Nicaragua

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NicaNotes: Meet the Washington think tanks impoverishing masses of Latin Americans
April 24, 2025
By John Perry

(John Perry is a writer based in Masaya, Nicaragua whose work has appeared in the Nation, the London Review of Books, and many other publications. This article was first published in The Grayzone.)


Think tanks formulate the sanctions, work the politicians to put them in operation, cover up their real effects, and promote them in corporate media.

Sanctions are a form of hybrid warfare that harms or even kills the target populations at little cost to the country imposing them. In Latin America alone, US sanctions (correctly known as “unilateral coercive measures”) have killed at least 100,000 Venezuelans. The US blockade of Cuba has been so destructive that one in ten Cubans have left the country. Sanctions have similarly deprived Nicaraguans of development aid worth an estimated $3 billion since 2018, hitting projects such as new water supplies for rural areas.

Who formulates these devastating sanctions, covers up their real effects, works with politicians to put them into operation and promotes them in corporate media? In a perverse contrast with the poor communities hit by these policies, those doing the targeting are often well-paid employees of multi-million-dollar think tanks, heavily funded by the US or other Western-aligned governments and in many cases by arms manufacturers.

A study in corruption: top think tank lobbyists and their funders

Chief among these groups is the Wilson Center, which claims to simply provide policymakers with “nonpartisan counsel and insights on global affairs.” Boasting a $40-million budget, a third of which comes from the US government, the organization is headed by the former Administrator of USAID, Amb. Mark Green.

In 2024, the Wilson Center boosted its efforts to meddle in Latin America with the creation of the “Iván Duque Center for Prosperity and Freedom,” naming its newest initiative for the wildly unpopular former Colombian president largely remembered for his violent crackdown on students protests, his obsessive focus on regime change in Venezuela, and intentionally crippling the 2016 peace deal meant to end decades of civil war in Colombia.

While Duque has not produced much in the way of scholarship since joining the Wilson Center, he is living his best life at Miami nightclubs, where he’s frequently seen as a guest DJ or regaling partiers with renditions of Spanish language rock hits.

As Mark Green explained, the Iván Duque Center “is a way for us to reaffirm both the importance of the Western Hemisphere in American foreign policy and the promise that democracy and market-centered economics must play in the region’s future.” When it comes to nations that oppose US foreign policy in the region, it’s also a way to fund their most vocal critics, who receive a stipend of US$10,000/month upon being named Wilson Center fellows.

Other Duque fellows include right-wing Venezuelan putschist Leopoldo López, who graduated from Kenyon College and Harvard Kennedy School, two schools closely linked to the CIA, before attempting to orchestrate coups against the Venezuelan government in 2002, 2014, and 2019.

Also on the Wilson Center payroll is former US ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield, another regime change fanatic. Six years ago, when Caracas was undergoing its heaviest assault from US sanctions, Brownfield called for the US government to go even further, claiming that because Venezuelans “already suffer so much… that at this point maybe the best resolution would be to accelerate the collapse” of their country, while freely admitting that his preferred outcome would likely “produce a period of suffering of months or perhaps years.”

The Wilson Center is far from alone in seeking to depose the authorities in Caracas. Another think tank, the Atlantic Council – which receives around US$2 million annually from the US government and a similar amount from Pentagon contractors – has assembled a 24 member-strong Venezuela Working Group featuring a former State Department official, a former member of the CITGO board, and multiple members of the so-called “interim Venezuelan government” which has been accused of stealing over US$100 million in USAID funds.

While the group ostensibly “informs policymakers in the United States, Europe, and Latin America on how to advance a long-term vision and action-oriented policies to foster democratic stability in Venezuela” and “promotes the restoration of democratic institutions in Venezuela,” in practice this means it’s fundamentally dedicated to ending the Maduro government.

The Atlantic Council – a de facto influence peddling operation that functions as the unofficial think tank of NATO in Washington – aims for a similar result in Nicaragua. In an 2024 article titled, “Nicaragua is consolidating an authoritarian dynasty – Here’s how US economic pressure can counter it,” Atlantic Council researcher Brennan Rhodes called for “new punitive economic measures” on the Sandinista government which would heavily damage Nicaragua’s trade with the US, its main export market. The article betrayed no concern for the inevitable effects on hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans who rely on this trade, and whose earnings are likely a fraction of the average Atlantic Council employee.

Among the oldest think tanks dedicated to US global dominance is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which boasts a 100-year “independent, nonpartisan” history of interfering in other countries. A review of its regularly-posted updates on Cuba shows the CFR well aware that the country’s economy, hammered by six decades of economic blockade by the US, had reached a new crisis point after Biden broke his promises to relieve intensified Trump-era sanctions. Yet in a 2021 CFR forum on how to bring down the Cuban government, US-based lawyer Jason Ian Poblete argued that the screw should be twisted still further: “We should bring all tools of state, every single one, to bear on this – not just sanctions.”

Joining the Atlantic Council and the CFR in meddling in the affairs of the US’ southern neighbors is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which claims it’s “dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world’s greatest challenges.” All three groups are listed on the Quincy Institute’s page showing the “Top 10 Think Tanks That Receive Funding from Pentagon Contractors.”

Led by its Americas director, Ryan Berg, CSIS maintains active programs calling for sanctions in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. The group regularly holds events featuring US-backed opposition figures such as Venezuelan María Corina Machado and Nicaraguans Félix Maradiaga and Juan Sebastián Chamorro.

Collectively, these groups dominate the US information sphere, saturating mainstream airwaves with complaints about the “authoritarian” socialist-leaning governments and demands for their ouster. On the off-chance that an official from one of the major think tanks is unavailable to comment, there are a number of smaller organizations ready to plug the gap.

Enduring demand for deprivation

One of the most vocal Beltway think tanks on Latin American affairs is the Inter-American Dialogue (“Leadership for the Americas”), which works alongside CSIS and which is also heavily funded by arms contractors and the US government. Recently, as The Grayzone reported, CSIS’s Berg collaborated with the Dialogue’s Manuel Orozco – who moonlights as the Central America and the Caribbean chair of the US government’s Foreign Service Institute – to try to cut Nicaragua’s access to one of its only remaining sources of development loans.

The Dialogue was assisted in this by two more think tanks. One is the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which bills itself as “one of the largest investigative journalism organizations in the world,” and which receives a full half of its budget from the US government. OCCRP works with similarly-funded Transparency International to engage in regime change operations by digging up dirt on foreign administrations targeted by Washington.

Another group heavily involved in the sanctions industry is the Center for Global Development, whose name might seem ironic given that it provides a platform for those promoting deadly economic coercion. Its US$25 million annual budget is funded mainly from sources such as the Gates Foundation, as well as several European governments. One of its directors, Dany Bahar, recently called for intensified sanctions against the Venezuelan government to stamp out the “temporary economic improvements” that the country is currently enjoying.

Not all of the shady organizations seeking to impoverish Latin Americans in the name of hegemony are based in the US, however. Britain’s Chatham House, which relies heavily on the UK and US governments as well as arms manufacturers for its £20 million annual budget, also calls for the “restoring of democracy” in Venezuela, and often gives platforms to opponents of the governments in Caracas and Managua. Though skeptical of the efficacy of sanctions on Venezuela, it nevertheless concluded in Jan. 2025 that “restoring oil and gas sanctions” would be “logical” as long as the bans were part of “a broader diplomatic, coordinated multinational policy with specifically defined objectives.” The few criticisms it’s produced of the US embargo on Cuba have centered largely on its failure to affect regime change.

Only one longstanding Beltway think tank, the Brookings Institution, has been willing to platform a slightly more skeptical view of sanctions. A 2018 op-ed from a Venezuelan economist published by Brookings explicitly counseled that sanctions on Venezuela “must be precise in order to spare innocent Venezuelans.” The year prior, Brookings argued that Trump’s sanctions against Cuba were unlikely to “put much of a near-term dent in the Cuban economy… [nor] reduce the influence of the armed forces,” but would have “a disproportionately negative impact on Cuba’s emerging private sector and on non-military employment in linkage industries—not to mention restricting Americans’ right to travel.” Broadly speaking, however, Brookings largely adheres to the trans-Atlantic consensus which demands the overthrow of the countries that former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton once smeared as the “troika of tyranny.”

Lobbyists by another name

Think tanks operate in a privileged space, gaining credibility from their links with the academic world while ensuring that their policymaking is closely geared to imperial needs. In the US alone there are more than 2,200 such organizations, some 400 of which specialize in foreign affairs. In recent years, they’ve become ubiquitous, with one-third of witnesses to the House Foreign Affairs Committee coming from think tanks – 80% of whom are paid by what Responsible Statecraft labels defense contractor “dark money.”

These organizations’ collective groupthink on sanctions – particularly on those targeting Venezuela – give the lie to the “independence” they all claim. Political scientist Glenn Diesen opens his recent book, The Think Tank Racket, by noting that these institutions’ “job is to manufacture consent for the goals of their paymasters.” He says that these “policymaking elites… confirm their own biases rather than conduct real debates.” Once their work is done, they “retire to expensive restaurants where they slap each other on the back.”

In an unusually self-critical piece explaining Why Everyone Hates Think Tanks,” the Wilson Center’s Matthew Rojansky and the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Jeremy Shapiro explain that these organizations have become lobbyists by another name, whose donors simply want “veteran sharpshooters to fire their policy bullets.” As far back as 2006, journalist Thomas Frank observed that think tanks have “grown into a powerful quasi-academy with seven-figure budgets and phalanxes of ‘senior fellows’ and ‘distinguished chairs’.”

This business model is only one aspect of the “racket.” As Diesen points out, and as Colombia’s Iván Duque center proves, think tanks provide a revolving door where out-of-office or failed politicians and their advisers can continue to influence public policy – while collecting a fat paycheck, too.

* * * * *

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy
Nicaragua with Second Lowest Inflation Rate in Central America
An analysis by the specialized economic media outlet Bloomberg points out that price increases continue to be a matter of concern for some of the main Latin American economies: in Brazil, inflation already stands at 5.48% year-on-year, while Argentina, which is among the economies with the highest inflation on the planet, continues its path to deceleration with 55.9% year-on-year in March. In Mexico, year-on-year inflation again stood below 4% in March. In Central America, the lowest inflation was recorded by Costa Rica with 0.03%, followed by Nicaragua with 0.8%, Guatemala 0.35%, El Salvador 0.42%, and Honduras 2.01%. (Informe Pastran, 16 April 2025)

Tourism Increases for Holy Week
Nicaragua received millions of tourists at the Peñas Blancas Costa Rica/Nicaragua border crossing at the beginning of Holy Week 2025. With a notable increase in the flow of visitors, Nicaragua welcomed thousands of national and foreign tourists. Since April 16, Nicaraguan families living abroad and travelers of diverse nationalities have arrived attracted by the natural beauties, security and hospitality that consolidate the country as an outstanding tourist destination in Central America. The migratory movement began strongly from the early hours of the day, registering between 6,000 and 8,000 daily entries, according to preliminary data. The figure was expected to exceed 10,000 visitors per day in the following days, reflecting the growing confidence in Nicaragua as an ideal place to enjoy unique experiences in a peaceful environment and diversity of attractions; from the Pacific beaches and Caribbean islands to volcanoes, nature reserves and picturesque traditional villages. Many are looking to reconnect with relatives, while others, attracted by the gastronomy and safety are visiting Nicaragua for the first time. (Informe Pastran, 16 April 2025)

National Vaccination Campaign Begins
The Sandinista government through the Ministry of Health (MINSA) is starting the national vaccination campaign of 2025, from April 23 to May 18, in order to continue protecting the health of children, adolescents, pregnant women, the elderly and the general population. According to a MINSA press release, the goal is to administer nearly 2.5 million doses of vaccines against diseases such as measles, whooping cough, polio, covid-19, viral pneumonia, bacterial otitis, bacterial pneumonia, mumps, rotavirus, hepatitis B, bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis, diphtheria and tetanus. Likewise, 1,2 million doses of vitamin A will be administered to children from 6 months to 9 years old, and two million doses of deworming medicine to children and adolescents from 1 to 16 years old. This campaign has been developed by the Community Network, the Sandinista Youth and local authorities in coordination with government health workers. The campaign will be launched on April 23 with a walk and carnival in the municipality of Matagalpa and also in the other departmental capitals. See photo: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/inicia-c ... acunacion/ (La Primerisima, 22 April 2025)

Construction of the Sapoá Bridge Completed
The Sandinista Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is scheduled to inaugurate the 122 meter-long Sapoá Bridge in the municipality of Cárdenas, department of Rivas, on April 24. According to a press release, the existing bridge had been severely damaged by the destructive impacts of successive hurricanes in the area. The construction of this bridge ensures stable, safe and uninterrupted connectivity for 54,959 inhabitants of the region and promotes the development of agriculture and livestock as well as tourism. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/culmina- ... nte-sapoa/ (La Primerisima, 22 April 2025)

Waslala Inaugurates Primary Hospital
The Ministry of Health and the mayor’s office of Waslala, together with Waslala’s families, inaugurated the new Fidel Ventura Hospital. The hospital will offer quality attention to more than 76,000 inhabitants of the region. It will have 43 beds and specialized areas such as emergency, hospitalization, operating room, outpatient clinic, Xray, mammography, ultrasound, laboratory, and pharmacy among other services. The Sandinista government invested US$17 million in the construction and equipping of the hospital. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/waslala- ... -primario/
(La Primerisima, 21 April 2025)

Maternity Leave to Be 13 Weeks
The maternity leave allowance for working mothers in Nicaragua will increase from 84 to 90 days, by means of the reform to the Social Security Law newly approved in the National Assembly. The reform now coincides with the provisions of the new Constitution which guarantees a leave of not less than 90 days for pre and postnatal leave. The amendment reflects the extension by one more week of the rest time that pregnant workers have as pre- and post-natal leave. Article 95 establishes that the maternity leave subsidy will be equivalent of 60% of the average weekly remuneration, calculated in the same way as for sick leave and will be paid during the four weeks before and the nine weeks after childbirth and will be mandatory. (La Primerisima, 23 April 2025)

Seventh Anniversary of US-Supported Coup Attempt in Nicaragua
April 18 was the seventh anniversary of the beginning of a major and violent coup attempt against the Nicaraguan government financed by the United States. There are many excellent articles about this. Go to the NicaNotes archives here: https://afgj.org/category/nicanotes

And four more recent articles about the failed coup attempt are listed here: https://mronline.org/2023/04/12/five-ye ... pt-begins/

https://mronline.org/2023/05/29/how-pea ... pted-coup/

https://mronline.org/2023/07/15/the-att ... collapsed/

https://mronline.org/2023/08/04/the-nic ... ned-since/

Tens of Thousands Walk to Celebrate Peace Throughout the Country
On April 22, peace walks were held throughout the country, as an expression of the commitment to the right to peace of the Nicaraguan people as well as the peace that reigns now in the country. Co-President Rosario Murillo said “Peace is ours; peace is not to be trifled with; peace is our right, our heritage, our inheritance; peace has to be firm and lasting.” She added that, “Peace is the fruit of respect and peace is in now Nicaragua; we proclaim and defend it as a supreme and absolute truth.” She continued, “Walks around the country were carried out saying peace we live, peace we urge, peace we need in the whole world, peace be with us.” In 2023 April 19 was declared National Day of Peace in Nicaragua. This celebrates the peace that was won in 2018 against the US-directed and financed coup. (La Primerisima, 22 April 2025)

Young Christians Celebrate National Day of Peace
Led by the Federation of Evangelical Churches of Nicaragua, with the support of the Youth Ministry of the Leonel Rugama Cultural Movement, hundreds of young Christians held festivals on April 19 in the departments of Esteli, Leon, Masaya, Granada, Carazo, Matagalpa Centro, Central Zelaya and Chontales, Granada, Carazo, Matagalpa Centro, Zelaya Central and Chontales celebrating the National Day of Peace. During the Festivals, the young leaders of the different Christian denominations performed Christian theater, presentations of dance groups, praise and mariachis, promoted messages of love to others, celebrating the peace that is lived in Nicaragua. (La Primerisima, 20 April 2025).

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-meet-the-was ... -americans

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NicaNotes: You Were Allowed to Have the Rights You Had Never Been Allowed to Have!
May 1, 2025
An interview with Harold Urbina by Ken Yale

[Ken Yale is an anti-imperialist activist and independent journalist who participated in Casa Benjamin Linder’s “Women: Power and Protagonism” delegation to Nicaragua in March of 2025. While there, he interviewed Harold Urbina, a part of the team of the Jubilee House Community and Casa Benjamin Linder, which is a project for art, education and solidarity.]


Members of the delegation met with women at the Arlen Siu Maternity Wait Home in El Sauce. Harold Urbina is standing, second from left; Ken Yale is standing, sixth from right. Photo: Casa Benjamin Linder.

Ken Yale: Could you tell us about your family, your educational background, and some of the people who influenced you as a young person in Nicaragua.

Harold Urbina: I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Managua, close to Monseñor Lezcano neighborhood. And I attended a public school for my primary education, and then I also went to a public school for my secondary education. When I was 10 years old, I decided to become a member of what was called at that time, the Sandinista Children Association, Asociación de Niños Sandinistas (ANS). It was named after Luis Alfonso Velasquez, who was a child, a boy who was killed by the National Guard of Somoza back in the 70’s. This boy, Luis Alfonso, became a national hero, and the child symbol of the Sandinista Revolution. And I was proud to be a member of the ANS, of this association. I was an active member when I was in fifth and sixth grades in 1983 and 1984.

And I also have to say that another big influence for becoming a member of the Sandinista Front since I was a child was the fact that I was able to witness the impact on Nicaraguan society of the National Literacy Campaign. I could interact with some of my neighbors and friends who were older because at the time of the triumph of the revolution, I was only six years old, and by the time that the National Literacy Crusade took place, I was only seven. But I could see my friends returning from the mountains saying, “Oh, it’s a whole new world that we have just discovered. We just realized how the rural areas and the cities were separated by the dictatorship. So now we know how they produce for us. Now we know how the gallo pinto [rice and beans] that we eat every day at home is produced. Now we know every time we drink a cup of coffee how hard it is for them to produce that coffee in the mountains.” So, I was understanding things that I wasn’t able to realize before, and that impacted me as well.

So, I decided to join the party. Not a party exactly, because at that time, the Sandinista Front was in the process of making its transition from a guerilla movement into a political party. But anyway, I understood that the Sandinista leadership, the one that was leading the revolution in the National Literacy Crusade, was also connected to another huge, huge improvement in the life of the Nicaraguan people, which was the agrarian reform. I saw a lot of small farmers, for the first time in their lives, being allowed to have a piece of land. And you can imagine how it was a huge change in the lives of people having a piece of land and being allowed to learn how to read and write. So obviously, for any nation in the world, it is a big change. So, the very start of the revolution was something that was having an impact, an impact on people’s life, because it was like coming from having nothing into another situation in which you were allowed to have the rights you had never been allowed to have. So, I was really happy to support that process.

But I also have to mention things at school. I started to learn about Nicaraguan history. I was inspired by the ideas of Sandino and the ideas of Carlos Fonseca, the founder of the Sandinista Front. I didn’t have that information available before, so I was like discovering a new world, and I was happy to be part of that.

Ken Yale: Let me go back for a minute just to place this in history. So what year was the Literacy Campaign and roughly what year was the Agrarian Reform?

Harold Urbina: Okay, both the Agrarian reform and the Literacy Campaign, took place in 1980. The year before, in 1979 we had the triumph of the revolution. And I have to tell you this. I was only six years old, but I still remember today, as if it was yesterday. I was sent by my mother to the corner in my neighborhood to buy tortillas. And when I was right there buying the tortillas for my house, I saw a man who came into the house wearing a red and black bandana covering his face, and he said, “We won, the march to victory will never end.” Él dijo: “Ganamos, la marcha hacia la victoria no se detiene.”

I wasn’t able to understand the political background of that moment, but I could see the happiness on the faces of the people, and I could see how each person inside that house came to this man and they were all giving him hugs and celebrating. I knew it was something very big, important. So I went back to my place, and when I was walking back home, I stopped on the corner to see the parade of guerilla fighters. They were all coming from, I assume from Leon, because my house is located in the western part of Managua in district number two. I could see hundreds of youngsters on top of tanks and pickup trucks and different kinds of vehicles. And they were all screaming, celebrating, and people were standing in both sides of the street, welcoming them.

Then, I went into my house and I saw my family members together around a small 12 inch black and white television, and I was able to see the first speeches of the revolution on that day. I wasn’t able to understand the content of the speech at that time, but I could see again the happiness on the faces of my family, so I knew it was something powerful. And I think that’s the moment I became engaged with the revolution. Obviously, later I was able to learn a lot more. But I think that specific moment marked my life in a way. And again, then the next year, in 1980 we have the agrarian reform and the Literacy Campaign, both processes were together. I think that was a good strategy that we used because it impacted the life of people, both processes at the same time.

….

Ken Yale: So just to be clear, when you say the revolution won in 1979, just very briefly explain what that means. Who was it that won, and who was it that was defeated?

Harold Urbina: The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua for almost 50 years, because they were in power, supported by the US, from 1934 until 1979, when we had the triumph of the revolution. And when I’m talking about the triumph of the revolution, I mean that Sandinista Front that was a guerrilla movement founded in 1961 similar to the national liberation movements around the world such as in Asia, Africa, and in other parts of the world, where people were still living as colonies from Europe. It was the same here in Nicaragua. We were talking about the national liberation of Nicaragua. FSLN, in Spanish, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, (in English it is the Sandinista National Liberation Front), is the name of the guerrilla movement that we founded, inspired by Sandino’s ideas.

Santos Lopez, who was a general of Sandino’s army, met Carlos Fonseca, and he was able to transfer the political and ideological legacy of Sandino to Carlos Fonseca. And the Sandinista Front was not only inspired by Sandino’s legacy; it was also Inspired by Marxism and all of the socialist ideas of the revolution in the Soviet Union. In fact, Carlos Fonseca went to Moscow at the end of the 50s, and he returned to Nicaragua inspired. Carlos Fonseca also visited Cuba many times. Many of the leaders of the Sandinista Revolution were trained in Cuba.

So, there was a political influence by Marxism. But the Sandinista Revolution was not only inspired by Marxism; it was also inspired by liberation theology. Many Christians became supporters of the Sandinista Front. And that’s how, in the 60’s, we were already working in the direction of thinking about educating people, and we were using the different tools of popular education to transfer knowledge to the people. Because the principle of popular education is that when you have a community or a population that is educated, they can transform, they can understand, reflect on the life they have, and transform reality. We understood from the very beginning that education is power, and that a population that is well informed is able to make better decisions. And this combination of Marxism with the positive values of Christianity, and all of the person-to-person support, based on the Christian values of solidarity, all of these combined, I think were key factors that contributed to the growing development of the Sandinista Front in the 60’s and 70’s.

And I can also mention that in 1978 there was an important action by the Sandinista Front. The members of the legislature [Senate and Chamber of Deputies in joint session] at that time were all taken hostage by a special group or cell of the Sandinista Front. And, as a result, many of the leaders of the Sandinista Front who were in prison were released. It was a way for the Sandinista Front to recover from many different actions in previous years when the Sandinista fighters had been massacred by the National Guard.

And before the 1970’s, I have to mention something really, really important, there is a national hero whose name was Julio Buitrago. In 1969, Julio Buitrago was a 25-year-old who was the best student of the School of Law at that time here in Managua. He was a leader of the urban resistance of the Sandinista Front, and he was organizing the resistance in the neighborhoods of Managua. But he was detected by the National Guard when he was hiding in a safe house. He was so committed to the struggle that he told the comrades that were with him operating in this group to go; they should escape.



“We didn’t care about Spider Man, Superman, Batman, or all of these cartoon characters when we already had Julio Buitrago, a real hero.”

And he stayed. It was a house with a second floor and he had a machine gun. He was aware that the National Guard was outside the house. But what he didn’t know was that the National Guard thought it was a big group of Sandinistas inside the house. They called in full support and there were many Jeeps and other National Guard vehicles outside the house. They even brought in a tank and a plane to bomb the house. But Somoza made a mistake: he invited journalists from local and international media to come and give coverage live, to broadcast live what was an action of the National Guard in order to protect the Nicaraguan population from a terrorist group, because that’s what they were calling the Sandinista Front back in the 60’s and 70’s.

So, a lot of journalists came to cover the action. And when they were finally able to complete the action, when the house was destroyed totally, they entered the house, and they only found Julio Buitrago, who was this 25-year-old young man. He was basically massacred alone. And outside there were more than 200 National Guard soldiers. So, it was hundreds of soldiers, the tank and the airplane, all of this movement for attacking only one person. The result for the Somoza dictatorship was the opposite. People realized the high level of repression. On Julio’s body they found a lot of documentation, a lot of papers talking about Somoza and how he was repressing the Nicaraguan people.

So instead of being a benefit, it was something that affected the dictatorship. And for most kids in Nicaragua, Julio Buitrago became like a real hero, because it was in the news, and we were just thinking, “Oh, one boy against hundreds of National Guards, one person.” So, yeah, it had a big influence on most people. And if you go to the museum of Julio Buitrago, which is located in the western part of Managua, the same district where I live, district number two, you will see that on one of the walls, there’s a poster with a quote from President Daniel Ortega saying, “I still remember when Managua kids were playing on the street and some of them were doing role play. And one of the characters they were using for the role play was Julio Buitrago.” They were saying, “Oh, I want to play Julio Buitrago,” because they knew what happened.

So, I think in my own case, he’s one of my heroes. We didn’t care about Spider Man, Superman, Batman, or all of these cartoon characters when we already had Julio Buitrago, a real hero. And I think that inspired me. And politically, as I said, if we want a list of top actions representing the Sandinista Front before 1979, we can think of the 15 of July, 1969, when Julio Buitrago was killed, and then the 22nd of August, 1978, when the legislature was taken by the Sandinista Front.

* * * * *

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy
Nicaragua’s World Court Case against Germany Continues
Nicaragua’s Co-President Rosario Murillo said on April 28 that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has confirmed that the case filed by Nicaragua against Germany is still pending and appears in the general list. Nicaragua maintains that Germany’s actions, including its support for Israel through military aid and other forms of assistance, are facilitating or enabling actions that constitute genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law.

Murillo explained that Dr. Carlos Argüello, Nicaragua’s representative to the World Court, received a note from the Court stating that “having duly considered the various communications received from the parties on the status of the proceedings, it has decided that the aforementioned case is still pending, therefore, it is on the general list.” “So, with this good news, we are resuming our participation in the International Court of Justice, to claim breaches of international obligations with respect to the occupied Palestinian territory, in the case of Germany,” she added.

She also said that, in June, Nicaragua’s participation in the case filed by South Africa before the Court will also resume. (La Primerisima, 28 April 2025)

2025 Marks Fifth Consecutive Year of Economic Growth
Despite global challenges stemming from the new US tariff policy, Nicaragua is poised to maintain sustained economic growth for the fifth consecutive year in 2025, according to projections by international and national organizations. The IMF projects an economic growth of 3.2%, the World Bank 3.4%, and the Central Bank of Nicaragua 3-4%, projections that reflect Nicaragua’s macroeconomic stability, backed by solid economic policies, a well-capitalized banking sector and record international reserves that reached US$6.6 billion as of March 31, 2025. Nicaragua has consolidated a period of remarkable economic dynamism, accumulating Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 22.3% between 2021 and 2024, according to official data.

Such an achievement, driven by a spectacular rebound of 10.3% in 2021, followed by sustained increases of 3.8% in 2022, 4.6% in 2023 and 3.6% in 2024 reflects the resilience and stability of the Nicaraguan economy. The economic take-off that began in 2021 marked a milestone for the country, with double-digit growth that positioned it as one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America following the impacts of the pandemic. The rebound was followed by three years of steady expansion, consolidating Nicaragua as a benchmark for sustained growth in the region. (La Primerisima, 29 April 2025)

1,700 Inmates to Live with Their Families
Co-President Rosario Murillo announced that, on May 4, 1,700 prisoners from the different penitentiaries of the country will be granted what is known in Nicaragua as family coexistence. She said that 159 women and 1,541 men will return to their homes, to their families, to an opportunity for a new life, committed to work, security and peace. Of these, 606 are from the Tipitapa prison, 300 from Matagalpa, 274 from Granada, 154 from Chinandega, 111 from Juigalpa, 97 from León, 84 from Estelí and 74 from Bluefields. Murillo went on to say that “All human beings are worthy, and we have the right to new paths, to rectify mistakes, conduct and undertake new paths, ensuring work, peace, harmony in our blessed Nicaragua.” (La Primerisima, 25 April 2025)

First CT Scanner on the South Caribbean Coast
A modern computer tomography machine (CT scanner) was inaugurated on April 24 by Bluefields authorities and Japanese Ambassador Masahiro Ogino at the Ernesto Sequeira Regional Hospital, strengthening the public health system in the Southern Caribbean. The equipment will allow more accurate diagnoses and timely medical attention for thousands of families. The unit where the CT scanner has been installed bears the name of Beverly Johnson Taylor, heroine of the community of Orinoco, municipality of Laguna de Perlas. Beverly was killed by counterrevolutionaries in the Tasbapounie community on May 5, 1985 along with her father, Alborth Johnson. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/primer-t ... aribe-sur/ (La Primerisima, 24 April 2025)

CABEI Strengthens Regional Energy Integration
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) will allocate US$37 million for the Second Circuit of the Electrical Interconnection System of Central American Countries (SIEPAC) Project, a key initiative to strengthen the regional electricity market for the benefit of 50 million people. The total cost of the project amounts to US$46.4 million, of which US$37.2 million will be financed by CABEI and more than US$9.2 million by the Empresa Propietaria de la Red (EPR–the public-private Central American electricity company) and thus strengthen the electric power transmission capacity of the Central American electrical system.

The project will increase the minimum international interchange operating capacity by 300 MW in the interconnection sections between Honduras and Nicaragua, and between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The project includes the construction of 301.8 kilometers of 230 kV transmission lines and the expansion of four strategic substations: Agua Caliente (Honduras), Sandino (Nicaragua), La Virgen (Nicaragua) and Fortuna (Costa Rica). In addition, the existing infrastructure of the Central American countries’ electrical interconnection system will be optimized to guarantee a reliable, affordable and quality electricity supply. CABEI Executive President, Gisela Sánchez, expressed her pride in the Bank’s role in this important project: “At CABEI, we are deeply honored to have been selected by the EPR as the financial institution that will make this regional integration project possible. We are the Bank that knows the region best, the one that has been present at every step of Central American development, and the one that will guarantee that this project is executed with the highest standards of quality and efficiency as a commitment to the future of Central America.” (La Primerisima, 28 April 2025)

Nicaragua Attends IMF and World Bank Meetings
The President of the Central Bank of Nicaragua (BCN), Ovidio Reyes, participated in the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) 2025, from April 21-26, 2025. According to a press release, within the framework of these meetings, the president of the BCN held a meeting with the IMF Mission Chief for Nicaragua, Alina Carare, and other officials of that institution with whom he discussed the work plan for the current year. The Nicaraguan officials also held important meetings with numerous other high ranking World Bank and IMF officials along with central bankers and finance ministers from the other Latin American countries. These meetings addressed Nicaragua’s and the region’s economic situation and outlook, as well as issues related to Nicaragua’s work agenda with the financial institutions for the rest of this year. (La Primerisima, 28 April 2025)

Sandinistas Highlight Country’s Progress for European Solidarity
A delegation of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), headed by Supreme Electoral Council President Brenda Rocha and Minister-Advisor on International Relations Orlando Tardencilla, participated on April 26 in a virtual meeting with the platform for Spanish solidarity with Nicaragua, from San Bernardo, Madrid. The FSLN delegation during its intervention requested that the meeting be dedicated to the thousands of innocent martyrs of the criminal aggression of the State of Israel against the people of Gaza. The Nicaraguan presenters then recalled that they came from centuries of struggle against empires and said that today they are moving forward with firm steps and concrete achievements including an economy that grows with social justice as its goal; infrastructure projects that reach every corner of the country; clean and renewable energy that supplies more than 75% of national consumption; free, dignified and humane health care; and free, universal and emancipatory education. (La Primerisima, 25 April 2025)

Successful Perinatal Mega-Fair in North Caribbean Region
More than 3,000 pregnant women received medical attention in the perinatal mega-fair, held on April 26 by the Sandinista Government in the Oswaldo Padilla Primary Hospital in the municipality of Waspam, Río Coco, North Caribbean Region. Almost 1,000 women from the 115 communities located along the banks of the Río Coco arrived starting Friday in the city of Waspam. Just from the municipalities of Puerto Cabezas and Prinzapolka, more than 1,700 women travelled to Waspam in a long caravan of buses. More than 100 medical specialists, nurses, assistants and health technicians from different hospitals in the country provided medical services focused on maternal and gynecological health, as part of a day organized to ensure the welfare of mothers and their babies. Minister of Health Dr. Sonia Castro pointed out that, previously, women had to bear the cost of being attended by perinatal specialists. However, thanks to this initiative, they do not have to pay a single Córdoba, since all services are covered by the government. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/exitosa- ... ibe-norte/ (La Primerisima, 26 April 2025)

LACTONIC Exports 848,000 Pounds of Dairy Products per Month
Cruz y Medal y Compañía Limitada “LACTONIC”, located in the department of Río San Juan, is a dairy company of Nicaraguan-Salvadoran capital, which began operations in 2014. The company specializes in the daily collection and processing of 17,000 gallons of milk per month and monthly export of 848 thousand pounds of dairy products including different cheeses destined for El Salvador and the United States. This company currently provides direct employment to 60 families in San Miguelito and collects milk from 917 producers on 22 collection routes in San Carlos, Morrito, El Almendro, and San Miguelito. The Ministry of the Environment (MARENA) provides technical assistance for its wastewater treatment plant, to make sure that water it discharges into the environment is properly treated, thus ensuring the protection of water sources. Among its environmental initiatives, in 2024 LACTONIC, together with community members, reforested in the surroundings of San Miguelito with 5,000 forest and fruit plants, donated by MARENA and the mayor’s office, as a contribution to the “Verde, Que Te Quiero Verde” (Green, I Want You Green) National Campaign. With these supportive actions, the government demonstrates its support for industries that stimulate the national economy, while respecting the ecological balance of Mother Earth. (La Primerisima, 29 April 2025)

Somotillo Opens Modern Hospital
On April 29 the Sandinista Government will inaugurate the rehabilitation and equiping of the Raymundo García Hospital in Somotillo, in the department of Chinandega. This hospital will be able to attend to the needs of the population of 35,000 under better conditions. The remodeling work included: expansion of emergency areas, a fever unit, the labor and delivery, a shock area, operating room, and a laboratory. A warehouse was built to store supplies and equipment for vector control. The investment amounted US$1.9 million with funds from the National Treasury. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/somotill ... -hospital/ (Radio La Primerisima, 28 April 2025)

Garífunas Dazzled San Marcos and Diriamba
A Caribbean carnival thrilled the inhabitants of Diriamba and San Marcos who enjoyed Garifuna dances, food, and products of the artisans of one of the six ethnic groups that make up the Nicaraguan nation. On April 26 and 27, the Garifuna delegation was in the department of Carazo, as part of a cultural exchange, taking advantage of the traditional and cultural festivities of San Marcos. The Garifuna carnival paraded through the main streets of Diriamba and San Marcos, while the artisans offered their products that especially distinguish this area of the Nicaraguan Caribbean. Gifiti, the famous herbal liqueur prepared by the Garifuna, caused special interest. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/caribeno ... -diriamba/ (La Primerisima, 27 April 2025)

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NicaNotes: Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition Responds to UN Request for Evidence on Effects of Sanctions

[The UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures (or sanctions) made a global request for evidence on unilateral coercive measures and humanitarian action. Given that sanctions against Nicaragua are having a considerable effect on the Nicaraguan government’s humanitarian work, the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition made a submission to the inquiry on May 1st.]


Anti-sanctions poster shows Nicaragua’s flag and national flower, the Sacuanjoche (Plumeria rubra). Graphic: Quixote Center

Response from the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition

The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition is an international coalition of organizations and individuals in solidarity with Nicaragua, supporting its sovereignty and affirming its achievements. We are not affiliated with any governmental entity of any nation. The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition thanks the Special Rapporteur for her request for input from this civil society organization.

Nicaragua has been subject to illegal unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) since mid-2018, initially imposed by the US government and then followed by other countries allied to the US. This has impacted disaster assistance and development aid. Our submission is organized around the following points:

A summary of the UCMs imposed on Nicaragua by the United States (US)
How the UCMs hindered Nicaragua’s access to COVID-19 vaccines and supplies during the pandemic
How the UCMs limited aid to Nicaragua in the aftermath of two of the strongest hurricanes in Central America’s history in November of 2020
How UCMs blocking development aid have denied Nicaraguans the right to development at the level they should be enjoying
A recommendation regarding UCMs and humanitarian action.
Summary of UCMs imposed on Nicaragua since 2018

Around mid-2018, the US government began to impose “targeted” sanctions on Nicaraguan government officials under the Global Magnitsky Act, placing over 60 individuals on the US Treasury’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (the SDN list) by 2023, and many more since then (the EU, UK and Canada have also sanctioned individual Nicaraguans). While this harmed few officials personally since they do not hold assets in the US, it hurt their institutions and the services provided to Nicaraguan citizens. For example, the sanctioning of the then Minister of Health Sonia Castro, one of the most popular and effective public officials in the country, required her replacement because she could no longer conduct needed transactions with foreign entities. As former Minister of Finance Iván Acosta testified to the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism on 3 June 2023, “The real purpose of these measures is to break the institutional structure of the country and diminish its ability to generate goods and services to meet the needs of the Nicaraguan people.”

There were other impacts from US pressures, such as the beginning of a significant contraction in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Nicaragua, especially from US persons, a sign of “overcompliance” with the measures. According to Minister Acosta, reduced FDI is also due to “intimidation and disinformation” from the US. After a US-funded coup attempt against the Nicaraguan government in mid-2018, from which the economy suffered tremendous economic damage, the government requested funding from the IMF (with which it had an excellent reputation) to help the country’s economy recovery, but was told privately that the US would not allow it and so no loan facility was offered.

In December 2018, the US Congress passed the NICA Act which directs US representatives at International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to veto loans for Nicaragua. This meant that the four-year program strategy adopted by the World Bank for Nicaragua in early 2018 could not be implemented. The US subsequently blocked funding at several other IFIs. Seven years later, most of the previously approved projects in education, health, energy, and other development areas have been completed and no new development projects have been approved. A 2023 interview with former Minister Acosta revealed that the annual cost to Nicaragua from this loss of funding was over $500 million, even though the IFIs were well aware of the quality and transparency of their portfolios in the country, and of Nicaragua’s high reliance on development assistance given that it is the country with the second lowest GDP per capita in the Americas.

In November of 2021 the US Congress passed the RENACER Act, which reaffirmed the provisions of the NICA Act, asked Congress to consider removal of Nicaragua from the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) which is crucial to Nicaragua’s economy), and opened the door to more sanctions. During the 2023-2024 Congressional session, a bill was introduced to reaffirm the NICA Act’s blocking of multilateral loans; to propose broad sector sanctions on Nicaragua’s beef, sugar, coffee, and gold industries; to attempt Nicaragua’s removal from DR-CAFTA; to seek to block loans from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), of which the US is not a member and which has come to be Nicaragua’s main source of development funding; and to prevent any investment in Nicaragua by US persons. The bill did not pass during that session, but there are indications it may be refiled in the current session. If passed, it would be devastating to the Nicaraguan economy as the US remains Nicaragua’s largest trading partner. In the meantime, US executive orders have renewed past sanctions, imposed new ones on the gold sector, and limited Nicaragua’s sugar exports to the US.

How UCMs hindered Nicaragua’s COVID-19 pandemic response

In testimony to the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism, former Minister of Health Sonia Castro said [about how sanctions limited COVID-19 response],

We faced limited access to ventilators, vaccines, healthcare supplies, and medications to treat the disease.

The United States and other imperialist countries, with their nefarious and harmful foreign policy, perpetrated acts against humanity at critical moments during the pandemic, by hoarding medical equipment and personal protection equipment. The cost of these items increased by 10 to 20 times compared to normal prices.

We sought financing from multilateral organizations to cover the costs of the pandemic, but were not successful until one year later. Then we were required to designate “predetermined” agencies to administer the funds, which caused delays in procurement processes and obliged us to pay the high overhead fees of those agencies.

The hoarding of COVID-19 vaccines by the United States and other developed countries, who stored more vaccine than what was needed for their own populations, created a shortage. It bears mention that Nicaragua was not among the countries chosen by the United States to receive vaccine doses.

Unlike neighboring countries in the region, Nicaragua received no early vaccine donations from the US. Despite having a well-structured system for vaccinating whole communities, its efforts were delayed until vaccine supplies could be obtained via the WHO’s COVAX mechanism and then via other countries such as India, Panama, Russia and Cuba. Vaccination then advanced rapidly via Nicaragua’s community-based health system, where teams ensured that 86% of the population was fully vaccinated by the autumn of 2022, the highest rate in Central America, and 91% had received at least one dose. Many of those who contracted the virus in 2021, including some who died, might have fared better if the government had had access to vaccine doses at the same time as countries not facing UCMs.

How UCMs limited aid to Nicaragua in the aftermath of Hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020

In November of 2020, two of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit Central America landed on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. Eta and Iota, category 4 and 5 storms, cost little loss of life in Nicaragua due to the government’s robust preparedness, evacuation, and response measures. Countries hit secondarily, including Honduras and Guatemala, were less prepared, offered meager assistance to their populations, and had more significant loss of life. These Northern Triangle countries received extensive disaster assistance and funding after the storms. For Nicaragua, which had borne the brunt of both storms on its vulnerable and high-poverty Caribbean coast, there was minimal aid compared to what was bestowed on its neighbors. Some modest aid was finally approved for hurricane relief and COVID vaccines in Nicaragua during the first half of 2021.

World Bank funding after Hurricanes Eta and Iota was $150 million for Honduras and $60 million for Nicaragua; Nicaragua’s amount was raised to $80 million in February of 2021 as the Bank recognized Nicaragua’s good performance in disaster risk management (DRM) around the storms. Nicaragua suffered damages estimated at $990 million.

How UCMs blocking development aid deny Nicaraguans the right to development

Clearly the most impactful coercive measures on Nicaragua have been those which limit the country’s access to international development funding. As Nicaragua has the second lowest GDP per capita in the Americas, it is a priority country for IFI lending and this aid should be seen as humanitarian assistance. Former Minister of Finance Iván Acosta offered compelling testimony about the impact this has had on the country’s efforts to bring development and prosperity to the population:

*At least 26 projects (from the IDB, World Bank, EXIMBANK, Korea, and the European Investment Bank), have been impacted by the coercive measures, for an overall value of US$1,418,300,000 (over US$1.4 billion). There has been a contraction of loans from an average of US$819.44 [million] during the 2014-2017 period to US$291.09 [million] from 2018-2021. Among the sectors most impacted are: development of production on the Caribbean Coast; school food programs for vulnerable populations; comprehensive child development programs; access to drinking water in rural areas; and assistance for chains of production and the retrofitting of production.

*At the World Bank, the US vetoed a study for the Dry Corridor (impacted by climate change) that was to result in approximately US$80 million in aid and would have directly benefited 800,000 people living in that area. In doing so, they betrayed their slogan of fighting poverty and bringing shared prosperity, as well as the Bank’s founding commitment to respect people’s human rights. Still, our government has not stopped its efforts to aid people in the Dry Corridor.

*Together with the now extinct Lima Group, the US paralyzed important IDB projects that were in the portfolio to be funded for Nicaragua, such as the Esperanza-Wapí Road and the Bilwi wharf (Bilwi’s wooden wharf was destroyed in 2020 by the two hurricanes, and this is a very important public good for communities of the Caribbean Coast). The US accomplished this at the IDB by using its veto power to prevent the country strategy (which expired in 2017) from being updated, denying our people the US$1 billion they would have received. This is despite the fact that our government has been one of the IDB’s best clients. Between 2010 and 2017 we signed agreements for US$1.124 billion; From 2018-2022, the amount was only US$43 million.

*This money would have been used to build 265 kilometers of new roads; four hospitals for an approximate cost of US$62 million each; and improved drinking water systems for the main cities in two departments.

The Minister also provided details about how the Nicaraguan population has benefited from IFI development aid since 2007:

*In the electricity sector, we have brought electricity to the most remote communities in the country, achieving over 99.2% coverage nationally.

*Nicaragua has the best free-of-charge public hospital network in Central America. Between 2007-2022 we built, repaired, expanded, improved, or equipped 1,250 health facilities. By the end of 2022 we had vaccinated almost 6.2 million people with at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine (96.45% of the population over age 2), and more than 5.9 million people have had the complete primary series of shots, some with boosters (92.98% of the population).

*We have guaranteed access to free, universal education by ensuring the enrollment of 1.8 million students at the preschool, primary, and secondary levels, as well as education for youth and adults and special education and literacy. And we deliver 1.2 million school lunches. We have also increased technical career offerings from 41 in 2016 to over 60 in 2022.

*Our tourism sector has regained its footing, as we received 817,905 tourists in 2022 (a 267.7% increase over 2021).

*We have built or refurbished over 1,350 municipal spaces for the enjoyment of everyone. And we will go on to build 1,500 municipal recreation infrastructure projects (this includes theme parks and natural parks, and community and children’s recreation areas), with over C$1.6 billion Córdobas in investment.

*Our strategies for national security and citizen’s safety, and our firewall against organized crime, are based on strong collaboration between residents of neighborhoods and communities and the forces of law and order to ensure their own safety. In other words, it is basically a community-based policing model in which Community Assemblies play an essential role, which has made it possible to reduce the homicide rate from 13.4/100,000 population in 2005 to 7.0 in 2022.

*As regards social security, we have defended and maintained retirees’ pensions and all enrollee health benefits, despite the harm caused by the failed coup attempt (of 2018). Thanks to the active participation of workers and patriotic business owners (particularly SMEs [small and medium enterprises]), and to the government’s fiscal and budgetary policies, the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS) closed the year 2022 with 806,583 active enrollees (a 6.7% increase over 2018); and pensions were paid to 322,371 retirees (a 20.9% increase over 2018).

*We have issued more than 600,000 property deeds, thus ensuring legal certainty over the property people own.

*We have made in-person visits to more than 2.5 million families to strengthen and protect peace and discuss issues to help them fully enjoy the rights to which everyone is entitled.

*We have guaranteed healthcare, food, and shelter for all families impacted by natural disasters.

*We have almost doubled the country’s paved roadways. Our roads are ranked as the best in Central America.

*We have increased household drinking water coverage in urban areas from 65% in 2007 to 93% in 2022, while sanitary sewer coverage went from 33% to 50%. This means 1.6 million more Nicaraguans were given clean drinking water and 1.5 million were given proper sewers. In rural areas, drinking water coverage increased from 26.7% of households in 2007 to 55% in 2022, bringing new drinking water services to more than 534,000 people and bringing piped water into over 86,000 more homes. During the same period, sanitation services increased from 36.1% to 49.7%, serving 401,000 additional people.

At the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, we also know that these advances go hand-in-hand with improvements to Nicaragua’s Human Development Index. Nicaragua was one of the first countries to achieve the Millenium Development Goals and is doing well with the Sustainable Development Goals. It has made impressive progress in reducing maternal and infant mortality, eradicating child malnutrition, reducing poverty, and bringing more rights and better living conditions to women, Afro-descendants, and Indigenous peoples. Please visit the “At a Glance” page on our website for more information about the progress being made for a majority of Nicaraguans since 2007.

These are the programs being impacted by sanctions on Nicaragua. While ostensibly aimed at the government itself, UCMs prevent Nicaragua’s low-income households from enjoying full humanitarian action by the government as part of its very well-developed National Development Plan 2021-2026. Since 2007, Nicaragua has produced an updated development plan every 4 to 5 years based on the evaluations of previous plans. As a result, the government has made tremendous progress in reducing poverty and extreme poverty, but inevitably this has not been as fast or as effective as it might have been in the absence of UCMs.

A recommendation regarding UCMs and humanitarian action

In the situation of Nicaragua, UCMs have been a severe hindrance to humanitarian assistance in times of emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and two exceptional hurricanes. They have also been a constant obstacle to human development in the country, particularly development facilitated by government programs aimed at supporting the needs of the population and especially of its poorest communities. In fact, we cannot imagine a situation in which UCMs would be compatible with humanitarian action. Therefore, we urge the Special Rapporteur and the United Nations system to do everything within their power to condemn, forbid, and end the use of economic coercive measures.

The UN General Assembly, the organization’s highest decision-making body, has clearly condemned the use of UCMs. However, as in the case of Nicaragua, political manipulation of some UN bodies, such as the Human Rights Council, has led to recommendations that violate the UN’s own policies. For example, the so-called “Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua” (the “GHREN”) has recommended the continuance and further use of UCMs in several of its reports, including the one issued in February of this year. That document called on governments to “expand legal actions and sanctions” against individuals and entities linked to the Nicaraguan government. Such wording legitimizes UCMs and perpetuates and intensifies the problems identified in this submission.

The GHREN also specifically argued for Nicaragua’s treatment under the DR-CAFTA trade treaty to be conditioned on “human rights benchmarks.” Since the treaty has no such benchmarks, this is in effect an invitation to the US or other countries within DR-CAFTA to take unilateral action against Nicaragua, along the lines of recent legislative proposals in the US Congress. If such action resulted in Nicaragua’s suspension from the trade treaty, it would do immense harm to its economy and to its progress in reducing poverty and addressing the humanitarian needs of its lowest-income communities.

In conclusion, we strongly urge the United Nations to be consistent in its condemnation of the use of coercive economic measures and to ensure that its own bodies and expert groups abstain from recommending their use.

* * * * *

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy
Women in High Government Roles: Nicaragua Ranks First in the World
Nicaragua is first in the world (64.3%) in women serving as heads of ministries as of January 2025, and ranks third in the world for its share of women legislators (55%). This is according to data that the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and United Nations Women presented in their recent report entitled “Women in Politics: 2025”. In a list of about 200 countries, Nicaragua heads the top five countries with the highest representation of women at the helm of government ministries worldwide: 1. Nicaragua; 2. Finland; 3. Iceland; 4. Liechtenstein; and 5. Estonia.

In legislative representation, reflecting elections/appointments up to January 1, 2025, Nicaragua is third in the top five countries worldwide: 1. Rwanda; 2. Cuba; 3. Nicaragua; 4. Mexico; and 5. Andorra. In Cuba, women form 55.7% of the legislature, in Nicaragua 55%, and in Mexico 50.2%. Other Latin American countries also ranked relatively high in women’s representation: Costa Rica ranked 7th and Bolivia came in 8th. Only six countries in the world have achieved gender parity in their lower or single national assembly, congress, or parliament as of January 1. As a region, the Americas has the highest percentage of women in unicameral legislatures or in the lower house of a two-chamber legislature, with 35.3%, beating Europe, which ranked second with 31.8%. The world average is 27.2%. Despite the successes in women’s representation in Latin America and the Caribbean, the average of the top-ranked Americas region is brought down by the poor performances of the United States and Canada, with the United States ranking 77th in the world and Canada, 69th. (https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-libr ... s-map-2025, April 1, 2025; https://kawsachun.com/nicaragua-1-in-th ... ent-roles/
May 13, 2025)

Nicaragua: Higher on Human Development Index than Northern Triangle Nations
Nicaragua is evaluated more favorably than neighboring El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in the UN Human Development Index. It is the only one of the four countries with “high” human development, despite the fact that it is poorer than the other three. The index considers the nation’s education, health, living conditions and income to provide a measure of human development. An interesting factor is that since national income per capita is taken into account in calculating the index, Nicaragua has to be much higher in terms of health and education to have a better “score” than the other three countries. As expected, Costa Rica and Panama have higher scores (and so does Cuba, despite its very low per capita income.) The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) compiles the Human Development Index (HDI) of 193 countries in their annual Human Development Report. HDI is the most widely used indicator of human development. The UN also publishes a Gender Development Index. See this link for more details and tables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ment_Index#

Nicaraguan Representatives Attend Russia’s Victory Day Celebration
World leaders from China, Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Serbia, Slovakia, Congo, Mongolia, Armenia, Venezuelan and many others were among the guests at the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The annual May 8 commemoration of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany is one of the most important days in the Russian calendar. Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted Laureano Ortega, special envoy of Nicaraguan Co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, who is leading the delegation from Nicaragua to attend the events. A joint statement by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin went further than previous ones in directly condemning the United States saying that “Unilateral coercive measures (UCM’s), including economic sanctions, that bypass the UN Security Council, violate the UN Charter and other international laws and undermine international security interests.” [Nicaragua is a victim of US sanctions and currently is hardly able to get even small loans from the World Bank, the International Development Bank, and others. See above.] (El 19 Digital, La Primerisima, 9 May 2025)

New Days Addiction Rehabilitation Center Opens in Matagalpa
On May 9, the New Days Addiction Recovery Center was inaugurated in the community of Apante in Matagalpa. It will serve people with addictions to alcohol and/or drugs. Psychologist Blanca Vallecillo, director of the Center, said that it can work with up to 47 people at a time. This center is part of the New Days Foundation which works in coordination with the Ministry of Health. Admission to the center is voluntary; patients must be aware of their condition and have at least one week without consuming alcohol and/or drugs to enter the program. “We make a general invitation to the entire population; we are a family here; we are a team. Participants must be at least 18 years old, come voluntarily and be accompanied by their family when they enter,” said the director of the Center. The people who enter the program will have individual, group and even family therapy. (La Primerisima, 9 May 2025)

School Lunch Products Distributed in Managua Schools
On May 11, the Ministry of Education (MINED) completed the second distribution of non-perishable food for the School Integral Nutrition Program which will be prepared for 122,000 students in 600 educational centers in Managua. The basic food products are distributed four times a year to preschools, primary schools, child development centers, special education schools and others, including both primary and secondary schools in the countryside. The school lunch is a ration of daily food guaranteeing more or less 30% of the children/youth’s diet. Sergio Mercado, MINED Delegate for Managua, said, “The children learn and respond better in class and it has helped us to organize the educational community in the School Food Committees.” See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/distribu ... e-managua/ (La Primerisima, 9 May 2025)

Nicaragua Signs Four Contracts with Chinese Companies
On May 11, the delegation of Nicaraguan government officials, who are in Beijing, China, to participate in the ninth ministerial meeting of the China – CELAC Forum, signed four contracts with Chinese companies in the areas of technology, transportation and communications. The delegation is headed by presidential advisor Laureano Ortega and includes Foreign Minister Valdrack Jaentschke, Central Bank President Ovidio Reyes, and others. The parties signed an agreement to execute the Digital Connectivity Project to strengthen telecommunications in Nicaragua. A contract was also signed with China Communications Services International (CCSI) for the installation of intelligent logistics management platforms at the Julia Herrera Logistics Center in Corinto. The delegation also signed a contract with the company YUTONG for the supply of buses and municipal cleaning machinery, and a contract with the company POLY Technologies for the supply of equipment for the Nicaraguan Army to strengthen the defense of sovereignty and peace. The Nicaraguan delegation held meetings with the Chinese companies HUADIAN and POWERCHINA, with which the Tumarin and Mojolka hydroelectric projects are being developed, and with companies of the Nicaragua/China Chamber of Commerce for the development of mining, banking, industrial and commercial exchange projects. (La Primerisima, 11 May 2025)

Nicaragua Meets with Chinese Foreign Minister at China-CELAC Forum
The fourth ministerial forum of China-CELAC (Community of Latin America and Caribbean States) is being held in Beijing, China. This yearly forum facilitates communication and cooperation between China and Latin America. On May 13 President Xi Jinping vowed to boost China’s support of Latin America and the Caribbean with a new US$9 billion credit line and fresh infrastructure investment. Two-thirds of Latin American nations have joined Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure program.

A high-level meeting was held between the Nicaragua delegation and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi preceding the Forum where the Foreign Minister conveyed the greetings of President Xi Jinping to the Co-Presidents of Nicaragua and reiterated the high importance that China attaches to the relationship with Nicaragua, describing them as good friends who share a deep kinship based on common vital interests, sovereignty, international justice and mutual respect. (La Primerisima, 12 May 2025)

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Under Trump, NED to continue weaponizing “democracy” in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba
May 29, 2025

By Roger D. Harris and John Perry

(Nicaragua-based John Perry is with the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and writes for the London Review of Books, FAIR, and CovertAction. Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas, the US Peace Council, and the Venezuela Solidarity Network. This article was first published in Kawsachun News.)


After a short suspension, the National Endowment for Democracy has gotten its project funding reinstated by the Trump administration.

The brief freeze and rapid partial reinstatement of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding in early 2025 helped expose it as a US regime-change tool. Created to rebrand CIA covert operations as “democracy promotion,” the NED channels government funds to opposition groups in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, meddling in their internal affairs.

Regime change on the US agenda

In 2018, Kenneth Wollack bragged to the US Congress that the NED had given political training to 8,000 young Nicaraguans, many of whom were engaged in a failed attempt to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Wollack was praising the “democracy-promotion” work carried out by NED, of which he is now vice-chair. Carl Gershman, then president of the NED, was asked about Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who had been re-elected with an increased majority two years prior. He responded: “Time for him to go.”

Seven years later, Trump took office and it looked as if the NED’s future was endangered. On February 12, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk froze disbursement of its congressionally approved funds. Its activities stopped and its website went blank. On February 24, Richard Grenell, special envoy to Venezuela, declared that “Donald Trump is someone who does not want to make regime changes.”

Washington’s global regime-change operations were immediately impacted and over 2,000 paid US collaborating organizations temporarily defunded. A Biden-appointed judge warned of “potentially catastrophic harm” to (not in her words) US efforts to overturn foreign governments. The howl from the corporate press was deafening. The Associated Press cried: “‘Beacon of freedom’ dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither.”

However, the pause lasted barely a month. On March 10, funding was largely reinstated. The NED, which “deeply appreciated” the State Department’s volte face, then made public its current program which, in Latin America and the Caribbean alone, includes over 260 projects costing more than US$40 million.

US “soft power”

Created in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan following scandals involving the CIA’s covert funding of foreign interventions, the NED was to shift such operations to a more publicly palatable form under the guise of “democracy promotion.” As Allen Weinstein, NED’s first acting president, infamously admitted in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” In short, NED functions as a “soft power arm” of US foreign policy.

The NED disingenuously operates as a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit foundation. However, it is nearly 100% funded by annual appropriations from the US Congress and governed mainly by Washington officials or ex-officials. In reality, it is an instrument of the US state—and, arguably, of the so-called deep state. But its quasi-private status shields it from many of the disclosure requirements that typically apply to taxpayer-funded agencies.

Hence, we encounter verbal gymnastics such as those in its “Duty of Care and Public Disclosure Policies.” That document loftily proclaims: “NED holds itself to high standards of transparency and accountability.” Under a discussion of its “legacy” (with no mention of its CIA pedigree), the NGO boasts: “Transparency has always been central to NED’s identity.”

But it continues, “…transparency for oversight differs significantly from transparency for public consumption.” In other words, it is transparent to the State Department but not to the public. The latter are only offered what it euphemistically calls a “curated public listing of grants” – highly redacted and lacking in specific details.

NED enjoys a number of advantages by operating in the nether region between an accountable US government agency and a private foundation. It offers plausible deniability: the US government can use it to support groups doing its bidding abroad without direct attribution, giving Washington a defense from accusations of interference in the internal affairs of other countries. It is also more palatable for foreign institutions to partner with what is ostensibly an NGO, rather than with the US government itself.

The NED can also respond quickly if regime-change initiatives are needed in countries on Washington’s enemy list, circumventing the usual governmental budgeting procedures. And, as illustrated during that congressional presentation in 2018 on Nicaragua, NED’s activities are framed as supporting democracy, human rights, and civil society. It cynically invokes universal liberal values while promoting narrow Yankee geopolitical interests. Thus, its programs are sold as altruistic rather than imperial, and earn positive media headlines like the one from the AP cited above.

But a look at NED’s work in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba suggests very much the opposite.

Venezuela

Venezuela had passed an NGO Oversight Law in 2024. Like the US’s Foreign Agents Registration Act, but somewhat less restrictive, the law requires certification of NGOs. As even the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) – an inside-the-beltway promoter of US imperialism with a liberal gloss – admits: “Many Venezuelan organizations receiving US support have not been public about being funding recipients.”

The pace of Washington’s efforts in Venezuela temporarily slowed with the funding pause, as US-funded proxies had to focus on their own survival. Venezuelan government officials, cheering the pause, viewed the NED’s interference in their internal affairs as a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty. In contrast, the US-funded leader of the far-right opposition, Maria Corina Machado, begged for international support to make up for the shortfall from Washington.

WOLA bemoaned that the funding freeze allowed the “Maduro government to further delegitimize NGOs” paid by the US. Hundreds of US-funded organizations, they lamented, “now face the grim choice of going underground, relocating abroad, or shutting down operations altogether.”

With the partial reinstatement of funding, now bankrolling at least 39 projects costing US$3.4 million, former US senator and present NED board member Mel Martinez praised the NED for its “tremendous presence in Venezuela… supporting the anti-Maduro movement.”

Nicaragua

Leading up to the 2018 coup attempt, the NED had funded 54 projects worth over US$4 million. Much of this went to support supposedly “independent” media, in practice little more than propaganda outlets for Nicaragua’s opposition groups. Afterward, the NED-funded online magazine Global Americans revealed that the NED had “laid the groundwork for insurrection” in Nicaragua.

One of the main beneficiaries, Confidencial, is owned by the Chamorro family, two of whose members later announced intentions to stand in Nicaragua’s 2021 elections. The family received well over US$5 million in US government funding, either from the NED or directly from USAID (now absorbed into the State Department). In 2022, Cristiana Chamorro, who handled much of this funding, was found guilty of money laundering. Her eight-year sentence was commuted to house arrest; after a few months she was given asylum in the US.

Of the 22 Nicaragua-related projects which NED has resumed funding, one third sponsor “independent” media. While the recipients’ names are undisclosed, it is almost certain that this funding is either for outlets like Confidencial (now based in Costa Rica), or else is going direct to leading opponents of the Sandinista government to pay for advertisements currently appearing in Twitter and other social media.

Cuba

In Latin America, Cuba is targeted with the highest level of NED spending – US$6.6 million covering 46 projects. One stated objective is to create “a more well-informed, critically minded citizenry,” which appears laughable to anyone who has been to Cuba and talked to ordinary people there – generally much better informed about world affairs than a typical US citizen.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez criticized the NED’s destabilizing activities, such as financing 54 anti-Cuba organizations since 2017. He advised the US administration to review “how many in that country [the US] have enriched themselves organizing destabilization and terrorism against Cuba with support from that organization.”

Washington not only restored NED funding for attacks on Cuba but, on May 15, added Cuba to the list of countries that “do not fully cooperate with its anti-terrorist efforts.”

The NED: Covert influence in the name of democracy
Anyone with a basic familiarity with the Washington’s workings is likely to be aware of the NED’s covert role. Yet the corporate media – behaving as State Department stenographers and showing no apparent embarrassment – have degenerated to the point where they regularly portray the secretly funded NED outlets as “independent” media serving the targeted countries.

Case in point: Washington Post columnist Max Boot finds it “sickening” that Trump is “trying [to] end US government support for democracy abroad.” He is concerned because astroturf “democracy promotion groups” cannot exist without the flow of US government dollars. He fears the “immense tragedy” of Trump’s executive order to cut off funding (now partially reinstated) for the US Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of the Voice of America, Radio Marti, and other propaganda outlets.

Behind the moralistic appeals to democracy promotion and free press is a defense of the US imperial project to impose itself on countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. Those sanctioned countries, targeted for regime change, need free access to food, fuel, medicines and funding for development. They don’t need to hear US propaganda beamed to them or generated locally by phonily “independent” media.

* * * * *

Briefs
By Nan McCurdy
100 New Chinese Buses Delivered to the People
On May 24, Co-President Daniel Ortega, accompanied by Chinese ambassador to Nicaragua Chen Xi, headed the ceremonies handing over 100 new buses to transportation collectives. The event was held in honor of national hero, Germán Pomares Ordóñez, a founder and member of the national directorate of the FSLN, killed two months before the triumph of the revolution. In his speech, the Chinese ambassador highlighted the long relationship between the FSLN and the Republic of China as well as the principles of solidarity and non-intervention in internal affairs that they both adhere to. He pointed out the strong bilateral relationship the two countries are developing, always with shared benefits, mutual respect and without political impositions as well as China’s support of the government’s work to end poverty. Ambassador Xi stated that these 100 buses are a donation from China. He also said that the first phase of 920 homes of the New Victories Housing Project in Managua is nearly finished; the second phase of the project will begin soon. He went on to talk about other Chinese-Nicaraguan projects like the Punta Huete International Airport, photovoltaic energy plants in San Isidro and El Hato, and the National System of Emergency Response. “This cooperation is not subject to any political condition or diplomatic imposition,” he said.

At the ceremony, Co-president Daniel Ortega shared a retrospective of Nicaragua’s economy since the neoliberal years [1990 to 2007 with three presidents] ended with the election victory in 2006 of the FSLN party alliance: He went into some detail about the 2018 conspiracy and violent coup that ended what had been a productive alliance between the government, the workers and big business owners. To finish he described how the economy was affected by the attempted coup and also how there has since been reconciliation with some of the business sector to the point that there is once again an alliance between government, workers and business. (La Primerisima, 24 May 2025 and El19, 24, May 2025)

Treasury Reports Surplus in Public Finances
The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit released public finance statistics for the month of March 2025, showing that the non-financial public sector (NFPS) presented a surplus after donations of some US$422.4 million, that is, an increase of 96.4% with respect to the surplus registered in 2024 (US$215.1 million). NFPS revenues totaled US$1.84 billion, registering a cumulative year-on-year growth of 13.5% with respect to 2024 (US$1.62), mainly as a result of the increase in tax revenues and social contributions. The NFPS total expenditure was US$1.42 million, presenting an increase of 0.8% with respect to 2024, primarily explained by the increase in salaries and social benefits. (La Primerisima, 23 May 2025)

Nicaragua has Good Credit Rating with Fitch
The Central Bank has reported that the international risk rating agency Fitch Ratings confirmed the credit rating of the Nicaragua government at “B”, with a stable outlook. According to Fitch, Nicaragua’s rating reflects its prudent fiscal policy, continuous surpluses in the fiscal balance and in the external current account, which has led to the accumulation of fiscal and international reserves. A Fitch rating is an assessment of the credit risk of an entity (such as a country, a company or a financial institution) or a financial instrument (such as a bond), granted by Fitch Ratings, one of the three main credit rating agencies in the world, along with Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s (S&P). The rating measures the issuer’s ability to meet its financial obligations, i.e., its creditworthiness and probability of default. This rating helps investors make informed decisions about the risk of investing in a certain asset or entity. Fitch noted that Nicaragua’s economic growth, which continues to be driven mainly by consumption, moderated in 2024. In addition, it observed that private investment experienced a significant increase and that public investment recovered notably. Fitch highlighted the significant reduction in inflation, the continuity of the exchange rate, the sustained growth of credit supported by the liquidity levels of the financial system and the normalization of credit supply and demand conditions. (La Primerisima, 23 May 2025)

Cuba Values the Mechnikov Institute in Managua
This year, the IX International Pharmaceutical Congress of pharmacology specialists from Russia, China, India and Cuba, was held in Managua on May 21 and 22. The director of Cuba’s Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (CECMED), Olga Lidia Jacobo, highlighted the level of preparation of the region of the Americas in the local production of medicines to face future health crises. The objective of the Congress was to establish a space for the exchange of experiences, knowledge and technologies among scientists and institutions.

Speaking to Prensa Latina, Jacobo explained that in the event of other pandemics, it will not be necessary to go to other regions of the world to look for medicines, thanks to the work of several institutions such as the Mechnikov Institute in Nicaragua. “The pandemic highlighted that need, and therefore, what the Mechnikov Institute is doing today is very important. It is bringing vaccines to this region and making them available to everyone,” she said. Jacobo, who is participating in the Russia-Nicaragua Congress, said she valued the performance of the Mechnikov Latin American Institute of Biotechnology. “They are working on the adoption of technology for the production of biotechnological products, vaccines and other biological products and this will guarantee what we are fighting so hard for, which is sanitary self-sufficiency in the region of the Americas,” she said. Regarding CECMED’s participation as Mechnikov’s regulatory agency, the director explained that it has provided comprehensive technical support during the process of installation, validation and start-up of the vaccine plant in Managua. “We evaluated the quality of the transferred processes, guided compliance with good manufacturing practices according to international standards and contributed to establishing a robust regulatory culture from the beginning of the project,” she said. Jacobo underscored the potential impact of Mechnikov as a regional logistics center capable of supplying countries in Central America, the Caribbean and other markets in a timely manner, while affirming that more similar projects are needed in the region. (La Primerisima, 23 Mayo 2025)

Chinandega Center Performs Nearly 10,000 Dialysis Treatments
The Germán Pomares Ordóñez “El Danto” Hemodialysis Center in the city of Chinandega has 102 chairs and to date has provided 9,922 dialysis sessions to 225 patients with chronic kidney disease in the western part of the country. Committed to the health and welfare of the population, it was inaugurated on December 3, 2024. Currently, it continues to bring treatment closer to patients with chronic kidney disease. There are about 1,000 hemodialysis centers in Nicaragua. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/centro-d ... -sesiones/

170 Nurses Graduate in Caribbean Coast Regions
The 170 graduates with nursing degrees from the Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University (BICU) will serve the families of Laguna de Perlas, Bonanza, El Rama, Bilwi and Bluefields. The graduation was held on May 26. The nurses will work in government health centers and hospitals. Eight-nine percent are women. See photos:

https://radiolaprimerisima.com/graduan- ... ta-caribe/ (La Primerisima, 27 May 2025)

San Juan de Limay-Pueblo Nuevo Road Section Completed
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI) completed the construction of the first section of the 11-kilometer-long San Juan de Limay-Pueblo Nuevo paving stone road, which will be inaugurated this week. This road will strengthen connectivity between the departments of León, Estelí, Madriz and Nueva Segovia. It will also boost agricultural production, stimulate trade, increase the efficiency of transportation of the population as well as of goods and services, improving the living conditions of 126,457 people in this important productive area of the country. [Editor’s note: I lived in San Juan de Limay from 1985 to 1988. Before the 1979 triumph of the Sandinistas there was not a road to Limay and it was known as the tail-end of the world. The Sandinistas built a gravel road in the early 1980’s that improved travel from Limay to Estelí, the department capital. The Sandinista government has now built three good roads through Limay: one to Estelí, one to San Francisco del Norte and another to Achuapa. This will be the fourth road in another direction and an excellent example of what I would call social infrastructure given that these roads make life easier for the population. The Limay municipality is large, but the agricultural production is not great – so the roads aren’t based on business needs but on the needs of the population in the principal town and more than 30 villages.] See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/concluye ... blo-nuevo/ (La Primerisima, 26 May 2025)

New Veterinary Hospital Attends nearly 3,000 Pets
The Veterinary Hospital of the National Agrarian University (UNA) has provided more than 2,800 consultations to various species of pets since it opened its doors on April 10 providing free veterinary medical care. This Hospital is open 24 hours a day; it has done surgeries on 449 animals with good results, including post-operative treatment. In addition, it provides ultrasounds and laboratory tests, orthopedics, palliative treatment for pets with dermatological problems, deparasitation, vitamins and follow-up care. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/casi-3-m ... terinario/ (La Primerisima, 27 May 2025)

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NicaNotes: Celebrating Mothers…By Helping Them Survive!
June 5, 2025
By Becca Renk

(Becca Renk has lived and worked in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua for 25 years with the Jubilee House Community and its project, the Center for Development in Central America. Recently she participated in a webinar, “Nicaraguan Programs of Maternal & Child Health: A Cross-National Comparison.” You can watch the webinar recording here.)


Since 2007, Nicaragua has managed to reduce maternal mortality by 79.8%, reduce neonatal mortality by 62.5% and reduce infant mortality rates by 58.6%.

I gave birth to both of my daughters at home with an attending OB/GYN, a pediatrician, a nurse, my husband Paul as support, Kathleen as a doula, various other members of our community in the room, and in the case of my older daughter, also with the pet monkey Bella watching from outside the window. (“You told me it was just going to be two people,” the doctor chided me afterward, “You never mentioned the monkey!”)

At the time, in the early 2000s, it was common for Nicaraguan women to give birth at home. But unlike my neighbors, I had the privilege and resources to pay for prenatal care and to hire a doctor to attend the births. For most women, regular checkups were difficult to access, and impossible for women in rural areas who were far from health centers. Women were afraid to go to the hospital, and often opted to give birth at home with only a lay midwife and no emergency services if things went wrong. From 1990 to 2006, Nicaragua suffered under neoliberal governments which stripped the people of their basic rights – health care and education had essentially been privatized – and pregnant women in particular were affected.

Our younger daughter Orla was born in 2006, shortly after Nicaragua had once again elected a Sandinista-led government, a government which has been re-elected in three subsequent elections. President Daniel Ortega declared health care and education free again immediately upon entering office and over the 18 years of Orla’s life, we have seen how this government has set about restoring Nicaraguan’s rights with particular emphasis on women’s rights.

Last week, Nicaragua celebrated its biggest holiday. Bigger than Christmas, or Easter, or even the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It is a day when Nicaraguans celebrate the holiest of holies: their moms.

Mother’s Day in Nicaragua is on May 30th and it is a mandatory paid holiday. All around the country, people celebrated their mothers with gifts, food, cake, and pinatas. At the Nueva Vida Clinic we are preparing chop suey for 100 people and the men on staff are organizing a program replete with dance numbers. But in Nicaragua, honoring mothers is not just lip service paid one day a year. Over the past 18 years, the Nicaraguan government has honored mothers every day in tangible ways, such as taking care of women during pregnancy, birth, and beyond.

Worldwide, pregnancy and childbirth can be dangerous, but 80% of maternal deaths are entirely preventable. Nicaragua has proven this: despite being one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, since 2007 it has managed to reduce maternal mortality by 79.8%, reduce neonatal mortality by 62.5% and reduce infant mortality rates by 58.6%.

Through the country’s universal free healthcare system, all prenatal, childbirth and post-natal care in Nicaragua is offered countrywide free of charge – c-sections, premature births, neonatal ICU stays and, incredibly, even fetal surgeries are all free. Nicaragua is the only Central American country offering this type of surgery free in the public health system.

Home births like mine and so many of my neighbors are now nearly unheard-of – 97% of all births are in hospitals. In rural communities where we work, lay midwives who once attended home births have now been incorporated into the healthcare system to provide prenatal care and in-hospital birth support.

In Nicaragua, 75 hospitals have been built new or remodeled since 2007 to make giving birth in a hospital a possibility even for rural families. Respect for Nicaragua’s diverse cultures has been incorporated into new hospital birthing facilities so that Indigenous women can safely give birth squatting or standing up, the way that women in their communities have traditionally given birth.

For those who still live far from hospitals, a network of 201 maternal wait homes around the country provide space for more than 72,000 women per year to stay near a hospital for the last two weeks of their pregnancy. Food, housing and vocational training is provided free of charge, women rest and are checked by medical staff regularly, and when they go into labor they give birth safely in the hospital nearby.

Post-partum, Nicaraguan women and their babies receive free quality healthcare and working women are guaranteed full pay maternity benefits. Last month, the maternity leave law was increased from 84 days to 91 days of mandatory paid leave. Free daycare programs around the country provide care, meals and preschool for babies and children up to six years of age so their moms can work.

In fact, Nicaraguans today have much better access to perinatal care than my home state of Idaho. In March of 2023, the hospital where I was born – Bonner County General Hospital – stopped attending births. With this closure, the nearest hospital with perinatal care is now at least an hour away. But many families in rural North Idaho are low-income, lacking health insurance, and with limited access to reliable transport. For these families, the journey to the hospital might be as long as three hours in good weather and longer in a north Idaho winter. There are women and babies who are dying.

Unfortunately, while Idaho’s case is extreme, it is not alone: according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, maternal mortality rates in 2021 increased by 40 percent over the previous year across the U.S., and outcomes are uneven, with Black women disproportionately dying during pregnancy.

How is it that a Third World country like Nicaragua has better maternity care than one of the richest countries in the world?

The answer is that the Nicaraguan government has the political will to provide that care. Over the past 18 years, eradicating maternal and infant mortality has been a top priority that is carefully followed up on at all levels.

Recently I was at the local public hospital where I live in Ciudad Sandino, just outside Managua. The director was ordering exams for a 19-year-old woman who was pregnant and very close to her due date. She had just returned from the United States, where she had been working but couldn’t afford to see a doctor. She’d had no bloodwork, no ultrasounds, no prenatal care at all. She had returned to Nicaragua where she could give birth safely for free without incurring debt, but she was returning as a high-risk pregnancy due to lack of care. The hospital director personally ensured that she was transferred to the maternity hospital in Managua for specialized care.

For Nicaragua’s healthcare system, a pregnant woman or her baby dying is an unacceptable outcome, and healthcare workers at all levels take every possible measure to prevent that.

The result of this is that no pregnant women have died in Ciudad Sandino over the past three years. Nationwide, only 21 pregnant women died last year. Simply put, Nicaragua is taking every step possible to ensure that pregnant women survive to celebrate Mother’s Day.

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Briefs
By Nan McCurdy
Drinking water coverage reaches 95%
The Sandinista government, through its Nicaraguan Water and Sewer Company (ENACAL). has reached 95% drinking water coverage nationwide compared to the 65% coverage registered before 2007, Alina Lagos, executive vice-president of the institution, told INFORME PASTRÁN. ENACAL is carrying out multiple projects throughout the country, with investments of millions of dollars aimed at improving the quality of life. In the city of León, the construction of a drinking water project was completed with an investment of more than US$40 million, which includes the installation of 198 kilometers of pipelines. In addition, three wastewater treatment plants are being rehabilitated and two new ones are under construction; at 95% completion, they are scheduled to be inaugurated this year. In Chinandega, a wastewater treatment plant was recently inaugurated and is already serving several neighborhoods, while in Nandaime, more than US$5 million was invested in a drinking water project that has improved service in previously underserved neighborhoods. Other notable projects include Masaya, with investments of US$21 million in potable water and US$18 million in sanitary sewerage; and Managua, where a storage tank was built in Las Pilas with financing from Japan for US$10 million. While ENACAL reported 95% coverage in drinking water and 55% in sanitary sewerage at the end of 2024, the goal is to reach 99.1% in drinking water and between 75-80% in sanitation by 2030. (Informe Pastran, 29 May 2025)

200 Mothers Receive Lots in the Bismarck Martinez Housing Program
The Mayor’s Office of Managua will hand over deeds to property lots to women of District VI, on the occasion of Mother’s Day, reported the Co-President Rosario Murillo. “Tomorrow 200 new property lots will be delivered through the Bismarck Martinez Program in the Villa Esperanza Urbanization to mothers in honor of Mother’s Day.” She added that, “Nicaraguan mothers are brave, heroic, hardworking, they are fighters and full of hope.” Murillo also said that more than 40,000 activities are being carried out around the country in salute to Nicaraguan mothers, among which stands out the visit of mothers and family members to the eight prisons of the country as well as the cleaning of the country’s cemeteries. Nicaraguan Mother’s Day is always on May 30 and is a national holiday. (La Primerisima, 30 May 2025)

Nicaragua is Co-Founder of Global Mediation Organization
On May 30, Attorney General Wendy Morales represented Nicaragua at the founding of the International Organization for Mediation (OlMed), the first intergovernmental organization dedicated exclusively to mediation for the resolution of international disputes. China, promoter of the initiative, describes OlMed as a powerful multilateral tool that marks a turning point in the construction of a new just, peaceful, multicentric and pluripolar world order. OlMed is based on essential principles such as respect for the sovereignty of States, self-determination of peoples, good faith and legal certainty. It is the result of China’s efforts to create an intergovernmental organization dedicated to mediation and is the world’s first international intergovernmental legal organization dedicated to resolving international disputes through mediation as a peaceful means of maintaining peace based on mutual respect and understanding. About 400 high-level representatives from 85 countries and nearly 20 international organizations attended the signing ceremony. Thirty-three countries, including Nicaragua, Pakistan, Indonesia, Belarus and Cuba signed the convention on the spot, making them founding members of the IOMed. The IOMed will be headquartered in Hong Kong. (La Primerisima, 30 May 2025)

237 New Museums Created Nationwide
The government has been the driving force in the creation of seven new museums this year: the Archaeological Museum in Chinandega; Coffee Museums in the municipalities of El Crucero, El Tuma La Dalia and El Cuá; Museums of the Revolution in La Paz Centro and Mateare; and the Museum of the Birthplace of Josefa Toledo de Aguerrí in the city of Juigalpa. [Toledo de Aguerri (1866-1962) was a pioneering educator, writer, and feminist.] It was reported during the new openings, that there are now a total of 237 spaces of this type in the country, mainly museums of the Revolution, community museums, and museums about livestock and coffee agriculture. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/a-nivel- ... 37-museos/

(La Primerisima, 29 May 2025)

Photovoltaic Plant to Be Built in Nindirí
The construction of the ENESOLAR photovoltaic project in the municipality of Nindirí, Department of Masaya, will begin this week, reported Co-President Rosario Murillo.

She said that “the photovoltaic plant, ENESOLAR 3, will be built with support from the Chinese State Company CCCC.” She added that this project will have a capacity of 70 megawatts to boost ENACAL’s [the national water company] pumping systems and improve water services for the population.” Rosario reported that this project has “an investment of US$81 million with solidarity financing from the People’s Republic of China.” (La Primerisima, 2 June 2025)

New Homes for Several Families in Tipitapa
On May 30, Mother’s Day, three families from Tipitapa received the keys to their new houses leaving behind the precarious conditions in which they had lived. This is part of the program of restauration of rights promoted by the Sandinista Government through INVUR and the Mayor’s Office of Tipitapa. Nidia Ávalos, resident of the Anexo San Francisco neighborhood, was visited last December when she was still living in a small tin house with her family. On Mother’s Day, she received her new house valued at about US$9,000. In Ciudadela San Martin, Maria Anselma Hernandez lived with her daughters and grandchildren in conditions of extreme poverty. Her makeshift home is now a thing of the past after receiving her new house, given as a tribute to Nicaraguan mothers. In the Tipitapita sector, Marino Mendoza Picado, who had built a small house with pieces of tin roofing and wood, now lives in a decent house built on his own land. See before and after photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/cambia-t ... -tipitapa/ (La Primerisima, 31 May 2025)

In June 2 Speech, President Welcomes Returning Nicaraguans
On June 2, during the ceremony for the promotion of Bayardo Rodríguez (Army Chief of Staff) and Marvin Corrales (Army Inspector General) to the rank of Colonel General of the Army, President Daniel Ortega described the behavior of the US authorities against migrants in their country as fascist and expressed Nicaragua’s solidarity with all those persecuted brothers and sisters. He spoke of the suffering of the Venezuelans and Nicaraguans abroad. He condemned Donald Trump’s order of expulsion for more than 500,000 Latin American citizens. “Today I want to express our solidarity with all those persecuted and in particular the Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, who always have Nicaragua’s doors open, and who have been arriving in flights and are very well taken care of [here],” he said. “We tell them, do not think of returning to the United States again, it is a terrible what is going on there. Our solidarity is with all those families who are being persecuted. Our solidarity is with those who have returned to Nicaragua and we tell them: this is your land, this is your homeland, and here you will be able to work in peace,” he added.

The president also said that a plan will be designed with the objective of reducing deaths in streets and highways of the country. “That, I would say, is a priority, for the life and the health of Nicaraguan families, for the families of the drivers themselves because, due to high speeds, drivers perish and hit pedestrians and bikers and those who ride horses, or those who ride motorcycles. We have to make a security plan to safeguard the lives of Nicaraguans, in public and private transportation,” he said. The plan includes having much lower speed limits.

He emphasized that the construction of new hospitals is accompanied by direct attention to the population, through the Mobile Clinics that go to the neighborhoods and communities. “This is fundamental attention that we have prioritized because the first duty we have as revolutionaries, as Sandinistas, as Nicaraguans, is to watch over the lives of Nicaraguans.”

President Ortega said that “we will continue to develop the programs that have been carried out throughout these years, in all fields; in the fields of education, in the field of academic training, that is to say, from the first grades to the post grads, and the courses that have been developed, and also where we are making progress with exchange and cooperation with countries that have a great scientific development and that are already coming here to transfer knowledge.”

Ortega reiterated his commitment to peace both nationally and internationally and condemned the attacks in the Gaza Strip. The poor people are fleeing, persecuted, like the Nazi persecution against the Jews, he said.

He highlighted the joint regional efforts in security and the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime. The Nicaraguan Army has been able to establish an instrument where Central American armies can make plans to defend the security of our countries, he said. (La Primerisima, 2 June 2025)

First Section of Coastal Highway Completed
The first phase of the Coastal Highway on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast (from Masachapa to the border with Costa Rica) is divided into three sections: Section I: From Masachapa to the town of Las Salinas, with an approximate length of 67 kilometers. Section II: From the town of Las Salinas to San Juan del Sur, with a length of 38 kilometers. Section III: From San Juan del Sur to the border with Costa Rica, with a length of 36 kilometers.

The first 60 kilometers is complete; it is part of a 119-kilometer section that goes from Masachapa [about an hour’s drive from Managua] to Las Salinas and is part of the ambitious 335-kilometer initiative all along the Pacific coast which seeks to transform connectivity and boost tourism, agriculture and fishing in the region. The Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, Óscar Mojica, highlighted the immediate impact: “We are seeing a significant expansion in the flow of tourists to 64 beaches benefited in this first stage.” The road incorporates drainage systems, signage, environmental measures and sidewalks. The second phase, of 97 kilometers, will go from Masachapa to Poneloya [near Leon]; completion is scheduled for 2026. Director of Roads of the Ministry of Transportation, Harold Tellez said that 47 bridges are being built on the coastal road. “This helps us to have more confidence, more safety at the moment of passing through the areas, which historically were a flood zones.” See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/concluye ... costanera/ (La Primerisima, 3 June 2025)

New Parks and Recreational Spaces Open
Different municipalities are making progress in the improvement and construction of spaces for recreation, leisure and family enjoyment. The week of June 2 to 7, parks and recreational spaces are scheduled to open in several municipalities. In Jinotega, the beautification of the Carlos Fonseca Amador Central Park in the Mauricio Altamirano neighborhood will be completed. In Totogalpa, the construction of the second stage of the park in the Ceiba de Oro community is in progress. In San Rafael del Norte, the Urania Zelaya Park in the Luis Zeledón neighborhood is being improved and in Santa María, a green and recreational area is being built in the Rodolfo Gutiérrez neighborhood. (La Primerisima, 3 June 2025)

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-celebrating- ... em-survive

[blindpig]

Daniel Ortega Is No Bukele
June 13, 2025


Left Photo: Inmate in Nicaragua receives diploma (19 Digital). Right Photo: Inmates dehumanized in El Salvador (El Salvador Presidency handout/Anadolu/Getty Images).

By Jill Clark-Gollub – Jun 11, 2025

Ortega and Bukele are polar opposites: one invests in dignity and democracy, the other in mass incarceration and imperial alliances.

Opposition media from both Nicaragua and El Salvador, along with the Washington Post, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, all vilify Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega by equating him with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Although Ortega and Bukele are both serving consecutive terms, and a Central American polling firm reports that they enjoy high popularity among their respective populations, the two presidents actually offer a study in contrasts.

Crime and punishment
Bukele is praised for drastically reducing violence in El Salvador, but his political career is actually based on perpetuating it. First, some history. The country’s gang problem originated in the bloody US-supported war of the 1980s, including US and Israeli funding and training of death squads, that forced thousands of young men to escape forced military recruitment by fleeing to the United States. As an underclass of undocumented immigrants, and without the support of their families, many of these young men wound up in gangs on the streets of Los Angeles or in its prisons. In the mid-1990s, thousands of these gang members were deported to El Salvador, bringing violence back to a country that had just lost 75,000 lives in a brutal conflict. As Hillary Goodfriend writes, “the devastated neoliberal economic landscape proved fertile terrain for the US gang culture imported by Salvadoran youth deported from Los Angeles in the mid-1990s.” The right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) governments of the postwar years responded to the gang problem with an iron fist.

Then from 2009-2019, while the former guerrillas (Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional—FMLN) were in office, a preventive approach was attempted. Structural problems were addressed with “unprecedented increases in social spending, including critical education, health care, land, infrastructure and agricultural investment.” But these efforts were frustrated by a majority opposition legislature that limited spending on such programs, and USAID funding for a private sector approach that favored the opposition. The FMLN also made its own mistakes, including secret negotiations (along with the Catholic Church) for a gang truce, which was initially successful but politically costly once it fell apart. Still, progress was made as Salvadoran youth found more alternatives.

Nayib Bukele arrived on the national scene as the FMLN candidate for mayor of San Salvador in 2014. There has been suspicion that his political rise was based on secret deals with the gangs, and an increasing number of international media are giving details on how that worked. He is alleged to have bribed the gangs for their loyalty in that mayoral race, outbidding the ARENA candidate by a two to one margin. Bukele soon broke with the FMLN and ran against the party in the 2019 presidential election. MS-13 gang leaders are alleged to have negotiated with him prior to the vote, demanding an end to extraditions to the US, shortened sentences, and control of territory. In return they reduced the homicide rate by hiding their crimes. After Bukele’s election, the official murder rate fell, but disappearances went up. This gang also helped him get out the vote for his legislative supermajority in 2021, sometimes violently. While he colludes with the gangs in secret, the public face of Bukele’s crime policy is a return to the repression of the ARENA years.

In March 2022, Bukele instituted a state of exception which persists to this day and has led to the imprisonment of an additional 85,000 people, giving El Salvador the highest incarceration rate in the world. Several social movement leaders are among those detained without trial. Meanwhile, many Salvadorans enjoy comparative safety in the country’s streets since the gang violence is less visible and small businesses no longer have to make extortion payments. This, along with savvy manipulation of social media, has made the president extremely popular among a segment of the population, particularly voters living in the diaspora. Now Bukele has gleefully agreed to serve as an offshore jailer for Donald Trump, and seems to delight in images of dehumanized inmates in crowded cells, indicating that they will never leave. Conditions are torturous and rehabilitation is non-existent. As Alan MacLeod reports , “cruelty is the point.” And violence persists.

The photos at the top of this article show the stark contrast in attitude towards prisoners in Nicaragua vs. El Salvador. While Bukele serves cruelty and humiliation, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega focuses on human dignity and rehabilitation—particularly through education. A recent article tells of some 8,400 inmates enrolled in university studies, vocational programs, and completing primary and secondary schooling. Inmates are also allowed to work, if they so choose, and their earnings are sent to their families. Sentences are frequently reduced for good behavior. Reconciliation is a hallmark of the Sandinista movement, which abolished the death penalty in 1979. Corporate media stories about “political prisoners” are part of a US-funded propaganda campaign and should be viewed skeptically. This article gives information about the heinous crimes committed by those US media heroes.

In Nicaragua there is minimal gang activity, drug trafficking, and drug abuse. At 6 per 100,000 inhabitants, the country’s homicide rate has been declining since 2007 and is currently just below that of the US. This decrease is thanks to successful implementation of the kinds of social programs the FMLN attempted in El Salvador, which have engaged the youth and greatly reduced poverty. It has been a steady, long-term process that prioritizes the formerly impoverished majority; not an illusion for social media. People are empowered by creative programs that help farmers feed their families and communities, support entrepreneurs in starting a business, promote women’s health and safety, reinstate rights to Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples, and allow Nicaraguans of all ages to get an education. These are not changes that can easily be turned back, and are the reason that Daniel Ortega keeps getting a larger and larger percentage of the vote in each election.

NGOs
The Washington Post and Amnesty International inaccurately equate El Salvador’s new Foreign Agents Law with Nicaragua’s non-profits law. The Nicaraguan law requires organizations to report payments coming from outside the country and tell how such money is spent, prohibiting the use of foreign monies for political activity. It is meant to curtail foreign interference like the 2018 coup attempt that subjected the Nicaraguan population to three months of politically-motivated terror. This article provides detailed documentation of the extensive flow of USAID regime-change money to Nicaraguan opposition and media outlets before 2022. In a shameless admission that they are still dependent on US funding, the Nicaraguan opposition took to social media at the start of the second Trump administration to decry the crisis they had fallen into because their US funding was cut . Contrary to what the Post and Amnesty would have us believe, media outlets dependent on US government funding are not “independent.” Unfortunately, USAID/NED funding for Nicaraguan opposition media operating outside the country has already been reinstated.

El Salvador has also been targeted by USAID in the past for political purposes, including during the FMLN administrations. US meddling is less likely to target Bukele, given his close alignment with the Trump administration. Criticism of the new law’s provision to charge Salvadoran charities a 30% tax on international donations does seem valid. In Nicaragua, most charitable organizations pay a 1% administrative fee on international donations, while the wealthiest charities pay up to 3%—a far cry from Bukele’s 30% tax.

Treatment of Migrants
Ortega never participated in the schemes the Trump and Biden administrations negotiated with Nicaragua’s northern neighbors to inhibit the flow of migrants; nor did he impose a ‘special fee’ on migrants in transit from Africa , as Bukele did. Nicaragua accepted direct flights from Haiti and Cuba as a humanitarian gesture to ease the crises that US intervention created in those countries. For a period, Nicaragua was a transit country for migrants looking for an inexpensive and safer route to the US that avoided the dangerous Darien Gap. It was rewarded with baseless accusations of “human trafficking” by the US Congress.

Meanwhile, Bukele zealously collaborates with Trump’s mass deportation/incarceration plan for migrants, even refusing to release a wrongfully deported Salvadoran man. Daniel Ortega has adamantly denounced this , demanded the return of the kidnapped Venezuelans held in El Salvador, and pleaded for respect for all migrants. Nicaraguan migrants who are deported home from the US are welcomed with free health check-ups, a meal, transportation to their home communities, and a small stipend to get re-settled.



Handling of the COVID-19 pandemic
El Salvador had one of the most authoritarian responses to the pandemic. The Bukele government shut down the economy, used military repression to enforce a nationwide quarantine, declared a state of exception, and forced people into COVID detention centers, where many were infected and some died. Bukele tweeted sadistic photos of gang members crowded together like sardines in prisons—bragging about his repressive response with no regard for the danger of spreading the virus.

President Ortega did the exact opposite: the economy and schools remained open, while children continued to receive their daily lunches. The government deployed a massive public health campaign with house-to-house information visits, prepared public hospitals to treat COVID, established a hotline for contact tracing and monitoring of patients, and released some prisoners. No one was jailed or went hungry due to the pandemic; the government did not incur excessive debt; and Nicaragua achieved the highest vaccination rate in Central America.

Nicaragua had one of the lowest excess death rates from the pandemic in the world (292 per 100,000 inhabitants). UNICEF congratulated Nicaragua on its pandemic response because unlike children who faced lockdowns, Nicaraguan youngsters did not experience more health risks, poorer nutrition, decreased vaccination rates, or diminished education outcomes due to the pandemic.

Salvadoran children, unfortunately, faced all the detrimental effects of an extreme lockdown. The country’s democracy suffered, the economy shrank severely, and the government incurred tremendous debt. The excess death rate in El Salvador due to the pandemic was 364 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Israel/Palestine
Historically, Zionist collaboration with right-wing repression in Central America has included the selling of napalm to ARENA governments to use on the Salvadoran people, and aid for Nicaragua’s Somoza dictatorship and contra terrorists. Now, despite Bukele’s Palestinian heritage, he has clearly allied with Israel. His imports of Israeli weapons and surveillance technology are growing at an alarming rate, and El Salvador is one of the most extensive users of Israel’s Pegasus spyware, reportedly deployed against dozens of Bukele’s critics.

In contrast, Sandinista Nicaragua has a long history of solidarity with the Palestinian people . Since October 7, 2023, Ortega has resolutely supported the Palestinian people’s right to peace and self-determination and the end of Israeli aggression. His was the first nation to join the South Africa suit at the International Court of Justice over Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention. Nicaragua then filed its own suit against Germany for aiding and abetting genocide, which succeeded in reducing weapons sales to Israel and reinstating German funding to UNRWA. Nicaragua does this despite threats of increased sanctions from the US Congress and Israel.

Government social spending
Since Bukele became president, classic neoliberal policies have cut education, healthcare, and poverty reduction programs introduced by the FMLN governments before him. Schools are being closed and healthcare is increasingly unaffordable. Meanwhile, there are constant increases in spending on the military, policing, and prisons.

Social spending has been a priority for Nicaragua since President Ortega took office in 2007 and now constitutes 60% of the national budget. There have been vast improvements in health, education, nutrition, housing, drinking water, roads, and electricity. The country’s Human Development Index has surpassed El Salvador’s—remarkable since Nicaragua’s per capita GDP (an important component of that score) is half that of El Salvador. And Nicaragua ranks third lowest in the western hemisphere for military spending, even behind Costa Rica which supposedly has no army.

The many differences between the two presidents are best summarized by looking at them in historical perspective. Despite the hype, the young Bukele offers nothing new. He is perpetuating the cycle of physical and structural violence in his country, in collusion with the US government. The elder statesman Ortega, however, is helping his country break free from imperialist violence. That is something new.

https://orinocotribune.com/daniel-ortega-is-no-bukele/

[blindpig]

NicaNotes: US Economic Warfare Drives Migrants to Come to the US
June 19, 2025
By Stansfield Smith

[Stan Smith is a member of Chicago Alba Solidarity and of the Coordinating Committee
of the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition. He wrote this piece as a statement for the
Coalition.]


A political cartoon from 1941 shows Uncle Sam strangling Latin American countries.

Immigrants from Latin America come here as a direct result of US coups, invasions, and economic warfare against their countries. Colombians came because the US armed death squad governments. So did Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the 1980s. Haitians come because the US repeatedly overthrows democratic governments and puts in US puppets. Chileans and Argentinians fled after US-backed brutal military coups in the 1970s. Mexicans came in the 1990s because the NAFTA trade agreement caused millions to lose their livelihood.

Today Cubans and Venezuelans come because US economic blockades wrecked their economies and killed thousands of civilians. The official US policy was “to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government.”

Yet, Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua are the “enemies of humanity.” In contrast to the US, these countries provide their people with free healthcare and education from preschool through university, and build housing and sanitation. And they invade no one.

The US blockade on Venezuela led to the deaths of over 100,000 Venezuelans by 2021. The US government cooked up its own president of Venezuela in 2019, put a $25 million bounty on democratically elected President Maduro, stole CITGO; froze US$30 billion of its funds overseas, blocked Venezuela from selling its oil, and attempted to overthrow the government several times. As a result, Venezuelan Gross Domestic Product shrank to less than one quarter its 2012 size. Back then only 3% of the population was malnourished. After years of the US blockade, by 2019 it had risen to 32%.

The blockade of Cuba has become so destructive that one in ten Cubans has left the country in the last three years. The blockade makes Cuba lose $13 million a day, $555,000 every hour. The cost of eight hours of blockade is equivalent to the cost of toys and teaching aids needed in all day-care centers of the country. The cost of 25 days of blockade would meet Cuba’s needs for medicines for one year. The cost of 5 months of blockade would meet the nation’s essential food needs for one year.

The US tried to crush Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s. Over 100,000 were killed fighting the US-installed Somoza regime and the US-backed contra terrorists. In 2018 the US tried to overthrow the Sandinistas again. Another 100,000 fled to escape the violence and economic damage. The US now blocks development aid from the IMF, World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Constant US bullying in Latin America continue under both Democratic and Republican administrations. President Biden deported more immigrants than Trump ever did. The NY Times January 22 reported Biden deported four million, while Trump deported 1.9 million in his first term.

This immigration will continue until we make the US government stop what causes people to flee their countries: overthrowing their governments and waging economic warfare on these peoples. The US government has an obligation to support these immigrants who were forced to flee. And compensate these countries for the damage it has done.

Briefs

By Nan McCurdy

TELCOR Wins International Award for Information Technology Project

The Nicaraguan Telecommunications and Postal Institute (TELCOR), won the top place in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Awards, created in 2012 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITC) and held every year since. The Nicaraguan CEABAD Project, which won the award, was founded in 2014 as a vision of the government to train professionals in virtual format, in broadband and ICT issues; training more than 15,000 people nationally and regionally since then. The award ceremony will be held in July in Geneva, Switzerland.

The WSIS Awards were begun with the objective of creating an effective mechanism to evaluate projects and activities that harness the potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) to drive sustainable development. The WSIS has attracted more than 300,000 participants worldwide and is a unique global platform to identify and disseminate success stories in the implementation of the Action Lines of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. (La Primerisima, 5 June 2025)

18 Million Trees Planted in Nicaragua Every Year

On June 5 the head of the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), Javier Gutiérrez, said that Nicaragua is one of the most forested countries in the region and every year through the “Verde, Te Quiero Verde” Campaign, 18 million trees are planted. He stated, “It is one of the countries that has the most forest resources in Central American; we have around five million hectares of forests, from tropical forests, rainforests, dry forests, agroforestry system to farms.” He said that during the congress held to commemorate World Environment Day, Nicaragua’s great progress in the care and preservation of nature reserves was highlighted. “We are going to lift up the potential we have in our natural resources, in terms of water resources, forest resources, genetic resources that are extremely important and also in all the capacity we have in the generation of clean energy, through water resources, biomass, wind energy, photovoltaic and all the work we are developing,” added Gutiérrez. (La Primerisima, 5 June 2025)

Nicaragua on New York Times List of Places to Go This Summer

Nicaragua is 14th on a list of 52 places that the New York Times recommends visiting this summer. Here’s what the article says: “The less traveled sister to Costa Rica and the largest country in Central America, Nicaragua is full of attractions like tropical jungles, picturesque colonial towns, Caribbean islands, and long, sweeping beaches. This year, the country will be much easier to explore, with the unveiling of the Costanera Highway, a multimillion-dollar project connecting more than 50 beaches and communities on its Emerald Coast along the Pacific, from the Gulf of Fonseca in the north to Playa El Naranjo in the south. With new nonstop flights from the United States into Managua, you can take in the country’s colonial capital before heading on a road trip along the coastline. Set up digs at the sustainable Rancho Santana, with five beaches on the vast property as well as riding stables and a turtle sanctuary. Surf retreats for beginners and couples, paired with a barefoot-chic vibe, are among the draws at Hide and Seek Resort, which opened last year in Popoyo – Ondine Cohane (writer). [Editor’s note: Rancho Santana and Hide and Seek are very expensive resorts. There are many other options from $10 a person on or near the multitude of pristine beaches.]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... d=em-share

2,000 Kilometers of Roads Rehabilitated to Date

Nicaragua’s mayors’ offices are making progress in the restoration of 1,622 streets and 2,015 kilometers of rural roads. Some 35 new streets and 61 kilometers of improved roads are scheduled to be completed just this week. The improvements are all over the nation. In towns, paved roads are especially important for people’s health as they reduce dust and improve air quality. Improvement of rural roads usually means paving with six-sided concrete blocks called adoquines. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/mas-de-2 ... s-en-2025/ (La Primerisima, 9 June 2025)

Growth in the Agricultural Sector Exceeds 112%

In an interview on Channel 8 Television, Giovanny Álvarez, general secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), said that there has been 112.5% growth in agriculture during the Sandinista Government. In the agricultural area the increase has been 125.9% and in the livestock sector 99%. Álvarez said that, for the period 2025-2026, an agricultural growth of 4% is projected. He said that among the major objectives of the plan is the strengthening of the fight against poverty and for human development. Alvarez said they want to achieve more and better production to have even higher food security (currently about 90%). He said that the agricultural sector contributes to the generation of employment “and, also, this increased production will allow us to boost trade and exports.” The plan includes six key policies: food safety, animal and plant health, promotion of entrepreneurship, promotion of local trade, science and research, and protection against climate change. On this last point, the Ministry of Agriculture makes technical recommendations for each of the three sowing periods, with the third primarily in the Rio San Juan and Caribbean coast regions which receive more rain. Planned are 22,000 visits to producer families. Alvarez said that the MAG “Provides technical recommendations for the different plantings of the production cycle, on the use of varieties, efficient use of crops, probable planting dates,” he said. Technical training is provided for some 36,000 producers in new agricultural technologies. “This accompaniment of MAG is an inter-institutional effort so that the National Plan for Production, Consumption and Trade 2025-2026 can be fulfilled without in Nicaragua,” he said. (La Primerisima, 10 June 2025)

World Bank Reaffirms Continued Growth in Nicaragua

On June 10 the World Bank said that the economic growth projection for Nicaragua for this year is at 3.4%; 3.3% for 2026 and 3.3% for 2027 despite global instability due to U.S. tariff policies. In the update of the World Economic Outlook report, the multilateral institution warned of growing concerns about global growth in the face of escalating trade tensions provoked by the U.S. government. The World Bank projected that Central America will grow 3.3% in 2025 and 3.6% in 2026, driven by “services exports and improved consumption.” (Informe Pastran, 10 June 2025)

75% of Energy Production from Renewable Sources

Currently, 74.76% of the energy generated in Nicaragua comes from renewable sources, surpassing the regional average of 70%. By 2026, it is expected to reach 80% renewable generation, approaching the international goal of 90%. This effort reflects a comprehensive planning that coordinates institutions such as the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI), the health and education ministries and the municipalities to project energy demand in the short, medium and long term, ensuring a sustainable and resilient energy development in the face of climate variations. (Informe Pastran, 10 June 2025)

Minors Under 21 Years of Age to Be Unable to Obtain a Driver’s License

Unofficially, La Primerísima has learned that as of June 9 the National Police suspended driver’s licenses to people under 21 as part of actions to reduce the participation of young people in traffic accidents with fatal consequences. Until now young people could obtain licenses from the age of 16 with a notarized bond signed by their parents in addition to complying with medical requirements. Minors who already have a license may continue to use it until it is determined whether or not it will be suspended. It was also newly established that only those over 21 years of age may drive heavy vehicles such as minibuses and trucks. The government is taking a number of actions to attempt to reduce fatal traffic accidents. Another action is reducing speed limits on highways, roads, residential areas, etc. (La Primerisima, 10 June 2025)

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-us-economic- ... to-the-us0

[blindpig]

A Nicaraguan View from the Frontlines: Revolution, Reconciliation, and Resistance
By Ken Yale - June 26, 2025 1


[Source: Photo courtesy of Jennifer Aist]

“Democracy in the U.S. has never been functional. It’s just in some laws, but it has never been implemented. There’s a huge misinformation campaign going on in the U.S., and media is manipulating people all of the time. I think the U.S. and Nicaraguan people can work together to promote peace and all human rights. You are always welcome to come to Nicaragua, and we can learn together as equals.”

Harold “Shaggy” Urbina, Sandinista National Liberation Front
You may be surprised to learn that Nicaragua is ranked sixth in the world for gender equity by the World Economic Forum; that the government led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) provides free, universal education and health care; and that Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples have communal title and control over lands making up nearly one-third of Nicaragua’s national territory.


Ben Linder [Source: zinnproject.org]

Harold “Shaggy” Urbina has witnessed all of this progress and more in his 40-plus years in the FSLN, from his days as a Sandinista youth leader to his extensive work in Nicaraguan human rights organizations. “Shaggy,” as he is known by most of his friends, is currently a leading team member of Casa Benjamin Linder, which is the project for art, education and solidarity of Jubilee House Community. Linder was an American engineer who was tragically killed by Contra terrorists while working in Nicaragua in the 1980s in support of the Sandinista Revolution.[1] Among their many projects, Casa Benjamin Linder sponsors about half a dozen international delegations to Nicaragua yearly. Readers are encouraged to come see, experience, and decide what is true for themselves.

This is Shaggy’s story, as told to independent journalist and activist Ken Yale in Nicaragua in March 2025. Shaggy was six years old when the Sandinistas overthrew the bloody military dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Millions of Nicaraguans celebrated.


Ben Linder dressed up as a clown, lifting the spirits of people during the brutal Contra War. [Source: oregonlive.com]

The corrupt and brutal Somoza family had ruled Nicaragua for well over 40 years with the active support and intervention of the U.S. The Somozas disappeared, tortured and murdered tens of thousands of Nicaraguans while abetting U.S. covert operations throughout Latin America, facilitating the profitable exploitation of Nicaragua by foreign corporations, and amassing huge fortunes for their family of oligarchs.


The Somoza dynasty. Anastasio Somoza Garcia, center, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, right, Luis Somoza Debayle, left. They all ruled Nicaragua in succession until the last member of the dynasty was overthrown in the 1979 Sandinista Revolution. [Source: latinamericanstudies.org]

The U.S. government and its allies have relentlessly tried to destroy the Sandinista Front from the time of its triumph in 1979 through the present moment. Nicaraguans today continue to be targeted by the full arsenal of hybrid warfare, from strangulating economic sanctions, to covertly funded and orchestrated regime-change operations.

The ongoing assault on Nicaraguan sovereignty has been justified in a massive international propaganda campaign, similar to the demonization of any leader or nation that attempts to break free from colonial domination and begin the transition to a more humane or socialist society. But here is the story imperial officials and their corporate media will never tell…

The Awakening
Ken Yale: Tell us about your early political influences as a young person in Nicaragua.

Harold “Shaggy” Urbina: My father, Rafael Urbina Brizuela, was a radio announcer. My mother, Marta Cruz, has always been a housewife. My parents didn’t have a direct influence on my political life, but they were always supporting me in whatever I was doing.

I grew up in a popular neighborhood, District #2 in Managua. In 1979 we had the triumph of the revolution. I was only six years old, but I still remember that I was sent to the corner by my mother to buy tortillas. When I was there, I saw a man wearing a red and black bandana covering his face. And he said, “We won, the march to victory will never end.”

I wasn’t able to understand the political background of that moment, but I could see the happiness on the faces of the people. I could see how each person came to this man and they were all giving him hugs and celebrating. So I knew it was something very big and important. When I was walking home, I saw the parade of guerrilla fighters and I could see hundreds of youngsters on top of tanks and pick-up trucks. They were all screaming, celebrating, and people were standing on both sides of the street welcoming them.


1979 Sandinista Revolution. It took the name of Augusto César Sandino, who fought for Nicaraguan sovereignty against the U.S. Marines in the 1920s and 1930s. [Source: monitor.co.ug]

Then I went into my house and saw my family members. They were all together around a small 12-inch black-and-white television, and I was able to see the first speech of the revolution. I wasn’t able to understand the content of the speech, but I could see the happiness on the faces of my family, so I knew it was something powerful. And I think it’s that moment I became engaged with the revolution.

Another big influence was witnessing the impact of the National Literacy Crusade in 1980. I could see my friends returning from the mountains saying, “Oh, we realized how the rural areas and the cities were separated by the dictatorship, and how hard it is to produce the gallo pinto that we eat and the coffee we drink every day.”

At that time, the Sandinista Front was in the process of making its transition from a guerrilla movement into a political party. But I understood that the Sandinista leadership was leading the revolution in the National Literacy Crusade and was also connected to another huge improvement in the lives of the Nicaraguan people, the Agrarian Reform. You can imagine how it was a huge change in the lives of people having a piece of land and being allowed to learn how to read and write.

The start of the revolution was having an impact on people’s lives, and I was really happy to support that process. At school I started to learn about Nicaraguan history. I was inspired by the ideas of Sandino and Carlos Fonseca, the founder of the Sandinista Front. I was discovering a new world.


Mural celebrating Carlos Fonesca, founder of the FSLN. [Source: pinterest.com]

Another of my early influences was a national hero, Julio Buitrago, a 20-year-old leader of the urban resistance of the Sandinista Front. He was detected by the National Guard when he was hiding in a safe house and he asked his comrades to escape while he stayed. The National Guard thought there was a big group of Sandinistas inside. There were many National Guard vehicles outside, even a tank, and they were using a plane to bomb the house.

Somoza made a mistake, inviting the media to broadcast live the National Guard protecting the Nicaraguan population from a “terrorist group.” The house was destroyed totally, but they only found Julio Buitrago massacred alone. So this exposed locally and internationally the high level of repression by the Somoza dictatorship.

For me and most kids in Nicaragua, Julio Buitrago became a real hero. One boy against hundreds of National Guards. We didn’t care about Spider Man, Superman, Batman, or all of these cartoon characters when we already had Julio Buitrago. And that inspired me.


Julio Buitrago [Source: visionsandinista.net]

The Revolution Triumphs
KY: Please explain what you meant when you said that the revolution won in 1979.

HU: America is not the U.S. America is a continent, first invaded by the Spanish Empire in 1492. Central America and Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821. But it was a false independence. The European descendants of the colonizers became the new rulers of the Americas and continued to oppress the Indigenous people.

In 1823, the U.S. established the Monroe Doctrine, with the justification that they were chosen by God to protect this part of the world, and that the U.S. wasn’t going to allow any European superpower in Latin America.


William Walker [Source: britannica.com]

In 1855, William Walker, a man from the U.S., became the President of Nicaragua with the sponsorship of wealthy U.S. businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt. They wanted to build a canal in Nicaragua to compete with the Panama Canal. Walker also wanted to export Indigenous people from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras to the southern U.S. as slaves. He was defeated by a resistance movement supported by all three countries.

The first real U.S. military intervention took place in 1910. Nicaraguan politicians were fighting each other and having many civil wars. The U.S. Marines took control of the whole Nicaraguan nation. Augusto Sandino, our national hero, organized an army of small farmers and Indigenous people to fight against U.S. intervention in 1927. Sandino talked about sovereignty, self-determination, the dignity of the Nicaraguan and the Indigenous people, and even some of the universal human rights that were not yet recognized by the world at the time. He was able to develop a guerrilla-warfare strategy and, by 1931, the U.S. forces were defeated.

But after making a peace agreement with then-President [Juan Bautista] Sacasa, Sandino and all but one of his generals were assassinated in February 1934 while having a dinner with the chief of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza García. When Somoza assassinated Sandino, he became the President of Nicaragua. He was awarded this position by the U.S. government for completing the task it had given him. The Somoza family dictatorship oppressed and repressed the Nicaraguan people with the total support of the U.S. government from 1934 until 1979, when we had the triumph of the revolution by the FSLN.

The Sandinista Front was founded in 1961 for the national liberation of Nicaragua. General Santos López, the only one of Sandino’s generals who escaped assassination, transferred the political and ideological legacy of Sandino to the Sandinista Front. The Sandinista Front was also inspired by Marxism and the socialist ideas of the revolutions in the Soviet Union and Cuba.


Augusto César Sandino [Source: nicasnews.com]

General Santos López [Source: radiosegovia.net]

We were using the tools of popular education to transfer knowledge to the people. The principle of popular education is that a community or a population that is educated can understand and reflect on the life they have, and then transform reality.

The Sandinista Revolution was also inspired by liberation theology, and many Christians became supporters of the Sandinista Front. This combination of Marxism with the positive values of Christianity, and all of the person-to-person support, based on the Christian values of solidarity, were key factors that contributed to the growth and development of the Sandinista Front in the 1960s and 1970s.

Becoming a Sandinista
KY: You’ve really given us some great personal and historical context for why you wanted to become involved in the Sandinista Front as a young person. What was the process for joining at that time?

HU: First, when I was ten years old, I decided to become a member of the Sandinista Children’s Association. I was an active member in 1983-1984. Then as a high school student in 1985, I was granted affiliation to the Sandinista Youth after serving one year as the chief of a brigade of Nicaraguan Explorers, like Scouts in the U.S. The next year, I was part of the Secondary Student Federation, and the vice president of my classroom. The following year I went to pick coffee as a member of a Production Student Brigade, to involve high school students with people in the countryside.

When I returned in 1987, just 14 years old, I won my recognition to become a militant of the Sandinista Youth. First, I was the president of a student organization of 500 students, and then at 16 years old, the president of my whole high school of 2,000 students. And I was getting ready for going to war, because in the 1980s, all of the kids between 17 and 25 years old needed to have two years of mandatory military service. I was happy to enroll in the Nicaraguan army, the Sandinista army at that time, in order to go to the mountains and defend our revolution.


Sandinista Youth celebrate anniversary of the revolution. [Source: Photo courtesy of Roger Harris]

I think the pride of U.S. politicians has been hurt by what Nicaragua has been able to do, being a small country. Whenever people asked me how I felt to be a Nicaraguan, I said, “I feel proud because we don’t have any U.S. military base in our territory.” That was also part of what pushed me toward becoming a member of the Sandinista Front, because this sense of sovereignty, self-determination, and dignity has always been part of the Sandinista struggle, and I have felt connected with those principles.

Finally, I received my official ID card as a Militant of the Sandinista Front in the 1990s when I was 20 years old, and I became Coordinator of the Sandinista Youth July 19 (JS19J) in the Cuba neighborhood of District 2 of Managua.


Members of the Sandinista Youth. [Source: en.wikipedia.org]

The Empire Strikes Back
KY: The FSLN lost the elections in 1990, and Nicaragua was subsequently ruled by a neo-liberal government until 2006. What is important for us to understand about this period?

HU: We were really disappointed and frustrated when we lost the elections. In December 1989, the U.S. Army had invaded Panama. The President at that time, George Bush, the father, was saying, “If the Sandinistas keep power, we’re going to invade Nicaragua as we just did in Panama.” I think many Sandinista families voted against the Sandinista Front just because they were tired of war. It was a really hard time because most of the benefits and achievements of the revolution were lost when we started having a neo-liberal government.

Back in the 1980s, we often tried to use international law to defend the revolution. We were reporting and denouncing all of the war crimes committed by the Contra forces to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Contras were supported financially by the U.S., but they were always denying that involvement. I remember three youngsters in the military hit a plane, it crashed, and inside was a mercenary working for the CIA, Eugene Hasenfus. He was carrying hundreds of military supplies, weapons for the Contras. It was the evidence that the U.S. was involved in the war, which we took to the ICJ, and we were supposed to be compensated with $17 billion.


Eugene Hasenfus after his capture. [Source: zinnproject.org]

But when the Sandinistas lost the election in 1990, the new President, Violeta Chamorro, said, “Now we are friends with the U.S. again, so let’s forget about it. We don’t need any compensation.” But we knew in advance that the U.S. was never going to pay back anything to the Nicaraguan people.


Violeta Chamorro [Source: en.wikipedia.org]

Although we lost the elections, between 1990 and 2006, we realized that we were making the right decision in history. We perhaps were feeling lost or alone because the Soviet Union collapsed and we didn’t have any support from them in the 1990s. Then only Cuba and Nicaragua were struggling in Latin America. But suddenly, with years, we were happy to know that, in Venezuela, a new process was going on. And in many other places of the world, there was a flame that was still burning. We were receiving negative messages like “Socialism is no longer present in any part of the world.” But we never gave up. We were just being patient and waiting for new steps to be taken.

Human Rights As Collective Rights
KY: How did the FSLN continue the fight for human rights during those neo-liberal years and beyond?

HU: The Sandinista Front has always had a commitment to the promotion of human rights, because that is part of its principles and values since the 1960s. We incorporated the whole content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into our Constitution in 1987, a real commitment from our government to do what was necessary to improve the conditions of people’s lives.

Sandino was killed in 1934 and, 50 years later, we have the first free Nicaraguan elections, and Daniel Ortega becomes President. It’s like Daniel and the Sandinista government were the plant that was growing, and the death of Sandino was the seed that planted this process. But the right of participation cannot be reduced only to voting every five years. We were saying “No, every day, you have a responsibility as a citizen to be part of the decision-making process within your community, within your family, within your country.”


Daniel Ortega surrounded by Sandinista flags. [Source: nbcnews.com]

The approach of Nicaragua toward human rights is focused on collective rights rather than individual rights. In the West or in the U.S., people are always talking about freedom just at the individual level. We were working on what we call social, economic and cultural rights.

In 1990 and the years after, most of the benefits during the time of the revolution, such as education and health, were privatized. We had a high level of sexual exploitation because tourists were attracted to coming to a tropical country and having sex with young women or children. The government knew that but they were not taking any action. They were promoting foreign investors to come and do whatever they wanted to take our country. In those neo-liberal years, the government would have said “every problem in the world is going to be solved by the rules of the free market.”

For many years, I was organizing for human rights at the national level with different institutions and communities. We were demonstrating on the streets, saying “No, the rise of the people is beyond private interest.” We went door to door, asking people to join the movement for human rights. People were thinking that, when you are fighting for human rights, you need to be a lawyer or a person that knows about law. We were trying to deconstruct that myth by saying “It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the law; it doesn’t matter if you’re not a lawyer. What matters is that you go out to the streets to defend your rights.” We were always working to reach social justice, not a law or a document, something more comprehensive.

KY: That sounds like an approach to human rights called “de-judicialization.” How is this concept applied in Nicaragua?

HU: Human rights have to be seen from a multi-disciplinary approach instead of a legal approach. Laws are written, perhaps by lawyers or lawmakers, but human rights are a construction that is the result of the struggle of the people, which means the whole society. The lawmakers or the lawyers who are dealing with the specific nature of legal instruments are just part of the process. They are not the ones who make the decisions. It’s the people.

It’s like when it comes to the rights of people with disabilities, we first had a medical approach. People were thinking of them as sick people. But then we were saying “No, it’s not about a cure or giving them medicine. It’s about how we integrate these people into society so they can develop.” We’re saying, “Doctors can contribute to the health of people with disabilities. But it’s the society at large that has the responsibility to integrate, involve and accept all people with disabilities in everything.”

And that’s the same approach with human rights. We say “No, lawyers are welcome, but they are not the ones who will make laws for us. We will tell them what we want, and we will all discuss together how to do it.” It is a tradition in Nicaragua to have community assemblies to discuss any topic, and we involve most people in the community.


[Source: Photo courtesy of Nicaraguan Solidarity Coalition]

The Big Lessons Learned
KY: You seem to have a very family and community-oriented approach to human rights and many other issues.

HU: Yes, we have a very strong family-community structure for everything. Even when the Sandinista Front was in opposition, we promoted citizen participation and we understood solidarity as a very strong value. Selfishness is not something that Nicaraguan people like much because we live in community, we live in family, and whatever we are planning to do, it’s always thought of as a collective action. We also promote a lot of exchange of experiences between one community and the other.

After the revolution, the political culture of the Nicaraguan people changed. In some other countries, when you visit neighborhoods and say “We’re going to have a community assembly, we are going to elect a committee for water or any other social topic,” then people say “No, I don’t have time, it’s not my interest.” But here there’s a political culture that everyone wants to take part in.

That’s the main learning during the movement, that all of us have a very important role, and all of us can give a contribution. It doesn’t matter if we are not the leaders, because we, by being part, will be supporting the movement. That’s something very strong here in Nicaragua. Wherever you go, you will find that people are really concerned and participating.


[Source: worldatlas.com]

KY: What did the FSLN learn about reconciliation and unity when you lost the election?

HU: When we lost the elections in 1990 and we started to work again from the grassroots level, we understood how important it was to recognize that your neighbor is your brother, your sister. Since we were coming from a period of war when the Nicaraguan society was polarized a lot, and we were able to see the division among family members, we thought “No, if you want to return to power, we need to establish partnerships and alliances with former enemies.”

Sandino was the one saying “in Nicaragua, we don’t care about conservatives or liberals. It doesn’t matter if they are from different political parties, or from the rural area or the city. We care about the whole Nicaraguan population. We are all equal.” So he was giving us this lesson, and we were thinking, “Oh, Sandino was right.”

For instance, we had a very important health project called Miracle Mission. We were in an alliance with the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, sending people from Nicaragua to have surgery for eye problems. The Sandinistas were sending the former enemies first, saying, “I will prove that I don’t have any reason to take revenge. I can see that you are sick, we will send you in our group.” They were also offering the opportunity to learn how to read and write to the former Contras and people against the Sandinista Front.

All of this movement happening at the grassroots level was changing the minds of people toward the idea they had of the Sandinista Front. Back in the 1980s, many were saying “You are all against people that believe in God because you’re Marxist.” But then the Sandinistas were saying “No, we are not against Christianity, we are not against the church.” And they started a dialog with all sectors of society for many years.

Even I was against the idea of shaking hands with Contras until I saw Daniel Ortega talking to former enemies, saying “Please forgive me.” When you see a leader doing that you understand the real meaning of reconciliation. Then we started to replicate the same action at the local level. It was complicated, but I think that for that reason, many Contras and right-wing leaders became supporters of the Sandinista Front.

In the 2006 election, the Sandinista Front registered and was listed on the ballot under the name “Alliance: Nicaragua United Triumphs,” “Allianza: Unida Nicaragua Triunfa.” That’s why, when the Sandinista government returned to power in 2007, we said, “This is the Government of National Unity and Reconciliation.”


[Source: Photo courtesy of CCC César Pérez]

The Fruits of the Revolution

KY: What are some major accomplishments that made reconciliation possible and helped even people who may not be supporters of the FSLN see that you’re acting in the interests of the people?

HU: Since the Sandinista Front returned to power in 2007, they have been working on a process called “Restitution of Rights.” They said, “We are going to have education and health services free of charge.” With that single action, people were able to see that we are really changing. In addition, many of the social sectors that were excluded in the past started to have a voice again and to participate. The Sandinista Front was not excluding anyone. Even former enemies were included in the social policies the government was implementing. The Catholic Church and the private companies were not supporting the government, but not attacking, which was a big change. Many right-wing people realized that they had not been getting anything from the neo-liberal government.

In a few years we were able to recover many of the rights we lost in the neo-liberal years, and people were really happy. We were growing and developing. You see that the roads that go to remote areas are in good condition, and that small farmers can take their production out of the community because the Sandinista government is building new roads everywhere. So people say, “Oh, I’m satisfied with this, and I’m not a Sandinista, but I need to acknowledge what they are doing.” The Sandinistas never said “Oh, we will do this to convince our opponents to become Sandinistas.” It has been the opposite. “No, we feel okay to live with the rest of our community. It doesn’t matter what they think, what they believe in.”

I think the local people have been able to acknowledge not just the development in the communities, but the environment of peace and safety. The Sandinista Front came back to power saying, “We will do as much as possible to keep this nation in peace. We were not able to develop Nicaragua enough back in the 1980s because we were in war.”

Citizen security in Nicaragua is a big thing, and Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America. That’s because the National Police, the National Army, and every institution in Nicaragua is doing its work based on this family-community model. Your own neighbors and the community itself are protecting you. That’s why we don’t have this penetration of the gangs from Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras.

There is a global movement to promote right-wing ideas. But I think that Latin America can make a difference. With the exception of the violent context in Colombia and Mexico, we have like a peace zone, countries facing their own social conflicts, but without going to the point of war. Most of the presidents of Latin America don’t want war in their own countries. That’s something we can take advantage of to promote dialogue and a way of understanding among the Latin American nations.


One of many community development projects in Nicaragua. [Source: myonecommunity.org]

KY: What can you say about the accomplishments of the FSLN in terms of the role of women and their support for the revolution?

HU: The Nicaraguan revolution has been led by youngsters and women since the very beginning. Sandino’s wife was an active member of the Army for the Defense of National Sovereignty. Since then we have always been able to see the important role of women in the struggle. In our revolution, the role of women is not for decoration. It’s not an ornamental role. They have an active role and they have gained that space, not just because we have guerrilla members before the triumph of the revolution, but because when the Sandinista Revolution was in place, many women became active, participating in everything at the different levels, the same as men.

What the Sandinista Front has done from 2007 to 2025 is legalize all of the rights that women have. They won these rights by their own struggle, but now the government is offering the corresponding laws. That’s how we have many women in top positions in the ministries, the police, and the army. The majority of community leaders are women. And in the Presidency of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are Co-Presidents. We have a system of 50-50 for elected and appointed officials, and some spaces where women’s participation is 60 or 65%.

That’s something that makes Nicaragua different from the rest of the countries in Central America, because women are not passive. Women are not submissive. They fight for their rights. And education is important because we have been able to talk about the rights of women at a family and community level, in the school programs, and in the university study programs. So it’s something comprehensive.

I’m not saying that we don’t have problems, because we do. There is a permanent struggle against violence against women and children. That is something that is happening everywhere in the world. But here we are trying to do the most we can. Perhaps the difference can also be seen in the way we name it. In the U.S. they call it “domestic violence,” something that is happening inside your house, like a private problem. But in Nicaragua for the last 25 years, we identified violence against women as a social problem, as a health problem, a difference from other places where it’s a private thing. Here everyone has a commitment to do something when they know that there is a case of domestic violence.


[Source: Photo courtesy of Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition]

Solidarity Then and Now

KY: There was a very large international solidarity movement in the 1980s. But since the Sandinistas came back into power in 2007, Nicaragua is not in the news as much, not as many activists are coming, and so I think we’re much more susceptible to propaganda from imperialists and their allies.

HU: For the first years when the Sandinista Front returned to power, the U.S. was keeping a distance and not openly attacking the Sandinista Revolution. But I think they were planning what they were going to do years later, and we didn’t know.

I have to confess something. I didn’t like people from the U.S. at all in the beginning. I wanted to go to the Soviet Union and learn how to speak Russian instead of learning English. But then I met many people from the U.S. in 1997 at a community center led by Father Grant Gallup. He was teaching me English, and how to understand U.S. culture. Christians who were following the principles of liberation theology were really supportive of the Sandinista Revolution in the 1980s, and then of the social movement against the neo-liberal government in the 1990s.

He introduced me to a man who came to visit Nicaragua for a few days who asked me, “Is it true that Nicaragua was a military base of the Soviet Union, and you and the Cubans wanted to invade the U.S.?” And I realized there was a huge misinformation campaign going on in the U.S. Perhaps that’s why many people in the U.S. were supporting the Contra war, because they were just following the information and manipulation of the U.S. government. I realized there was a difference between the U.S. people and the U.S. government, and I started to be open to people from the U.S.

Perhaps that’s another reason why the U.S. is scared of Nicaragua. We are a model that can teach others how things can work. I think democracy in the U.S. has never been functional. It’s just in some laws, but it has never been implemented. The struggle of the U.S. people has always been oppressed by the big corporations and the system itself. The example of the success of the Nicaraguan people could threaten them.

We understand solidarity as a value. We received a lot of support since the revolution from foreigners, individuals or organizations that came to Nicaragua. I am currently working with a lot of solidarity groups and volunteers who come from the U.S., Canada and the UK to support the Nicaraguan people.


Solidarity group from the Bronx during visit to Nicaragua. [Source: workers.org]
During the last 20 years there has not been enough information available in the U.S. about what is going on here in Nicaragua. After the attempted coup d’état in 2018 and then the COVID pandemic, it has been more difficult for us to bring people from Europe and the U.S. to visit. Fewer people are coming and it’s harder for us to find ways to share information.

We need a generational replacement of the solidarity movement, because many of the really strong and committed people are taking care of their own health. They are not as young as they were in the 1980s. We know that we need to transfer these values of solidarity to the new generations. But I think that step by step we will get it.

I think the U.S. and Nicaraguan people can work together in order to promote peace and all human rights by having what I would call a permanent “Learning Agenda,” a space where we can learn with each other as equals, instead of one on top of the other. If we have a way of exchanging experiences, and having people from the U.S. visit to see how our revolution is going, perhaps they can change their opinions. The media manipulate people all of the time, especially in recent years, and it is important for people to go outside the U.S. if possible. You are always welcome to come to Nicaragua, and we can learn together as equals.

Profound gratitude to Roger Harris for his support in helping to edit this interview.


1.Linder had worked on Nicaraguan hydro-electric projects and a Sandinista vaccination campaign. He was beloved by the many children he entertained as a clown and juggler. He was assassinated in 1987 at the age of 27 by Contra death squads trained and funded by the U.S. government. For more about him and the circumstances of his death, see Joan Kruckewitt, The Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999). ↑

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/0 ... esistance/

[blindpig]

The Politics of Accusation: Violence in Costa Rica and the Rush to Blame Nicaragua
June 28, 2025


Roberto Samcam. Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano - English.

By Kelly Nelson and Roger D. Harris – June 26, 2025

Traditionally regarded as safe for visitors, Costa Rica has recently become Central America’s second most dangerous country, with 400 homicides recorded so far this year. The violence is attributed to an epidemic of drug-related crime, as the country has become a major staging post for narcotics smuggled to Europe. Costa Rica just detained a former security minister and ex-judge for drug trafficking following a US extradition request. Even the US State Department warns of the danger of “armed robbery, homicide, and sexual assault” in Costa Rica.

This month the violence claimed a Nicaraguan victim, Roberto Samcam, one of several Nicaraguans killed in Costa Rica in recent years. Costa Rica has a large Nicaraguan community of half a million, established through decades of steady economic migration. Samcam was shot by an unknown assailant who entered his upscale residence at a time when his usual armed guards were absent. Local police have given no indication of the motive for the crime.

Samcam was a minor figure among opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, many of whom live in exile in Costa Rica. He relocated there in 2018 after the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua that year, in which he was heavily implicated. In June 2020, he was convicted in absentia of organizing armed roadblocks in the Carazo region, where several police officers and government sympathizers were killed, some after being tortured. Local people testified that he had distributed weapons used in the attacks.

Rush to judgment based on no evidence
Nicaraguan opposition media almost instantaneously blamed the Samcam murder on the Sandinista government, with prominent spokesperson Félix Maradiaga calling it a “political assassination.” The claim was echoed by corporate media.

These outlets exhibited little regard for the broader context of Costa Rica’s raising violence with an average of at least two murders daily. This background was ignored while media instead repeated his wife’s assertion that Samcam worked to “expose human rights violations” in his homeland, as if that were the motive for the murder.

The Guardian headlined “Critic of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega shot dead in Costa Rica,” while CNN en Español’s headline also labelled him as a “critic” of Nicaragua’s President Ortega. Focusing on his “fierce criticism” of the Nicaraguan government, France 24 made no mention of his violent past. More coverage followed on similar lines when a group of right-wing former Latin American presidents directly accused President Ortega of involvement in the assassination; their well-known political hostility to Ortega was unmentioned.

Once again, these media were quick to blame a horrifically violent incident on Nicaragua’s government, ignoring context and without any hard evidence, only the clamor of the opposition’s unsupported claims.

These allegations were soon echoed by a “Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua,” appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. This group has been strongly criticized, including by human rights lawyers, for one-sided reporting and unquestioning acceptance of testimony from violent opponents of the Ortega government.

History of dubious accusations
The prejudicial handling of the Samcam murder is just one of a series of such misleadingly spun events in Nicaragua during and since the failed 2018 coup attempt.

For example, on June 16, 2018, masked youths threw Molotov cocktails into an occupied house in Managua killing a family of six. The opposition outlet La Prensahad no doubt who did it: “Ortega mobs burn and kill a Managua family,” ran its headline. The New York Timesdutifully alleged that this was part of a government-led terror campaign. The Guardian, making a similar allegation, highlighted the “tiny coffins” in which some of the victims were buried. Yet investigative journalists Dick and Miriam Emanuelsson later revealed the area was under armed opposition control at the time, making government involvement implausible.

Another example is the July 8, 2018, shooting of police officer Faber López Vivas. Amnesty International claimed he was killed by his own colleagues, based on flimsy evidence. His widowed partner gave a detailed interview, refuting this accusation. Amnesty refused to respond to complaints that its accusation was unfounded and opposition media continued to repeat it.



Yet another case was the so-called “Mother’s Day massacre” on May 30, 2018. While the New York Times noted that six police officers were injured (the real figure was 20), its report attributed the deaths to the government. A subsequent forensic reconstruction of several killings, commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), found to have fundamental errors and omissions, rendering its conclusions deeply suspect. Subsequent protests to the IACHR were summarily dismissed.

Finally, an Indio Maiz Reserve forest fire in April 2018 was also blamed on the government in international media. The BBC reported that the fire in a remote roadless area was “out of control,” while The Guardian blamed the government for rejecting aid from Costa Rica, without explaining the area’s inaccessibility. The fire was successfully tackled some days later, partly with helicopters sent from El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico, and also with technical help from the US. Regardless, blaming the government for the fire prefigured the coup attempt later that month.

These are just a few of the more egregious examples where violent incidents were immediately – and politically – blamed by opposition media on the Nicaraguan government. In these and many other cases, corporate media amplified the opposition’s narrative without scrutiny or evidence.

The real reason for Samcam’s demise?
No one yet knows why Samcam was killed, but one possible explanation for his gangland-style murder involves drug trafficking. According to now-deleted articles in La Nación, CR Hoy, and Confidential, Samcam was under investigation by Costa Rican authorities for money laundering and suspected links to drug networks in Limón, a known cocaine-smuggling zone. He was allegedly connected to individuals later arrested in Operation Titan, a major anti-narcotics effort. While not convicted, some pro-government sources claim that Costa Rica’s Organismo de Investigación Judicial identified him in intelligence reports related to narcotics activity in Limón. Opposition reports dispute that he was ever investigated.

The truth of the case is hard to ascertain. What is clear is that the accusations against the Nicaraguan government rely on circular logic: the “Ortega-Murillo dictatorship” is evil, therefore is must be behind political assassinations. Regardless of the speculation, there is no evidence that the current Nicaraguan authorities have ever engaged in deliberate extra-judicial assassination in Nicaragua – let alone in another country.

Moreover, the accusation fails the cui bono test of who benefits. The regime-change opposition stands to gain far more by using the incident to demonize the Sandinistas than would the government gain from silencing one of simply many critical voices abroad, especially a figure who had been mostly forgotten. If anything, the incident amplifies criticism rather than suppressing it.

In short, the accusations are driven by political animosity regardless of the facts at hand. Whatever the truth behind Roberto Samcam’s death, it has become one more pretext to attack Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-politics ... nicaragua/

******

Nicaragua and Mexico Unemployment Rate Drops to 2.7%, the Lowest in America


Banana production in Nicaragua. Photo: X

June 28, 2025 Hour: 3:32 pm

In May 2025, Nicaragua and Mexico recorded, according to official figures, one of the lowest unemployment rates on the continent, at 2.7%.

Nicaragua’s National Development Information Institute (INIDE) shows that the net employment rate in Nicaragua reached 97.3 per cent, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over the previous year. This result consolidates the trend observed in 2024, when unemployment closed at 3.1%, according to the Central Bank of Nicaragua.

Ovidio Reyes, President of the Central Bank of Nicaragua said these indicators to the “stability of the labor market,” supported by formal job growth and salary improvements.

In 2024, the number of members of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS) increased by 10,459 people (1.3%), reaching a total of 802,372 formal workers. The service and industrial sectors were the main drivers.

Another favorable economic indicator for the country Nica, says that The Central Bank of Nicaragua reported that the country’s GDP grew by 3% in the first quarter of 2025, a figure lower than the previous year’s 3.5%, resulting in an accumulated annual growth of 2.9% in March 2025.

This growth was driven by activities such as commerce, hotels and restaurants, agriculture, livestock, financial intermediation and transport. The Central Bank estimates economic growth in 2025 to be between 3% and 4%, with annual inflation ranging from 2% to 4%.

For its part, the Mexican National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE) reported an unemployment rate identical to that of Nicaragua (2.7%). However, the country faces structural challenges: 54.9% of workers are in the informal sector, and 7.1% are underemployed.

Despite this, Mexico maintains a comparative advantage in the region, where countries such as Colombia (9.0% unemployment in May 2025) or Chile (8.8% in February-April 2025) are the worst performers in this respect.

On the other hand, the Colombian government plans to reverse with the recent labor reform approved by Congress and sanctioned on June 26 by President Gustavo Petro after a long dispute against conservative sectors.



https://www.telesurenglish.net/nicaragu ... n-america/

[blindpig]

50,000 Died in Nicaragua’s Struggle Against Dictatorship: Sócrates Was One of the Last
July 2, 2025


Nicaraguan revolutionary Sócrates’ sister Abigail (in front), son Edwin and daughter Paola, at his grave on June 28, 2025. Photo: John Perry.

By John Perry and Dan Kovalik – Jun 29, 2025

Nicaraguans will fill the streets later this month to celebrate the 46th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. On July 19, 1979, the Somoza dictatorship finally fell, ending 18 years of guerilla fighting and urban insurrections. The regime had been supported for 43 years by successive US administrations (the history is told in Nicaragua: A History of Us Intervention & Resistance).

Only three weeks before, over the two days June 27-28, Sandinista forces had been forced to leave the capital, Managua, where the working-class barrios that they controlled in the east of the city came under aerial bombardment. Under cover of darkness, an enormous, silent retreat took place. More than 6,000 insurgents left the city, mostly walking in single file, making their way by alleyways and then rural pathways for 20 miles, over bare volcanic hillsides, to reach the militant neighbouring town of Masaya. On the morning of the 28th, when Somoza’s National Guard moved in for what they thought would be the final offensive, they found Managua’s eastern barrios almost deserted.

This strategic retreat, known as el repliegue, cost just six deaths among Sandinista fighters or supporters. One of these was Sócrates Espinoza Muñoz.

Sócrates was born in Masaya on July 1, 1955 into a family that, to outward appearances, supported the dictatorship. His father, Rosalío, was a sergeant in the National Guard and vehemently opposed the revolution. However, because his duties took him away from Masaya for long periods, he was unaware that the rest of the family not only supported the Sandinista uprising but used their home as a “safe house” to protect guerrilla fighters and hide weapons.

Sócrates joined the ranks of the Sandinista Front in 1977, identifying with its goals of social equality and freedom from the brutal dictatorship. He joined clandestinely, worked as a collaborator and took part in the final insurrection under the pseudonym “Edwin.” He joined a mobile unit on June 8 and learned to use the Mag 50 machine gun operated by his younger brother Rosalío (known as “Bronko”), who – 46 years later – recounted the events leading to Sócrates’ death.

On the morning of June 28, Bronko explained, their unit was covering the retreating forces as they reached the outskirts of Masaya, tired and in some cases wounded. After running out of ammunition, the unit was ordered to return to their temporary base by their commander, the 20-year-old Miriam Tinoco Pastrana (Comandante “Delia”), who would be killed in action only a week later. Sócrates asked for more ammunition, was given a band of 100 cartridges and he and Bronko set out again to cover the exhausted fighters who were still arriving. The National Guard’s base was in an old colonial fort on the summit of a hill overlooking Masaya, El Coyotepe. Sócrates and Bronko, skirting this hill as they looked out for retreating Sandinistas, came under attack, but managed to join other fighters and reorganize. By nightfall, now in heavy rain, with the Coyotepe now covered in clouds, they were patrolling the cotton fields to its north, guided by local peasants, often finding themselves knee-deep in mud.

As they crossed one field, a flash of lightning revealed three silhouettes in a fence about 100 yards in front of them. Believing them to be National Guard soldiers who were fleeing, they set out to try to take them as prisoners. Bronko managed to grab a gun from one of them, and Sócrates threw himself on another. But a shot rang out, and Sócrates yelled, “they hit me.” Bronko killed the culprit and the others were captured. Sócrates’ companions found an empty house, took off a door and used it to carry him to safety.

Arriving in the city, they found that all the streets were blocked and cordoned off, and no vehicles were circulating. They had to navigate roadblocks, carrying Sócrates on their shoulders, eventually reaching the hospital. Doctors found that the bullet, which had entered his neck, had killed him. The following morning, under periodic gunfire from helicopters and an aircraft, Sócrates’ body was taken to his parents’ house and then buried in the nearby cemetery.

Standing at his grave 46 years later, surrounded by present-day Sandinista activists who had just adorned it with flowers, his sister Abigail extolled Socrates’ example of courage and commitment. “Like that of many who gave their lives for the Revolution”, she said “it is a legacy that we as revolutionaries must continue. No longer with weapons and risking our lives, but through the struggles for health and education where, for the huge advances we have made today, we have to thank our Sandinista government.”

Behind Abigail in the photo are Edwin and Paola, Sócrates’ son and daughter. As well as commemorating her father’s death, Paola was marking her birthday: she was born on June 28, 1978, exactly one year before Sócrates was killed.

https://orinocotribune.com/50000-died-i ... -the-last/