[News] Correcting The Record: What Is Really Happening In Nicaragua?
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Jul 13 12:00:03 EDT 2018
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/13/correcting-the-record-what-is-really-happening-in-nicaragua/
Correcting The Record: What Is Really Happening In Nicaragua?
by Kevin Zeese - Nils McCune
<https://www.counterpunch.org/author/l2l3l4l5l3l1l/> - July 13, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a great deal of false and inaccurate information about
Nicaragua in the media. Even on the left some have simply repeated the
dubious claims of CNN and Nicaragua’s oligarchic media to support
removal of President Ortega.
This article seeks to correct the record, describe what is happening in
Nicaragua and why. As we write this, the coup seems to be failing,
people have rallied for peace (as this massive march for peace held
Saturday July 7 showed
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjLlWJPEkR0&feature=youtu.be>) and the
truth is coming out. It is important to understand what is occurring
because Nicaragua is an example of the types of violent coups the US and
wealthy use to put in place business dominated, neoliberal governments.
If people understand these tactics, they will become less effective.
*Mixing up the Class Interests*
In part, US pundits are getting their information from media outlets,
such as Jaime Chamorro-Cardinal’s La Prensa, and the same oligarchical
family’s Confidencial, that are the most active elements of the coup
media. Repeating and amplifying their narrative delegitimizes the
Sandinista government and presents unconditional surrender by Daniel
Ortega as the only acceptable option. These pundits provide cover for
nefarious internal and external interests who have set their sights on
controlling Central America’s poorest and yet resource-rich country.
The coup attempt brought the class divisions in Nicaragua into the open.
Piero Coen, the richest man in Nicaragua, owner of all national Western
Union operations and an agrochemical company, personally arrived on the
first day of protests at the Polytechnical University in Managua, to
encourage students to keep protesting, promising his continued support.
The traditional landed oligarchy of Nicaragua, politically led by the
Chamorro family, publishes constant ultimatums to the government through
its media outlets and finances the roadblocks that have paralyzed the
country for the last eight weeks.
The Catholic Church, long allied with the oligarchs, has put its full
weight behind creating and sustaining anti-government actions, including
its universities, high schools, churches, bank accounts, vehicles,
tweets, Sunday sermons, and a one-sided effort to mediate the National
Dialogue
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaragua-Resumes-National-Dialogue-with-IHRC-Mediators-20180625-0019.html>.
Bishops have made death threats
<https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2018/05/31/politica/2427927-obispo-mata-justicia-caera-sobre-daniel-ortega>
against the President and his family, and a priest has been filmed
supervising the torture
<http://www.notitarde.com/sacerdote-y-pastor-torturas/> of Sandinistas.
Pope Francis
<https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-06/pope-francis-nicaragua-peace-appeal.html>
has called for peace dialogue, and even called Cardinal Leonaldo Brenes
and Bishop Rolando Alvarez to a private meeting in the Vatican
<https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/in-rome-nicaraguan-bishops-will-inform-pope-of-worsening-crisis-61107>,
setting off rumors that the Nicaraguan monseñores were being scolded for
their obvious involvement in the conflict they are officially
mediating. The church remains one of the few pillars keeping the coup
alive.
A common claim is Ortega has cozied up to the traditional oligarchy, but
the opposite is true. This is the first government since Nicaraguan
independence that does not include the oligarchy. Since the 1830s
through the 1990s, all Nicaraguan governments– even during the
Sandinista Revolution– included people from the elite “last names,” of
Chamorro, Cardenal, Belli, Pellas, Lacayo, Montealegre, Gurdián. The
government since 2007 does not, which is why these families are
supporting the coup.
Ortega detractors claim his three-part dialogue including labor unions,
capitalists and the State is an alliance with big business. In fact,
that process has yielded the highest growth rate in Central America
<http://taskforceamericas.org/statement-in-support-of-nicaragua/> and
annual minimum wage increases 5-7% above inflation, improving workers’
living conditions and lifting people out of poverty. The anti-poverty
Borgen project reports
<https://borgenproject.org/economic-growth-in-nicaragua-helped-reduce-poverty/>
reports poverty fell by 30 percent between 2005 and 2014.
The Ortega economy is the opposite of neoliberalism, it is based on
public investment and strengthening the safety net for the poor. The
government invests in infrastructure, transit, maintains water and
electricity within the public sector, and moved privatized services.
e.g., health care and primary education into the public sector. This has
ensured a stable economic structure that favors the real economy over
the speculative economy.
What liberal and even leftists commentators overlook is that unlike the
Lula government in Brazil, which reduced poverty through cash payouts to
poor families, Nicaragua has redistributed productive capital in order
to develop a self-sufficient popular economy. The FSLN model is better
understood as an emphasis on the popular economy over the State or
capitalist spheres.
While the private sector employs about 15% of Nicaraguan workers, the
informal sector employs over 60%. The informal sector has benefitted
from $400 million in public investments, much of it coming from the ALBA
alliance funds to finance micro loans for small and medium-sized
agricultural enterprises. Policies to facilitate credit, equipment,
training, animals, seeds and subsidized fuel further support these
enterprises. The small and medium producers of Nicaragua have led the
country to produce 80-90% of its food and end its dependence on IMF loans.
As such, workers and peasants– many of whom are self-employed and who
accessed productive capital through the Sandinista Revolution and
ensuing struggles– represent an important political subject of the
stable, postwar social development of the last decade, including the
hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers who have received land title
and the nearly one-quarter of the national territory that has been given
collective title as territory of indigenous nations. The social
movements of workers, peasants, and indigenous groups were the base of
popular support that brought the FSLN back into power.
Land titling, and assistance to small businesses have also emphasized
equality for women, resulting in Nicaragua having the lowest level of
gender inequality
<http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/economies/#economy=NIC>
in Latin America and ranked 12 out of 145 countries in the world, just
behind Germany.
Over time, the FSLN government has incorporated this massive
self-employed sector, as well as maquiladora workers (i.e. textile
workers in foreign-owned plants located in free trade zones created by
previous neoliberal governments), into the health care and pension
system, causing the financial commitments to grow which required a new
formula to ensure fiscal stability. The proposed reforms to Social
Security were the trigger
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaragua-Solidarity-Groups-Accuse-Right-Wing-Opposition-of-Using-Reforms-as-Excuse-for-Coup-20180703-0001.html>
for the private sector and student protests on April 18th. The business
lobby called for the protests when Ortega proposed increasing employer
contributions by 3.5% to pension and health funds, while only slightly
increasing worker contributions by 0.75% and shifting 5% of pensioners’
cash transfer into their health care fund. The reform also ended a
loophole which allowed high-income individuals to claim a low income in
order to access health benefits.
This was a counter-proposal to the IMF proposal
<http://www.coha.org/social-security-protests-in-nicaragua-hold-on-a-second/>
to raise the retirement age and more than double the number of weeks
that workers would need to pay into the pension fund in order to access
benefits. The fact the government felt strong enough to deny the IMF and
business lobby’s austerity demands was a sign that the bargaining
strength of private capital has declined, as Nicaragua’s impressive
economic growth
<http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2018/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=57&pr.y=5&sy=2006&ey=2017&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=268%2C278%2C238%2C253%2C258&s=NGDPRPC&grp=0&a=>,
a 38% increase in GDP from 2006-2017, has been led by small-scale
producers and public spending. However, the opposition used manipulative
Facebook ads presenting the reform as an austerity measure, plus fake
news of a student death on April 18th, to generate protests across the
country on April 19th. Immediately, the regime change machine
<https://therealnews.com/stories/us-govt-regime-change-machine-fuels-nicaraguas-violent-right-wing-insurgency>
lurched into motion.
The National Dialogue shows the class interests in conflict. The
opposition’s Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy has as its key
figures: José Adan Aguirre, leader of the private business lobby; Maria
Nelly Tellez, director of Cargill in Nicaragua and head of the
US-Nicaragua Chamber of Commerce; the private university students of the
April 19th Movement; Michael Healy, manager of a Colombian sugar
corporation and head of the agribusiness lobby; Juan Sebastian Chamorro,
who represents the oligarchy dressed as civil society; Carlos
Tunnermann, 85-year-old ex-Sandinista minister and ex-chancellor of the
National University; Azalea Solis, head of a US government-funded
feminist organization; and Medardo Mairena, a “peasant leader” funded by
the US government, who lived 17 years in Costa Rica before being
deported in 2017 for human trafficking. Tunnermann, Solis and the April
19th students are all associated with the Movement for Renovation of
Sandinismo (MRS), a tiny Sandinista offshoot party that nonetheless
merits special attention.
In the 1980s, many of the Sandinista Front’s top level cadre were in
fact the children of some of the famous oligarchic families, such as the
Cardenal brothers and part of the Chamorro family, in charge of the
revolutionary government’s ministries of Culture and Education and its
media, respectively. After FSLN’s election loss in 1990, the children of
the oligarchy staged an exodus from the party. Along with them, some of
the most notable intellectual, military and intelligence cadre left and
formed, over time, the MRS. The new party renounced socialism, blamed
all of the mistakes of the Revolution on Daniel Ortega and over time
took over the sphere of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in
Nicaragua, including feminist, environmentalist, youth, media and human
rights organizations.
Since 2007, the MRS has become increasingly close with the extreme
right-wing of the US Republican Party. Since the outbreak of violence in
April, many if not most of the sources cited by Western media
(including, disturbingly, Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!), come from this
party, which has the support of less than 2% of the Nicaraguan
electorate. This allows the oligarchs to couch their violent attempt to
reinstall neoliberalism in leftist-sounding discourse of former
Sandinistas critical of the Ortega government.
It is a farce to claim that workers and peasants are behind the unrest.
La Vía Campesina
<http://www.cloclaviacampesina.org/2018/05/nicaragua-debe-vivir-en-paz-companerosy.html>,
the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers, the Association of Rural
Workers
<https://friendsatc.org/blog/an-urgent-call-for-solidarity-in-nicaragua/>,
the National Workers’ Front
<https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:78154-fnt-da-a-conocer-medidas-urgentes-para-restablecer-la-paz-y-la-estabilidad-en-nicaragua>,
the indigenous Mayangna Nation
<https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:76385-gobierno-mayangna-apoya-dialogo-para-buscar-la-paz>
and other movements and organizations have been unequivocal in their
demands for an end to the violence and their support for the Ortega
government. This unrest is a full-scale regime change operation carried
out by media oligarchs, a network of NGOs funded by the US government,
armed elements of elite landholding families and the Catholic Church,
and has opened the window for drug cartels and organized crime to gain a
foothold in Nicaragua.
*The Elephant in the Room*
Which brings us to US government involvement in the violent coup.
As Tom Ricker reported
<https://quixote.org/MANUFACTURING-DISSENT-THE-N-E-D-OPPOSITION-MEDIA-AND-THE-POLITICAL-CRISIS-IN-NICARAGUA/>
early in this political crisis, several years ago the US government
decided that rather than finance opposition political parties, which
have lost enormous legitimacy in Nicaragua, it would finance the NGO
civil society sector. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) gave more
than $700,000 to build the opposition
<https://www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/nicaragua-2017/>
to the government in 2017, and has granted more than $4.4 million since
2014. The overarching purpose of this funding was to “provide a
coordinated strategy and media voice for opposition groups in
Nicaragua.” Ricker continues:
“The result of this consistent building and funding of opposition
resources has been to create an echo chamber that is amplified by
commentators in the international media – most of whom have no presence
in Nicaragua and rely on these secondary sources.”
NED founding father, Allen Weinstein, described NED as the overt CIA
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/How-the-US-Funds-Dissent-against-Latin-American-Governments-20150312-0006.html>
saying, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the
CIA.” In Nicaragua, rather than the traditional right-wing, NED funds
the MRS-affiliated organizations which pose left-sounding critiques of
the Sandinista government. The regime change activists use Sandinista
slogans, songs and symbols even as they burn historic monuments, paint
over the red-and-black markers of fallen martyrs, and physically attack
members of the Sandinista party.
Of the opposition groups in the National Dialogue, the feminist
organization of Azalea Solis and the peasant organization of Medardo
Mairena are financed throughNED grants
<https://popularresistance.org/ned-boasts-of-laying-the-groundwork-for-nicaraguan-insurrection/>,
while the April 19th students stay in hotels and make trips paid for by
Freedom House
<https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/503-freedom-house/>,
another regime change organ funded by NED and USAID. NED also
finances Confidencial, the Chamorro media organization. Grants from NED
finance the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policy (IEEPP),
whose Executive Director, Felix Maradiaga, is another MRS cadre very
close to the US Embassy. In June, Maradiaga was accused of leading a
criminal network called Viper which, from the occupied UPOLI campus,
organized carjackings, arsons and murders in order to create chaos and
panic during the months of April and May.
Maradiaga grew up in the United States and became a fellow of the Aspen
Leadership Institute <https://agln.aspeninstitute.org/profile/3004>,
before studying public policy at Harvard. He was a secretary in the
Ministry of Defense for the last liberal president, Enrique Bolaños. He
is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum
<https://www.weforum.org/people/felix-maradiaga> and in 2015, the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
<https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/event/speakers-dinner-2015-gus-hart-fellow-felix-maradiaga>
gave him the Gus Hart Fellowship, past recipients of which include Cuban
dissident Yoani Sánchez and Henrique Capriles Radonski, the Venezuelan
opposition leader who attacked the Cuban embassy during the coup attempt
of 2002.
Remarkably, Maradiaga is not the only leader of the coup attempt who is
part of the Aspen World Leadership Network
<https://cn.weforum.org/people/maria-nelly-rivas/>. Maria Nelly Rivas,
director in Nicaragua of US corporate giant Cargill
<https://www.cargill.com/story/committed-to-change>, is one of the main
spokespersons for the opposition Civic Alliance. Rivas, who currently
also heads the US-Nicaragua Chamber of Commerce
<https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2018/01/30/economia/2369301-maria-nelly-rivas-electa-presidenta-de-amcham>,
is being groomed as a possible presidential candidate in the next
elections. Beneath these US-groomed leaders, there is a network of over
2,000 young people who have received trainings with NED funds
<https://www.ndi.org/nicaragua-leadership-program> on topics such as
social media skills for democracy defense. This battalion of social
media warriors was able to immediately shape and control public opinion
in Facebook in the five days from April 18th to 22nd, leading to
spontaneous violent protests across the country.
*On the Violence*
One of the ways in which reporting on Nicaragua has ventured farthest
from the truth is calling the opposition “nonviolent.” The violence
script, modeled on the 2014 and 2017 guarimba protests in Venezuela
<https://monthlyreview.org/2018/06/01/the-politics-of-food-in-venezuela/>,
is to organize armed attacks on government buildings, entice the police
to send in anti-riot squads, engage in filmed confrontations and publish
edited footage online claiming that the government is being violent
against nonviolent protesters.
Over 60 government buildings have been burned down, schools, hospitals,
health centers attacked, 55 ambulances damaged, at least $112 million
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Nicaragua-Legitimacy-And-Human-Rights-20180704-0034.html>
in infrastructure damage, small businesses have been closed, and 200,000
jobs lost causing devastating economic impact
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Nicaragua-Legitimacy-And-Human-Rights-20180704-0034.html>
during the protests. Violence has included, in addition to thousands of
injuries, 15 students and 16 police officers killed, as well as over 200
Sandinistas kidnapped, many of them publicly tortured. Violent
opposition atrocities
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi3xmHsIieGf_xKCux4x51g> were
misreported as government repression. While it is important to defend
the right of the public to protest, regardless of its political
opinions, it is disingenuous to ignore that the opposition’s strategy
requires and feeds upon violence and deaths
<https://www.investigaction.net/en/nicaragua-terrorism-as-an-art-of-demonstrating/>.
National and international news claim deaths and injuries due to
“repression” without explaining the context
<https://www.investigaction.net/en/nicaragua-terrorism-as-an-art-of-demonstrating/>.
The Molotov cocktails, mortar-launchers, pistols, and assault rifles
used by opposition groups are ignored by the media, and when Sandinista
sympathizers, police or passers-by are killed, they are falsely counted
as victims of state repression. Explosive opposition claims like
massacres of children
<https://blogcontralamanipulacion.wordpress.com/2018/05/28/contradicciones-de-la-lista-de-muertos-dictada-por-el-m19a-en-la-primera-mesa-de-dialogo-primera-mentira/>
and murders of women <http://tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/3395> have
been shown to be false, and the cases of torture, disappearances and
extrajudicial executions by police forces have not
<http://www.informepastran.com/index.php/2018/07/03/no-hay-torturas-en-el-chipote/>
been corroborated by evidence
<http://www.informepastran.com/index.php/2018/07/03/piden-pruebas-a-organismos-de-derechos-humanos/>or
due process.
While there is evidence to support the opposition claim of sniper fire
<https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2018/05/06/nacionales/2414738-autopsia-a-estudiante-asesinado-en-protestas-en-esteli-confirma-uso-de-francotiradores>
killing protesters, there is no logical explanation for the State using
snipers to add to the death toll, and counter-protesters have also been
victims of sniper fire, suggesting a “third party” provocateur role in
the destabilizing violence. When an entire Sandinista family was burned
to death in Managua, the opposition media all cited a witness who
claimed that the police had set fire to the home
<https://www.investigaction.net/en/nicaragua-terrorism-as-an-art-of-demonstrating/>,
despite the house being in a neighborhood barricaded off from police access.
The National Police of Nicaragua has been long-recognized
<https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-nicaraguas-homicide-rate-so-far-below-that-of-its-central-american-neighbors/>
for its model of community policing (in contrast to militarized police
in most Central American countries), its relative lack of corruption,
and its mostly female top brass. The coup strategy has sought to destroy
public trust in the police through egregious use of fake news, such as
the many false claims of assassinations, beatings, torture, and
disappearances in the week from April 17th to 23rd. Several young people
whose photos were carried in opposition rallies as victims of police
violence have turned out to be alive
<https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:76613-estan-vivos-ciudadanos-que-fueron-circulados-como-fallecidos-desmienten-noticias-falsas-y-manipulacion-en-redes-sociales>and
well.
The police have been wholly inadequate and underprepared for armed
confrontations. Attacks on several public buildings on the same night
and the first major arson attacks led government workers to hold vigils
with barrels of water and, often, sticks and stones, to fend off
attackers. The opposition, frustrated at not achieving more police
conflicts, began to build roadblocks across the country and burning the
homes of Sandinistas, even shooting and burning Sandinista families in
atrocious hate crimes
<https://www.investigaction.net/en/nicaragua-terrorism-as-an-art-of-demonstrating/>.
In contrast to La Prensa’s version of events, Nicaraguans have felt the
distinct lack of police presence, and the loss of safely in their
neighborhoods, while many were targeted by violence.
Since May, the strategy of the opposition has been to build armed
roadblocks across the country, closing off transport and trapping
people. The roadblocks, usually built with large paving stones, are
manned by between 5 and 100 armed men with bandannas or masks. While the
media reports on idealistic young people running roadblocks, the vast
majority of roadblocks are maintained by paid men
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Nicaragua-Legitimacy-And-Human-Rights-20180704-0034.html>
who come from a background of petty crime
<https://www.telesurtv.net/bloggers/Tranques-y-gatilleros-intelectuales-20180628-0004.html>.
Where large areas of cities and towns are blocked off from government
and police forces, drug-related activities intensify, and drug gangs
<https://www.telesurtv.net/news/detienen-oscar-antonio-rivas-actos-violentos-nicaragua--20180629-0060.html>
now control many of the roadblocks and pay the salaries.
These roadblocks have been the centers of violence, workers who need to
pass through roadblocks are often robbed, punched, insulted, and, if
suspected of being Sandinistas, tied up, stripped naked, tortured
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi3xmHsIieGf_xKCux4x51g>, painted in
blue-and-white, and sometimes killed. There are three cases of people
dying in ambulances unable to pass roadblocks, and one case of a
10-year-old girl being kidnapped and raped at the roadblock in Las
Maderas. When organized neighbors or the police clear roadblocks, the
armed groups run away and regroup to burn buildings, kidnap or injure
people in revenge. All of the victims that this violence produces are
counted by the mainstream media as victims of repression, a total falsehood.
The Nicaraguan government has confronted this situation by largely
keeping police off the streets, to prevent encounters and accusations of
repression. At the same time, rather than simply arrest violent
protestors, which certainly would have given the opposition the battle
deaths it craves, the government called for a National Dialogue
<http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-05/17/c_137184603.htm>, mediated
by the Catholic Church
<https://www.smh.com.au/world/central-america/catholic-church-to-act-as-mediator-as-nicaragua-protests-continue-20180425-p4zbkc.html>,
in which the opposition can bring forward any proposal for human rights
and political reform. The government created a parliamentary Truth and
Peace Commission
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaragua-Forms-Truth-And-Security-Commission-To-Halt-Violence-20180616-0020.html>
and launched an independent Public Ministry query.
As a result, a process of organizing self-defense developed. Families
who have been displaced, young people who have been beaten, robbed or
tortured, and veterans of the 1979 insurrection and/or the Contra War,
hold vigil round the Sandinista Front headquarters in each town. In many
places they built barricades against opposition attacks and have been
falsely labeled paramilitary forces in the media. In the towns that do
not have such community-organized barricades, the human toll from
opposition violence is much greater. The National Union of Nicaraguan
Students has been particularly targeted by opposition violence. A
student delegate of the National Dialogue, Leonel Morales, was
kidnapped, shot in the abdomen and thrown into a ditch to die in June,
to sabotage the dialogue and punish him for challenging the April 19th
students’ right to speak on behalf of all Nicaraguan students.
There have been four major opposition rallies since April, directed
toward mobilizing the upper-middle class Nicaraguans who live in the
suburbs between Managua and Masaya. These rallies featured a who’s-who
of high society, including beauty queens, business owners and oligarchs,
as well as university students of the April 19th Movement, the moral
high-ground for the opposition.
Three months into the conflict, none of the mortal victims have been
bourgeois. All have come from the popular classes of Nicaragua. Despite
claims of total repression, the bourgeois feels perfectly safe to
participate in public protests by day — although the last daytime rally
ended in a chaotic attack by protesters against squatters on a property
of, curiously enough, Piero Coen, Nicaragua’s richest man. The nighttime
armed attacks have generally been carried out by people who come from
poor neighborhoods, many of whom are paid two to four times the minimum
daily wage for each night of destruction.
Unfortunately, most Nicaraguan human rights organizations are funded by
NED and controlled by the Movement for Sandinista Renovation. These
organizations have accused the Nicaraguan government of dictatorship and
genocide throughout Ortega’s presidency. International human rights
organizations, including Amnesty International
<https://popularresistance.org/open-letter-to-amnesty-international-by-a-former-amnesty-international-prisoner-of-conscience/>
have been criticized for their one-sided reports, which include none of
the information provided by the government or individuals who identify
as Sandinistas.
The government invited the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(IACHR) of the OAS, a Washington-based entity notoriously unfriendly to
leftist governments, to investigate the violent events of April and
determine whether repression had occurred. The night of a controversial
skirmish in the highway outside the Agrarian University in Managua ended
a negotiated 48-hour truce, IACHR Director Paulo Abrao visited the site
to declarehis support for the opposition
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Nicaragua-Legitimacy-And-Human-Rights-20180704-0034.html>.
The IACHR ignored the opposition’s widespread violence
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaragua-Reports-Opposition-Violence-to-IACHR-20180612-0020.html>
and only reported on the defensive violence of the government. Not only
was it categorically rejected by Nicaraguan chancellor Denis Moncada
<https://www.telesurtv.net/news/nicaragua-informe-cidh-sesgado-parcializado-20180622-0031.html>
as an “insult to the dignity of the Nicaraguan people,” a resolution
approving the IACHR report
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Nicaragua-Breaking-Out-of-Soft-Coup-Psychosis-20180625-0006.html>
was supported by only ten out of 34 countries.
Meanwhile, the April 19th Movement, made up of current or former
university students in favor of regime change, sent a delegation to
Washington and managed to alienate much of Nicaraguan society by
grinning into the camera with far-right interventionist members
<https://www.scoopnest.com/es/user/CANAL15NIC/1004497731669372928-ileana-ros-lehtinen-muy-inspirada-en-reunirme-con-victor-y-zayda-valientes-lideres-universitarios-que-anhelan-una-nicaragua-libre-y-democratica-estos-estudiantes-representan-la-voz-de-tantos-jovenes-en-protestar-y-denunciar-la-violencia-del-regimen-de-ortega>
of the US Congress, including Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen, Sen. Marco Rubio
and Sen. Ted Cruz. M19 leaders also cheered Vice-President Mike Pence’s
bellicose warnings that Nicaragua is on the short list of countries that
will soon know the Trump Administration’s meaning of freedom, and met
with the ARENA party of El Salvador, known for its links to the death
squads that murdered liberation theologist Archbishop Oscar Romero.
Within Nicaragua, the critical mass of students stopped demonstrating
weeks ago, the large civic protests of April and May have dwindled, and
the same-old familiar faces of Nicaraguan right-wing politics are left
holding the bill for massive material damage and loss of life.
*Why Nicaragua?*
Ortega won his third term in 2016 with 72.4 percent of the vote with 66
percent turnout, very high compared to US elections. Not only has
Nicaragua put in place an economy that treats the poor as producers,
with remarkable results raising their standard of living in 10 years,
but it also has a government that consistently rejects US imperialism,
allying with Cuba, Venezuela, and Palestine, and voices support
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaragua-Decorates-Oscar-Lopez-Rivera-with-Highest-Honor-20170720-0002.html>
for Puerto Rican independence and a peaceful solution to Korean crisis.
Nicaragua is a member of member of Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas
and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a Latin
American alternative to the OAS, neither include the US or Canada. It
has also allied with China for a proposed canal project and Russia for
security cooperation. For all of these reasons the US wants to install a
US-friendly Nicaraguan government.
More important is the example Nicaragua has set for a successful social
and economic model outside the US sphere of domination. Generating over
75% of its energy
<https://www.ecowatch.com/nicaragua-joins-clean-energy-revolution-vows-90-renewables-by-2020-1882145790.html>
from renewable sources, Nicaragua was the only country with the moral
authority to oppose the Paris Climate Agreement as being too weak
<http://time.com/4799844/nicaragua-paris-climate-agreement-countries/> (it
later joined the treaty one day after Trump pulled the US out, stating
“we opposed the Paris agreement out of responsibility, the US opposes it
out of irresponsibility”). The FMLN government of El Salvador, while
less politically dominant than the Sandinista Front, has taken the
example of good governance from Nicaragua, recently prohibiting mining
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/world/americas/el-salvador-prizing-water-over-gold-bans-all-metal-mining.html>
and the privatization of water. Even Honduras, the eternal bastion of US
power in Central America, showed signs of a leftward shift until the
US-supported military coup in 2009
<https://popularresistance.org/the-ugly-aftermath-of-the-us-supported-coup-in-honduras/>.
Since then, there has been massive repression of social activists, a
clearly stolen 2017 election
<https://popularresistance.org/oas-calls-for-new-honduras-election-after-coup-president-declared-winner/>,
and Honduras has permitted the expansion of US military bases near the
Nicaraguan border.
In 2017, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed the
Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-House-Passes-NICA-Act-Against-Nicaragua-Imperiling-Social-Programs-and-Development-20171003-0030.html>
(NICA Act), which if passed by the Senate will force the US government
to veto loans from international institutions to the Nicaraguan
government. This US imperialism
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Nicaragua-Says-Nica-Act-Reflects-Continuity-of-US-Imperialism-20170728-0003.html>
will cripple Nicaragua’s ability to build roads, update hospitals,
construct renewable energy plants, and transition from extensive
livestock raising to integrated animal-forestry systems, among other
consequences. It may also signify the end of many popular social
programs, such as subsidized electricity, stable bus fares, and free
medical treatment of chronic diseases.
The US Executive Branch has used the Global Magnitsky Act to target the
finances of leaders of the Electoral Supreme Court, the National Police,
the city government of Managua and the ALBA corporation in Nicaragua.
Police officers and public health bureaucrats have been told their US
visas have been revoked. The point, of course, is not whether these
officials have or have not committed acts that merit their reprimand in
Nicaragua, but whether the US government should have the jurisdiction to
intimidate and corner public officials of Nicaragua.
While the sadistic violence continues
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Nicaragua-Legitimacy-And-Human-Rights-20180704-0034.html>,
the strategy of the coup-mongers to force out the government has failed.
The resolution of the political crisis will come through elections, and
the FSLN is likely to win those elections, barring a dramatic and
unlikely new offensive by the right-wing opposition.
*An Upside Down Class War*
It is important to understand the nature of US and oligarch coups in
this era and the role of media and NGO deception because it is repeated
in multiple Latin American and other countries. We can expect a similar
attack on recently elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, if he
seeks the changes he has promised.
The US has sought to dominate Nicaragua since the mid-1800s
<https://www.investigaction.net/en/nicaragua-terrorism-as-an-art-of-demonstrating/>.
The wealthy in Nicaragua have sought return of US-allied governance
since the Sandinistas rose to power. This failing coup does not mean the
end of their efforts or the end of corporate media misinformation.
Knowing what is really occurring and sharing that information is the
antidote to defeating them in Nicaragua and around the world.
Nicaragua is a class war turned upside down. The government has raised
the living standards of the impoverished majority through wealth
redistribution. Oligarchs and the United States, unable to install
neoliberalism through elections, created a political crisis, highlighted
by false media coverage to force Ortega to resign. The coup is failing,
the truth is coming out, and should not be forgotten.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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