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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://orinocotribune.com/us-house-rams-through-nicaragua-regime-change-bill-with-zero-opposition/">https://orinocotribune.com/us-house-rams-through-nicaragua-regime-change-bill-with-zero-opposition/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">US House Rams Through Nicaragua
Regime-Change Bill With Zero Opposition</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Ben Norton March 13, 2020<br>
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<p><strong>Not one member of the House of Representatives
spoke up against a bipartisan bill sponsored by
hardliners that ramps up US economic warfare and
regime-change measures against Nicaragua’s elected
government.</strong></p>
<p>By Ben Norton</p>
<p>As the Donald Trump administration’s year-long coup
attempt against Venezuela spirals out in failure, the US
government has taken aim at Nicaragua with increasing
ferocity, in a bid to topple its democratically elected,
leftist Sandinista government.</p>
<p>Washington’s pressure escalated further on March 9 when
the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan
resolution in a voice vote without any opposition that
demanded more sanctions and aggressive actions against
the Nicaraguan government of President Daniel Ortega.</p>
<p>This bill — which received no coverage in the
English-language corporate media — refers to Nicaragua’s
elected government as the “Ortega regime,” echoing the
bellicose rhetoric of the right-wing opposition.</p>
<p>Video of the congressional session, which is embedded
at the end of this article, shows that the resolution
was pushed through on a voice vote in just around eight
minutes. There was no debate of the resolution, and a
grand total of zero members of Congress spoke in
opposition to it.</p>
<p>The regime-change action in the House followed numerous
rounds of suffocating US sanctions on Nicaragua, a small
Central American country of just around 6 million
people.</p>
<p>In fact, the behavior of US legislators in the latest
vote mirrored one in December 2018, when not one member
of Congress spoke up against the passage of the
Nicaraguan Investment and Conditionality Act (NICA).
That bill hit Nicaragua with crippling economic
restrictions, preventing international financial
institutions from providing loans or assistance to the
country’s government.</p>
<p>US sanctions have already caused the deaths of tens of
thousands of civilians in Venezuela and Iran. Now that
Nicaragua is in the crosshairs, the damage of
Washington’s economic warfare has only just begun.</p>
<p><strong>Calling for US and international economic war
on Nicaragua</strong><br>
The latest regime-change bill passed against Nicaragua,
H.Res.754, was introduced in December 2019 by
Representative Albio Sires, a Cuban-American Democrat
from New Jersey.</p>
<p>His resolution was co-sponsored by 28 members of
Congress, 19 Democrats and nine Republicans. These
included Florida Democratic Representatives Debbie
Wasserman Schultz and Donna Shalala and California
Democrats Jim Costa and Tony Cardenas.</p>
<p>The bill “urges the United States Government to
continue to apply pressure on the Ortega government and
consider additional sanctions against those Nicaraguan
officials” accused by Washington of human rights abuses
or corruption.</p>
<p>The resolution goes on to “urge the international
community to hold the Ortega government accountable” and
“restrict its access to foreign financing.”</p>
<p>Included in the bill is language demanding the
Nicaraguan government “immediately release all political
prisoners without conditions.”</p>
<p>However, the Sandinista government has already released
hundreds of people on its so-called “political prisoner”
list, acceding to pressure from the Nicaraguan
opposition and its sponsors in the US and OAS. As The
Grayzone reported, this list contained the names of
numerous violent criminals who had previously carried
out murders and rapes, and resulted in the release of an
opposition hooligan who went on to stab his own pregnant
girlfriend to death.</p>
<p>The US congressional resolution also expressed support
for right-wing Nicaraguan opposition organizations,
media outlets, and civil society groups, many of which
are funded by the US government.</p>
<p>The House’s unanimous approval of this regime-change
legislation arrived just four days after the Trump
administration imposed another round of sanctions
targeting Nicaraguan state institutions.</p>
<p>On March 5, the US embassy ramped up the pressure with
a security alert in Nicaragua, imposing travel
restrictions on embassy personnel and advising them to
stay away from demonstrations and “large groups or
barricades.”</p>
<p>The alert was both a tacit admission that the
barricades the opposition had erected around the country
posed a threat to the safety of all people, including US
citizens, as well as a portent of the chaos and violence
that Washington apparently aimed to resuscitate in its
bid to topple Nicaragua’s government.</p>
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Today’s sanctions on the
Nicaraguan National Police and three commissioners
take aim at one of the main tools the Ortega regime
uses to violently repress the people of <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Nicaragua?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Nicaragua</a>.
We will continue to promote accountability of the
regime for <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HumanRights?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HumanRights</a>
abuses.</p>
<p>— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) <a
href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo/status/1235680605385486345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March
5, 2020</a></p>
</blockquote>
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<h3>Regime-change bill sponsored by neoconservative
Cuban-American Republican-turned-Democrat</h3>
<p>The main sponsor of the new sanctions bill against
Nicaragua, Albio Sires, is a former Republican who
previously ran for Congress as a member of the GOP. He
changed his party affiliation and went on to fill the
former seat of Democratic Cuban-American hardliner Bob
Menendez when he entered the Senate.</p>
<p>Like many elite Cuban-Americans, Sires’ family fled to
the US after the Cuban revolution, which removed Cuba’s
right-wing, US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista from
power.</p>
<p>In Congress, Sires has been a stalwart opponent of
Latin America’s leftist governments, teaming up with
Republican hawks from <a
href="https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2019/10/rubio-sires-colleagues-urge-e-u-high-representative-for-continued-support-in-addressing-venezuela-s-migrant-crisis-ahead-of-conference">Marco
Rubio</a> to <a
href="https://sires.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/bi-partisan-group-of-lawmakers-commend-final-passage-of-nica-act-sending">Ted
Cruz to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen</a> to destabilize them.</p>
<p>Sires has relentlessly clamored for <a
href="https://sires.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-albio-sires-statement-about-cuba-referendum">regime
change in Cuba</a>. He staunchly opposed the Barack
Obama administration’s partial <a
href="https://sires.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-sires-statement-on-the-change-of-cuba-policy">normalization
of relations with Cuba</a>, describing his “plans for
a loosening of sanctions” as “naïve and disrespectful to
the millions of Cubans that have lived under the
Castro’s repressive regime.”</p>
<p>Early on in the Trump administration’s coup attempt
against the leftist Chavista government in Caracas, <a
href="https://sires.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-albio-sires-recognizes-juan-guaid-as-interim-president-of">Sires
recognized</a> unelected <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2019/01/29/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuelas-coup-leader/">coup
leader Juan Guaidó</a> as “the constitutionally
legitimate Interim President of Venezuela.” Soon after,
Sires <a
href="https://sires.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-albio-sires-statement-about-meeting-with-venezuelan-first">met
with Guaidó’s wife</a>, describing her as “Venezuelan
First Lady Fabiana Rosales.” Meanwhile, he proclaims on
official social media accounts, “<a
href="https://www.facebook.com/RepAlbioSires/posts/10156723503508751">Maduro
and his thugs must go</a>.”</p>
<p>Since the failure of a <a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/15/a-response-to-misinformation-on-nicaragua-it-was-a-coup-not-a-massacre/">violent
US-backed coup attempt in Nicaragua</a> in 2018, Sires
has been one of the main figures in Congress pushing for
aggressive measures to topple the Sandinista government.
He was a co-sponsor of the Nica Act, and took the lead
in the latest regime-change resolution.</p>
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">H.Res.754 condemns Daniel
Ortega’s system of repression and expresses
solidarity with those who have been persecuted by
his regime.</p>
<p>— Albio Sires (@RepSires) <a
href="https://twitter.com/RepSires/status/1237368060299882496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March
10, 2020</a></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<h3>Zero opposition to the Nicaragua regime-change
resolution</h3>
<p>After Albio Sires introduced the bill, it was referred
to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where it was
very slightly amended and then discussed on the House
floor on March 9.</p>
<p>On the floor, Sires moved to <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_the_rules_in_the_United_States_Congress">suspend
the rules</a>. The speaker pro tempore, filling in for
incumbent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, agreed to suspend
the rules, opening up a period of 40 minutes of debate.</p>
<p>But no debate ensued. The only other member of Congress
who spoke during the allotted period was right-wing
Florida Republican Ted Yoho, who expressed his staunch
support for the resolution.</p>
<p>After tirades against the Nicaraguan “regime” by Sires
and Yoho, the House speaker pro tempore quickly moved on
to a voice vote. A small handful of Congressmembers
declared “Aye” in support. Not one representative said
no. It was all over in eight minutes.</p>
<p>In a triumphant statement from his office, Sires
declared that the resolution “<a
href="https://sires.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-sires-bipartisan-nicaragua-resolution-passes-the-house-of">sent
a strong, bipartisan message</a>.”</p>
<p>Once again, potentially lethal sanctions on an
impoverished nation fighting to develop itself and
provide for its people were passed in broad daylight, on
a Monday afternoon, and not one member of Congress spoke
up against it.</p>
<p><em>You can watch video of the Congressional
proceedings here:</em></p>
<p><a
href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/12/us-house-sanctions-nicaragua/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Source URL:
The Grayzone</a></p>
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<p>Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He
is a reporter for The Grayzone, and the
producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast,
which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His
website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at
@BenjaminNorton.</p>
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