Fabrizio Casari, Altrenotizie, August 22nd 2021
https://www.altrenotizie.org/primo-piano/9375-il-nicaragua-e-l-isteria-…
The European Parliament has protested over recent measures taken by the Nicaraguan judiciary, which is merely applying the law currently in force. Nothing new here: although the laws are similar to those of many countries, especially in Europe, every time Nicaragua promulgates a law the EU thinks is wrong, it issues judgments beyond its competence, illegitimate sanctions and hypocritical pronouncements obscuring the facts...
The facts indicate that the US is attacking Nicaragua with the help of the EU and some Latin American narco-states. The attacks are based not on non-existent human rights violations but on ideological and political reasons. U.S. and European pressure is exerted with the intention of creating a political-institutional crisis and that is taken tremendously seriously in Managua.
The European Union has enthusiastically joined the plan to "eliminate communism in Latin America" promoted by Donald Trump and continued with "Biden". An ideological war waged at a political, economic and diplomatic level to tighten Latin America's socialist countries in a vicious grip. It is no coincidence that the European Parliament recognized the coup in Bolivia, while condemning and sanctioning Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
For Nicaragua, the US project involves the overthrow of the Sandinista government, the capture of Daniel Ortega, then the installation of a neoliberal government on the model already well known from the 90s. It is a project that has been out in the open since 2017, so the laws of these last months are not at all the reason for all the aggression against Managua.
In short, the coup was defeated in 2018, but the coup is still alive and well thanks to the political and financial sustenance it receives from abroad. This is the serious aspect of the issue, while a paradoxical one is that while a violent regime-change plan is being implemented, its victims are expected not to react, on pain of being accused of dictatorship. In short: those who attack democracy accuse those defending democracy of being a dictatorship .
Democracy vs coup-mongerng
For years, with neither diplomacy nor any effort to save appearances, the US and EU have decided brazenly to support the overthrow of a government elected by Nicaraguans. Given the impossibility of defeating Sandinismo either at the ballot box or in the streets, it was decided to wear it down through a destabilization plan, financed by USAID and worked out in detail in 2019, as a result of the failure of the 2018 coup attempt. The plan, with the acronym RAIN, is articulated on several fronts: political and diplomatic hostility, terrorism, creation of a new Contra, financing of opposition and media that claim to be "independent" but are de facto owned by the United States. External support takes the form of sanctions, diplomatic pressure and special laws with extraterritorial effect.
After the election on November 7th, when any last hope of defeating the FSLN electorally will be buried, the internal fifth columns will try and generate chaos and terror through acts of terrorism, urban guerrilla warfare and military attacks in the mountains in the north of the country.
The next phase of the plan is aimed at international support for the coup, without which it would be immediately crushed. Some right-wing figures, presented as "moderates", blessed by the country's Episcopal Conference and by private enterprise, would appoint themselves "government in exile". This would be immediately recognized by the U.S., OAS and EU as happened with Guaido in Venezuela and would immediately ask for international help that would come in the form of "humanitarian aid", or with a military coalition wanted by Washington, blessed by the OAS and supported by Brussels.
This is, in broad terms, the coup project. But to think that Nicaragua's counterintelligence is asleep is a serious mistake, at least as serious as believing that the various protagonists under arrest and investigation are keeping quiet.
The error of this part of the destabilizing project is to have believed that, even in the presence of internal and international provocations, Nicaragua would have chosen a low profile, avoiding confrontation based on an opportunistic evaluation of the political-electoral balance. It was thought that the FSLN would accept a blatantly foreign-run electoral campaign for reasons of political expediency and electoral tactics.
They don't know Nicaragua, they don't understand Sandinismo, and they don't have a clue about Comandante Ortega. Managua does not suffer from any kind of Stockholm syndrome and is not inclined to lower its gaze in the face of the arrogance of the powerful or those who presume themselves to be powerful. Nicaragua is not a member of the club of the naive and powerless but rather reacts with force and reason to subversive plans, if necessary in absolute indifference to international criticism. Ready to explain its reasons, but not bow to the Right.
This is not due to vacuous political pride, or presumptuous self-sufficiency or a tendency to political isolation: it simply reacts to the subversive design that aims to discredit the electoral process as a premise for the delegitimization of the country's political and institutional architecture.
The government will not have its political agenda dictated from abroad. It believes that the strength of its project lies in the decisive modernization of the country, in the gratitude of its people who have seen their destiny change in just a few years and in the memory of the neoliberal scourge of the 1990s. Nicaraguans vote in Nicaragua and they are the country's political interlocutors, not the US, the OAS or the EU.
If the U.S., whose influence is well known but whose interference is not permitted, wanted to open a positive confrontation with Nicaragua, they have plenty of time and other ways to do it. If, on the other hand, they continue to organize and finance coup mongering sedition, then they will find it constantly more difficult to recruit local mercenaries willing to sacrifice themselves.
This is the lesson of recent months: Nicaragua is not going down on its knees. Interference and destabilization will result in the inevitable reaction to defend the country's stability and institutions. The country will defend itself and collaborationists will have a very hard time.
Who's afraid of Daniel Ortega?
40 years after Reagan, the US has once again launched a diplomatic offensive in Latin America and Europe composed of demands and threats whose meaning is: let's take action, or at least support us doing so, against Nicaragua. It is unfortunate to see that the US obsession with Nicaragua finds discordant echoes among some progressives, belonging to a supposedly moderate left, the one dedicated to alternation but not to alternatives. It is noteworthy that Nicaragua, which, compared to Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, boasts exceptional indicators in terms of social justice and security, has become the continent's problem. The US needs to find progressives willing to join the coup mongers so as to isolate Managua.
The case of Argentina's Fernandez is not particularly surprising, one does not expect former modest bureaucrats suddenly to turn into statesmen. But exchanging money for principles is never a good idea, and negotiating loans with the IMF at the cost of one's own decency will do no good. The about turn of Latin American solidarity in an effort to please the US will encounter days of bitter repentance later, because it sets a precedent. Moreover, having been guilty of serious military interference in the 1980's against Nicaragua (and also in 2020 in Bolivia), suggests that Argentina should carefully measure its words and deeds: Argentina's championing of human rights borders on unintentional comedy. More than 120 Argentinians were in jail for street protests against the Macri government. Fernandez had them released before asking Ortega to free the Nicaraguan coup plotters.
As for AMLO, a respectable figure, he should realize that accompanying the US obsession against Managua will not stop US destabilization and interference in South Texas. Only a poor ability to read would make anyone think the empire's hunger will be sated with the Nicaraguan tit bit: the real dish is the reconquest of the continent. Declaring the pride of indigenous peoples and associating with the conquistadors is as paradoxical as denouncing a coup against your own country while accepting one in Nicaragua.
It must be admitted, Nicaragua is difficult for Mexicans to understand. The narcos are few and powerless, they do not constitute an anti-state nor do they control the country in any way. Women do not disappear to swell human trafficking, the police are not on the narcos' payroll and hunger does not affect 60% of the population. But to accuse Ortega for a lack of democracy while supporting Venezuela and praising Cuba, which have acted along the same lines and are in any case close allies, is pure political schizophrenia. One should avoid making foreign policy choices with one's eyes fixed on the rancor of domestic politics. The difference between mere presidents and real leaders lies in being able to look far ahead and never lose sight of text and context. Breaking a historical bond that has never been broken even by the worst governments in Mexico's history is a very serious mistake, while striking at continental solidarity while posing as a continental leader makes no sense.
On the other hand, there is even less logic in Lula's claims about democracy in Brazil, which carries out parliamentary coups, puts innocent people in jail and the military in government. To suggest alternating in power while running for the presidency for a sixth time seems unbalanced. It seems to revisit the scene of Pepe Mujica, Uruguay's version of Cincinnatus, a man of the left but loved by the right all over the world, who asked Maduro, Raul and Daniel to step down, and criticized the Nicaraguan presidential couple when he was president while his own wife was president of the Senate. It is easy to predict disappointment for people who think powdering their face will make their executioner look more kindly on them and while today they preen themselves on their formal democracy they will soon discover how difficult it is to make it a reality.
Although out of solidarity one might expect criticism to be muted and praise to be more forthright, one should not be too surprised. Up to a point differences of opinion are understandable and undoubtedly everyone's own biography marks the convictions they hold. After all, elections win government, revolutions take power. The former succumb to force, the latter use force to defend themselves. The difference is enormous, it's true. That's why everyone - enemies, false friends, and those who are indifferent - should ask themselves: can anyone really think of forcibly expelling the FSLN from Nicaragua? All that money and energy wasted, All that hatred. Al that power deployed only to discover its impotence. Sandino is all about in Nicaragua, and his enemies are the only ones who are worried.