Yesterday (Sunday 6 May 2018) I travelled with a ‘peace caravan’ organised by the local FSLN in Masaya, to respond to the violent protests by opposition groups. I’ll try to report objectively what happened. Note: this article had to be removed soon after it was posted, because of threats of violence to my family. I…
Nicaragua had a record 1.8 million tourists last year. It’s a beautiful country, and in 2017 it officially became the safest in Central America. But after three days of political violence last month, one of the few certainties in 2018 is that it will lose both records. More than 40 people died in the protests,…
On 9 April 1948, the Colombian politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán stepped out of his office with a group of friends to walk to Bogotá’s Hotel Continental for lunch. An assassin confronted him in the street and shot him three times in the face and chest. He died shortly afterwards. His supporters caught the 20-year-old culprit,…
A review of Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement by Graham Greene. For anyone interested in the politics of Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, which of course also requires an interest in the US intervention in the isthmus that intensified during the later stages of the Cold War, this…
Dozens of highly decorated ox carts are slowly making their way south from Masaya and two other cities in the central part of Nicaragua’s Pacific coastal regions. They are heading for a small place called Popoyuapa, in Rivas, Nicaragua’s southern-most department, bordering the frontier with Costa Rica. Their route south is along the pan-American highway,…
US Ambassador to Nicaragua, Laura Dogu reportedly has said that the Senate could vote on the NICA Act “any day now”. The US Nicaragua Network is asking members to contact their Senators to tell them they oppose its passage and that the case for it is based on false premises. This article was prepared for…
In an extraordinary move on the day before the US Senate’s Christmas recess, two Democrats sided with right-wing Republicans to introduce the so-called NICA Act, which if passed would require the US government to veto loans from international financial institutions to Nicaragua. While it is still a long way from becoming law, the bill suddenly…
Twenty-four people have been killed by police in demonstrations since the presidential election in Honduras three weeks ago. The centre-left Alliance, headed by Salvador Nasralla, appeared to be the clear winner after 57 per cent of votes had been counted, but a suspiciously dramatic late swing towards the incumbent, Juan Orlando Hernández, gave him a…
A review of Fidel & Gabo: A portrait of a legendary friendship, by Angel Esteban and Stephanie Panichelli Two of the best-known Latin American figures of the twentieth century, Fidel Castro and Gabriel Garcia Márquez (Gabo) were close friends. This book claims to be the story of their relationship, but does it do it justice?…