How “peaceful protests” in Nicaragua became an attempted coup
John Perry and Dan Kovalik Five years ago, Nicaragua was subject to a violent insurrection that lasted from April through July, 2018. In the second of four articles, we look at how initial support for the coup relied on widespread use of social media. The “groundwork for insurrection” in Nicaragua was laid down months and […]
Should we be concerned about what ChatGPT “thinks” about Latin America?
ChatGPT is a powerful AI chatbot that is as easy to use as Google and provides more direct answers to users’ questions. Ask it anything you like, and you will receive an answer that sounds like it was written by a human, based on knowledge and writing skills gained from massive amounts of data from […]
Nicaragua’s ‘Political Prisoners’ Would Be Criminals by US Standards
“Nicaragua Frees Hundreds of Political Prisoners to the United States,” the New York Times reported. In an unexpected move on February 9, the Nicaraguan government deported to the United States 222 people who were in prison, and moved to strip them of their citizenship. The prisoners had been convicted of various crimes, including terrorism, conspiracy […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
Nicaragua a ‘Dictatorship’ When It Follows US Lead on NGOs
Daniel Ortega’s government in Nicaragua is “laying waste to civil society” according to the Associated Press. The Guardian called it a “sweeping purge of civil society,” while for the New York Times, Nicaragua is “inching toward dictatorship.” According to the Washington Post, the country is already “a dictatorship laid bare.” In a call repeated by […]
How “virtual crime scenes” became a propaganda tool in Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria
Written jointly with Rick Sterling This article shows how media uses computer modeling and “virtual crime scenes” to assign blame for some extremely important international events. In these examples from Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria, many people died in complex circumstances. The deaths at the “Mother’s March” in Managua, Nicaragua precipitated an attempted coup. The Maidan […]
If there was “fraud” in Nicaragua’s elections, where’s the proof?
Official results from Nicaragua’s elections on November 7 showed Daniel Ortega re-elected as president with 75% of the vote. On the same day, President Joe Biden dismissed the ballot as a “pantomime election” and within 48 hours the Organization of American States (OAS) had produced a 16-page report setting out its criticisms. It demanded the […]
Facebook does the US government’s censorship work in Nicaraguan elections
A few days before the Nicaraguan presidential elections on November 7, Facebook and other social media companies began closing down many of the pages used by Sandinista supporters in their campaign to re-elect President Daniel Ortega. This blatant censorship move was said to be because they had discovered “troll farms” operated by government agencies. But […]
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on