Labour Briefing, January 9th 2019
http://labourbriefing.squarespace.com/home/2019/1/9/nicaragua-a-us-push…
Over the past four years, opposition organisations in Nicaragua have received some $35m in funding from US AID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This has supposedly been for ‘training on governance, private enterprise, human rights and democracy’ but in effect has been targeted and used to pay for an internal opposition to the FSLN Government. Contrary to the narrative spouted by the corporate media, what happened in Nicaragua in the months following April 2018 was an attempted coup, planned and financed by a US administration bent on ousting the democratically elected government of Nicaragua.
From 18th April 2018, Nicaragua was engulfed in a wave of extreme violence perpetrated by Nicaragua’s right wing led opposition and their allies. They destroyed or severely damaged offices of central government and local authorities in over a dozen cities. They attacked ambulances, invaded hospitals and schools and destroyed hundreds of private businesses and homes. They kidnapped, tortured and killed people identified as government supporters and extorted or intimidated anyone trying to cross the hundreds of roadblocks they set up.
Corporate media blamed all the violence and the victims of that violence exclusively on the Nicaraguan government. Daniel Ortega, who since 2007 had overseen a remarkable social and economic transformation in the country and who was elected in 2016 with 72% of the vote, was labelled as ‘dictatorial’, ‘authoritarian’ and ‘corrupt’. The Guardian and others left unchallenged opposition claims that theirs was a ‘totally peaceful struggle’.
This pattern of deliberate misinformation and false reporting was repeated by so-called independent human rights organisations, such as CENIDH, many of whom based their reporting on opposition social media and the fake news which frequently appeared in Nicaragua’s right wing press. In all of its reporting, attributing all human rights violations to the government, CENIDH consistently ignored the violence perpetrated by the opposition.
In mid-December, the Nicaraguan government stripped nine non-governmental agencies (NGOs) of their non-profit status. The reality is that these NGOs did not comply with the legal requirements for their operation and violated the nature of their functions by actively participating in, channelling funds to and promoting the failed coup attempt. This reality is omitted by those who have described the closures as a ‘wave of state repression against human rights organisations and media outlets’.
The US and their right wing allies have once again tried, and failed, to bring Nicaragua to its knees and subjugate the country to their wishes. Nicaraguans have overwhelmingly rejected the ousting of their democratically elected government by a violent US-funded minority. They should now be allowed to live in peace and determine their own future.