In the dying days of his administration, President Biden must have needed a reminder by his officials on November 22. He had to decide whether Nicaragua still poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”. Presumably he agreed that it does, because he renewed its status as a “national security threat” for a further year, repeating the designation that first began under the last Trump presidency.
Mijal Gur-Aryeh, Israel’s ambassador in Costa Rica [Source: laprensani.com]
Recent events appear to show the truth of her remarks.
Continue reading “Latin American Governments Pay a Price for Challenging Israel’s Genocidal War”
Claims that Nicaragua is “weaponizing” immigration by allowing free passage of migrants towards the U.S. border have been appearing regularly in the media over the last twelve months. The claim was made on NPR in January, in the Associated Press last October, in El Pais last November and by the BBC this July, to cite just a few. In May, the Biden administration accused the Nicaraguan government (the “Ortega-Murillo regime”) of “repressing people and preying on migrants,” imposing new sanctions on those it believed responsible. Is there any basis to these claims?
Continue reading “Is it Nicaragua that is “weaponizing” immigration? – or is it Washington?”
[Source: georgiatoday.ge]
Alfred de Zayas and John Perry examine the ways that human rights can be manipulated for geopolitical ends and used to justify illegal coercive measures like sanctions. Watch here.
A briefing for the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, June 2024
Draft legislation currently passing through the United States Congress appears to conflict with an important US trade treaty. A bill (S.1818, the ill-named “Restoring Sovereignty and Human Rights in Nicaragua Act”) has passed with amendments through the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. A similar bill (H.R.6954), but thus far without the same amendments, has been introduced in the House of Representatives. If this legislation were to be approved, it could enable the US administration to impose sweeping new economic sanctions on Nicaragua.
Continue reading “The CAFTA treaty and the prospect of new US sanctions against Nicaragua”
When Nicaragua accused Germany of aiding and abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last month, readers of corporate media might have seriously wondered whether Nicaragua’s case had any legitimacy.
The case targeted Germany as the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, because the US, Israel’s biggest supplier, does not accept the court’s jurisdiction on this issue. The object (as Nicaragua’s lawyer explained) was to create a precedent with wider application – that countries must take responsibility for the consequences of their arms sales to avoid them being used in breach of international law.
Continue reading “When Nicaragua Took Germany to Court, Media Put Nicaragua in the Dock”
This book is the fruit of an extraordinary coming together of two very different people. One was a burgeoning poet living in Southern California, the other a coffee-growing entrepreneur turned political activist from El Salvador. Wanting more people to know about the disaster that was beginning to befall his country in the turbulent late 1970s, Leonel Gómez Vides turns up at the home of Carolyn Forché, who is a friend of a relative of his, to persuade her to visit and learn about El Salvador, a country of which she knows almost nothing.
Above photo: The “roadblocks of death” strangled the country’s transport system and became the scene of intimidation, robberies, rape, kidnappings and murder. Here we see armed roadblock operators south of Estelí, several with conventional weapons.
Human rights experts and activists are expressing concern over a flawed and seriously unbalanced report of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), released by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on February 24, 2024.
Continue reading “UN Human Rights Council Is Lending Support To US Regime Change Plans”
Nicaragua’s lawyers at the Hague
Last Thursday, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian war surgeon, gave his first address as the newly-appointed rector of Glasgow University, chosen in recognition of his work at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The following day he flew to Berlin, where he had been invited to address a major conference about Palestine. On arrival he was taken away by police, interrogated for several hours and eventually told he had to leave Germany and wouldn’t be allowed to return until at least the end of April. Any attempt to speak to the conference via Zoom could result in a fine or even a year’s prison sentence. By the time he was released he couldn’t have taken part in the conference anyway, since it had been already invaded by at least 900 police and closed down. Berlin’s mayor said that it was ‘intolerable’ that the conference was taking place at all.
Continue reading “Germany buries the evidence of complicity in genocide: Nicaragua exposes it”
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on