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Nicaragua’s inconvenient Covid victory
In Nicaragua, Latin America’s third poorest country, people who don’t work don’t eat. Three-quarters of jobs are in small businesses or the informal economy. So when its first Covid case was diagnosed on 18 March 2020, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega knew that shutting down the economy would be catastrophic.
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For Corporate Media, Sandinistas’ Electoral Success Proves Their Repressiveness
The headline in the Washington Post ahead of Nicaragua’s local elections hinted at skepticism: “Nicaragua Ruling Party Seeks to Expand Hold in Local Votes” (11/6/22). The story itself, taken from an Associated Press report filed from Mexico City, was worse, framing the elections as a “farce” carried out “under the absolute control” of the governing…
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New US sanctions are designed to hit Nicaragua’s poorest citizens
The Biden administration has announced new sanctions which are intended to hit the poorest Nicaraguans – both in their pockets and in the public services on which they depend. This latest attack on a small Central American country is, as usual, dressed up as promoting democracy: the sanctions will “deny the Ortega-Murillo regime the resources…
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A Tale of Two Countries: Honduras & Nicaragua face the shock doctrine
Jenny Atlee, Jim Phillips and I presented a webinar on neighbouring countries, Honduras and Nicaragua, that have both suffered what Naomi Klein called the “shock doctrine”. Both rejected neoliberalism in elections last year, but both are under renewed pressure to conform to Washington’s expectations. My contribution compares the two countries’ approaches to the pandemic, and…
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David vs. Goliath: Nicaragua’s independence
This week Nicaragua celebrates its Independence Days – on September 14th the celebration of the Battle of San Jacinto won against U.S. filibusters in 1856, and on September 15th the commemoration of Central America’s independence from Spain in 1821. Becca Renk, who lives in Nicaragua, penned the piece below.
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It began with a shipwreck
Some time in the 17th century, a vessel carrying enslaved people from the west coast of Africa ran aground near the Caribbean island of St Vincent, close enough to shore that the survivors swam to land, disposed of their captors and settled alongside the Indigenous Carib-Arawak people, who already offered a safe haven to runaway…
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Nicaragua celebrates 43 years of revolution: a clash between reality and media misrepresentation
July 19th is a day of celebration in Nicaragua: the anniversary of the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. But the international media will have it penciled in their diaries for another reason: it’s yet another opportunity to pour scorn on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. We’ll hear again about how the government “clamps down on dissent,” about…
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