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
September 8, 2021
From left to right: President JOH of Honduras, Vice President Biden, President Morales of Guatemala and President Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador in a 2016 meeting.
For Biden, backing a candidate for the November elections in Honduras is a choice between protecting U.S. business interests and condemning the corruption, drug trafficking, and violence that increase migration.
Of the countries in Central America’s “northern triangle,” Honduras is the one that sends the most migrants to the United States. Already this year over 32,000 Honduran migrants have been deported from the United States, including more than 2,600 children. The country’s president, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), was supported by President Trump because he is a strongman willing to forcibly stop Honduran migrants from leaving the country. He even signed a misnamed “safe country” agreement implying that Honduras was a haven for asylum seekers. In return, Trump was willing to acquiesce in JOH’s disastrous domestic policies even though they are one of the main drivers for migrants to leave.
Continue reading “United States struggles to pick a side in upcoming Honduran elections”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Honduras
September 8, 2021
Ivan Acosta is Nicaragua’s minister of housing and public credit, with responsibility for key aspects of government planning. In July, he presented the country’s new “National Plan for the Fight against Poverty and for Human Development.” This builds on the achievements of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government since it returned to power in 2007 and sets out how they will continue if Daniel Ortega’s government is returned at November’s elections. Ivan Acosta is currently subject to personal US sanctions, along with many other Nicaraguan government officials and their family members.
Codepinks’s Teri Mattson spoke to the minister in a Zoom call and asked him to explain the plan and its background [transaltion and editing by John Perry].
Continue reading “Nicaragua launches a new plan to fight poverty and promote human development”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on