January 22, 2022
Gabriel Boric was elected president of Chile on December 19th. In an LRB article about his campaign, he was said to be embarrassed by one of the parties that supported him, when it welcomed Daniel Ortega’s re-election in Nicaragua the previous month. LRB published the letter below in its issue of January 27th, in response to the December article.
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, chile, Nicaraguan elections |
December 19, 2021
People queueing to vote. Photo by Rick Stirling
On November 7, Nicaragua held elections in which current president Daniel Ortega received 75% support and, as a result, begins a new term of office in January. Not surprisingly, the US government described the election as a “sham.” Of more concern is that many on the left seem to agree. William Robinson’s NACLA article, Nicaragua: Chronicle of an Election Foretold, is a scathing critique, repeated in an interview with The Real News.
Continue reading “How can Some Progressives get Basic Information about Nicaragua so Wrong?”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaraguan elections |
November 26, 2021
Honduran presidential candidate for the LIBRE party, Xiomara Castro. Orlando Sierra—AFP/Getty Images
Joe Biden has a Central America problem. Countries that turned reliably neoliberal after the ‘small wars’ of the 1980s have become unwieldy again. After sixteen years of neoliberalism, Nicaraguans returned Daniel Ortega to power in 2007 and re-elected him this month in a vote which Biden dismissed as a ‘pantomime’. In El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, elected in 2019 with Trump’s blessing, has been described as a ‘narcissistic dictator’ by a senior Democrat because of his growing authoritarianism, secret deals with violent gangs, making bitcoin legal tender and fostering links with China. Riding high in opinion polls, he now calls himself ‘the world’s coolest dictator’.
Continue reading “End of a Narcostate?”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Honduras, US intervention, migration
November 17, 2021
People waiting in line to vote (photo: El 19 Digital)
Official results from Nicaragua’s elections on November 7 showed Daniel Ortega re-elected as president with 75% of the vote. On the same day, President Joe Biden dismissed the ballot as a “pantomime election” and within 48 hours the Organization of American States (OAS) had produced a 16-page report setting out its criticisms. It demanded the annulment of the elections and the holding of new ones, disregarding international and OAS rules that require respect for the sovereignty of nations. Yet it contained no evidence of problems on election day itself that would substantiate its objections. Nevertheless, local and international media were quick to endorse the accusations that widespread fraud had taken place.
Continue reading “If there was “fraud” in Nicaragua’s elections, where’s the proof?”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, media, Nicaraguan elections |
November 6, 2021
A farmer carries firewood in Nicaragua, where the government has given thousands of land titles to small farmers (CIAT, Flickr)
This article was written jointly with three young Nicaraguans, Patricia Ruiz, Winnie Narvaez, and Yorlis Luna
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently accused Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of planning a “sham” election on November 7 and aiming to create an “authoritarian dynasty” after arrests of opposition figures ahead of the vote. Also referring to the arrests, the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell branded Ortega a “dictator” and called the elections “fake.” Both ignored the fact that the ballot has multiple choices, including candidates from two opposition parties that formed governments between 1990 and 2007 and still have significant support.
Continue reading “Nicaragua’s Elections Are a Referendum on Social Investment Policies”
Category: Latin America | Tags: US intervention, Nicaraguan elections |
November 3, 2021
A few days before the Nicaraguan presidential elections on November 7, Facebook and other social media companies began closing down many of the pages used by Sandinista supporters in their campaign to re-elect President Daniel Ortega. This blatant censorship move was said to be because they had discovered “troll farms” operated by government agencies. But many of the 1,500 accounts closed appear simply to belong to pro-Sandinista journalists or young commentators. TikTok, Twitter and Instagram took similar action, and Google said that it has closed 82 YouTube channels and three blogs in a related operation.
Continue reading “Facebook does the US government’s censorship work in Nicaraguan elections”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, media, Nicaraguan elections |
November 3, 2021
Nicaraguans gather at the Jesus El Buen Pastor migrant shelter in Tapachula, Mexico July, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Torres
“Record numbers” of migrants are coming into the United States from Nicaragua, according to Newsweek, which blames the increase on “arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses” by the Nicaraguan government. Former Sandinista leader Sergio Ramírez, writing for El Salvador’s El Faro, claims that “repression” by President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government is causing a “dramatic growth” in migration by Nicaraguans.
Continue reading “Are Nicaraguan Migrants Escaping ‘Repression’-or Economic Downturn?”
Category: Migration, Latin America | Tags: Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, US intervention, Mexico, migration, Guatemala, Nicaraguan elections
October 31, 2021
This letter, signed by solidarity, human rights, religious, labor and other organizations, has been sent to the UN Human Rights Council and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It denounces the misrepresentation and exploitation of disputes over land in Nicaragua’s autonomous Indigenous territories for political purposes by local and international organizations which claim to represent the interests of Indigenous peoples.
Continue reading “Letter to UNHRC about Political Exploitation of Indigenous Communities in Nicaragua”
Category: Latin America, Energy and the environment | Tags: Nicaragua, Bosawás, hum
October 20, 2021
Frances Haugen’s cutting accusations against her former employers, Facebook, on October 5 included references to how social media are used to provoke and coordinate violence. This happened in Nicaragua too.
It’s June 2018 on a backstreet somewhere in Nicaragua. Filmed by an adult, a boy holds a toy gun to the head of his friend, who has just been “kidnapped”. The adult asks, “What are you going to do?” “We’ll kill him and burn him alive. We’ll leave him naked,” says the boy. The adults laugh. The boy is re-enacting a real scene of opposition violence that he’s watched on a smartphone.
Continue reading “‘We’ll kill him and burn him alive’”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, Nicaragua crisis
September 26, 2021
Nicaraguan police inspect an abandoned mining camp at Kiwakumbai in the Bosawás reserve. Photo: www.tortillaconsal.com
Indigenous peoples and the rainforests that many inhabit are under threat. Everyone knows it. In Latin America especially, international NGOs like Global Witness and Frontline Defenders tell a story which seems self-evidently true: outsiders are exploiting natural resources, governments are indifferent or actively complicit, Indigenous people defend the forests and in return face expulsion or death. But what happens when real life is more complicated? In Nicaragua, local and international NGOs pursuing a political agenda are twisting the evidence about environmental conflicts.
Continue reading “Nicaragua’s Rainforest and Indigenous Peoples: a Story of Falsehood, Lies and US-based Political Campaigns”
Category: Latin America, Energy and the environment | Tags: Nicaragua, environment, caribbean, Bosawás
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on