre-election delegation met with the IRI representative. The delegation also met with US Ambassador Paul Trivelli. Trivelli had failed his assignment to unify the right behind one candidate and he equally failed to learn who we were. He proudly told us that he had between $12-$13 million to spend on the election. We had a press conference at the end of the delegation and revealed both the IRI’s contempt for Nicaragua and the ambassador’s admission of blatant interference. I like to think we played some small role in the Sandinista victory that year.

Daniel Ortega was re-elected in 2011 and 2016 each time by greater majorities as government policies have restored the economic and social rights of the people, reinvigorated the rural economy, restored labor rights to garment workers, restored free education and healthcare and gave Nicaragua the fastest growing economy in the Americas prior to the US-backed failed coup of 2018.

The US did not recognize either of those elections as legitimate. As in 2006 US ambassadors failed to unify the right around a single candidate and had to settle for destabilizing tactics and lies in the corporate media as they have had to do with this year’s election. Nils will talk about that.

I know I’m over time, but I do want to say that US election manipulation in Nicaragua would be so much less effective if it were not for the so-called left in the US which time after time acts to reinforce the objectives of US imperialism by swallowing the US narrative hook, line and sinker. We on the anti-imperialist left have to do a better job of educating our base and promoting a competing narrative of economic justice, respect for sovereignty, and peace. Follow us on AfGJ’s web page www.AFGJ.org, subscribe to the weekly NicaNotes blog, and join the discussion listserv Nicanet@googlegroups.com.

Barbara, back to you.



Briefs

By Nan McCurdy

5% Salary Increase Due to Fiscal Discipline

The funds for a 5% salary increase starting in August, announced by President Daniel Ortega in his July 19th speech, are available because of the fiscal discipline that the country has achieved, according to economist Frank Matus who spoke to Radio La Primerisima on July 20. The expert emphasized that the control of expenditures and tax collection allows modifying the General Budget for this public expenditure. “Families can increase their purchasing power and, in macroeconomic terms, with a greater aggregate demand we have what we call a virtuous circle for the economy,” he explained. Matus highlighted the good administration of the Ministry of Finance as well as the small and medium enterprises, among other economic actors, that make this possible in the midst of US sanctions. The country’s more than 67,000 public school teachers are pleased with the 5% salary increase according to Professor José Antonio Zepeda, leader of the teacher’s union ANDEN. “We are the largest payroll in the State, we will have more purchasing power for the food and welfare of our families,” said Zepeda. (Radio La Primerisima, 20 July, 2021)

Half Million Property Titles Since 2007

President Ortega in his July 19 address announced that since 2007 the Sandinista government has delivered 500,380 property titles to families throughout the country. (July 19 Speech, President Daniel Ortega, 19 July 2021)

Large Majority Support the FSLN

The newest M&R survey indicates that the FSLN has 62.8% total voting strength, without mentioning candidates, with 43.2% of the hard vote in its favor, 10.8% of the soft vote and 8.8% tending to vote for this party. The survey was carried out at national level, between June 27 and July 3, among Nicaraguans over 16 years of age. 60.7% of the surveyed population says that they would do better with an FSLN Government and 60.4% believes that for the country to advance, the FSLN must govern the country. The FSLN also obtains 55.1% of political sympathy from those surveyed, compared to 37.3% who consider themselves independent, but of which 16.2% are inclined to the FSLN because it generates hope, tranquility and security. In addition, 88% of Nicaraguans consider that their vote to elect authorities is very important and there is a 73.3% probability that they will vote in the next elections. 77.9% consider that, if the people so decide, whoever holds the government can be reelected for a new term. Nicaraguans believe that in order for Nicaragua to advance in its economic and social development, peace (90.6%) and stability (90.5%) should not be put at risk under any circumstances. Likewise, in the intention to vote, Nicaraguans (60.2%) opt for the FSLN and as for the geographic distribution of the results, in the West is where the Sandinista Front has the highest proportion of preferences with 67%. It is followed by the Caribbean with 62.7%, the North with 60.2%, the Southeast 58.8%, Managua 58.2%, the Center 56% and Central Zelaya with 54.2%. See full information: Presentación-Nicaragua-Rumbo-a-Noviembre-2021_8va-Ola_Julio-2021 (Radio La Primerisima, 14 July 2021)

(more)

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 02, 2021 1:11 pm

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History Tells us the United States’ Supposed ‘Concern for Democracy’ in Nicaragua is Nothing of the Sort
August 1, 2021
By Daniel Kovalik – Jul 30, 2021

A century and a half has shown us that American meddling in Nicaragua is never about improving the lot of the people of that nation, and only ever about furthering Washington’s imperialist agenda.
The US government is back at it. It is again expressing concern about the state of democracy in Nicaragua, and conjuring up a new round of punitive sanctions against that tiny country to allegedly prevent dictatorship from taking hold there.

The newest sanctions bill against the country is titled “Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform (RENACER) Act.” As the Senate version explains, “This bill requires the Executive branch to align US diplomacy and existing targeted sanctions to advance democratic elections in Nicaragua, and includes new initiatives to address corruption, human rights abuses, and the curtailment of press freedom.” Sadly, many US non-governmental organizations and ‘intellectuals’ who should know better have sided with the government in its attack on Nicaragua.

However, a brief history of US involvement in Nicaragua is worth recounting here to fairly assess the government’s bona fides regarding its interest in democracy in that country. The first instance of US intervention in Nicaragua came in the form of William Walker in the mid-19th century, at around the time the Monroe Doctrine, by which the US proclaimed its sole prerogative to dominance over the Western Hemisphere, was announced. William Walker declared himself president of Nicaragua, reinstituted slavery there, and burned down the historic city of Granada for good measure, yet his foray into country was supported by many Americans as an exercise in progressive advancement.

John J. Mangipano explains this phenomenon well in his peer-reviewed dissertation titled ‘William Walker and the Seeds of Progressive Imperialism: The War in Nicaragua and the Message of Regeneration, 1855-1860’. As he explains: “For a brief period of time, between 1855 and 1857, William Walker successfully portrayed himself to American audiences as the regenerator of Nicaragua. Though he arrived in Nicaragua in June 1855 with only fifty-eight men, his image as a regenerator attracted several thousand men and women to join him in his mission to stabilize the region. Walker relied on both his medical studies as well as his experience in journalism to craft a message of regeneration that placated the anxieties that many Americans felt about the instability of the Caribbean. People supported Walker because he provided a strategy of regeneration that placed Anglo-Americans as the medical and racial stewards of a war-torn region. American faith in his ability to regenerate the region propelled him to the presidency of Nicaragua in July 1856. … Though William Walker did not ultimately succeed as a regenerator, American progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt revived his focus on medical and racial stabilization through their own policies in the Caribbean, starting in the 1890s.”

As Mangipano concludes, “The continuity existing between these groups of imperialists suggested that the regenerators, despite their temporary failures, succeeded in nurturing ideas about why Americans needed to intervene in the Greater Caribbean.” This impulse to “progressive imperialism” – now called by the kinder and gentler-sounding “humanitarian interventionism” – continues to motivate even many US leftists in their attitudes towards Nicaragua and other countries of the Global South, and with the same terrible results.

Meanwhile, in the name of progressivism and democracy promotion, the US would go on to send the US Marines to occupy Nicaragua in the early part of the 20th century and set up the Somoza dictatorship that ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist for over four decades from 1936. The Marines were routed by Augusto César Sandino and his gang of merry men and women, Sandino was later assassinated, and the Somozas held control. America would then organize, finance, and direct the murderous ex-Somoza National Guardsmen in the form of the Contras to try to destroy the Sandinista Revolution, which finally overthrew the US’s beloved dictatorship in 1979. Washington tried to coerce the Nicaraguan people into voting against the Sandinistas in 1990 with the threat of continued war and brutal economic sanctions. Then, in 2018, they supported violent insurrectionists who terrorized Nicaragua for months in an effort to topple the very popular Sandinista government that was re-elected in 2006.

In short, there is a grave threat to democracy in Nicaragua. But it is not from Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, who have built the first democratic state in that country in years. Rather, it is from the United States and the “useful idiots” who continue to believe the US is somehow attempting to bring democracy, despite all evidence to the contrary.

One way the US is threatening democracy is by funding destabilizing and anti-government efforts to the tune of millions of dollars. Nicaragua has responded, as any self-respecting nation would, by punishing those facilitating such foreign interference pursuant to its Law 1055, titled ‘Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace’. As Stephen Sefton, an educator and decades-long resident of Estelí, Nicaragua, explains,

“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 Sebastián Chamorro of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES), Félix 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 [in this case, the US] to register with the authorities, report the amount of money received and how it is used.”

However, as Sefton emphasizes, “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 Sebastián Chamorro, Arturo Cruz and Félix 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.” Note that last, important phrase.

To put it bluntly, it is the US which, as it has now done for about a century and a half, is trying to dictate to the Nicaraguan people the type of government and economic model they should choose. As an independent, sovereign nation, Nicaragua has every right to push back against this incessant meddling.

I’ve just returned from Nicaragua, where, along with other members of an international delegation, I witnessed first-hand the Nicaraguan people’s enthusiasm for the Sandinista Revolution on its anniversary, July 19. I saw the crowd of thousands assemble in Pope Paul II Plaza, in Managua, to celebrate this extraordinary event, in which the Sandinista Front, led by Daniel Ortega, overthrew a dictator heavily armed by the US government. Our delegation visited Masaya, which was bombed from the air by Somoza in the final days of his brutal rule. It is continuing to rebuild after the destruction wrought by the neo-Contras of 2018, who, with US backing, laid siege to the city and terrorized it for months, until the historic combatants who defeated Somoza routed them with the assistance of the police.

During our trip, we saw for ourselves the incredible advancements of the Sandinista government, which is providing free healthcare and education to all Nicaraguans. We witnessed the children, who had suffered such poverty and deprivation during the Somoza years and the Contra War that followed, attend school and play in the beautiful parks erected across the country by the Sandinistas. We traveled throughout Nicaragua on beautifully paved roads that once were dirt and stone, if they existed at all

I myself travelled on those dirt roads in 1987 and 1988, when I visited Nicaragua for the first time. Back then, I saw children dressed in rags and without shoes, barely able to get enough to eat because of the US sanctions and the brutal war. One does not see that type of destitution in Nicaragua now, and that’s thanks to the Sandinista Revolution, which, contrary to mainstream claims, has stayed true to its values of defending the poor and the most vulnerable.

Nonetheless, the US is intent on destroying it, and the progress it has brought for the Nicaraguan people. And the people are fully aware of this, and that is why 85% of those polled oppose foreign interference in their country, just as any self-respecting nation would. I stand with them in denouncing US interference, sanctions, and aggression toward that little country which has mightily stood up to the Goliath of the North. In this Biblical struggle, all my support is with David.

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August 1, 2021

The government of Nicaragua has granted nationality to the former president of El Salvador, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who is facing persecution in his country of origin for alleged crimes of corruption for which no evidence has yet been revealed.

According to a government resolution on Migration and Immigration published by Nicaraguan official daily La Gaceta, “Nicaraguan nationality has been granted to citizen Salvador Sánchez Cerén, originally from El Salvador” who has complied with the requirements and formalities established in the Nicaraguan Constitution.

The resolution, issued on July 29 and signed by the Minister of the Interior Amelia Coronel, also includes Sánchez Cerén’s wife Rosa Margarita Villalta and daughter Claudia Lissete Sánchez Villalta.

On Wednesday, July 28, El Salvador issued an international arrest warrant for former President Sánchez Céren (2014-2019) and other officials from his administration for alleged crimes committed against the Salvadoran State. Sánchez Cerén has declared that this is an act of political persecution against him.

Sánchez Cerén is the second politician of El Salvador to receive Nicaraguan nationality, after it was first granted in 2019 to former president Mauricio Funes. Both Funes and Sánchez Cerén are members of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who came to power in 2019 after two decades of rule by the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and eight years by the FMLN, recently got into a Twitter feud with Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza, when the latter expressed concern over the persecution of FMLN members.

The FMLN general secretary, Óscar Ortiz, has lamented that, regarding the judicial decision on the prosecution of FMLN party members, “the possibilities of countering the structure of evidence, that from the beginning were presented with a series of irregularities, are now closed.”

Five former government ministers, namely, Carlos Cáceres (Finance), Violeta Menjívar (Health), and former deputy ministers Calixto Mejía (Labor), Erlinda Handal (Technology) and Hugo Flores (Agriculture) were arrested on July 22.

The provisional detention of these accused former officials has been established for a period of six months, while the prosecution will provide the incriminating evidence and the process that began on July 29 will come to a close.



Featured image: Former Salvadoran President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has been granted Nicaraguan nationality. Photo: EFE

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:59 pm

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Sanctions may Impoverish Nicaraguans, but Likely will Not Change Their Vote
August 9, 2021
By John Perry – Aug 6, 2021

Biden administration looks to sanctions against Nicaragua, an approach that has historically had mixed results.

In 1985, when President Reagan declared Nicaragua “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” his words were followed by a trade blockade, a ban on commercial flights and—most seriously of all—the financing of the “Contra” war, which led to 30,000 deaths. When, 33 years later, Donald Trump made the same declaration, its effect was far more limited. Yet presumably neither president saw the absurdity in designating a country as an “extraordinary threat” when it has just six million people, is one of the poorest in the hemisphere, and has only a tiny military budget. Nor, apparently, does President Joe Biden, who has renewed the declaration and added to the sanctions.

Sanctions, called “unilateral coercive measures” by the United Nations, are illegal in international law, yet are deployed by the United States against 39 countries. The Reagan administration used them against Nicaragua in the 1980s in their most drastic form, even mining the country’s ports—for which Nicaragua successfully took action against the United States in the International Court of Justice. When the Sandinistas lost power in 1990, sanctions ceased. But then Daniel Ortega won reelection in 2006 and again in 2011, so his opponents began to lobby the United States to reimpose them. To give one of many examples, Ana Margarita Vijil, then leader of the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (MRS)—a party that broke away from the Sandinistas in 1995 and later aligned with right-wing parties—met Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) several times from 2015 onwards to push for sanctions. In 2016, Ros-Lehtinen introduced the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act, known as the NICA Act, in response to alleged fraud in the 2016 election process and the ending of presidential term limits, which had enabled Ortega to seek reelection. He was elected for a third consecutive term in November 2016 with 72 percent of the vote while Congress was still considering the act.

The legislation fell in the Senate but was reintroduced in 2017 by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who argued that “Nicaragua and all freedom-loving people in Central America depend on U.S. leadership.” It was passed in December 2018 as the Nicaragua Human Rights and Anticorruption Act. By then a violent attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government between April and July 2018 had failed, spurring on the Act’s proponents. The legislation allowed targeted sanctions against Nicaraguan officials and required U.S. officials to oppose loans to Nicaragua from international financial institutions (IFIs), excluding those to address “human needs” or “promote democracy.” Sanctions apply until Nicaragua is “certified” as meeting various requirements, including having “free and fair” elections.

“The NICA Act’s targets may have been government ministers, but its victims were Nicaragua’s poorest communities.”

The NICA Act’s targets may have been government ministers, but its victims were Nicaragua’s poorest communities. The World Bank, having praised Nicaragua’s use of international funds to relieve poverty and having financed over 100 successful projects since the Sandinistas first took power in 1979, suddenly halted funding in March 2018. It did not resume work for nearly three years, until late 2020, when the bank belatedly helped respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and two devastating hurricanes. The Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund similarly stopped funding large projects, and their help in response to the pandemic and the hurricanes was also delayed. Not surprisingly, opinion polls show that over three-quarters of Nicaraguans oppose these sanctions, and even the Organization of American States described the NICA Act as “counterproductive.”

Trump also imposed personal restrictions on a range of Nicaraguan government officials, a list to which Biden has now added. It is unclear if these sanctions have much effect: they merely block named individuals from having U.S. property, financial dealings, or travelling to the United States. The sanctions are based on very flimsy evidence. For example, the recently deceased Paul Oquist, a widely known negotiator in global efforts to tackle climate change, was sanctioned. The former health minister, Sonia Castro, was falsely accused of instructing hospitals not to treat opposition casualties during the violence in 2018. Much respected for her work in transforming the country’s health services since 2007, Castro had to leave her post when sanctioned, as she could no longer handle international financial transactions.

While sanctions have hit specific projects benefiting poor communities, they have also begun to impact mainstream services such as healthcare, where replacing defective equipment or obtaining supplies during the pandemic has proven to be problematic. Nicaragua is also one of the few Latin American countries to receive no U.S. vaccine donations so far, although this will be belatedly corrected via the COVAX mechanism. To some extent, gaps have been filled using Nicaragua’s strong ties to other countries: for example, Taiwan has sent multiple shipments of medical equipment and Russia has donated Sputnik V vaccines. The Central American Integration Bank, unlike the other IFIs, stepped up its assistance via the Central America Integration System (SICA).

“Sanctions are only part of the US “regime change” agenda for Nicaragua.”

Sanctions are only part of the US “regime change” agenda for Nicaragua. Other measures include “democracy promotion,” in which U.S.-funded non-profits have trained over 8,000 young Nicaraguans with the ultimate goal of displacing the Ortega government. The United States actively organizes and promotes opposition politicians and refuses to accept the legitimacy of elections if they fail to win power. A $2 million program called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) aims to achieve “an orderly transition” towards a new government, part of at least $160 million spent recently on regime-change efforts. Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton labelled Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela the “Troika of Tyranny,” and Biden’s Latin American adviser, Juan González, continues this extreme language in claiming: “The actions taken by the Ortega administration against their own people…possibly constitute crimes against humanity.” The United States mobilizes its regional allies against Nicaragua via the Lima Group and the OAS, and “human rights” issues are weaponized via local bodies funded by the United States. One outcome is a consensus narrative about Nicaragua in international media: that it is a repressive, dictatorial “regime” that is trying to destabilize neighboring countries, despite those countries’ own problematic human rights records.

Doubling Down on a Failed Sanctions Strategy?

If sanctions on Nicaragua were toughened, as some U.S. and many of Nicaragua’s opposition politicians are demanding, the effects could be huge. Nicaragua’s exports to the United States are bigger than those of any other Central American country, while personal remittances and U.S. tourism are vital sources of income. All could be affected if the United States imposes a Cuba-style blockade or forces Nicaragua out of regional trade agreements. Nicaragua would have a degree of protection not available to Cuba—it is self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and its intra-regional trade links are strong. Nevertheless, family incomes and Nicaragua’s sizeable small business sector would be badly affected. A foretaste of what might happen was provided by the short-lived campaign in the United States to boycott Nicaraguan beef, which put the jobs of an estimated 600,000 low-paid workers at risk.

“As in the case of Cuba, Biden’s presidency brings warning signs that sanctions will be tightened, not reduced.”

As in the case of Cuba, Biden’s presidency brings warning signs that sanctions will be tightened, not reduced. The fact that Nicaragua’s anti-Sandinista politicians continue to demand tougher sanctions was one of the justifications the government gave for recent arrests of government opponents, an issue warranting separate examination. Calls for stronger action may succeed with the RENACER Act, short for “Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform,” recently approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If passed, this legislation would monitor IFIs even more strictly, expand the targets of personal sanctions to tens of thousands of ordinary Sandinista party members, require closer collaboration with U.S. partners to implement the act, and add Nicaragua to the list of countries deemed to be “corrupt.” Another bill, introduced on June 17, would require the administration to review Nicaragua’s compliance with free trade agreements.

If the U.S. Congress approves RENACER, will it have the intended effect?

Nicaraguans go to the polls on November 7. In May, electoral law was updated to include reforms such as gender parity among electoral officials and digital auditing and traceability of voting tallies. On July 24 and 25, 2.8 million voters attended 3,106 voting centers to check they were registered. The latest opinion poll (July 3) shows that 95 percent will have the required identity cards, 73 percent intend to vote, 58 percent say they will vote to reelect the Ortega government, while 23 percent will vote against. Six opposition parties are choosing their candidates, including both “traditional” parties and new ones formed after the 2018 uprising. It is difficult to see any circumstances in which elections would not proceed. Almost as likely, given economic and social advances over the past 14 years, is that the Sandinistas will win.

Past experience suggests the U.S. government will refuse to recognize such a result. However, imposing extra sanctions is not straightforward. A parallel election is taking place on November 28 in neighboring Honduras, where widespread fraud occurred in the 2017 presidential vote; the electoral process is disorganized, and some 400,000 people may be left without a ballot. Honduras is a narco-state, while Nicaragua is more successful than its neighbors in combating the drug trade.

Will the U.S. accept a dubious result in Honduras while decrying a more clear-cut one in Nicaragua? Will it take action against Nicaragua that drives it towards closer relationships with Russia and perhaps even with China? What will it do if Nicaragua—currently one of the safest countries in Latin America—loses its traditional security because the economy collapses and poorer Nicaraguans travel north to look for jobs, as they do from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador? What would be the response if U.S. action caused a humanitarian crisis?

Sanctions are clearly not in Nicaragua’s interest, but they may not be in the United States’ interest either.


Featured image: When hurricane ETA flooded Nicaragua’s northeastern coast in November 2020, U.S. organizations like the IMF and World Bank delayed sending relief funds. (D. Membreño, EU, Flickr)

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 24, 2021 2:10 pm

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Nicaragua: Media Disinformation and Fraudulent Misreporting in Support of US Foreign Policy Interventionism
August 23, 2021
By Stephen Sefton – Aug 20, 2021

No one need look further to explain US and allied foreign policy failures of recent years than the endless corresponding reporting failures of their governments and their media. They deliberately omit fundamental facts, systematically exclude inconvenient witness testimony, never give adequate context and seldom seriously question official data. The result is a kind of malevolent fantasy fiction projecting as if it were normal the demented world view of psychotic US and allied policy makers who are completely out of touch with reality. A good example of this is The Guardian’s recent typically false article on Nicaragua by Tom Phillips, which might just as well have been written by some CIA or MI6 operative. Perhaps it was.

The staple of his report and practically all similar reports on Nicaragua is to misrepresent human rights concerns so as to upend Nicaragua’s reality, making the opposition look like blameless victims when they are the very opposite. Clearly, neither Tom Phillips nor his editors could care less about human rights in Nicaragua since they have never reported the systematic massive human rights violations committed by Nicaragua’s opposition in 2018. Honest reporters like Max Blumenthal, Dick Emanuelsson, Dan Kovalik, Steve Sweeney, John Perry, Ben Norton, and myself, among others, have published numerous reports, many including indisputable testimony of the savage murderous crimes which unscrupulous misreporters like Phillips and USAID collaborators like Carlos Fernando Chamorro or his accomplice Wilfredo Miranda, another Guardian contributor, have dishonestly suppressed.

In this they follow the deeply fraudulent misreporting of the US government dominated Inter American Commission for Human Rights and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, currently led by stalwart US government ally, former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. This time around, Tom Phillips tries milking his readers’ sympathy by reporting an interview with former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre’s daughter, who lives in the US, who dutifully portrays her father as a harmless old man posing no threat to anyone. Phillips places that portrait among a gallery of alleged injustice supposedly perpetrated by President Ortega.

He reports “Police have arrested at least 32 people since late May, including important opposition figures who were challenging the revolutionary hero-turned-autocrat as he seeks a fourth consecutive term.” Even more so than usual, Philips’ report leaves out basic facts and contrary testimony but also hugely important national and regional context, about all of which he cannot fail to be well aware. The fundamental basic fact Philips omits is that in August last year a quite detailed USAID plan to destabilize Nicaragua came to light explaining how the US government hopes to bring about the illegitimate regime change in Nicaragua it failed to achieve in 2018.

The plan is called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) and lays out a series of unconstitutional options to secure a “government of transition”, a phrase the document uses over 100 times. The text explains how the US will help any new right wing “government of transition” authorities to purge the police, the army, the courts, the electoral system and public life in general of Sandinistas and to suppress the Sandinista Front for National Liberation as a legal political party for good. Given that around half of Nicaragua’s six and a half million people identify as Sandinistas, naturally enough, over the last couple of months, the Nicaraguan authorities have acted within the law to disarm that blatant US government menace to disrupt this year’s elections and provoke another violent coup attempt.

Thus, most of the people currently under investigation by the Nicaraguan authorities are longstanding collaborators with USAID and other US government associated organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy. Another group are individuals who, like Francisco Aguirre himself, have publicly called for or welcomed US and European Union measures against their own country, including economic and diplomatic and other unilateral coercive measures. All of these behaviors are illegal in Nicaragua, as they are in the US itself and in practically all European Union countries too.

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Over 60% of Nicaraguans support President Ortega and the Sandinista FrontSo it is completely false of Tom Phillips to suggest the recent arrests, including Aguirre’s, are an arbitrary measure related in some way to party political electoral concerns. In that regard, it is ridiculous to claim that any of the figures arrested are “important opposition figures” in an electoral sense. Practically none of them are members of a Nicaraguan political party and none of them had been selected as a potential presidential candidate. Even if they had been so selected, opinion surveys consistently show that none of the opposition political parties have been, or are now, anywhere even close to challenging the electoral support for President Ortega which has been consistently at or over 60% all year long. Another basic fact Phillips omits.

At a regional level, Philips studiedly omits the current repressive assault by El Salvador’s president Najib Bukele against the former governing left wing FMLN political party. Bukele is imposing in El Salvador exactly the kind of repressive political extermination campaign against the FMLN which the USAID RAIN document sketched out as its objective in Nicaragua against the FSLN. In Nicaragua, those being investigated are not leaders of political parties, but individuals with a well established record of having abused supposedly non profit funding from foreign sources for domestic political activities or else of having colluded with foreign intervention to damage and destabilize Nicaragua’s economy or intimidate, calumniate and harrass Nicaraguan citizens and government officials.

On the other hand in El Salvador, the authorities are using unfounded accusations of corruption to destroy the FMLN leadership and party supporters exactly in line with US government policy for that country. Earlier this year, even Michelle Bachelet felt obliged to express concern about president Bukele’s takeover of the courts and the public prosecutor’s office. However Tom Phillips has nothing to say about that neighboring assault on political freedom in El Salvador despite its extreme relevance as an example of what Nicaragua’s right wing and its US owners plan to do in Nicaragua if they get the chance.


Over 90% of Nicaraguans consistently reject opposition destabilizationPhillips applies a similar double standard to the human rights concerns he links to the recent arrests in Nicaragua. He quotes Juan Vivanco of Human Rights Watch who also falsely claims that president Daniel Ortega is targeting potential electoral opponents. It certainly makes sense that Juan Vivanco and Human Rights Watch want to cover up money laundering, fraudulent abuse of non profit status and multi-faceted treasonous collusion by US destabilization proxies in Nicaragua. Juan Vivanco and Human Rights Watch supported the fascist coup in 2002 against Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez and have consistently supported US government aggression and destabilization against any government and its people resisting Western efforts to effectively recolonize Latin America and the Caribbean.

More importantly, in the current electoral context in Nicaragua, it is absolutely clear that the authorities are responding to very real public concern about any possible repeat of the murderous opposition violence of 2018. The highly respected M&R company opinion surveys have repeatedly demonstrated that well over 90% of Nicaraguans reject any renewed attempt at violent destabilization. That fact on its own also demonstrates the absolute falsity of the US and EU big propaganda lie that the opposition’s failed coup attempt in 2018 was remotely peaceful. Combined with overwhelming electoral support for president Daniel Ortega, it also means that the great majority of Nicaraguans diametrically contradict Tom Phillips’ brand of bad faith fantasy reporting on their country.

Featured image: Apologies to John Heartfield’s. “Whoever reads bourgeois newspapers becomes blind and deaf”

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 26, 2021 1:40 pm

icaNotes: Managua’s Missing Murals
August 25, 2021
By Becca Mohally Renk

[This article was originally published on the Casa Ben Linder blog at
https://www.casabenjaminlinder.org/navi ... 5u75ewin6e .]

(Becca Mohally Renk is part of the Jubilee House Community, which works in sustainable development in Ciudad Sandino. The JHC also works to educate visitors to Nicaragua, including through their hospitality and solidarity cultural center at Casa Benjamin Linder.)

The capital city of Managua is a good lens through which to view Nicaraguan history. Its expansive views, shaded buildings, and streets with no name give us physical places to anchor our stories of colonization, inequality, insurrection, revolution and resilience. This is the fourth in a series about Managua.

I can’t take you on my favorite tour of Managua.

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Avenida Bolivar, The Supreme Dream of Bolivar by Victor Canifrú and Alejandra Acuña

If I could, I would show you the Revolutionary Murals of the capital. We would start on Avenida Bolívar in the center of town and walk 100 meters down its length, watching Nicaragua’s history unfold beside us in full color in Victor Canifrú and Alejandra Acuña’s mural The Supreme Dream of Bolívar: Nicaragua’s first peoples, their resistance to colonization, the imposition of Christianity, liberation from colonizers, the United States depicted as Death, Sandinista guerillas fighting the insurrection against Somoza’s National Guard, and the building of the New Nicaragua in the Revolution. A mural flowing “in the very rhythm of revolution: impetuous, unreflective, disorganized, and energized.”*

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The Reunion by Leonel Cerrato in Luis Alfonso Velasquez Park

The sun would be hot on our backs as we would turn into the Luís Alfonso Velásquez Park to see Leonel Cerrato’s emotional mural of Sandinista revolutionaries reunited with their families after the Triumph of the Revolution, Alejandro Canales’ multifaceted Homage to Woman and Julie Aguirre’s primitivist depiction of village life with campesinos learning to read. From there, we’d go on a driving tour because the murals we’d want to see would be spread around the city: in El Parque de las Madres, depictions of children demonstrating with the slogan of “paintbrushes against foreign interference;” at the airport arrivals terminal, a mural showing boys throwing Molotov cocktails and stones over barricades; at La Mascota children’s hospital, a mural depicting Vladimir Lenin fishing books by Malcolm X and Karl Marx out of a black pond.

We would end the day with a cold beer or sweet cacao drunk out of plastic bags in the shade, and we would reflect together on how these revolutionary murals are a visual embodiment of what Nicaragua was trying to become in the 1980s. Your eyes might tear up, thinking about how with the Triumph of the Revolution in 1979, the Nicaraguan people reclaimed national dignity and sovereignty and for the first time in 500 years became protagonists in the story of their own country’s future. You might be inspired, and rightly so. But your eyes will now probably tear up for another reason, because…

…these murals have been erased.

Of the nearly 300 murals painted in Nicaragua during the decade of the Revolution, most are now gone. In the “capital of mural painting,” Managua, murals were systematically painted over in the early 1990s – often under the cover of darkness – in an act of cultural imperialism that aimed to erase the Revolution itself and destroy the spirit of the Nicaraguan people.

Why did the new neoliberal government deem the Revolution so dangerous that all memory of it had to be erased? Let’s put that time in context. On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista-led insurrection finally overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, signifying the beginning of the Sandinista Popular Revolution.

From the beginning, the Revolution had its enemies: for the U.S. – which had backed the Somoza regime through five administrations, both Republican and Democratic – overthrowing the Sandinistas became a personal mission with the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. In the context of the Cold War, Reagan used any means necessary to try to accomplish this, including imposing an illegal economic embargo and training and funding a terrorist army of counterrevolutionaries: the Contras. Against all odds, the Sandinista Revolution was improving the lives of the Nicaraguan people through grassroots programs – providing universal health care and free education, eradicating polio through its vaccination campaign and eradicating illiteracy through its Literacy Crusade. To effectively attack the Revolution, the Contras attacked its achievements, the “soft targets” of schools, health clinics, and cooperatives; killing teachers, health care workers, farmers and children.

The Revolution was also cultural – after centuries of classist hierarchical art where oil painting was considered the only important art form, culture was democratized. Nicaragua created Centers for Popular Culture – 28 of them by 1988 – which painted murals, held poetry and pottery workshops, organized dance and theater festivals.

Thanks to the solidarity of muralists from around the world, a culture of painting murals was born, along with a Mural School which trained students and helped define the eclectic Nicaraguan mural style. “We did not want to ‘other-ize’ ourselves…or to serve the demands of the Western art transnationals,” said Raúl Quintanilla, artist, former Director of the National School of Plastic Arts and of the Museum of Contemporary Art. “We began to build a visual language embracing many dialects through…a dialogue that engaged everyone and everything, [dovetailing] social commitment and visual experimentation.” Although the murals were stylistically diverse, common themes emerged from the artists’ interpretations of the revolutionary process: dawn as a symbol of rebirth, parallels between the birth of Jesus and the birth of the New Man, and the triumvirate of books, hammers and guns to represent literacy, work and defense of the Revolution.

Particularly poignant in murals of the Revolution is the struggle of the indigenous people of Nicaragua and their resistance to Spanish colonizers, portrayed as parallels to the contemporary “Christian” persecutors, the Contras. In the murals, the colonial struggles were reexamined in light of the Revolutionary struggles; the indigenous of Nicaragua became models for the defense of popular sovereignty during the Revolution.

Colonizers the world over have for time immemorial committed cultural genocide in order to completely subject a people – prohibiting the speaking of indigenous languages, indigenous dances, indigenous clothing. In Nicaragua, this same practice was used to erase the murals that had fed and inspired the country’s revolutionary spirit for over a decade.

By 1990, nearly 50,000 Nicaraguans had been killed in the Contra War and Nicaragua’s revolutionary project was crippled by the economic embargo and derailed by the war. In the run-up to the February 1990 presidential elections, the U.S. made Nicaraguan voters’ choice clear to them: unless U.S.-backed candidate Violeta Chamorro’s party, UNO, won the elections, the economic blockade and the Contra war would continue indefinitely. George H.W. Bush’s administration poured money into UNO’s campaign to ensure its win. Scared and tired, when Nicaraguans went to the polls they voted to end the war: Chamorro won the elections, ushering in a 16-year neoliberal period.

After that election, Arnoldo Alemán became mayor of Managua. Alemán, a Somocista who spent time in prison during the Revolution, was fervently anti-Sandinista and had aspirations to the Presidency (indeed, Alemán became President in 1996 and his administration was so infamous – particularly in its embezzlement of Hurricane Mitch aid – that Transparency International named him the 9th most corrupt leader in recent history). As Mayor, Alemán made it his personal mission to erase the Revolutionary murals that had come to epitomize Nicaragua, sending municipal workers around the city to paint over any accessible revolutionary murals. Before they left office, the Sandinistas had declared many murals and martyr monuments to be historic patrimony, and therefore untouchable; yet Alemán’s municipal workers continued to paint them over in gray. It is rumored that the U.S. government donated paint to Alemán’s erasure project, and documented that Fuller O’Brien, a San Francisco-based company, donated paint “to obliterate Sandanista [sic] propaganda.” In 1993 – at a time when public schools were so underfunded that children had to bring their own desks to the classroom – great quantities of paint were issued by the Ministry of Education to schools all over Nicaragua with orders to use it to paint over any murals on school premises, most of which had been painted by the school children themselves.

It wasn’t just the murals, either, the neo-liberal government worked hard to erase all traces of the Revolution in the early 1990s: public school curriculum was completely overhauled and school textbooks were all pulped and burned, replaced with books that failed to even mention Sandino; books by acclaimed Nicaraguan authors were burned; the eternal flame over the tomb of FSLN Founder and martyr Carlos Fonseca was extinguished; later the monument itself was bombed as was a central public art piece, the Worker’s Statue.

In some ways, this strategy to erase was effective. After the elections in 1990, Nicaragua went into a kind of societal depression and the vast majority of families were crippled by extreme poverty, unable to plan beyond the next meal. While the country was incapacitated, the somocistas who had supported the former dictator oozed back into the country and violently stole back properties they had forfeited when they had fled Nicaragua a decade earlier. Violeta Chamorros’s government quietly erased the social gains of the Revolution, selling nearly all public enterprises at concessionary rates and effectively privatizing health care and education. She welcomed the World Bank and IMF and followed the letter of their structural readjustment programs, refusing to raise wages for teachers, police, or any public worker. She all but erased cooperatives by taking away their access to financing – when they could no longer work, they began to fold, and as those in the countryside lost their land they began to move into the cities looking for work. Gangs took hold in the cities, and crime rates – which had been all but nonexistent in the ‘80s – skyrocketed. The poor got poorer and the rich got richer until Nicaragua became one of the most unequal societies in the world. Desperate to find a way to earn a living, people began to leave in droves to Costa Rica and the U.S. until this small country had nearly 1 million citizens living outside its borders.
And yet, not everyone forgot. In hidden neighborhoods around Managua, the people kept watch over their Revolutionary murals at night, saving them from Alemán’s gray brush. Concealed from the public eye, new murals were born inside walls where they could stay safe. We’ll find some of these murals on our next Managua tour. [Ed. note: This article is coming soon!]

*Photos, quotes and information from Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua 1979-1992 by David Kunzle.

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-managuas-missing-murals
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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 28, 2021 1:37 pm

Nicaragua at a Revolutionary Crossroads and in Imperialist Crosshairs
Netfa Freeman 25 Aug 2021

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Nicaragua at a Revolutionary Crossroads and in Imperialist Crosshairs

U.S. attack on Nicaragua targets its Black community.

There is a page in the playbook for U.S. imperialist regime change in Latin America that includes exploiting the identity politics of Blackness. A recent example was the unrest in Cuba a month ago that included a sophisticated attempt to paint the Cuban revolution, its government, and anyone in solidarity with it, as ignoring the interests of Afro-Cubans.

The legitimacy of neoliberalism or late-stage capitalism is so wounded that the socialist examples in the Latin American “Axis of Decolonization” (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua) have to be regarded as even greater threats. In these countries the inseparability of capitalist exploitation from white supremacy and patriarchy is realized and confronted every day.

Regime change against Nicaragua, in particular, is intensifying through tightened sanctions and a pervasive disinformation campaign. Although exploiting proclivities for Black and Indigenous identity within Nicaragua will be harder given the unique political and cultural investment Black and Indigenous peoples have in the Sandinista revolution.

Nicaragua is generally thought of in the U.S. as a country of Spanish descendants and speakers, racially considered Latino/a. Racist erasure disappears the sizable Indigenous and Black populations.

However, Nicaragua has two histories that come together. Spanish colonization dominated the western Pacific Coast, while the Caribbean Coast of the east --abundant in natural resources-- was colonized by the British. This was also the historical reality from Belize down to Panama. The Caribbean coast area makes up nearly 50% of Nicaragua. After the British vacated the country in the 1850s, the Indigenous people and emancipated African descendants who remained began building their own multilingual, multicultural, and communally economic society – the Autonomous Regions.

After Spanish colonialism was defeated, and through the neocolonialism of the U.S. backed dictator Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza, the Caribbean Coast experienced attempts at cultural imposition, economic exploitation, and infrastructural neglect. Of course, none of this was without resistance.

It was not until the revolution in the 1980s that the Sandinistas profoundly deepened the state recognition of identity and the rights of Indigenous and African descendants -Garifuna and Creole- and codified it into law; “Law 28 ".

The Autonomy Statute (Law No. 28) recognized the distinct historical experience of the region, its control of land and institutions, and the logic of communal life in the Northern and Southern regions of the Caribbean Coast. Nicaragua is the only Central American country that has this recognition. This, needless to say, accounts for the strong support of the FSLN (Sandinista party) by the Black and Indigenous peoples. They have a saying, “Autonomy is the revolution.”

As part of a delegation, this author recently visited and experienced, firsthand, the African (Black) traditions and pride that characterize the region. There is great admiration for and an interest in the Black struggle within the U.S.

As U.S. imperialism turns its crosshairs onto Nicaragua, Black affinity in the U.S. must forge transnational, transcontinental ties with our people on the Caribbean Coasts of Central America, particularly in revolutionary Nicaragua. Black self-defense must become international. What’s the call? “Touch one, touch all!” The unique struggle of Nicaragua’s Black and Indigenous Autonomous Regions hold valuable lessons for a revolutionary path in the Western Hemisphere.

The latest sanctions against Nicaragua, entitled the RENACER Act (Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform) must be opposed. RENACER is a shamelessly hypocritical legislation that would effectively put over 2 million card-carrying members of the FSLN and their family members under “targeted” sanctions, could all in all impact over half of the country’s population. In the U.S. this would be tantamount to imposing sanctions on every registered Democrat and Republican.

False propaganda is being promoted that accuses the Daniel Ortega government of arresting his electoral opponents before the November 7th election. Behind this misreporting is actually enforcement of a Nicaraguan law that requires its citizens to register whenever they are receiving funds to work at the behest of a foreign government, like the U.S. The fact that so many of the opposition have been caught violating this law is telling and it makes them essentially guilty of money laundering and treason. It is important to point out that those being prosecuted are not candidates for office. Besides, independent polling last month shows there is no opposition that is a match against the 60% support held by President Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas.

The U.S. has a comparable law to the one Nicaragua is enforcing, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA ) which the Democrats actually led the charge to use against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. It’s the old paternalistic double standard, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

From 1990 to 2006, during what Nicaraguans refer to as the period of neoliberalism, the racist U.S. backed government of Violeta Chamorro was elected under duress. President Ronald Reagan made it clear to Nicaragua that the U.S. would continue funding and supporting the bloody Contra War if the Sandinistas were reelected. Along with the new President Chamorro, a slew of neoliberal policies ushered in a period of economic degradation and political repression. Black and Indigenous people in the Autonomous Regions were especially seen as worthless due to their inability to pay federal taxes.

Then came the 2006 election in which Daniel Ortega won a return to the presidency with a 38% plurality. A few people we spoke to referred to a promise made by Ortega, saying that if the Sandinistas could have just 10 years of peace they could turn the country around for the working masses.

Since 2006 the country has enjoyed a parliament that is majority women and the establishment of Law 648 , the Law of Equal Rights and Opportunities aimed at promoting gender equality to ensure the full development and advancement of Nicaraguan women in all spheres of life. For example, if the President is a man, then the vice-President must be a woman. On August 19th, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) announced that Nicaragua’s “Sustainable Development of the Livelihoods of Rural Families along the Nicaragua Dry Corridor (NICAVIDA)” Project was selected to receive the IFAD GENDER 2021 Award. The IFAD press release states that “the NICAVIDA project being carried out by the Nicaragua Ministry of Family Economy has created spaces that guarantee the empowerment and active participation of women as agents of change in the promotion of links between economic diversification, productive transformation, protection of the environment and family nutrition”.

Nicaragua’s poverty rate was cut in half in 10 years. Between 2005 and 2016, the poverty rate fell from 48 percent to 25 percent. Malnutrition has drastically decreased. There is free universal healthcare and education, and the country has managed to establish 80% food sovereignty .

But without missing a beat, the Biden administration is picking up where Trump’s administration left off, demonizing, destabilizing, and trying to overthrow the government of Nicaragua and the entire Axis of Latin American Decolonization.

While on the Pacific west coast, our delegation met with torture victims of what was portrayed in U.S. media as a legitimate uprising in 2018 violently repressed by the Sandinista authorities. Quite the opposite happened. Three members of the security detail for the Mayor of Masaya recounted their experiences of being interrogated and tortured. They described the mayhem that characterized a month-long reign of terrorism by U.S. backed opposition. One man had a prosthetic arm because his real arm had to be amputated after being brutalized so badly. They took us to see the still burnt-out buildings and vehicles.

It was discovered that the culprits were supported by the U.S. government and its proxy NGOs like the National Endowment for Democracy. They used the pages in the playbook on how to stir up and employ delinquent sectors of the community. In a move apparently meant to avoid overt intervention by the U.S., the Sandinista police were actually instructed to stand down and remain in their barracks. Many people were killed and beaten, some even burned alive. Some Nicaraguans have mixed feelings about the instructions to stand down but now what transpired is clear and much harder to misconstrue as repression by the Ortega government.

A reconciliation process took place that granted amnesty to many of the culprits on the condition that they refrain from any further violations of the law. If they do violate the law, they are promised to be retroactively prosecuted on their 2018 charges, in addition to any new ones.

The “democratic” fascism of the US oligarchy is flagrant and knows no geographic boundaries. It is as much domestic policy as it is foreign, especially when it comes to Black and Brown people. Defeating it requires that we up our game and make a broad embrace of our people across waters.

Netfa Freeman is an organizer in Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and on the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. Netfa is also co-host/producer of the WPFW radio show and podcast Voices With Vision.

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Re: Nicaragua

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:44 pm

NICARAGUA LAUNCHES PLAN TO FIGHT POVERTY AND PROMOTE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Posted by MLToday | Sep 4, 2021

Nicaragua Launches Plan to Fight Poverty and Promote Human Development

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By Teri Mattson and John Perry, Popular Resistance.

September 2, 2021

Ivan Acosta is Nicaragua’s minister of housing and public credit, with responsibility for key aspects of government planning. In July, he presented the country’s new “National Plan for the Fight against Poverty and for Human Development.” This builds on the achievements of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government since it returned to power in 2007 and sets out how they will continue if Daniel Ortega’s government is returned at November’s elections. Ivan Acosta is currently subject to personal US sanctions, along with many other Nicaraguan government officials and their family members.

Codepinks’s Teri Mattson spoke to the minister in a Zoom call and asked him to explain the plan and its background.

TM The Sandinista government regained power in 2007. What conditions did it find when it returned to office?

We need to remember what state the country was in at that time, something largely ignored in public debate. The truth is that when President Ortega returned to the presidency on January 10, 2007, he took charge of a country of blackouts, with electricity cut off daily. Nicaragua had turned its back on its rural communities and on its Caribbean coast, on its indigenous people and its people of African descent. There was no public acknowledgement of the autonomous peoples in government policies. Campesinos (peasant farmers) and other producers had been left behind due to the privatization of the National Bank. No funding was being provided, no credit. There were no rural roads. In many places there was no energy and no drinking water; social indicators such as infant mortality and maternal mortality rate were terrible.

Those 16 or 17 years of neoliberalism in Nicaragua after 1990 brought privatization of public services. In terms of education, the country was reduced to having only four grades in primary school. The healthcare system was also privatized. It was a country with no social programs, a lack of public investment and only 50% of the country with electricity, and even then with frequent blackouts because capacity to generate electricity was so limited. Out of the 2,000 kilometers of roads only 30 percent were in reasonable condition. There was a great deficit in telecommunications.

The country’s poverty figures became the worst in Latin America. Just from 2002 to 2005, general poverty rose from 45 to 48.3 percent and extreme poverty reached 17 percent. This small country was heading in the wrong direction. Poverty was worsening and the neoliberal government was proud because they said that this would bring foreign investment. But there were not enough jobs and public investment barely reached $270 million annually. There were no government resources, not even to provide primary school children with a glass of milk. So, the neoliberal model was a disaster and we put an end to that on January 10, 2007. Fortunately, we didn’t face a pandemic in 2005 or 2006 because it would have been very difficult to deal with such a situation given how public services had been destroyed.

How did things begin to change after 2007?

It’s important to talk about what the government of Nicaragua, under the leadership of President Comandante Ortega, has done to change the country’s situation. So, in the first place, all social and public services have been de-privatized, to ensure free education and health care. Then, public and economic policies need to center on the poorest. The main priority has been the fight against poverty and extreme poverty. Successful public policies are not only those which make the economy grow or the foreign reserves grow or which ensure macroeconomic stability, but also those which ensure that most people’s situation improves on a daily basis.

Comandante Ortega’s government has more than doubled the kilometers of new road that have been built, vital for access to rural areas. But we also ensured that 85 percent of roads are in good shape and we are now the country with the best roads in Central America, even though we have the smallest economy.

From 2007, we began to build the most modern health care system in Central America by investing in technology, hospital infrastructure and physicians and healthcare staff. We also made rapid progress in providing water and sanitation. We went from 60 to 91 percent in urban sectors in terms of drinking water services. And we went from 30 to 57 percent, in terms of sanitation. Those are issues which are relevant for people’s lives, not only for the political and business minorities, but for the large majority.

I think that the most important change in direction by Comandante Ortega was making public education free at the primary, secondary and university levels. As from January 10, 2007, we ensured that 100,000 students went back to school by providing free education.

We also invested in rural communities: we created 275,000 bonos productivos for women members of families in rural areas (the process by which they were helped to raise chicken, cattle and pigs). We developed the zero usury program and granted more than 1,300,000 credits to women to help reduce the gender equality gap. The government also had extraordinary success in reducing the maternal mortality rate: it fell by 67 percent. We went from 95 women who died per 100,000 births to 35.

Those were huge challenges; by tackling them, the country became more equal. There was greater economic participation. We managed to increase livestock production by 75 percent and agricultural production by 85 percent. The size of the economy went from $6.5 billion to $13.7 billion in the span of ten years. But what’s most important is how this growth was employed. We reduced general poverty from 48.3 to 24.9 percent and extreme poverty from 17.6 to 6.9 percent. These are extraordinary figures. This was achieved with social and political stability, consensus and dialogue, in a decade characterized by social, political and economic progress that benefitted everyone.

With so much social and economic success during those first ten years, how do you interpret the violent anti-government actions which hit the country in April 2018?

We concluded that 2018 was an expression of hate by some minorities given the progress the country was experiencing. The failed coup d’etat had an impact that was equivalent to 52 hurricanes like Hurricane Iota that hit us in November 2020. The damage was so great that the failed coup attempt caused Nicaragua more severe damage than the global pandemic has done. Take a look at the figures: $24 billion damage against $4 billion. So, it’s been six times more damaging and it especially hit the country’s poorest people.

So, that was the context for how we developed The National Plan Against Poverty & To Promote Human Development.

What are the goals of the new plan?

The aims are summarized this chart. We have 12 objectives which basically express our hopes to fill the remaining gaps in our social and economic program. We’ve made progress, but we still need to reinforce our efforts to fight against poverty and to eradicate extreme poverty. No society should have extreme poverty (people living on less than $1.25 per day).

What are the most important issues?

Well, definitely macroeconomic stability, something that we have to continue working on. We are a country that has managed to develop solid and sustainable public finances, improving our balance sheet, reinforcing our reserves, having sustainable public debt, and laying the groundwork to attract more private investment to create the jobs that the country needs.

We also aim to improve the basic conditions for development by providing people with electricity, by building roads and bridges, by accelerating the provision of water and sanitation to the population, by ensuring strategic investment for the ports in the Caribbean, by attracting investment for a new railroad (and we hope that it can be electrical), with investment in tourism in the Pacific coast. We are fostering the agricultural livestock industry to create jobs, and at the same time we continue working on healthcare and education and to strengthen our gender equality strategy.

How is the Nicaraguan government tackling the gender gap?

We are proud that this year the country is among the world’s top five countries in gender equality – according to the World Economic Forum. Only four Nordic countries did better but we need to invest even more in bridging the gender equality gap and strengthen women’s role because the country needs it. Women are 52 percent of the population and if they do not have equal participation then it will be more difficult to develop the country. Also, we need to tackle the rural-urban gap and the gap between the minorities and the majority. We need to bridge all these gaps and create equality so that the country can develop faster and to do it in a balanced way.

Is climate change affecting the rural-urban gap and migration to urban centers?

Another strategic aim is tackling climate change. We believe that we need to better manage our water resources, and we need to reforest as this is vital for the country’s future. But we have to do this intelligently because the change agents are the more than 300,000 rural producers. We’ve noticed that positive effects in tackling climate change derive from successes in fighting rural poverty and in transforming the agricultural and livestock sector. If the rural sector becomes wealthier than that will be harmonious with nature because they can produce more in better ways, and that translates into better water, better forests, more diversification so that the rural economy can work better. That is essential.

How are you addressing the needs of indigenous and afro-descendent minority communities on the Caribbean Coast?

I am from the Caribbean Coast myself. We have a strategy to make the Caribbean Coast a special development area given that it has always aspired to be the connection point between North America, South America and Europe. But we are one of the few countries which have a Caribbean Coast with no ports. So, we are planning the construction of a port near Bluefields that will allow for the development of a region almost twice the size of El Salvador. We have recognized 23 indigenous territories and the Caribbean region is receiving investment it has never seen before: electricity, road connections, airports, hospitals to serve remote municipalities, rural energy (mainly solar) and water and sanitation to all municipalities. I think this is a great act of historic justice by the country towards the ethnic minorities who had been excluded for a long time until the 1979 Sandinista Revolution.

How do private investment and foreign investment advance Sandinismo?

The country has taken a leap forward in the design, management and implementation of projects from bilateral and multilateral development financing, to the point where Nicaragua is the most recognized country by multilateral banks in terms of its accountability and use of funds. We’ve had enormous results. You can see them in reports by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and the European Investment Bank. We have an incredible record. If a country manages well, designs well, uses money well, and is accountable, then the number of projects grows rapidly. One example is that it has only taken eight years to bring electricity to the remaining half of the country, and it was the hardest job because we’re talking about remote rural areas. We’ve made similar progress in terms of roads, investment in production, and drinking water.

This creates a virtuous cycle because if a country performs well and creates a positive impact this is very important for foreign direct investment. If a business person comes from Australia or New Zealand, he or she doesn’t know the country so they look at the most important economic indicators and the level of competitiveness of the country: whether the roads are in good condition or not, whether taxes are competitive or not, and if the country and the government are investing enough resources to make the country more competitive and attractive. So probably the business person takes a look at the IMF for central bank indicators, takes a look at the macroeconomic stability, fiscal discipline and the sustainability of economic and financial policies. He or she will also, surely, look at the legal safety and investment safety of any project they are contemplating.

In this way we’ve achieved important investments in mining and renewable energy as well as general investments in the agricultural sector. We also have one of the most successful systems of free trade zones in Latin America. It has doubled the number of jobs in the last few years, so we think that public investment together with macroeconomic stability and good economic indicators help investors to trust Nicaragua. But there is another variable in Central America: the Northern Triangle and on into Mexico is probably the most violent region of the world which is not at war. So, in Nicaragua you find a place that’s good for investment, with low crime rates and the safest country in Central America.

Is this why the Nicaragua economy remained open during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The decision to keep the economy working back in April 2020 was the result of several different factors. In the first place, Nicaragua is a country which has a large, dispersed rural community, where the risk of infection is low, in many places with no dense urban areas. The second factor is a social and economic one. There is a large popular or informal economy in which people live on a daily basis from what they can earn in the markets, farms or in the transport sector; therefore, closing the economy would paralyze their livelihoods. The third element had to do with the fact that if 99.9% of countries decided to close then we didn’t have to because we wouldn’t receive people from abroad, and the fourth element had to do with the fact that we had strengthened the healthcare system.

You can take all the necessary measures: social-distancing, hand washing, wearing masks, but if your healthcare care system is not strong (something seen in many developing countries) it can collapse. Since 2007 we had invested enormously in new hospitals and extra staff working in health care. People had access to healthcare at their doorstep. Great changes were made. A voluntary health network was formed which made five million household visits to the country’s 1.3 million homes when the pandemic began. We made sure we had the ICUs, the ventilators, but also made sure that the country, apart from not getting the virus, could get the resources needed to continue working.

We were ready and we probably have the best family and community healthcare model in Central America. There are Caribbean countries with great healthcare systems, but we have the best one in terms of its response because our healthcare system centers on the epidemiological issues that many countries have ignored. There may be good hospitals which are great at treating strokes or cancer, but they have left their epidemiological policies aside as if it were something from the previous century.

Apparently we were right because a few months later all the other countries started opening their economies bit by bit. So, we managed to reduce the loss of GDP forecast by the IMF of between 11% and 14% to only two percent.

We’ve had extraordinary results. We’re probably the Latin American country with the lowest number of virus cases and with the lowest fatality rate. We are quickly reactivating our economy. We are now recovering by five percent more than what was forecast for 2021. I think that the producers linked to agricultural exports should be given credit because we continued to export coffee, sugarcane, meat, seafood and beans to Central America. If the economy doesn’t work we won’t have resources to continue reinforcing the healthcare system.

Nicaragua is 80% food sovereign. How has this contributed to the National Plan?

Our production policies reinforce exports, food security and making progress towards food sovereignty. In Latin America, even though many countries have an agricultural industry, Nicaragua is one of the countries in which most of what’s on the table is produced nationally. Nicaragua is similar to Mexico in the sense that people eat rice, beans, meat and chicken in large quantities. Plantains as well. All of that is produced here: 80% of consumption is produced nationally. But what’s important is to increase productivity so that we can fulfill the needs of the local market and also reach the markets in neighboring countries as is the case of our beans, our milk, and our cheese because that is what creates wealth for the rural producers and for the country.

We are the biggest meat producer in Central America and I think that in the future Nicaragua will be one of the benchmarks due to the quality and the safety of our meat. The southern United States, specifically Florida, is a great consumer of Nicaraguan meat. If we increase productivity, if we provide good technical assistance, that will ensure food sovereignty but also allow us to reach more markets in Central America, Mexico, the United States and Canada. That’s why we talked about a Caribbean port because we don’t sell much to Europe. We’re also on the Pacific and we don’t sell much to Asia. We also don’t export much to South America. Therefore, we want to achieve greater productivity in the agricultural sector, ensuring food security and sovereignty.

https://mltoday.com/nicaragua-launches- ... velopment/
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