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September 22, 2020
No country can yet claim to have defeated Covid-19, but clearly some are having more success than others. Nicaragua is one of these, and could yet be recognized as a world leader. With under 5,000 Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, according to official figures, its infection level is far below that of Panama (105,000), Guatemala (85,000), Honduras (71,000), Costa Rica (63,000) or El Salvador (27,000). Of course, it is certain that Nicaragua’s figure, like those of the other countries, undercounts the real incidence of the virus. But even the so-called ‘independent’ Citizens Observatory, which is closely linked to Nicaraguan opposition political groups, only reports around 10,000 cases – still well below the incidence in adjoining countries. And the observatory’s figures – as its website makes clear – are not based on testing but on unverifiable sources, including ‘rumours’ (which it defines as ‘spontaneous public opinions’).
Continue reading “Covid-19: On the Decline in Nicaragua as its Critics Fall Silent”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, media, human rights, coronavirus |
August 9, 2020
by Kevin Zeese and John Perry
Sadly, only a month after contributing to this article, Kevin Zeese died suddenly. He will be sorely missed.
Nicaragua’s Sandinista government is – like every other government – engaged in a struggle to limit the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on its people. But Nicaragua suffers two additional handicaps. One is that it is subject to US and European sanctions, which severely limit the aid it gets from abroad or from multilateral bodies. The other is its internal opposition, which aims to use the pandemic in its latest attempt to destabilize the government and turn opinion against it. To do so it employs a wide range of propaganda methods, at home and abroad. These were very evident in a recent article in the progressive platform Toward Freedom by Rafael Camacho, whose very title shows it is going to repeat the opposition’s messages: Coronavirus met with denial and silence in Nicaragua.
Continue reading “Coronavirus is being tackled by Nicaragua’s community-based health system”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis, coronavirus
August 5, 2020
An extraordinary leaked document gives a glimpse of the breadth and complexity of the US government’s plan to interfere in Nicaragua’s internal affairs up to and after its presidential election in 2021.
Continue reading “The US contracts out its regime change operation in Nicaragua”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis |
July 30, 2020
The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was an inspiration to many on the left in the 1980s. Forty-one years later, it still urgently needs and deserves our support. The case for doing so is a very strong one.
After the US-inspired “Contra war” led to electoral defeat for the Sandinistas in 1990, the country endured 16 years of neoliberal government. On regaining power in 2007, Daniel Ortega’s government restarted the social investment and anti-poverty programmes which the revolution promised. Then two years ago, it faced a new threat: protests orchestrated by US-funded organisations quickly turned into a violent attempt at regime change. Nicaragua’s government survived once more, only to confront the Covid-19 pandemic with an economy still not fully recovered and access to vital medical and other aid severely limited by US sanctions. It will survive again, but only because the majority of Nicaraguans still back it. Opinion polls forecast that the Sandinista Front (FSLN) will earn by far the biggest share of the vote in next year’s elections.
Continue reading “Why the Labour movement should support Nicaragua’s Sandinista government”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, coronavirus
July 19, 2020
A new book, The Revolution Won’t Be Stopped: Nicaragua Advances Despite US Unconventional Warfare, is published this month to celebrate the 41st anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. An extract below deals with how the media have treated Nicaragua in 2019 and the first part of 2020.
Look at the media in 2019 and the first part of 2020 and – depending where you look – Nicaragua seems to have become two completely different countries. In one, the economy is slowly recovering from the events of 2018, peace has returned, people are relieved that the violence and roadblocks are behind them, and support for the government has steadily grown since its 2018 low point. In the other, a country with a devastated economy suffers from a repressive and unpopular dictatorship: people either knuckle under or flee to Costa Rica. I hasten to add that I live in the first of these versions of Nicaragua, but I’m constantly astonished at the picture painted by those – often outside the country – who think that the real Nicaragua is the second one.
Continue reading “Nicaragua and the media in 2019: A polarised picture”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, media, Nicaragua crisis
July 14, 2020
Armed opposition activists at Managua’s Baseball Stadium, May 30 2018
A briefing prepared for the Alliance for Global Justice and The Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group by Stephen Sefton, John Perry and Jorge Capélan
Continue reading “Nicaragua and the OAS Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, Nicaragua crisis, human rights
July 5, 2020
Pro-government marchers at Mother’s Day March, May 30, 2018. Photo: El 19 Digital
A report issued at the end of May repeats allegations of government repression in Nicaragua during violent protests in 2018. It was commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a body of the Organization of American States (OAS), and revives arguments that the Sandinista government is violating human rights. It purports to provide new evidence, but in reality the facts are more complicated than the report suggests. They warrant careful examination to ensure that the international community is getting the full, unadulterated story.
Continue reading “Revisiting 2018 Mother’s March in Nicaragua: New report repeats old bias”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis, human rights
June 10, 2020
“They build dams and kill people.” These words, spoken by a witness when the murderers of environmental defender Berta Cáceres were brought to trial in Honduras, describe Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA), the company whose dam project Berta opposed. DESA was created in May 2009 solely to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric scheme, using the waters of the Gualcarque River, regarded as sacred by the Lenca communities who live on its banks. As Nina Lakhani makes clear in her book Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, DESA was one of many companies to benefit from the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, when the left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya was deposed and replaced by a sequence of corrupt administrations. The president of DESA and its head of security were both US-trained former Honduran military officers, schooled in counterinsurgency. By 2010, despite having no track record of building dams, DESA had already obtained the permits it needed to produce and sell electricity, and by 2011, with no local consultation, it had received its environmental licence.
Continue reading “Nina Lakhani’s “Who Killed Berta Cáceres?”: Life, Death, and Legacy of a Courageous Honduran Indigenous Leader”
Category: Latin America, Energy and the environment, Book reviews | Tags: Honduras, drugs, US intervention, Berta Cáceres, env
May 31, 2020
Members of the 300-strong sanitation squad who work for the Managua city council, www.el19digital.com
Every country in the world is trying to balance its fight against the virus with the need to have a functioning economy, and there is plenty of debate about what the balance should be. The world’s poorer countries face the toughest challenge, because a high proportion of their populations engage in a daily struggle to earn enough to eat, whether in small businesses or the informal economy. In Nicaragua, around 80% of people make their living in this way.[1]
Continue reading “Nicaragua battles COVID-19 and a Disinformation Campaign”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, media, Nicaragua crisis, coronavirus |
May 2, 2020
A government worker cleans a market in Managua to combat the coronavirus. Carlos Cortez, El19
“He’s not a doctor, I don’t think.” Trump had just finished a phone call with Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), the de facto president of Honduras who runs a narco-state. On April 30, JOH was indirectly implicated in drug and murder charges by the US Justice Department in a case against a former chief police officer. This is merely the latest of several cases in which he is alleged to be involved, that include drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as protection of drug dealers. The criminal charges have also affected his close family, among them his brother, including connections of both siblings with famous narco-dealer El Chapo. His sister, Hilda Hernández, was also under investigation in Honduras for embezzlement of public funds, at the time she died in a helicopter accident.
Continue reading “COVID-19 as a pretext for repression”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, drugs, US intervention, El Salvador, panama, coronavirus
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on