[News] Elliott Abrams and the People of Central America: Never Forget!

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*September 7th, 2023*


  *Elliott Abrams and the People of Central America: Never Forget!*
  <https://default.salsalabs.org/Tf6f7aa3e-2b83-4dd8-a6ed-e52479c00ba3/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>


/By James Phillips/

/(James Phillips is a cultural and political anthropologist who has 
lived in Nicaragua and Honduras and has studied Central America for many 
years. His latest book is: //Extracting Honduras: Resource Exploitation, 
Displacement, and Forced Migration/ 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T56869a23-944a-4379-a103-90f7a7083f6e/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>/.)/ 


/As Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, 
Abrams was largely responsible for policies and practices that created 
murder, mayhem, and misery in Central America. Photo: NDLON/

Elliott Abrams is being considered for a position on the State 
Department’s Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. According to its 
website, 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Tb9edaf1d-eda9-4f05-86b9-51be13778a11/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
the Commission’s work is “appraising U.S. government activities intended 
to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics and to increase the 
understanding of, and support for, these same activities.” What this 
neutral sounding language means in practice is whatever it takes to 
extend and maintain U.S. control of other countries. The activities of 
Elliott Abrams over the past forty years 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Td57d835b-7efd-4af6-9f11-99a7ce67121c/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
provide some of the worst examples of this mission, and of a blatant 
disregard for the sovereignty, rights, and lives of others.

*To send email messages to President Biden and your Senators opposing 
the Elliott Abrams nomination, **click here* 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T097583ea-0549-44cf-a937-abd611569598/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>*! 
*

Abrams’ entire career in public office has been guided by his apparent 
belief that the killing, torture, and misery of any number of Latin 
Americans (and others) is justified in the name of protecting the 
"security' of the United States. This is the essence of the so-called 
National Security Doctrine 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T0d1ba31b-a31c-454d-a967-874dd2fa5989/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>that 
was employed by all of the violent military dictatorships of Latin 
America in the 1970s and 1980s. It was and remains very much a central 
part of the thinking of many in the U.S. government, such as Mr. Abrams. 
The "security" justification in this context was and is a lie, an excuse 
for eliminating all dissent and extending control over a population.

As Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Abrams was 
largely responsible for policies and practices that created murder, 
mayhem, and misery in Central America, and that still haunt the region 
today, largely because people like Abrams are still in positions of 
influence in Washington. “These same guys that caused so much misery in 
the 1980s are still walking the streets freely,” a Honduran woman told 
me after the 2009 coup in her country.

In the early 1980s, Abrams helped to oversee the Guatemalan Army’s 
genocide of four hundred Mayan villages where men, women, and children 
were systematically slaughtered. Because the authors of this genocide 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Tcbfaa896-e271-4cc1-8859-71d6378869cf/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
remained in power, it took decades to bring anyone to justice for this 
atrocity. 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T3c032af0-e419-48c9-b22a-f76d824bf617/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> Abrams 
and the Reagan Administration continued to support the genocidal 
Guatemalan military in the face of international condemnation.

Abrams had a large hand in directing U.S. policy in El Salvador, in the 
1980s, when the country’s military engaged in a long and brutal series 
of assassinations and massacres, with the excuse of guarding the nation 
against the “communist” insurgency of the Farabundo Marti National 
Liberation Front (FMLN). The most infamous example occurred in the 
community of El Mozote 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T7a5284b4-c490-4877-9d8b-7bb8830500d6/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>, 
where the Salvadoran military massacred 1,000 innocent people for 
allegedly aiding the FMLN. The government and the military adopted the 
assassination tool that came to be known as the “death squad,” 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Tb78d8cbc-b23a-47f6-998b-fcbaaa6c93ab/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
(/esquadrón de la muerte/), that was widely used also in Honduras and 
Guatemala.

The Salvador military also targeted progressive sectors of the Catholic 
Church, assassinating Archbishop Oscar Romero, several priests, four 
U.S. church women, six Jesuit faculty of the University of Central 
America in San Salvador and their housekeeper and her daughter, and an 
unknown number of Delegates of the Word and other lay church leaders. It 
was said that the military trained to the chant of ”Be a patriot, kill a 
priest.” At this time, El Salvador was the third largest recipient of 
U.S. military and economic aid (behind only Israel and Egypt). U.S. 
Representative Joe Moakley (D-MA) led a Congressional fact-finding 
delegation and issued a report 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T5dc0cc42-8861-49df-aa51-f150996695a0/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
that was a scathing denunciation of the use of U.S. aid for the 
Salvadoran military engaged in such human rights disasters. In response, 
Abrams applied his talents as a spin-master to excuse and whitewash 
these atrocities.

With Abrams, in the 1980s the Reagan Administration worked to make 
Honduras its most reliable colony and the platform for U.S. intervention 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T0fef0e86-af65-49a9-8057-129b01dfeb60/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
and control of the region. The U.S. military expanded its presence in 
the country and its close working relationship with the Honduran 
military. Many Hondurans today recall that as one of the worst periods 
of political repression in the country’s history. Student activists, 
labor leaders, and others were disappeared and often found dead and 
mutilated. Military roadblocks were everywhere; soldiers checked 
everyone riding on public transportation. Young men were systematically 
rounded up and jailed, disappeared, or forced into the Honduran 
military. The Honduran Army’s Battalion 316 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Tc7b6087e-e0f3-495b-8258-40d37d7692d5/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>became 
notorious as a death squad used to assassinate leading critics of the 
U.S. or of the neoliberal economy the government was developing.

Under pressure from the Reagan Administration, the Honduran government 
and the army allowed the south of the country, along the Nicaraguan 
border, to be turned into a safe zone where U.S. trainers, supplies, and 
advisers were funneled to Contra camps, and where Contra officers 
recruited young men among the Nicaraguan refugees in the large refugee 
camp near Jacaleapa. The Honduran government was not always comfortable 
with the U.S. using the country as the staging point for war against 
Honduras’ neighbors, especially Nicaragua. When the Nicaraguan army 
chased some Contra forces out of northern Nicaragua and back into 
Honduras, the U.S. government spread the story that Nicaragua was 
invading Honduras 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T54abcdee-442c-4246-a6de-8c02a00d7b93/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>. 
When asked about this, Honduran President Azcona denied that there was 
any Nicaraguan invasion.

Abrams was adept at peddling fear as a weapon. I could not find many 
people in Honduras who really believed Abrams and Reagan when they lied 
that Sandinista Nicaragua was preparing to invade Honduras and turn it 
into a communist dictatorship. In neighboring Nicaragua, however, 
everyone lived with the fear that the United States would invade 
Nicaragua at any moment.

Under the Reagan Administration, Abrams was one of the chief agents in 
organizing, funding, and sustaining the Contra War in which the United 
States used legal and illegal means to fund, arm, train, and advise the 
Nicaraguan Contra forces to destroy the Sandinista-led popular 
revolution. In 1979, that revolution had finally toppled the 45-year 
dictatorship of the Somoza family that had brutally ruled Nicaragua with 
the blessing of eight U.S. Administrations from Franklin Roosevelt to 
Jimmy Carter. By 1981, Reagan and his posse were determined to topple 
the revolution. Abrams lent his skills enthusiastically to this effort.

The Iran-Contra Affair 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Td8957f22-9498-4d19-8a67-a7e2fbed4c5a/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
shows how far-reaching and cynical were the efforts of Abrams and his 
associates. The Reagan Administration secretly brokered an illegal deal 
to sell weapons to the Islamic revolutionary government of Iran, the 
same government that Reagan was publicly denouncing as an evil and 
repressive regime seeking to destabilize the Middle East. The money from 
the sale of these arms was then used to illegally fund the equipping, 
training, and support of the emerging Contra forces on the border 
between Honduras and Nicaragua. When questioned about this by the 1987 
Iran-Contra Congressional investigative committee, Abrams lied, but he 
managed to avoid actual prosecution and returned to a position of 
influence in the Administration. In 1991, he pleaded guilty to two 
offenses of lying to Congress. He was pardoned by President George H. W. 
Bush.

*To send email messages to President Biden and your Senators opposing 
the Elliott Abrams nomination, **click here* 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T159999c1-d8bf-4474-bddf-f97aa29e48b9/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>*! 
*

Abrams and his associates also found another (illegal and destructive) 
way to fund the Contra war. In August 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning 
journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with a series of articles in the 
/San Jose Mercury News /reporting the results of his year-long 
investigation into the roots of the crack cocaine epidemic in the United 
States, specifically in Los Angeles. The series, entitled “Dark 
Alliance,” revealed that for the better part of the 1980s a Bay Area 
drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled 
millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras. This 
arrangement helped to destroy the lives of people in Los Angeles 
neighborhoods and the lives of Nicaraguan peasants thousands of miles 
away. A Justice Department investigation 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Td594dac7-160f-43fe-a3bd-9e93ede05c23/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>confirmed 
much of Webb’s findings.

The strategy of the Nicaraguan Contras was shaped and directed by Abrams 
and others who referred to it as “low-intensity conflict.” It was 
anything but low-intensity for the Nicaraguan people who lived through 
the nightmare. The strategy was to target not the Nicaraguan Sandinista 
army but rather the civilian population, especially the small farmers 
and peasants in hundreds of rural communities throughout the country; to 
make life unbearable so that the people would turn against the 
Sandinista government or be unable to support it.

The CIA wrote and distributed to Contra soldiers and others a how-to 
manual 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T648221a1-d3de-4da8-84fe-10613d318651/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>for 
performing acts of sabotage against daily life, especially anything that 
was related to the Nicaraguan government. It was a manual on how to 
conduct “psychological operations” to terrorize the Nicaraguan 
population. CIA Director William Casey defended the manual as an 
“educational” tool. When Nicaragua brought a case against the U.S. in 
the World Court 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T099d6f80-62eb-420d-adf5-6dbe651c9e4f/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>in 
1984, the manual was one piece of the evidence against the Reagan 
Administration. The World Court directed the U.S. to pay Nicaragua for 
damages caused by the war, but the Reagan Administration ignored the Court.

I was in Nicaragua during the Contra War, witnessing and documenting its 
effects in rural communities. Putting aside all of the bureaucratic and 
political rhetoric of the instigators in far-away Washington, this is 
what the Contra War was like for so many Nicaraguan communities. This 
description of one out of hundreds of such incidents is taken almost 
verbatim from my field notes written at the time. The names are real, 
not pseudonyms; I think these people should be remembered.

At 7 p.m. on the night of May 20, 1986, Contra forces attacked the small 
rural community of Teodosio Pravia (twelve families), east of the city 
of Estelí. A small group of Nicaraguan army soldiers and local men held 
off the full Contra attack until most of the women and children could 
flee up the hill on a path in the dark to the neighboring community of 
Sandino (fifteen families). The Contra forces swept into Pravia, 
capturing one woman and holding her as a human shield. They burned to 
ashes almost a dozen wooden houses, two storage sheds full of seed 
potatoes, and the schoolhouse.

Then they turned their attention to the Sandino community. They attacked 
with mortars and grenades, shooting and looting houses. Hermida 
Talavera, 12, and her brother Rafael, 10, were in the house of their 
cousin Jesus, 15, when a mortar shell struck the roof. It is uncertain 
whether the three children were killed by the bursting shell, the 
collapse of the roof, or the grenade that a Contra soldier threw into 
the house. When I visited the scene a few days later, I saw the blood of 
the three children splattered on the wall of the house.

Silivio Chavarria, a Ministry of Agrarian Reform worker with a wife and 
children in Estelí, happened to be in Sandino community that night after 
he and his work partner, Julio, had spent the day working with the 
people. A Contra soldier threw a grenade that injured Silvio’s leg so he 
could not move. After the attack, his badly mutilated body was found. 
Some people said they heard screams that night and thought he might have 
been tortured. When I visited Julio a few days later in Estelí, he 
recounted these details about Silvio. Julio himself was injured; his leg 
bandaged.

The Contras also killed Marta Tinoco, 21, a Nicaraguan Army soldier and 
daughter of peasant farmers, and they destroyed the communications radio 
she was using to call for help. They killed a Nicaraguan army 
lieutenant, Marco Cascante, and two Ministry of Housing workers who were 
in the community helping to build houses—Juan Francisco Lumbi and 
Concepción López Vargas. In all, eight were killed, including six 
civilians, three of whom were children. Sixteen others in the 
communities were injured, and more might have been killed if they had 
not managed to escape into the forest in the dark.

The Contra forces also destroyed or damaged at least fourteen houses, 
three storehouses, several thousand pounds of seed potatoes, a 
schoolhouse, and three trucks belonging to the Ministry of Housing. They 
slaughtered animals belonging to community members, looted personal 
belongings and small personal savings, and took an estimated ten 
thousand dollars (seven million Córdobas) the Sandino community had 
gotten from the sale of potatoes.

When I visited, it was a scene of bizarre devastation. Bullet holes, 
blood, dead animals. In the mud beside a path was a basket of eggs. A 
picture of the Virgin Mary was propped up against a wooden post outside 
the blood-stained wall of a destroyed house. People said a Contra 
soldier carefully removed the picture before he shot up and grenaded the 
house.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Managua had been searching for a way to 
rationalize this attack. They said in a statement that communities such 
as Sandino and Pravia are “militarized if not actually military 
targets.” Apparently seed potatoes are a threat to national security.

Why does all this matter now? Elliott Abrams’ appointment at this time 
to the State Department Advisory Commission on Public Policy is not a 
coincidence. Despite his past and recent efforts and the enormous damage 
they caused, his work is not complete; the U.S. empire is not “secure.” 
The revolution continues in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan and Honduran 
peoples have elected reformist democratic governments that pose a threat 
to the established network of resource extraction, corruption, and 
repression that the U.S. has supported in these countries. Abrams would 
be instrumental in efforts to assure “regime change,” ensuring the 
continued colonization of Honduras and Guatemala, and destroying the 
“threat of a good example” in Nicaragua, a country that, has experienced 
continual improvements 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T796f6956-cfe6-48e1-b615-3bc502d04900/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>in 
many basic services, infrastructure, and conditions of daily life, 
despite heavy economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.

We are witnessing an intense negative news and propaganda campaign in 
which Nicaragua is cast as a brutal dictatorship that represses human 
rights, religion, and all political expression. This media campaign 
makes ample use of distortions of fact, outright fabrications of 
“truth,” and erasure of any context that might allow us to evaluate 
events clearly. It has succeeded in dividing solidarity for Nicaragua 
and polarizing attitudes towards the Sandinista government in general 
and Daniel Ortega in particular. Any action by the Nicaraguan government 
to respond to provocation and threat is denounced as brutal or extreme.

The Nicaraguan government’s measured response to the uprising of April 
2018 was denounced in Washington and the mainstream media as an extreme 
repression of an uprising that was painted as “peaceful.” despite ample 
evidence that it was anything but peaceful. An alternative narrative 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Tc52585c2-cdc0-4051-9d3b-48666d7ffe92/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>from 
eyewitnesses in Nicaragua paints a very different picture of events, a 
narrative that the U.S. has tried very hard to suppress and keep out of 
the media. Elliott Abrams’ special talents would lend themselves 
perfectly to this ongoing effort to undermine and remove Ortega and the 
Sandinistas from power, again as in the 1980s, to thwart the will of a 
people and substitute the will of the U.S. government in its 
place—regime change and forms of intervention by any means at any cost.

As for Honduras, the new government of Xiomara Castro is facing enormous 
dilemmas 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/T7ef13087-6c6a-4416-aec4-5f0d0519cca0/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
as it tries to repair the damage done to the country by its predecessor 
and to dismantle the entrenched web of corruption of the past decade. 
But the U.S. has issued veiled and more direct warnings to the Castro 
government. A campaign of increased violence and negative criticism is 
underway, and Castro is under enormous pressure to abandon most of her 
election promises of reform. Here also, Abrams would be in an excellent 
position to help ensure that the Honduran government answers to the 
demands of U.S. economic interests rather than the needs of the Honduran 
people.

The larger issue in all of this is not any single person, even Elliott 
Abrams. The same mindset that helped orchestrate the genocide in 
Guatemala, the murders of Church people in El Salvador, the death squads 
and militarized state in Honduras, and the Contra War in Nicaragua is 
still infecting Washington. Some of its purveyors are still in place, 
shaping and effecting policy and practice. A real step to security for 
the US and the hemisphere would be to bar people like Elliott Abrams 
from holding any office or responsibility in any level of government 
anywhere.

*For more information and to send email messages to President Biden and 
your Senators opposing the Elliott Abrams nomination, **click here* 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Ta8887f41-b3d4-47c3-8230-4ed3048df625/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e>*! 
*

*Briefs
By Nan McCurdy *

*Nicaragua and China Sign Free Trade Agreement*
A Free Trade Agreement was signed on August 30 between China and 
Nicaragua that will enter into force on January 1, 2024. The two 
countries resumed diplomatic relations just 20 months ago, which has 
been enough time for delegations from both governments to negotiate the 
treaty which will allow Nicaragua to access the largest market on the 
planet with its agricultural and fishing production, coffee, dairy and 
meat products, among others. In turn, China will be able to export to 
Nicaragua high quality industrial, electronic and other products. Since 
China and Nicaragua began trade negotiations in July 2022, it has only 
taken one year to finalize the negotiations and reach a beneficial 
result. (/Radio La Primerisima/, 30 August 2023)

*Nicaragua First Central American Country to Export Sugar to China*
With the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with China, Nicaragua will 
be the first Central America nation to export sugar to China. Mario 
Amador, general manager of the National Committee of Sugar Producers 
pointed out that countries such as Costa Rica, which signed an agreement 
with China a long time ago, have not obtained access to the Chinese 
market to export sugar. He said that the negotiations went well for 
Nicaragua and the country was able to include all its main export 
products such as meat, sugar, coffee and other items that will help 
develop Nicaragua’s economy. For the sugar sector, the quota is 50,000 
tons paying a 15% tariff, which is a good opportunity. The tariff paid 
by other nations that export to China is 50%; that is, Nicaragua has a 
35% tariff benefit. (/Radio La Primerisima/, 1 Sept. 2023)

*Honoring Memory of Poet Rubén Darío*
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 
(UNESCO) announced that the archive and collection of the Rubén Darío 
House Museum in León has been certified and incorporated into the Memory 
of the World Program. The press release states that “the archive and 
collection of the Rubén Darío House Museum has most of the personal 
objects and writings of the Nicaraguan poet known as the 'Prince of 
Castilian Letters.’” The UNESCO Memory of the World Program is an 
initiative that seeks to preserve and raise public awareness of the 
importance of world documentary heritage. (/Nicaragua News/, 5 Sept. 2023)

*Nicaragua Leader in Health Policies in Central America*
Nicaragua leads the Central American countries with the most public 
hospitals and the second largest health budget, according to a study of 
the region's health system carried out in Honduras. The study reports 
that Nicaragua has 77 public hospitals for a population of 6,850,540. 
Guatemala follows with 44 hospitals for 17.11 million people and 
Honduras in third position, with 31 hospitals, and a population of 9.5 
million. El Salvador has 30 hospitals for 6.3 million people, and Costa 
Rica has 29 hospitals for 5.1 million people. /(Radio La Primerisima/, 5 
Sept. 2023)

*Electricity Coverage at 99.34%*
The Minister of Energy and Mines Salvador Mansell reported that national 
electricity coverage was 99.341% at the end of July, with 70% generation 
based on renewable sources. Mansell said that "9,906 electrification 
projects have been carried out over the last 15 years, benefiting 
3,666,959 people through coverage that has expanded from 54% in 2007 to 
99.34%." (/Nicaragua News/, 1 Sept. 2023)

*Contribution of Solidarity to Renewable Energy *
Representatives of the Climate Change Secretariat and the Ministry of 
Energy and Mines (MEM) made a site visit to evaluate operations at the 
Benjamin Linder Small Hydroelectric Power Plant in San José de Bocay, 
Jinotega Department. The head of the MEM Environmental Unit, Luis 
Molina, stated that “Since 1994 the small hydroelectric plant has 
provided 190KW of energy, benefiting 11,000 inhabitants. This project 
represents the dream of murdered solidarity worker Benjamin Linder to 
provide clean energy to the population and is one of the models for the 
entry of Nicaragua into the development of renewable energy, which to 
date represents almost 70% of the electricity produced in the country." 
The hydroelectric plant guarantees a stable supply of electricity to 
thousands of families and contributes to the reduction in use of oil in 
keeping with the climate change mitigation goals of the country.” 
(/Radio La Primerisima/, 30 August 2023)

*Indigenous Community Leaders Approve Actions to Protect Environment*
The leaders of 22 communities of the Wangki Maya Indigenous territory of 
the municipality of Waspam, North Caribbean, approved the continuation 
of the government’s Integrated Climate Action project. This project 
strives to reduce deforestation and strengthen resilience in the Bosawas 
and Río San Juan Biospheres. A total of 179 people participated in the 
meeting.  To facilitate the participation of women with children during 
the territorial assembly, a day care center was set up, attending 129 
children. In addition, health personnel provided 156 consultations. See 
photos: 
https://radiolaprimerisima.com/lideres-de-comunidades-indigenas-aprueban-acciones-para-proteger-medio-ambiente/ 
<https://default.salsalabs.org/Tdb05bf6c-e7b7-41ad-9936-b8da35ce23d5/424acc16-08a3-4cae-bdf5-0ee8fd652d2e> 
/(Radio La Primerisima/, 1 Sept. 2023)

*National Police with a Strong Revolutionary Ideology *
Approaching its 44^th anniversary on Sept. 5, the Nicaraguan National 
Police highlighted that one of the achievements of the institution is 
peace, the security of the population - manifested in a rate of seven 
homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the lowest in Latin America 
and the world. Likewise, the reduction in robberies and dangerous 
crimes. These represent less than 4% of the crimes (out of every 100 
crimes 96 are minor or misdemeanors). These achievements in security 
matters are the result of government policies, strategies, programs and 
plans to protect the lives of the population.

The National Police is a new police institution that broke with all the 
traditional schemas. It was formed with humble, revolutionary young 
people who were creating a different model from other police forces in 
the region. The Nicaraguan Police emerged from the people, to serve the 
people, with principles, values and ideals that are preserved 44 years 
later and that are transmitted to the new generations. New units and 
Women's Police Stations continue to be built in the municipalities, 
improving police services to the citizens. The professional training 
programs implemented by the government continue to be strengthened, 
including: the Leonel Rugama University of Police Sciences; the Julio 
Briceño Dávila University of Medical Sciences; Georgino Andrade Online 
High School and the Angelita Morales Avilés Online Technical School. The 
National Police is planning to hold its main anniversary event on 
September 11 and the "Con la Paz no se Juega" (Peace is not a Game) 
Parade on September 12. Sports activities are also planned, including 
softball, athletics, volleyball and soccer tournaments. (/Radio La 
Primerisima/, 31 August 2023)

*Guatemala Executes Fraudulent Maneuver against Nicaragua*
On September 2 the Nicaraguan government denounced a maneuver by 
Guatemala to take away Nicaragua's right to assume by rotation the 
Executive Secretariat of the Center for Disaster Prevention in Central 
America and the Dominican Republic. In the Central American Integration 
System (SICA), there are rules and procedures recognized by the 
participating countries. Nicaragua noted that it is not possible to 
alter the order of rotation or force the substitution of one government 
for another, when it is not a legitimate procedure of SICA. “The 
Government of Nicaragua formally denounces this maneuver that alters and 
eats away at the legal framework of SICA, and communicates that it 
rejects it as illegitimate and contrary to the principles, values and 
statutes that govern and legally order the Central American Integration 
System. We call upon the General Secretariat to conduct these processes 
in accordance with the SICA Rules, and ensure compliance with them. This 
maneuver is illegitimate, completely irregular, and Nicaragua condemns 
it, protests, and rejects it and does not join consensus.” (/Radio La 
Primerisima/, 2 Sept. 2023)

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