Eduardo Hernández *, July 5th 2021
Nicaragua, a brave Central American country, celebrates this year, along with the rest of the region's nations, two hundred years of independence. It will also hold general elections in November. We will reflect on both developments in the social and political life of this country.
Let's start by saying that these would be two events to be take place naturally; the first in terms of its historical-political celebrations, and the second being civic-democratic, if it were not for recurrent and deplorable foreign interference in the country's internal affairs.
With regard to their independence, the countries of Latin America, in particular those that have consolidated progressive and/or revolutionary processes of transformation, including Nicaragua, consider that the independence achieved in the nineteenth century was nominal. For them, it is essential and imperative to reach a new stage in the maturity of their sovereignty and self-determination. Hence the talk of a second independence.
Deepening its sovereignty implies ceasing to be, as much as possible, dependent in various spheres: economic, financial, productive, cultural, technological, scientific and epistemological. It is essential to clarify that poverty, dependence and inequality of these countries have their origin within a process that began with the constitution of Eurocentric colonial capitalism, as a pattern of power and dispossession; that is to say, it has been induced.
In Latin America, what David Harvey calls accumulation by dispossession has worked very well in favor of the colonial imperial fabric. It is a process of transferring wealth from this continent to the dominant countries, led in the last century by the United States and its subordinate allies. However, despite the imposition of this system, either by force, "seductively" or by deception, the region's countries have always been in the search for their long-awaited second independence.
Therein lies the crossover with the other Nicaraguan event: the November elections. First of all, it must be said with all the weight of the truth: democratic, guaranteed, free, transparent and legal electoral processes were established in Nicaragua by the Sandinismo in 1984. Those elections marked the route.
From that moment on, the Supreme Electoral Council was established as a solvent and autonomous State power, whose laws made the elections transparent and auditable. Then came the 1990 elections, in which the United States financed the counterrevolutionary opposition and, although it was a blow to the Revolution, Sandinismo, with full fortitude and democratic maturity, handed over power. This marked a new milestone.
From then on, elections remained the way to elect governments. In some of these elections, the right-wing parties that took over the government were embroiled in serious electoral irregularities. However, because those who "won" were loyal allies of Washington, the results were accepted without the slightest questioning. Another issue that we must highlight is that, at this time, the Nicaraguan people went to the polls conditioned, because U.S. representatives campaigned freely, criminalizing Sandinismo. The threat of war was one of the threats most used to provoke fear in the Nicaraguan population, which held in its memory the recent counterrevolutionary war, promoted and financed by the United States, one that had claimed more than 50,000 dead.
Nothing could be more despicable to intimidate a population: to resort to campaigns based on threatening the horror of war. This was done by the U.S. representatives (Colín Powell, was one of them) in collusion with their internal allies, among whom was the Chamorro family and other members of the oligarchic caste.
In November 2006, the people of Nicaragua lost their fear, and in the face of so many excesses of 16 years of neoliberal governments, they voted overwhelmingly for Sandinismo. Once again, a milestone was set, because the elections continued, as an institutional process established by Sandinismo, strengthening democracy in the Central American country. Thus, through the votes in 2006, it was possible to change a neoliberal system that had dismantled the State, left its citizens unprotected and turned Nicaragua into a dependent country that had seen even its level of sovereignty significantly reduced.
In 2007, Sandinismo, through the electoral route, through the democratic process begun in 1984, returned to government and changed the neoliberal system - multiplier of inequalities that had destroyed the human rights of citizens, for a model of social justice in which the goal would be to eradicate poverty and inequality, ensure the human rights of the people, give continuity to the Revolution, strengthen Democracy, recover sovereignty and, therefore, intensify the search for the second independence.
The Sandinista model is beginning to yield results in all areas: economic, social, political, cultural, and productive, as well as guaranteeing respect for human rights, security, and protection for the population, among many others. All these achievements are verified and recognized by international organizations.
The Sandinista government thus manages to consolidate itself, to take root once again in all segments and generations of Nicaraguans and to win overwhelmingly, in successive elections. It succeeds in making Nicaragua a consolidated democracy. Likewise, the Supreme Electoral Council, as an autonomous entity, has become an international benchmark for competent electoral institutions.
It should be noted, however, that from that very moment on, the United States, through its ambassadors, first Paul Trivelli, then Robert Callahan, and his successors, whom Percy Alvarado describes as experts in dirty wars, together with local actors, begin to try to destabilize the country, to attack sandinismo from within and to try, whenever elections were approaching, to condition the results.
In this sense, the United States, as it did with Venezuela or Bolivia, has tried to turn the elections in Nicaragua into a propitious moment to attack it.
Through this ploy, the imperial network that includes the European Union, has sought to undermine Nicaraguan democracy, tried to hinder the consolidation of its free and sovereign process and of course, has tried by all means, to stop the advance of its own model, which, through well-designed and applied policies, has safeguarded and expanded the rights of the Nicaraguan people, and with it, has raised its threshold of sovereignty. None of this is to the liking of the imperial powers.
Currently, the Central American country is preparing legally, legitimately and institutionally, as established by its Constitution, to hold elections in November. The colonial imperial alliance and all its levers, including the political class, the media, institutions, international bodies, NGO’s and others, have not hesitated to attack it in every possible way.
This infamous imperial system puts Nicaragua back in the spotlight, it does so by trying to detract from the validity of its democracy and one of its vital expressions such as elections. In this way, it has financed the so-called Violeta Chamorro Foundation that has been busy weaving a web, orchestrating an offensive on social networks. They began to organize a campaign to discredit Sandinismo by defaming it and, as if that were not enough, by requesting publicly and in the media, everything from sanctions to a new US military intervention in the Central American country.
In this regard, the legitimately constituted authorities went ahead and the Office of the Attorney General, in possession of irrefutable evidence of the conspiracy, ordered the arrest of the main people involved, who now claim - to deceive the naïve - to be "presidential pre-candidates." False. Suffice it to say that the registration of presidential candidates, as provided for in the electoral calendar, approved by the constituted political parties, is set for the months of July and August, and therefore has not yet been opened.
All this is well known, it is a common procedure by which the figure of the "opponent" is created and presented as a victim to delegitimize the process and on that basis, not recognize the elections. Most significantly, the empire proclaims itself a prosecutor, judge and a jury, passes judgment and demands compliance, all of this outside of any legal norm of international law.
The onslaught has consisted of threats, coercion and sanctions against Sandinista Nicaragua, from the U.S. government and its European supporters. They disqualify the Nicaraguan State and its institutions for bringing to justice, with all the constitutional guarantees that their laws establish, those who have attacked, not only the sovereignty, but also the peace and stability of the country.
Obviously, once again the United States and its supporters are wrong. They are clashing, not only with the spirit of resistance, but with the legitimacy and ratification of the Nicaraguan people who will not hesitate to vote overwhelmingly for Sandinismo, thereby ensuring the consolidation of Democracy, and endorsing the transformations developed through a model that guarantees social justice and, of course, safeguarding the elections as one of the most important democratic milestones established by the Sandinista Revolution in the history of Nicaragua.
* Architect, writer, founding member of the Internationalist Anti-Imperialist Front. He has been a member of the UN panel of experts for Habitat and is an Illustrious Guest of the city of Havana.