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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/homage-to-nicaragua/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/homage-to-nicaragua/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Homage to Nicaragua</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/dan-kovalik/"
rel="nofollow">Dan Kovalik</a> - July 27, 2018</span></div>
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<p>When the smoke finally clears, if it ever clears here,
the coverage of the recent events in Nicaragua will be
looked upon as quite possibly the most effective, and
equally sinister, misinformation campaigns ever waged
upon a nation. The good news is that the Nicaraguan
people, while initially confused by this campaign, have
quickly caught on to what is really happening.
Hopefully, we in the Global North will catch on soon.</p>
<p>Max Blumenthal, Thomas Hedges and I travelled to
Nicaragua during the week of the annual celebration of
the overthrow of the US-backed Somoza dictatorship on
July 19, 1979. As we were reminded during our stay in
Managua, <a
href="https://nacla.org/article/interesting-times-nicaragua-revolution">50,000
Nicaraguans</a> (out of a total population of about
2.5 million) died in the struggle to overthrow Somoza in
the late 1970’s. However, this was of little concern
for the US, or the OAS which the US has always
dominated.</p>
<p><em>Nicaraguans Celebrate The 39<sup>th</sup>Anniversary
of the Sandinista Triumph (Kovalik, 2018).</em></p>
<p>Thus, in 1978, even as Somoza was attacking major
cities with advanced weaponry supplied by the US, UK and
Israel – <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/09/25/nicaragua-counts-losses-as-somoza-wins-first-round/b9709f11-1646-44d8-829f-0ebb27389449/?utm_term=.2d415dec34ef">weaponry
which included</a> “armored personnel carriers,
Sherman tanks, U.S.-made troop transports and light
observation helicopters equipped with machine guns and
rockets, several two-engine, rocket-equipped Cessnas,
artillery, and an awesome assortment of automatic
weapons”– the most the OAS would do is <a
href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/central-america-carter">agree
to a US proposal</a> for a political mediation in
Nicaragua between Somoza and the “moderate” (i.e.,
non-Sandinista) opposition.</p>
<p><a href="https://chomsky.info/unclesam08/">Similarly,
as Noam Chomsky has noted</a>, Nicaragua under the
brutal Somoza regime warranted little coverage by the
mainstream media. As he explains, “[i]n the ten years
prior to the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator
Anastasio Somoza in 1979, US television — all networks —
devoted exactly one hour to Nicaragua, and that was
entirely on the Managua earthquake of 1972. From 1960
through 1978, the <em>New York Times </em>had three
editorials on Nicaragua. It’s not that nothing was
happening there — it’s just that whatever was happening
was unremarkable. Nicaragua was of no concern at all, as
long as Somoza’s tyrannical rule wasn’t challenged.”</p>
<p>However, this all changed when the Sandinistas took
over the Nicaraguan government and when the US began
funding the Contras (largely former Somoza National
Guardsmen) and their terror campaign against the
Nicaraguan population. Then, the mainstream media
worked hard to undermine the legitimacy of the
Sandinistas and to downplay the criminal nature of the
Contras. <a
href="https://fair.org/extra/nicaragua-and-the-us-media/">According
to Fair & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)</a>,
analyzing media coverage of the Contra War:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In many ways the media have functioned as a sieve for
what Abraham Brumberg, former editor of the USIA
journal <em>Problems of Communism</em>,described as a
“flood of distortions, exaggerations and plain
unvarnished lies about the Sandinistas that issue
forth almost daily from the administration.”. . .</p>
<p>From the beginning, this administration has sought to
focus media attention on every (real and imagined)
peccadillo of the Sandinistas while downplaying the
far worse human rights records of other Central
American nations. Even after the signing of the
regional peace plan, the media continued to reflect
Reagan’s obsession by focusing primarily on
Nicaragua. . . .</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Contra abuses were whitewashed by a
propaganda blitz that hit America’s three most
influential dailies . . . .</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fast forward to today, and the media, little concerned
about Nicaragua since the end of the Contra war in 1990,
and little impressed with the <a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/13/correcting-the-record-what-is-really-happening-in-nicaragua/">Sandinista
government’s remarkable achievements</a> in health
care, poverty reduction, community policing,
infrastructure development and economic growth since
re-taking power in 2007, is now again covering Nicaragua
on a daily basis. The media’s current interest has been
piqued by the prospect that the Sandinista government
might be overthrown, and the media is hell-bent upon
helping such a process along with coverage even more
one-sided than it gave to the Contra War.</p>
<p>For its part, the OAS, still dominated by the US, has
also been activated into overdrive, lending a hand in
the regime-change effort by blaming all of the violence
happening in Nicaragua on the government while ignoring
the violence of the opposition. At the same time, the
OAS, and the press as well, also ignore the violence
committed by US client states such as <a
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/500-Organizations-Decry-Colombias-Human-Rights-Record-20180405-0008.html">Colombia
which is engaging in the wholesale slaughter</a> of
peace advocates, human rights leaders, land rights
activists and indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders. In
this way, one is given the impression that it is the
Nicaraguan government which is somehow a unique evil in
Latin America.</p>
<p>In many ways, the story being put forward by the
mainstream media and the OAS is the exact opposite of
what is really happening in Nicaragua. Thus, far from
the mainstream media tale of peaceful protesters being
mowed down by a brutal regime, what we heard on our trip
to Nicaragua more closely jibes with the analysis of <a
href="http://www.atilioboron.com.ar/">Atilio Boron,
acclaimed Argentine intellectual and winner of
UNESCO’s International José Marti Prize, </a>who
explains that, when they perceived a weakness in the
Sandinista government after the initial announcement of
mild social security reforms in mid-April, the
right-wing “threw themselves with all their arsenal into
the streets to overthrow Ortega. They transferred many
of the mercenaries that staged the ‘<em>guarimbas’ </em>in
Venezuela to Nicaragua and are now applying in Nicaragua
the same recipe for violence and death taught in the CIA
manuals [for the Contras].”</p>
<p>Of course, given that the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED) – the successor to the CIA’s
regime-change operations abroad – has provided millions
of dollars to the groups leading the anti-government
operations in Nicaragua <a
href="https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/06/19/ned-nicaragua-protests-us-government/">and
has indeed admitted to “laying the groundwork for
insurrection</a>,” this should be none-too surprising.</p>
<p>The case of Monimbo — a historic neighborhood in the
town of Masaya, Nicaragua, and the last major area
cleared of the opposition street barricades (or, <em>tranques</em>)
— is quite instructive. While <a
href="http://time.com/5341544/nicaragua-unrest-protests-monimbo-seige/">the
mainstream media has invariably portrayed the <em>tranques</em></a>
in such areas as being set up and manned by brave youths
who were trying desperately to protect their
neighborhoods from imminent police attack, residents
tell a very different story.</p>
<p>We spent an hour with one resident of Monimbo, a former
local Sandinista official, who had just come to Managua
for the celebration of the 1979 Sandinista Triumph. She
asked not to be named because she still fears reprisals
by opposition forces in her town who have been targeting
Sandinista loyalists for harassment, assault and even
murder. This woman, who we shall call Maria, wept
uncontrollably as she recounted how her neighborhood had
been terrorized by those on the <em>tranques </em>who
paralyzed the local economy, prevented free movement,
burned down public buildings, ransacked shops and
destroyed residents’ homes.</p>
<p>Every day, as Maria, a wife and mother of two children,
went through the <em>tranques </em>to go about her day,
she was harassed, intimidated and put in fear for her
life and physical integrity. As she explained, “I was
not afraid that they would kill me. I am not afraid of
dying. What I was afraid of is that they would rape
me.” Here, she was referring to other incidents in
which rapes were carried out by people manning the <em>tranques</em>.
As just one example, we learned of a female police
officer who was kidnapped and raped by these forces over
a three-day period.</p>
<p>Maria referred to those on the <em>tranques </em>as
criminal elements who were well-supplied with water,
food, weapons and even drugs. She then explained how
she cried tears of joy when, on July 17, she saw
government forces approaching her neighborhood to remove
the <em>tranques</em>. She indeed referred to this
act as one of “liberation” which finally brought her
neighborhood relief after three months of virtual
imprisonment.</p>
<p>And, far from fearing police activity in her
neighborhood, she and her husband (who also wishes not
to be named) felt frustration that the police had not
acted more swiftly and resolutely to deal with the <em>tranques</em>.
But, they explained, it was President Ortega’s orders
for the police to remain in their barracks, and for
residents not to take matters into their own hands, in
order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. And so, for
three months, the police were locked down in their
barracks, surrounded by the right-wing opposition forces
who prevented water and food from reaching them. Indeed
then, as Maria explained again with forceful tears, it
was the police who were being laid siege to, and not the
well-supplied protesters.</p>
<p>While Maria and many of her friends were prepared to
fight the protesters destroying their town, and others
like it, they heeded Ortega’s orders. In the end, they
believe that Ortega was right to urge such restraint;
that it was indeed such restraint, led by the
disciplined Sandinistas, which saved many lives,
preventing what has turned out to be possibly 300 dead
from becoming possibly thousands dead. But you will
never hear this in the mainstream press.</p>
<p>Similarly, while the mainstream press repeats the
oppositions’ vague and unsubstantiated claims about
government press censorship, it is in fact the extreme
opposition which is censoring the press through
violence. Thus, during our stay in Managua, we met with
the staff of <em>RadioYa!</em>, a an independent,
left-wing radio station which also happens to be the
most popular radio station in the country and the most
popular left-wing station in Latin America. The staff,
now working out of a makeshift studio, is still in shock
after their permanent radio station was burned to the
ground by the right-wing opposition. Making it worse, 22
staff people, including a pregnant woman, were in the
radio station when it was set ablaze. They were lucky
to get out alive, but still live in fear of violent
reprisals – so much so that some of them sleep in the
station overnight for safety’s sake. As the staff
explained, other left-wing media outlets have been
similarly attacked, while no opposition outlets have
been attacked. Moreover, they explained that we were
the first Western reporters to bother to listen to their
story.</p>
<p>We also visited the remnants of a credit union, named
after Che Guevara, which had served poor and working
people with small loans and with banking services which
they would not otherwise be able to obtain because of
their inability to keep significant funds in their
accounts. This credit union too was burned down by the
right-wing opposition, along with the computers and
paper files inside. They even managed to destroy all
of the vehicles on the property. Again, this was typical
of the institutions targeted for destruction by the
opposition – institutions which serve the poor and
working class and which provide a social good to the
community.</p>
<p>As another example, the opposition forces (most of whom
were not themselves students) took over public
universities, such as the National Autonomous University
of Nicaragua (UNAN), trashed these universities, and
prevented classes from being held. At the same time,
the opposition did no harm to private universities.</p>
<p>All this, never discussed by the mainstream media,
demonstrates the class nature of the opposition. It is
aligned with the bourgeoisie against the working class,
and has spent three months in an all-out assault upon
working class institutions, individuals aligned with the
Sandinista revolution and Sandinista symbols. In other
words, the uprising by the opposition is not a
revolution, but a US-backed counter-revolution, just as
the Contra movement was in the 1980’s. And, the
mainstream media has painted over the true nature of
this opposition and their brutal tactics, just as it
whitewashed the brutality of the Contras. That so many
on the US left do not see this is truly disappointing.</p>
<p>The good news is that the Nicaraguan people are not
fooled. After some initial confusion, they have now
rallied around the Sandinista government. This was
evidenced, as we witnessed, by the throngs who came out
on July 19 with their red and black Sandinista flags to
celebrate the victory over Somoza in 1979, and to
celebrate the current victory over the right-wing.</p>
<p>This was also evidenced by the ubiquitous playing of
the new hit song, <a
href="https://www.tn8.tv/musica/453598-conozcan-autores-cancion-daniel-queda-nicaragua/">“Daniel
Se Queda” (Daniel Stays), a song written by Nicaraguan
<em>campesinos</em></a>and demanding that Daniel
Ortega remain as President even if it may hurt the
opposition’s feelings. As the song’s chorus goes, <em>“Even
if it hurts! Even if it hurts! The Commander stays
here. Daniel, Daniel, the town is with him.” </em></p>
<p>And, Nicaragua is undoubtedly better off with Daniel
staying. For this proposition, I leave you again with
the poetic words of Atilio Boron:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Conclusion: the fall of Sandinismo would weaken the
geopolitical environment of the brutally attacked
Venezuela and increase the chances for the
generalization of violence throughout the region.</p>
<p>While in the Forum of Sao Paulo that just took place
in Havana, I was able to delight in the contemplation
of the Caribbean. There I saw, in the distance, a
fragile little boat. It was handled by a robust sailor
and, at the other end, there was a young girl. The
helmsman looked confused and struggled to keep his
course in the middle of a threatening swell. And it
occurred to me that this image could eloquently
represent the revolutionary process in Nicaragua, in
Venezuela, Bolivia or anywhere.</p>
<p>The revolution is like that girl, and the helmsman is
the revolutionary government. There is no human work
safe from error; mistakes can be made that leave the
helmsman at the mercy of the waves and endanger the
life of the girl. To top it all, not far away was the
ominous silhouette of a US warship, loaded with lethal
weapons, death squadsand mercenary soldiers. How to
save the girl? The helmsman could jump into the sea
letting the boat sink, and with it the girl,
delivering it to the mob of criminals thirsty for
blood and ready to plunder the country, steal its
resources and rape and then kill the young girl.</p>
<p>I do not see that as the solution. More productive
would be that some of the other boats that are in the
area approach the one in danger and make the helmsman
stay on course. Sinking the boat that carries the girl
of the revolution, or surrendering her to the U.S.
ship, could hardly be considered revolutionary
solutions.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p> <em><strong>Daniel Kovalik,</strong> the author of <a
href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1510739343/counterpunchmaga">The
Plot to Attack Iran</a>, wrote this piece with the
significant help and encouragement of friends in Tehran.</em>
</p>
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