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Having been invited to Nicaragua in September 2019 by Vice President Rosario Murillo, I have to say the country my sister and I saw over 2 weeks bore no resemblance to the country regularly described by the Guardian newspaper. A newspaper many would describe as a left of centre Newspaper which I used read every day. In fact its sometimes hard to understand the interest so much of the “corporate media” attaches to this small Central American country, focusing on raising the standard of living for some of the poorest people on earth.
If I had only travelled from the airport to our hotel in a taxi, only to go our to the shopping mall to buy a few things, I would have had a very different view of Nicaragua. While we stayed in a very nice hotel, the programs my sister and I were shown over two weeks, are about taking extremely poor people out of poverty, providing them with access to health care and education, something that the Sandinistas had started to deliver in the 80s, but were stopped by a “Contra war” and the “right” taking back control of government in the 1990 election until 2006. Yes this trip was provided by the Government and they were only going to show us things that made them look good, by the same token the opposition are only going to show you what makes the Government look bad and most of them can afford to spend a lot of time abroad and their life is very different from the average Nicaraguan and more relatable to my life or any western journalist.
Presumably like most “news journalists”, they are not curious enough or are too lazy to do the necessary research. They don’t meet enough people and don’t ask the difficult questions of the people who share their biases. News Journalists like to work off press releases and precis the content for a sub-editor to provide a headline. Interestingly, the right-wing media in the UK, have very little interest in Nicaragua unless something is happening there, or Jeremy Corbyn says something positive about the country. The Guardian likes to “virtue signal” and give the impression it is supporting the oppressed, in this case, they believe its the “opposition” in Nicaragua.
If you don’t like Daniel Ortega or his wife Rosario Murillo and their socialist party the FSNL, you are in the “opposition”. The “opposition” is a very mixed bunch, its most prominent members are from the Chamorro family, who have dominated Nicaraguan politics, along with the Somoza’s, for all but 1979 -1989 of the twentieth century, during which time the country was considered the poorest in the hemisphere.
Like in most countries there are two classes of people in Nicaragua, well off and poor, the poor are in the majority by far in Nicaragua. In the election of 1984 only 25% of a 4 million population, voted, in 2016 nearly 42% of a population of 6 million voted, overwhelming in favour of Ortega, the opposition again are crying foul, as they have done in every period, when they are far behind in the polls before the next election in 2021. They try to create conditions in the country to destabilise the Sandinista government as they did in the 80s and again in 2018.
I have interacted with some of the Guardian journalists on Twitter, like Toby St Hill, other “left” leaning people I have met in UK and Ireland who would bring down the Sandinista government. What they would replace it with is not clear, they don’t seem to realise they are supporting a US imperialist view of Latin America. As far as they are concerned, my sister and I are useful idiots being manipulated by a corrupt FSNL government. While they believe they are in contact with the real people who are “oppressed” and “forced into exile, in fear of their lives”. I did not see anything like that, in our time in Nicaragua, they would say we were only shown what the government wanted us to see. Is there a government on earth that shows people, what they don’t want them to see, or an opposition that praises a government that is doing well.
Few oppositions, have their own National Newspaper “La Presna” which is 94 years old. I had heard it and much of the opposition Newspapers had been “banned”, however here it was every day available for free in our Hotel. La Prensa generally supports neoliberal economics and is largely aligned with the United States government. It is generally conservative on social issues, and identifies closely with the Catholic Church. Their journalists travel around the world making a big song and dance about being forced into exile, then when the story is no longer newsworthy. They return to their homes in Nicaragua, and continue their campaign to overthrow “The dictators” or the democratically elected President depending on your point of view.
This is my analysis of the political situation in Nicaragua and I would love opposition supporters to contact me and point out what they believe that I have misunderstood and I will publish any comments at end of this post
In some ways Nicaragua is like Cuba particularly in poor rural areas, where the FSNL are, providing, heath care, education and employment oportunities. These programmes are what Fidel Castro started in Cuba in 1960 and why Havana looked so run down for so many years, having been the holiday resort for rich famous Americans before the revolution, because all the investment happened in the rural areas and why today Cuba today has higer literact rates and people in 3rd level education than UK or US.
After the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979, the Sandinistas decided on a Democratic socialist market economy, with land reforms. While those connected with the Somoza dictatorship left for Florida, much of the well off middle classes and Liberal elite remained in Nicaragua. Luxury shopping malls only opened in Havana in 2017. Luxuary stores have been in Managua for many years for the well off.
You dont see MacDonalds” or “Wall Mart”, in Cuba, while they have a big presence in Managua. In the 90s as right wing governments let the free market reign Wall Mart, could dump their unsold products on Nicaraguan consumer, at prices Nicaraguan farmers could not compete with, which impoverished small farmers in much of Latin america, like the ones we met at the farming coperative.
The farmers we met were soo on message for the government, I joked they were office workers who would put their suits back on after we left. One of the farmers took my soft hand, to compare it with the leathery, callous marked hand he had, to show my sister, she laughed, there was no need to say more and if there was any doubt about wht we were being shown it vanished after our visit to Angel’s community we visited near Leon and I became a “Sandinista”.
Interestingly none of the people we met, talking about the stuff, developed counteries MSM bangs on about, free press, too many policemen etc. They are pleased to have food on the table every day, something which was not always the case before 2006.
The first popular insurrections against U.S. backed Dictator, Anastasio Somoza began in 1978 following the assassination of La Presna editor; Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Initially his image became a symbol of the cause and when Ortega led the Sandinista guerrillas triumphantly into Managua in July 1979, Chamorro’s wife Violeta was with them.
A coalition of political groups was formed (JGRN) to replace the Somoza regime, Violeta Chamorro, represented the Unión Democrática de Liberación, (UDEL) and Ortega the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, (FSLN); they were discussing diplomatic, economic, and military relationships with the United States and its liberal President Jimmy Carter. The election of right winger Ronald Reagan changed everything.
The FSLN had the most influence in the coalition and were committed to Democratic Socialism. In February 1980, FSLN signed several accords with the Soviet Union and as happened to Cuba in 1960, relations with US, dropped off a cliff and Reagan approved CIA support for counter terrorism in Nicaragua.
On 19 April 1980, Chamorro resigned from the JGRN, and her exit prompted other members of the coalition to also resign. Chamorro returned to her role as editor of La Prensa, driving it to become an advocate of opposition thought for wealthy urban dwellers and disgrunteled Sandinistas.
In 1984, the Sandinistas held Nicaragua’s first elections in 50 years and became the first left-wing government in Nicaragua’s history. Daniel Ortega and the FSLN won comfortably with 67% of the vote. However many opposition parties boycotted the election, on the advice of the US, who knew they would not do well and could claim the election would be fixed. The fact is in 1984 the FSLN and their policies were extremely popular particularly with the poor. Nicaragua received international acclaim for its rapid progress in the fields of literacy and health.
The Sandinistas were intent on providing the very services that establish a government’s political and moral legitimacy. The government’s program included increased wages, subsidized food prices, and expanded health, welfare, and education services. And though it nationalized Somoza’s former properties, it preserved a private sector that accounted for between 50 and 60 percent of GDP.
It was alarming for the US that a socialist-mixed-economy state could do in a short what the Somoza dynasty, could not do in 45 years. The CIA had supported the Coup in Chile in 1974, and was determined to prevent any sort of left wing government in South America having failed so badly with Cuba. On 4 January 1982, Reagan gave the CIA the authority to recruit and support a para military opposition called contras with $19 million in military aid, to start a civil war in Nicaragua
Noam Chompsky gives a good account of the war Contra terrorism funded by the US. The US also exerted extreme pressure to compel the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank to terminate all projects and assistance to Nicaragua. The contras’ vicious terrorist attacks against “soft targets” in Nicaragua supported by US, cost 30 – 40,000 Nicaraguan lives and with sanctions, and mining ports, ended any hope of economic development and social reform.
The Contra war ensured that the FSLN couldn’t demobilize its army and divert its pitifully poor and limited resources to reconstructing the ruins that were left by the US-backed dictators and Contra terrorism. Even after US Congress stopped funds going to the Contras. The Regan administration ignored the directive, secretly selling arms to Iran, in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair” to raise funds. The CIA even facilitated pilot Barry Seal to transport confiscated cocaine to the Contras, to ship it back to the US and sell and use the proceeds to fund their activities, which became a movie called Made in America starring Tom Cruise and documented in also documented in the book “Kill the Messenger”: How the CIA’s Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb who uncovered the story.
From 1987, a coalition of 14 political parties began working together in the hope of defeating the Sandinistas calling itself; Unión Nacional Opositora, UNO. Largly right-wing groups, but even the communist party of Nicaragua was part of the coalition. Violeta Chamorro was appointed the presidential candidate for UNO. Her platform primarily consisted of ending the civil war.
At the same time, the Sandinista Government was offered a peace plan. The country would move the scheduled national elections forward by a few months to allow international observation, in exchange for having the contras demobilised and the war brought to an end” The Nicaraguan government did what it was required to do under the peace plan, but no one else paid the slightest attention to it. The US virtually tripled CIA supply flights to the contras. Within a couple of months, the peace plan was totally dead and undermined the Sandinistas government’s credibility for ending the war.
As the 1990 election campaign opened, the US made it clear it was supporting the Chamorro coalition and that the embargo that was strangling the country and the contra terror would continue if the Sandinistas won the election. The US had invaded Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 89, the Nicaraguan electorate were tired of war and Violete Chamorro got 55% of the vote and became president.
There was no suggestion of election fraud by the US or EU in this or subsequent elections 96 and 2001, which the “opposition” won. In 2006 Ortega won again and the US cried fix and cut off aid and imposed sanctions the following year. It should be obvious to an idiot why Ortega won in 2006. The “opposition” split into two groups, allowing Ortega with only 38% to win, in fact he had 100,000 less votes, than when he lost in 2001, but the opposition again cried fraud.
In the 2011 election Ortega increased his share of the vote to 62% of the vote and in 2016 with his wife running as his Vice President he got 72% of vote . Similar to in 1984 the opposition recognized the popularity of Ortega’s policies which had produced consecutive years of economic growth they told their supporters to boycott the election and when they saw the margin of victory cry foul and blame election fraud claiming 70% of registered voters had abstained, when in fact they have been losing support since they split their vote in 2006. Nicaragua has a population of over six million. In 2001 there were 2.6M registered voters when the FSLN began their strategy of getting more people to vote and “embracing Christianity” in arguably the most religious country in the Americas.
In 2016 there were 3.8 million registered voters. Much of the programmes the FSLN run are in rural areas, and they put a lot of effort into getting those people to register to vote, and since his Victory in 2006 Ortega has added 1 million votes. As developed countries would say ;”its the economy stupid”. Admittedly in 2006 the bar was not very high after 16 years of right wing governments and a former president Arnoldo Aleman who had been jailed for corruption. Yes the majority of Nicaraguans are poor compared to the middle classes in developed countries, but if you talk to them they are significantly better off than they were in the 90s. Have free medical care and education which very few developing countries offer
I cant say there isn’t any corruption in Nicaragua, what I can say is most the people we met were very poor and the programmes the government were showing us were designed specifically to empower these people, who are extremely grateful for the programmes the government has put in place, to ensure they have food, a school for their children, a doctor if they are sick, things we take for granted in developed countries. The were give hope in the 80s and early 90s, only to have it taken away, by 3 consecutive right wing governments who did nothing for the poor, dismantled the railway system and built the Pan American highway for American trucks to drive through the country on its way to Mexico and the US. Its not hard to understand why the vast majority of poor people would support the Daniel Ortega and the FSLN and why the Sandinista vote has increased in every election since 2006
The Opposition, would not look out of place in any city in a developed country. They wear Rayban sunglasses, are well dressed. You see them in the bar and restaurant in our Hotel. They drive nice cars, buy imports from Europe and the US in the fashionable Mall or stores like WalMart. Thats who you see shopping in the Managua shopping mall, eating in MacDonalds just like in any mall you find in US or UK. In a country where a well paid worker might earn $100 a week and shop in the markets we visited. Who does the Guardian Newspaper think pays $89 for a Barcelona Football Shirt?
What is laughable; the critics of the Sandinista government would have you believe it is Daniel Ortega and his family who frequent these places because they are “extremely rich” and the people are poor because the presidents family have pocketed all they money like Somoza did after the 72 earthquake or the “Liberal Government did during the 90s. Forbes used say Fidel Castro was one of the richest people in the world. I guess the point of being rich is it allows you to buy very expensive things. So if Daniel Ortega owns a Ferrari or has a yacht in the bay don’t you think we would have seen a photograph of this opulence. Western politicians are courted by the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk and it would appear the richest Europeans Daniel Ortega has reaching out to him are Richard and Eleanor Lanigan 😂🤣
This article appeared in “The Guardian” on the 11th of March. The article follows a recurring theme in the Guardian and MSM, since riots in April 2018. Yet again we have a situation in Latin America, with a US supported opposition, trying to overthrow the elected left leaning government This has happened to Evo Morales in Bolivia in November 2019 and have been trying to do in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez died in 2013.
The riots began after a public protest against changes to the pension system similar to what the EU demanded from Greece in 2011. The protests descended into violence after a policeman and 2 people working for the government were murdered. The violence continued for a number of weeks leaving hundreds dead. The official figure is 240 dead, the opposition report over 300 deaths. Of course, hundreds of deaths caused by violence in any country should not happen especially in Nicaragua rated the safest country in Central America
Central America is a very poor and violent region. In neighboring Honduras, in the first quarter of 2019, nearly 800 homicides were recorded. El Salvador also has one of the highest murder rates in the world and in Costa Rica in the first half of 2018 there were 304 homicides. So fair to say Nicaragua is an exception to the violence in the region. The oposition would like to say the riots were about the economic plans of the FSLN, but these plans were withdrawn after 2 days of protests, the protesteres were victorias. S0 what was the violence about and why were the first people murdered a policmam and two civil servants. Was this an opportunity to make Nicaragua appear a dangerous country for tourists like its neighbors and crash the economy, which has flatlines since the riots due to its effect on the tourist industry.
The Guardian states in 2020 two years after the riots; “More than 100,000 people have fled “persecution” in Nicaragua, the majority have gone to Costa Rica; “Brutal repression by the national police and armed pro-government groups in 2018, left 300 people dead, 2,000 injured and hundreds of people arbitrarily detained and prosecuted. In 2015
However this article from 2015 says the reason so many people move to Costa Rica is because they earn much more money there. Emigration from Nicaragua to Costa Rica is common: Between 350,000 and 500,000 Nicaraguans live in Costa Rica, both legally and illegally. Unlike the south-to-north migration common to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, Nicaragua’s south-to-south migration is not fueled by violence and danger but money, but you can see why the opposition would like tourists to think it was a fear of violence.
Somehow I cant Imagine the British media complaining about “people arbitrarily detained and prosecuted” after the Tube bombs in 2007. When ISIS supporters riot on European streets and kill, they are not referred to as “The opposition”. The MSM does not demand a softly softly approach for armed vigilantes. When Israeli soldiers shoot and kill Palestinian protesters, the media present it as Israel protecting its “fence” and the MSM is fine with it.
I don’t condone violence of any kind and one death is two many, but to dump all the blame on the FSNL and ignore the motivation of the opposition to escalate the violence, beggars belief, and brings the credibility of these articles into question.
It is important to remember, that half of the dead, in the riots were FSLN members and policemen as the impression given is all the dead were all “peacfull protesters, If killing a policeman was to get a big reaction from the police it worked. But the riots in the following days were specifically to bring down the Government and deny acess to the peoples markets, where FSLN suporters buy their food. Rich people have freezers and can get out of the way for a few weeks, the poor live from day to day and road blocks to prevent them getting to the market to buy food was going to piss people off, which it did after the police backed off after the early clashes.
One hundred people die each day in US because of gun violence. which has raised a legitimate question; “do black lives matter”. The US is a country that still practices the death penalty, its not in a position to lecture other countries about human rights.
If any minority armed themselves in the US , with a stated objective of overthrowing the government, there would be many dead. One only has to look at Vietnam,Chile, Iraq, and the Contra War in Nicaragua are some examples of what can happen to innocent civilians when the US does not like the regime in charge of a country and civilians get in the way.
In addition to the effect the riots had on tourism, as in Bolivia and Venezuela, it was an open invitation for US to get involved with President Donald Trump announcing ” All people deserve a government that cares for their safety, their interests, and their wellbeing, including their prosperity” imposing sanctions and calling for free, fair, and early elections in Nicaragua to give the Nicaraguan people a true voice and vote in their future.” The suggestion Ortega is not a democrat when you consider he has contested 7 elections loosing three of them.
The “Organisation of American States” (OAS) Secretary General Luis Almagro also got in on the act, urging the FSNL, to move forward the elections from 2021, learning from 1990 they refused. Outside interference like this, in support of an opposition to a government would not happen in any developed country, no matter how controversial the regime was. You will struggle to find a more controversial leader than Donald Trump, he had no objections when Boris Johnson illegally parogued the UK parliament in 2019.
In December 2019 The Trump administration announced fresh financial sanctions against Nicaragua targeting companies with links to the government, asserting the entities are purely shells for money laundering designed to enrich and uphold the ruling family against increasing outcry from pro-democracy opposition.
The US has form on this amd In 1984 The Guardian was reporting a more balanced view of what was happening there after the “World Court” Found the US guilty of breaches of international law against Nicaragua. The court stated that; “US acts and actions in training and financing the contras, the attack on Puerto Sandino and interference with maritime commerce constituted breaches of international law and the obligation not to violate national sovereignty.
The US government refused to accept the court’s decision. Nevertheless in 1986 The International Court of Justice, based in the Hague, ordered the United States to pay reparations to Nicaragua for training, arming and financing Contra rebels and mining Nicaraguan ports during a conflict that killed thirty to forty thousands people.
When Ortega was defeated in the 1990 election, the new President Violetta Chamorro abandoned the claims of $17 Billion in war reparations, in exchange for “aid” from the United States, which subsequent presidents squandered and did not spend the finacial aid where it was needed.
In 1997 Daniel Ortega again lost the presidential election to Arnoldo Alemán who had 51% of the vote, Transparency International named him the ninth most corrupt leader in recent history, estimating that he had looted the country of $100 million in state funds to Panamanian bank accounts controlled by him and his family. In
When Ortega was elected President in 2006, The New York Times saw it comming in 2005 “United States-backed conservative governments in the past 15 years have been widely condemned as being as corrupt and had failed to lift Nicaragua out of extreme poverty”.
To get elected Ortega had to be pragmatic in a very religious country, the game changer was to embrace christianity. This meant not repealing the represive abortion laws introduced by his predecessor Enrique Bolanos. The decision to embrace christianity did not get him much extra sport in 2006, but I believe it has helped Ortega greatly in sunsequent years, to be seen as a man of the people.
Not repealing the draconian abortion laws, antagonised many former Sandinistas and left wing suporters outside the country. In the Americas your left wing credentials are usually judged by your position on abortion. And in Europe it has been used against the Ortega the way antisemitism was used against Jeremy Corbyn by the centre left.
in 2007 The Guardian picked up on abortion which became the stick the European left and human rights organiseation began to beat Ortega with and they imply it was Ortega who implemented the law, similar to the Law which was in Ireland until recently; “This new law intentionally denies women access to health services essential to saving their lives, and is thus inconsistent with Nicaragua’s obligations under international human rights law,” says Human Rights Watch.
It is sad that this has come into focus under a FSLN government – a movement whose ranks included advocates for feminism and abortion rights. That was the 80s, when the Sandinistas were secular marxists, wore combat fatigues to fight the Contras. Things changed, the war ended, Ortega, lost the presidency. Church and state were supposedly separate but clerics wielded political clout, none more so than Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo. His hostility sank Ortega’s attempted comebacks in 1996 and 2001 elections. In the run-up to the 2006 election, the cardinal spearheaded the campaign for a blanket abortion ban.
Only one of the four leading candidates in the 2006 presidential election came out against the law. Edmundo Jarquin of the “Sandinista Renovation Movement”, a dissident faction of the origanal Sandinistas. Who have little suport in Nicaragua but much of the European left have gravitated towards them away from Ortega aligning themselves with Trump with the same goal, to bring down the government. A clasic example my enemys, enemy is my friend.
Abortion is legal in only 2 Latin American counteries; Cuba and Uruguay. When U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the Global Gag Rule on January 23, 2017, he prohibited all U.S. federal money from funding international organizations such as NGOs that “perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning the FSLN is providing great suport for young woman who are pregnant and The Mayor of Estoli took us to the first maternity centre that was set up by the Sandinistas in the 80s
Ortega and FSLN desperate to regain power, after 16 years of right wing,Neo liberal Government, took the pragmatic view.
But to focus on this one issue as having sold out socialism is foolish and forgets all the work the FSLN does to promote womens equality. The World Economic Forum ranks Nicaragua 5th in terms of achieving gender equality. The parliament is 50% female, its not men in dark suits maintaining the abortion laws its women. Equality is also the reason Ortegas wife is the Vice President, the new constitution required Ortega to have a woman as his running madein 2016, nothing to do with nepotism.
Lists of candidates to the National Assembly and to the Central American Parliament has to be composed of 50% male and 50% female candidates. article 131 of Nicaraguan consitution
When Ortega was elected the feminist moment in Europe were hopefull that Ortega would eventually come round to their views on abortion, regardless of the fact that most women in Nicaragua do not see abortion as a matter of choice as we do in Europe. Sadly many of these feminist groups have formed aliences with opposition groups in Nicaragua. No political party will get elected on a pro abortion platform in Nicaragua. Ortega got 70% of the votes in the 2015 GE and much of that support is women.
To understand how dificult this issue is in a country like Nicaragua Maxine Molyneux piece “The Politics of Abortion in Nicaragua; Revolutionary Pragmatism or Feminism the realm of Necessity. She wrote in 1984; “Nicaragua is an anomaly among Socialist states. Its comparatively advanced record on general political issues Pluralism, democracy, abolition of the death Penalty contrasts with a surprisingly conservative position on reproductive rights. Since coming to power in 1979 Nicaraguas revolutionary government has pledged itself to women emancipation and has implemented a range of policies and legal reforms designed to establish greater equality between the sexes. However it has not legalised abortion”.
The Guardian also tells us that of all these “oppressed” people fleeing for their lives, 9,000 “refugees” had the funds to “fly to Europe”. I have to say this is impressive in a country where you are doing well to earn $10 a day. Then some can pay $89 for a Barcelona Football shirt. So perhaps some objectivity is needed, when assessing claims made by opposition members and perha ps consider where they like to shop.
For example in January 2019 The Guardian stated “Nicaragua’s best-known journalist has gone into exile after armed police raided and ransacked his newsroom in what experts called the latest chapter of the country’s slide into autocracy under President Daniel Ortega”. Carlos Fernando Chamorro, going into exile is always woth a few colum inches.
In November 2019 Chomorro returned to Nicaragua despite claiming its more dangerous for him now; “the situation of insecurity and disrespect for human rights has not changed and in many respects has worsened , as a result of the imposition of a de facto state of emergency that has violated constitutional rights”‘.
My guess he has returned to Nicaragus because his “exile” is no longer newsworthy. And like many other “journalists” based in Nicaragua, continue to suply our media with opposition propaganda. No doubt hoping a popular FSNL government will mess up with the Corona virus and give all the contrarians new amunition to fire at the FSNL.
