When armed Ecuadorian police gathered outside the Mexican embassy in Quito last Friday evening, a casual observer might have thought they were there to protect it. Instead, they launched an attack: brandishing assault rifles, police climbed the walls, entered the building by force and kidnapped Ecuador’s former vice-president, Jorge Glas, who had that day been granted political asylum by Mexico. Within ten minutes Glas was being driven away.
Alfred de Zayas and John Perry
When the United Nations sets up a “commission of inquiry,” it can result in a powerful analysis of violations of human rights law, such as the one appointed in 2021 to examine Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and its Apartheid practices. But other commissions can become political platforms aimed at demonizing a particular government by crafting narratives that give the semblance of objectivity, while suppressing all evidence that contradicts the prevailing geopolitical consensus.
Continue reading “UN Human Rights Council again supports US regime change plans for Nicaragua”
Prosecutors in New York this month claimed they had cracked ‘the largest drug trafficking conspiracy in the world’. While it lasted, more than four hundred tons of cocaine were shipped to the United States from clandestine airstrips in Honduras by characters with aliases such as ‘The Tiger’ and ‘El Porky’. Million-dollar bribes were paid to government officials. A drug payment of $4 million was handed over in a duffel bag at a filling station.
Why do United Nations’ human rights bodies focus on some countries, but not others? Why do organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International appear to ignore important evidence presented to them? And why do the media repeat stories of human rights abuses without questioning their veracity?
Continue reading “The “Human Rights Industry” and Nicaragua”
Iván Acosta (right) speaking with the author [Source: Photo courtesy of Camila Escalante]
Continue reading “Nicaragua’s Finance Minister details how US sanctions impact Nicaragua’s poor”
Is this the last of Theroux’s travel books? If it is, he has created an impressive cannon, and this is a fitting finale. In this book he joins the many writers who have travelled through Mexico, but his story is a refreshing one as many others have covered the violence of the cartels or the horrors faced by migrants travelling to the US border, while Theroux finds new angles from which to view a huge, complex country which has a capital city with (as he points out) a population far larger than that of any of the Central American countries to its south.
Victorias de Noviembre co-op members at work
An article written by Winnie Narváez Herrera, Facilitator at ÁBACOenRed /FUPECG, and edited/translated by John Perry.
In Latin America, the problem of housing quality is even more serious than the problem of not having a home, and this is made worse by the increasing effects of climate change, violence in some parts of the region and migration.
Continue reading “Mission accomplished! Members of a cooperative in Nicaragua build their own homes”
Meeting Ivan Acosta, Nicaragua’s finance minister
Which country spends nearly two-thirds of its budget on tackling poverty? When I met Nicaragua’s finance minister, Ivan Acosta, he had just presented his 2024 budget to its national assembly, and he made clear that a large part of it is aimed at doing just that.
Continue reading “US sanctions hit Nicaragua’s social investment programmes”
Three previous articles described the attempted coup in Nicaragua in 2018, and how public support grew initially but then waned. This final article, covering the period from mid-July to the present day, shows how the coup was defeated and what happened in the aftermath.
By July 2018, three months of violence – over 200 deaths on both sides, including 22 police officers, kidnappings, torture and destruction of property – had exhausted the Nicaraguan population, and they were desperate for the government to restore order. The calls for the government to clear the tranques (roadblocks) that had strangled the country became deafening. Daniel Ortega’s strategy had worked: had he removed the roadblocks too soon, the resistance might have been much more violent, and it would have left deeply divided communities. He had waited until he had the backing of most of the population.
Continue reading “The Nicaraguan Coup Attempt: How Peace Was Restored and What Has Happened Since”
Sadrach and Yohaira with a crowd of supporters
Britain and the U.S. impose economic sanctions on dozens of governments they don’t like, write Erik Mar and John Perry. Some people in Nicaragua are being targeted on the basis of little or no evidence.
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on