By John Perry
From Masaya, Nicaragua

A report issued at the end of May repeats allegations of government repression in Nicaragua during violent protests in 2018. It was commissioned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), a body of the Organization of American States (OAS), and revives arguments that the Sandinista government is systematically violating human rights. It purports to provide new evidence, but in reality the facts are more complicated than the report suggests. They warrant careful examination to ensure that the international community is getting the full, unadulterated story.

In April 2018, violence erupted in Nicaragua as opposition groups began an unsuccessful attempt to force Daniel Ortega’s government out of office. One of the emblematic events of a traumatic three-month period was the so-called “March of the Mothers” on May 30. It is also one of the most contentious, and remains so to this day. The march took place in the capital, Managua, at the height of the opposition’s influence – many Nicaraguans then still believed false reports that hundreds of students had been killed by police in the preceding weeks, and they were yet to experience the worst of the violence linked to the roadblocks set up across the country by the opposition. Although the main march was largely peaceful, numerous violent clashes afterwards led to eight people being shot and killed with more than 90 injured, including 20 police officers.

Why, two years later, is this still important? The internal threat to Nicaragua’s elected Sandinista government may have abated, with opinion polls showing that most Nicaraguans reject any return to the violence and the damage to daily life brought by the opposition’s tactics in 2018. But the external threat remains severe: the US and its allies have imposed sanctions and continue to turn the screws on Nicaragua’s economy and its access to outside aid, even denying resources needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The US is also increasingly able to isolate Nicaragua within the OAS, where it has more allies among the member nations after regime change in Bolivia and the installation of a fake “representative” from Venezuela. On June 24, there was yet another attempt to get member states to agree that Nicaragua is violating the OAS’s Democratic Charter. Although it was again unsuccessful, it inevitably leads to further investigations and threats of expulsion, which could provide the pretext for more direct US intervention. Nicaragua is falsely portrayed as a pariah state, while gross violations of democratic principles are overlooked elsewhere – for example in Honduras and Bolivia, whose current governments are strong US allies.

Focusing on human rights is a key way of putting pressure on Nicaragua, since evidence of supposed systematic violations encourages other countries to maintain sanctions or impose new ones (invariably, in the case of European governments and regional allies such as Canada, following in the footsteps of the US). Whatever measures are taken by the Nicaraguan government to reassert its commitment to human rights (e.g. amnesties for so-called “political” prisoners, welcoming back those who sought asylum in Costa Rica in 2018, permitting a virulently anti-government media to operate freely), are never enough to meet US expectations. The political opposition in Nicaragua is alive to this, continuously feeding the media with stories of alleged abuses.

In the IACHR, the OAS of course has its own mechanism “to promote and protect human rights.” It, too, has been totally unbalanced in its assessments of Nicaragua since the violence of 2018 and has regularly provided the OAS with biased reports. Among the worst of these was the work of a six-month mission by a group of “independent” experts which led to a 468-page report, produced for IACHR by GIEI-Nicaragua (Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes).^[1] It looked specifically at alleged human rights violations in Nicaragua during the period April–May 2018, culminating with the “March of the Mothers.”

GIEI’s work was notable at the time for its almost exclusive focus on victims of violence allegedly committed by police, paying scant attention to or dismissing evidence that many Sandinistas, bystanders, and indeed police officers were killed or injured during those violent weeks. Many attempts were made by the government to persuade the GIEI investigating team to properly consider the evidence of opposition violence, including attacks on the police on May 30 2018.^[2] Nevertheless the GIEI, reviewing events that day, implied that the injuries suffered by police might have been faked.

Their elaborate and detailed report perhaps had insufficient impact when it was published in December 2018, because GIEI was recalled recently to revisit some of the evidence, focusing on the “March of the Mothers,” and publishing a new report this year to coincide with the anniversary of that violent day two years ago. This time, the GIEI brought in expert consultants. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), from Buenos Aires, had worked previously in unraveling the history of the “dirty war” in Argentina and other projects. SITU Research, based in New York, had done videos reconstructing other violent events, including in Ukraine. However, rather than (as might be hoped) looking with fresh eyes and in greater depth at a confused and confusing sequence of violent incidents, the project continues the practice of highly selective use of the facts and incomplete reporting that characterized GIEI’s earlier work. What could have been a genuinely neutral attempt to “forensically” examine the events, turns instead into another propaganda exercise which concludes that the events were “part of the systematic repression of civilian demonstrations.” The rest of this article shows why this conclusion is justified.

“March of the Mothers” ends in violence

Most of the violence in Managua on May 30, 2018 occurred in the late afternoon, on the north side of the city centre, near to the newly built national baseball stadium. Several groups of protesters, instead of proceeding to the march’s agreed destination (the UCA – University of Central America) headed north towards the stadium. One of these groups approached along the Avenida Universitaria, where they began to fire at police using homemade mortars and, visual evidence suggests, might also have used conventional weapons. They then retreated slightly to set up two roadblocks. Around 45 minutes later, at 5:25pm that afternoon, three marchers —Jonathan Eduardo Morazán Meza, Francisco Javier Reyes Zapata and Daniel Josias Reyes Rivera—were shot and later died.

Rather than examine the general violence in the stadium area, the new “reconstruction” focuses solely on the incident including these three deaths. The presentation by SITU/EAAF^[3] consists of a seven-minute video and two reports by firearms experts – one analyzing some of the gunshots and where they came from, and the other looking at the lethality or otherwise of the homemade weapons (mortars and bombs) used by the protesters. In addition, a website^[4] built in 2018 by SITU/EAAF for the GIEI with maps, photographs and other videos, serves as an “archive” for the reconstruction.

Inevitably it is the seven-minute video which has received most attention. Because of its use of architectonic graphics to supplement and embellish the photographic material, it gives the appearance of a professional, “forensic” examination of the events surrounding the three deaths, although in fact it contains little or no new material. It begins by showing the march and its route, lending an air of authenticity by using phrases such as “videos support testimony that…” to describe completely undisputed facts such as that the march started peacefully. It then describes the making of the roadblocks on the Avenida Universitaria, the positions of the police which it links to the incident, the trajectory of the bullets, and how the three victims were carried away to hospital.

The new evidence is not in the video, but in the report of a US firearms expert called Michael Knox, submitted a year ago. Knox analyses the sounds of shooting captured on different videos filmed at the roadblocks. He concludes that the bulk of the gunfire aimed at the marchers comes from the north, parallel with the Avenida Universitaria and from a distance of 200-300 meters. He says there were also shots from “a few hundred meters distant” and “sounds of a firearm being discharged near the camera.” This “could be either a semiautomatic handgun or rifle,” and its shots are distinct from those of hand-held mortars which the demonstrators were also firing towards the police.

Knox’s report is clear, but it only examines where the shooters were positioned, making no assessment of who they were. SITU/EAAF, however, says Knox was “analyzing the weapons of police” and in their video claim to reveal that the shooters were armed police gathered precisely at the mid-point of the distance indicated by Knox as being the likely range of the shots: 250 meters from where the victims were standing. However, as the map and box below explain in more detail, the video is either in error or has been manipulated to show the police as being 250 meters from the victims when in fact they were considerably closer and, according to Knox’s evidence, could not have fired the shots that hit people at the roadblock. Knox was asked to comment on this anomaly by the writer of this article but replied, “I was not involved in the production of any maps, drawings, or measurements beyond the two camera-to-firearm distance measurements I calculated based on the audio signals from two of the recorded shots. I believe you will need to address your concerns with the folks at SITU Research.”^[5]

Mistakes in the SITU-EAAF video and map showing the range of the gunshots In the video the commentator says (at 03’10” in the English version) that police were stationed approximately 250 meters north of the roadblock where the demonstrators were taking cover. A photo shows the police “holding firearms,” although in fact the officer shown circled appears clearly to be holding a shotgun used to fire rubber bullets.  Later, at 05’40”, the video has a map showing the position of these police officers (see screenshot), putting them halfway across a red band which marks radii of 200 meters and 300 meters respectively from the main roadblock (shown in blue). Their position appears to tie in exactly with the video’s assertion that they were 250 meters from the three victims, at the midpoint of the range of the gunfire as calculated by Knox. The photograph of police at 03’10” in the video shows them to be at a road junction, correctly shown on the map. But this road junction is only about 175 meters (measured on Google Maps) from the position of the roadblock. A map of the same events shown on the “archive” website shows the police even closer to the roadblock. The reason that the red band shows them as being 250 meters from the victims is because it is incorrectly drawn: while supposedly it shows radii of 200-300 meters, in fact the radii measure only approximately 145-215 meters on the ground. This is verified by simple math using Google Maps. For the red band to show true radii of 200-300 meters, it would have to be significantly larger in diameter and hence further from the roadblock. Drawn with the correct dimensions, it would no longer include the spot where the police motorcycles are shown clustered in the photo at 03’10” in the video. If Knox is correct, the only way these police officers could have been the shooters is if they had retreated rapidly northwards in the two minutes before the shooting began, leaving the road where it bends and entering the property to the west of it to maintain the same line of fire.

Another possible explanation offered by Knox is that the deaths resulted from shots from further away, i.e. those “a few hundred meters distant.” The video commentator says at 05’11” that police agents were “reported” to be on the Lomas de Tiscapa (some 650 meters from the roadblock). However, this and other possible explanations are not examined by SITU/EAAF, nor is any proof offered that there were shooters in that location, much less that any such shooters were police officers. SITU/EAAF concluded that their analysis “strongly suggests that [the victims] were killed by police and/or parapolice forces firing at protesters.” But in fact the combination of Knox’s evidence and the photos shown in the video are, at best, inconclusive and at worst could indicate that it was someone else who was doing the shooting.

Use of firearms by opposition demonstrators is discounted

There is another notable gap between Knox’s evidence and the video, in a different respect. Knox’s evidence of “a firearm being discharged near the camera” is not pursued. Yet the GIEI’s own 468-page report, which included an examination of the same incident, had admitted “the presence of four armed persons among the demonstrators”[my emphasis].^[6] That this earlier evidence seems to be confirmed by Knox is clearly crucial. Yet it is ignored by the GIEI report.

Picture the scene as it very likely developed that afternoon. A group of about a dozen police officers, sharing motorcycles and carrying weapons including shotguns for firing rubber bullets, face a roadblock 170 meters away, made from piles of ripped-up paving stones, which had shielded several hundred protesters for 45 minutes. Many protesters were firing mortars (as shown in the photograph below, a still from the video). Among these are also bomb-throwers and (according to Knox) at least one person armed with and shooting “either a semiautomatic handgun or rifle.” While the mortars are said to have a range of only 60 meters, the improvised shrapnel or incendiary material they typically launch can clearly do a lot of damage to anyone approaching within that distance. Their noise and smoke would also provide cover for any conventional gunfire (and indeed in one of the videos on the archive website, police appear to be crouching to shield themselves from such gunfire). In this confusing conflict, the evidence of what happened is far from clear and certainly does not support the GIEI conclusion that this was an “arbitrary and disproportionate use of force”^[7] on the part of the government.

Wider events on March 30 2018 are ignored

A much bigger weakness of the SITU-EAAF video is that it completely ignores the wider context for the events, without which any interpretation of the incident that resulted in three deaths is meaningless. Many opposition leaders, in the weeks before May 30, had spoken openly of the need for lives to be lost in the interest of their cause;^[8] they turned out to be prescient. On the same day, there was another large, pro-government demonstration taking place in Managua. While those attending the “March of the Mothers” arrived without incident, one of the caravans of vehicles bringing people to the Sandinista march that morning was halted and attacked by gunfire south of the city of Estelí, with one person among the Sandinista supporters killed and 22 injured (one of whom subsequently died of his injuries).^[9]

Much later that day, after the demonstrations in Managua, two more Sandinista supporters – Kevin Antonio Coffin Reyes and Heriberto Maudiel Pérez Díaz – were both shot in the chest in a confrontation with opposition demonstrators only 600 meters to the north-west of the incidents the GIEI describes on the Avenida Universitaria, at a similar time in the late afternoon. GIEI, in their report [p.173], acknowledge that they died but accuse the police of “conspiring against the clarification of these two deaths,” simply because in their preliminary report the next day^[10] the police bracketed them with other deaths and injuries that occurred around the same period of time.

The routes of the two marches were planned so as to keep them more than 2 kilometres apart, to avoid inevitable conflict if the two sides met. Until the time when the opposition march concluded, it had passed without violence. When they deviated from the planned route, the leaders of the group in the Avenida Universitaria must have known they were heading towards the police lines that had been put in place earlier in the day to prevent them from reaching further north. While the video implies they were the only group to break away from the main march, in fact various groups headed north to attack the police and to close in on Sandinista supporters.

In part they appeared to respond to rumors (fed by commentators from opposition Radio Corporación) that there were sharpshooters stationed in the national baseball stadium, which sits between Avenida Universitaria and Paseo Tiscapa to the east, and whose boundary appears in the SITU/EAAF “reconstruction.” This became the scene of most of the day’s violence. Examples are shown in a different video analysis made in 2019 by Juventud Presidente (a Sandinista-aligned group).^[11] Clips from the stadium’s security cameras show the stadium building initially deserted except for its usual security guards. But as early as 4:10pm, a video clip shows fights between opposition groups taking place in front of the stadium. Soon, opposition members arrive from the Paseo Tiscapa, some carrying conventional firearms. None of these protesters are shot at from the stadium building, where supposedly the sharpshooters were hidden.

At about the same time, well before the incident examined by SITU/EAAF, demonstrators are filmed confronting police in the Avenida Universitaria, north of the point where roadblocks were built at 4:40pm. The different clips, some from opposition Radio Corporación, show how opposition groups were firing mortars or throwing Molotov cocktails but also that several had pistols or high caliber firearms. They gained temporary control of the whole stadium area, sacking the stadium offices and firing at police. Another video^[12] even shows armed protesters firing at other opposition marchers who respond with shouts of “we’re the same.”

Over the period between 4:30 and 5:30pm no less than 20 police officers were injured trying to retain control of the stadium area, many receiving serious gunshot wounds.^[13] It is unconscionable that the so-called “forensic” analysis of the shooting of the three marchers at 5:25pm by SITU/EAAF ignores the wider violence in the same area. In doing so, it ignores plausible explanations either that the police fired the lethal shots but were themselves under attack, or that the lethal shots were “false flag” shots by opposition gunmen coming from the stadium area to the Avenida Universitaria. The deaths and injuries of police and demonstrators are listed in the preliminary police report on the following day, still available on the Policía Nacional website and of course accessible to SITU/EAAF.^[14] The confused nature of the violence, and the fact that much of it was perpetrated by opposition marchers, was made clear in an eye-witness report published 24 hours after the events by Italian journalist Giorgio Trucchi.^[15]

Why the new video has been released

Roll forward two years, to May 30, 2020, when the SITU/EAAF video is released. Local right-wing media report that “a video reconstruction shows how Daniel Ortega’s police killed at least three people” (100%Noticias) and that “new forensic evidence” shows the government was responsible for the “massacre” (Confidencial).^[16] These reports contradict each other. 100% Noticias said that the three marchers whose deaths were examined were killed by paramilitaries stationed only 150 meters away from them; Confidencial, on the other hand, claimed the shots were fired “at least 300 metres” from the roadblock where the protesters were killed. As we saw, the confusion may well have resulted from the contradictions in the evidence from the “reconstruction” itself.

By publishing the video on the anniversary of the march, at an online event featuring mothers of the victims, GIEI clearly aims to revive its message that the Sandinista government is murdering innocent Nicaraguans who protest against it. This article has shown that the new evidence is incomplete, misleading, and does not support the conclusions reached. Fair-minded investigations of both violence by state actors and by demonstrators is critical to assessing accountability, but the investigations themselves appear to be so politicized as to undermine such an endeavor.

The SITU/EAAF video was reported internationally by several different media, including El País and BBC Mundo.^[17] For both, it was clear where the blame must lie. El País emphasized the video’s “forensic” methods, saying that it “reconstructed the horror of the Daniel Ortega regime” while the BBC concluded that the analysis “appeared to leave no doubt” that police or auxiliary police were responsible for the deaths.

In reality, the SITU/EAAF video itself shows nothing new. As we have seen, the firearms analysis, which could have been released a year earlier, is much more revealing and supports none of the video’s categoric conclusions, repeated and amplified in the local and international media. The video clips and photos it uses were readily available, as are others that were never used. SITU/EAAF appear to have ignored or discounted any material that contradicted their preformed opinion. But their very slick video with its contrived “reconstruction” has done its job, which was to revive the argument that Daniel Ortega’s government is not only repressing the Nicaraguan people, but killing them.

This leaves one wondering why a body of such consequence as the IACHR did not take the time to conduct an objective analysis of the facts. Could it be that the once independent Commission has fallen to the same political bias as the rest of the OAS? Equally disturbing is how the international media, rather than inspecting the evidence, or calling for an authentically independent investigation, merely parroted the self-serving reporting of the Nicaraguan opposition press.

John Perry is a writer based in Nicaragua.

[Main photo: Pro-government marchers at Mother’s Day March in Managua, May 30, 2018. Photo credit: El 19 Digital]

End notes

^[1] GIEI “Informe sobre los hechos de violencia ocurridos entre el 18 de abril y el 30 de mayo de 2018.”

^[2] The government’s efforts to persuade the GIEI and IACHR to make a balanced assessment of events in Nicaragua were documented in a letter to the OAS from the Foreign Minister, Denis Moncada, on December 19, 2018, at the time when the GIEI report was published (http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/5152)

^[3] “Nicaragua: March of the Mothers Reconstruction,” http://marchadelasmadres.com/#/es

^[4] http://gieinicaragua-cartografia-violencia.org/

^[5] Email exchange between the author and Michael Knox on June 29, 2020.

^[6] GIEI “Informe sobre los hechos de violencia ocurridos entre el 18 de abril y el 30 de mayo de 2018”, p.164.

^[7] http://gieinicaragua-cartografia-violencia.org/#/1

^[8] Several clips of opposition spokespeople appear in a video by Juventud Presidente, available on this web page:  http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/9605

^[9] “Delincuentes de la derecha asesinan a una persona y hieren a otras 22 de Caravana Sandinista en Estelí”, https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:77573-delincuentes-de-la-derecha-asesinan-a-una-persona-y-hieren-a-otras-22-de-caravana-sandinista-en-esteli

^[10] Policía Nacional: Nota de prensa no.33 – 2018 (https://www.policia.gob.ni/?p=19356)

^[11] Video available on this web page: http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/9567

^[12] See http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/9567 – first video on page.

^[13] “Criminales de la derecha balean a seis agentes de la Policía Nacional”, https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:77582-criminales-de-la-derecha-balean-a-seis-agentes-de-la-policia-nacional

^[14] Policía Nacional: Nota de prensa no.33 – 2018 (https://www.policia.gob.ni/?p=19356)

^[15] “Nicaragua: Cuando las mentiras ganan y se convierten en realidad”, https://nicaraguaymasespanol.blogspot.com/2018/05/nicaragua-cuando-las-mentiras-ganan-y.html

^[16] “Una reconstrucción en video demuestra cómo la policía de Daniel Ortega asesinó a al menos 3 personas en la matanza del Día de la Madre de 2018”, https://100noticias.com.ni/nacionales/101290-asesinatos-marcha-madres-/; “Nuevas pruebas forenses demuestran responsabilidad del Gobierno en la masacre del Día de las Madres”, https://confidencial.com.ni/nuevas-pruebas-forenses-demuestran-responsabilidad-del-gobierno-en-la-masacre-del-dia-de-las-madres/

^[17] “Forenses argentinos reconstruyen el horror de Nicaragua en el régimen de Ortega”, https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-05-30/forenses-argentinos-reconstruyen-el-horror-de-nicaragua.html?ssm=TW_AM_CM; “Así viví ‘la masacre del Día de las Madres’, uno de los episodios más sangrientos de las protestas que sacudieron Nicaragua hace dos años”, https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-52833756

By Rita Jill Clark-Gollub (Washington), Erika Takeo (Managua), and Avery Raimondo (Los Angeles)

“A nation that cannot feed itself is not free.”
Fausto Torrez, Nicaraguan Rural Workers Association

An array of UN agencies is predicting a global hunger pandemic triggered by COVID-19 lockdowns, with the head of the World Food Program stating that there is “a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.”^[1] At least 10 million more Latin Americans are expected to join the 3.4 million who were already experiencing chronic food insecurity.^[2] These devastating effects will be long-term, as each percentage point drop in global GDP is expected to cause 0.7 million more children to be stunted from undernutrition.^[3] There are clear signs that the food shortages have already arrived, as flags indicating hunger are spotted outside homes from Colombia to the Northern Triangle of Central America,^[4] while violently repressed hunger protests have occurred in places such as Honduras^[5] and Chile.^[6] As a street vendor in El Salvador put it, “If the virus doesn’t kill us, hunger will.”^[7]

But in the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, there are no hunger flags flying. The market stalls are stocked, customers are buying,  and prices are stable. Nicaraguan small farmers produce almost all the food the nation consumes, and have some left over for export. We will examine how this is possible.

At the June 9, 2020 launching of his Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition,^[8] UN Secretary-General António Guterres not only called for urgent action to address this hunger crisis, but also to take the opportunity to shift towards more sustainable food systems. This transition is something that the world’s peasants have been calling for since they founded La Vía Campesina (LVC) in 1993. It is now urgent to listen to what over 200 million peasants, women farmers, indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, fisherfolk, and pastoralists have been saying about our food systems:

“The pandemic has highlighted yet another ill of countries becoming too dependent on large international food industries [and their international supply chains]. For decades, governments did little to protect small farms and food producers which were pushed out of business by these growing dysfunctional corporate giants. … They stood idle as their countries grew increasingly dependent on a few major suppliers of food who forced local producers to sell their produce at unfairly low prices so corporate executives can keep growing their profit margins.”^[9]

Agribusiness is also exacerbating the world’s most pressing problems: its Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) crowd immune-stressed animals, making them susceptible to viruses that can cross over to humans;^[10] its fossil fuel- and chemical-intensive practices account for at least a third of the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change;^[11] and its genetically modified seeds are known to diminish biodiversity. Moreover, in Latin American commercial food systems, it is fueling price increases during the pandemic.^[12]

La Vía Campesina’s answer is food sovereignty, which is defined as “the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.”^[13] It prioritizes: 1. local agricultural production in order to feed the people; and 2. peasants’ and landless people’s access to land, water, seeds, and credit. This approach actually works in combating hunger, as peasants and smallholders produce 70-75 percent of the world’s food on less than one quarter of the world’s farmland.^[14] When peasant movements partner with progressive governments, the results can be astounding, as in the case of Nicaragua.

The peasant movement in Nicaragua

The Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Rural Workers Association or ATC) was founded during the war to overthrow the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship, one year before the 1979 victory of the Sandinista People’s Revolution. It brought together peasants, both small farmers wanting to procure their own land as well as farm workers organizing for union rights. The ATC has continued to represent these groups of workers throughout its 42-year history and was one of the national organizations that founded La Vía Campesina in 1993.^[15]

In the 1980s, the Nicaraguan revolutionary government launched a massive land reform program, which distributed about half the country’s arable land (5 million acres) to 120,000 peasant families. Several other peasant groups formed during that first decade of the revolution as the cooperative farming movement prospered, even coming to include the families of former contra fighters, who had been adversaries of the Sandinista government. Later, during the neoliberal administrations of 1990-2006, these groups worked to defend the gains of the revolution, sometimes including worker occupations of state farms to prevent them from being privatized. By 2006, and inspired by the 1987 Constitution that guarantees protection against hunger,^[16] some 73 Nicaraguan organizations belonged to the Interest Group for Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security (GISSAN) that was advocating for a Food Sovereignty Law. Several of them helped the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) get elected back into office at the end of that year.^[17]

Food Sovereignty since 2007

In the current stage of Sandinista governance that started in 2007, the strategy to increase food sovereignty by providing land has continued. Almost 140,000 land titles (some from land distributed during the 1980s land reform) were issued to small producers from 2007 to 2019. Women have particularly benefited from receiving proper titles to their land (55 percent) and 304 indigenous and Afro-descendant communities on the Caribbean coast have received collective titles. The titled area amounts to 37,842 Km2, or 31.16 percent of the national territory.^[18]

Social programs that help small farmers feed themselves and their communities have imbued life in the countryside with dignity while reducing hunger. These initiatives are inspired by Augusto C. Sandino’s vision of an economy based on land-owning peasants and indigenous peoples farming in organized cooperatives—a core component of the FSLN’s Historic Program. Law 693 on Food and Nutritional Sovereignty and Security, enacted in 2009, was one of the first in Latin America to recognize the concept of food sovereignty and actually build it with government support.^[19]  The commitment of the FSLN government to food sovereignty has led to dozens of programs to improve the livelihoods and autonomy of small farmers while strengthening local food systems.

The signature initiative is the Hambre Cero (Zero Hunger) program which began in 2007 and provides pigs, cows, chickens, plants, seeds, and building materials to women in rural areas to diversify their production, improve the family diet, and strengthen women-led household economies.^[20] By 2016, the program had benefited 150,000 families or 1 million people, increasing both their food security and the nation’s food sovereignty.^[21]

Interviews completed as part of a solidarity testimonies project^[22] with ATC members in the Marlon Alvarado community, many of whom are also beneficiaries of government programs, illustrate the impact of Hambre Cero. For example, one woman said:

“I have always been in social movements, since I was young. We are a group of women working here. We are united and in solidarity, all of us. …The ATC has taught us about women’s entrepreneurship… The government is encouraging us to always cultivate our land, so that we have our food. They give us citrus, they give us bananas, papaya, lemons. We just have to go harvest. We have jocote, mango. They always continue the [Hambre Cero] program so that we grow something. In our plot, we are always growing something.”

Another woman in the same community said:

“I have two male pigs, boars, for breeding: if someone else has a sow, they bring it to the boar and I get a piglet in return. For every sow they bring to the boar, I get a little pig. Or if someone says to me, ‘I have all the piglets sold; I’ll give you the money. What do you say?’ ‘Okay,’ I say. We agree.”

Additionally, the Ministry of the Family, Community, and Cooperative Economy (MEFCCA) and municipal governments organize farmers markets to improve peasant incomes while making nutritious, locally-grown food accessible to consumers, that is produced without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. The Nicaraguan Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) works to improve and maintain the country’s genetic material by organizing community seed banks,^[23] and the National Technological Institute (INATEC) provides free technical degrees in agriculture, livestock care, value-added processing, and beekeeping, to name a few.^[24] A new program called NicaVida will reach 30,000 rural families with tools, fencing, water tanks, chickens, and other materials to improve family diets and household economies in the Dry Corridor^[25] areas which are particularly impacted by climate change.^[26]

The breadth and territorial reach of these programs keep Nicaragua’s peasants and small farmers free from dependence on global markets; their diversified production is organized to feed their families and local communities, with increasing access to seeds, water, and credit,  thereby creating the conditions to achieve food sovereignty.

A poverty and hunger fighting program targeting urban residents is Zero Usury, which is part of the national food ecosystem since it serves many who work in open-air markets. This program, administered by the MEFFCA, gives low interest loans and grants to small business owners (primarily women) and offers free entrepreneurship training, funded in part by Venezuela and other ALBA countries. Over 800,000 women have benefited from the program since 2007, which has been crucial to the success of the popular economy (self-employed workers, small farmers, family businesses, and cooperatives) which accounts for over 70 percent of employment.

Long-time activist and current presidential advisor Orlando Núñez explains the philosophy behind these programs and why they work:

“The heart of the Hambre Cero program is giving capital to peasant families. A cow is capital because she reproduces; sows, seeds, and hens reproduce. The first message is not to treat people like poor people; they are only poor because they have been impoverished. … Offering poor people a glass of milk or a slice of bread is an act of charity, not revolution. … The revolutionary thing about Hambre Cero in Nicaragua is that it treats people like economic actors. …That is the most revolutionary message of the Sandinista revolution.”^[27]

The initiatives for this second phase of the Sandinista Revolution are all complemented by the grassroots work of social movements. The ATC and LVC have established a campus of the Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA) in Nicaragua for youth from Nicaragua and throughout the Mesoamerican and Caribbean region. The school not only imparts technical training on agro ecological production of crops and animals, but also political and ideological education so that students come to understand today’s clash between two models of agriculture: one (the agribusiness model) in which food is a business for the benefit of corporations, and another (the food sovereignty model) in which food is a human right for all. The program encourages peasants to be each other’s teachers and have agency over their own lives, reclaiming their peasant identity and culture. It is an education that focuses on staying in the countryside and producing food that stays within the local market.

Throughout the country the ATC and other peasant organizations have been organizing local workshops to train agroecological promoters, support women’s cooperatives in marketing their farm products, formalize peasants’ land titles, and prepare on-farm biofertilizers and composts. All of this supports the construction of food sovereignty.

Hunger outcomes in Nicaragua and Central America

All indications are that these programs have resulted in a better fed population in Nicaragua. In its 2019-2023 Strategic Plan for Nicaragua, the United Nations World Food Program said that “In the last decade… Nicaragua is one of the countries that has reduced hunger the most in the region,”^[28] while the government reports that chronic child malnutrition dropped from 21.7 percent in 2006 to 11.1 percent in 2019 for children under 5 years of age.^[29] Nicaragua was also one of the first countries to achieve Millennium Development Goal Number 1 of cutting undernutrition in half from 2.3 million in 1990-1992 to 1 million in 2014-2016, placing it among the countries of the region that had reduced hunger the most in the previous 25 years. Vitamin A deficiency among children under 5 was also eliminated.^[30]

Nicaragua’s advances are reflected in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map.^[31] Unfortunately, that map shows that neighboring Honduras and El Salvador did not achieve the Millennium Development Goal on hunger reduction, and that Guatemala did not even make progress. This stagnancy may be related to the fact that US exports to the Northern Triangle countries increased substantially since the signing of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). These three countries imported about US$5.9 billion of agriculture products from the world in 2016, including beans and dairy products from Nicaragua, and corn, soybean meal, wheat, poultry, rice, and prepared foods from the US. Imports of many of these US foods increased by 100 percent or more from 2006-2016, coming to comprise about 40 percent of all food imports for these countries.^[32] Unfortunately, food prices in these countries are on the rise precisely when people have less income with which to purchase food due to COVID-19 lockdowns at home and in the US, from which Central American countries receive remittances. Parts of Guatemala are already receiving half the remittances they received at this time last year.^[33] Even Nicaragua’s wealthier neighbor to the south, Costa Rica, has become dependent on imported beans, rice, beef, and corn after opening the market through free trade agreements. At a recent LVC regional meeting, a Costa Rican peasant leader discussed how vulnerable the country has become, saying “COVID is stripping us bare.” Not only are grain prices rising while vegetable crops rot because they cannot reach consumers, unemployment is expected to double from 12.5 percent to 25 percent,^[34] and 57 percent of Costa Ricans report having trouble making ends meet.^[35] This brings major worries of increased hunger.

Food sovereignty and the pandemic in Nicaragua

Ninety percent of the food consumed in Nicaragua is produced within the national borders, 80 percent of it by peasants.^[36] This includes all of the beans, corn, fruits, vegetables, honey, and dairy products, while there is sufficient surplus of beans and dairy to export. Nicaragua’s food self-sufficiency is growing precisely while other developing countries are increasingly becoming agro-exporters of a few crops (e.g. pineapples or bananas) while ever more dependent on imports to feed their populations. Rice is the only component of the basic diet that is not completely homegrown, but domestic rice production has increased from meeting 45 percent of the country’s demand in 2007 to 75 percent of demand today. The government is working with producers to bring it up to 100 percent within 5 years. Nicaragua is indeed very close to achieving food sovereignty, the true anti-hunger model, which bodes well for times of crisis such as now with the economic impacts of the pandemic and the interruption of food distribution supply chains in other countries.

In the context of the pandemic, both the government and social movement organizations are determined to take food sovereignty to the next level. For example, the government just launched a National Plan for Production focused on increasing production of basic grains to cover all internal food needs, and also guarantee the production of crops for export.^[37] Food stocks are normal, prices are stable, production has continued normally since there has not been a work lockdown and most food is produced in small family units, and the rains have started for what looks to be a good planting season. Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan member organizations of LVC are launching the Agroecological Corridor, a process of territorializing agroecology based on peasant-to-peasant exchanges as a response to the threats being posed by climate change.^[38] Because training of youth also must continue, coursework at LVC’s flagship Latin American Institute of Agroecology is taking place online^[39] while the institute’s campus is implementing a full food production plan that includes grains, root vegetables, and animals. LVC has also launched the emergency campaign “Return to the Countryside”^[40] to be adopted not just in Nicaragua, but internationally.

Other challenges to Nicaragua during the pandemic

COHA has previously reported on the Nicaraguan government’s robust response to COVID-19 within the health sphere, amidst a vigorous disinformation campaign waged against the population and government in what clearly appears to be a regime change operation funded by the US.^[41] That regime change effort is no doubt partially inspired by Nicaragua’s food sovereignty policy, which threatens the dominance of US corporate agribusiness around the globe. For example, USAID has flooded food systems with Monsanto (now Bayer) GMO seeds in countries ranging from India^[42] to Iraq^[43] to several countries of Africa^[44] and Latin America.^[45] This approach could be undermined if more developing countries decide to produce their own food through agroecological practices.

USAID was one of the agencies funding opposition groups involved in a violent attempted coup in Nicaragua in 2018, as is well-documented in Live from Nicaragua: Uprising or Coup?^[46] It is not surprising, then, that the representative of Cargill in Nicaragua and head of the U.S.-Nicaragua Chamber of Commerce was one of the leaders of the opposition during the attempted coup.^[47] While Nicaragua does not have the oil and minerals that draw international attention to Venezuela and Bolivia, agribusiness is a hugely profitable industry and the Nicaraguan peasants are setting a powerful example by rejecting it and feeding their people to boot.

Fighting a disinformation campaign while the country faces the same pandemic that has overwhelmed much wealthier countries will certainly be challenging for Nicaragua, particularly since unilateral coercive measures illegally imposed by the US block access to aid funds. But at least her people have the comfort of knowing that there will be no death caused by hunger. In fact the food system recently withstood a formidable test during the 2018 coup attempt, when violent roadblocks held all the main roads and highways captive. Thanks to local food production and distribution systems, and clever determination to circumvent the roadblocks, people using the popular economy were still able to get food and at relatively stable prices, even when the Walmart-owned supermarket chains had empty shelves.

In an interview in late April, the leader of a peasant women’s organization was asked about Nicaragua’s handling of the coronavirus. Her concern was not as much about catching the virus as that,

“We will have food. It’s true that it is going to be hard; we will probably have a recession. But the important thing is that we have all the basic foodstuffs. We Nicaraguans are not quite 100 percent food self-sufficient. But we [in the Fundación Entre Mujeres] will do everything within our power to be as self-sufficient as we can so that the government does not need to give us aid and can give it to people who have greater needs than we have. We are taking a stance of dignity, being part of the solution.”^[48]

That attitude, coupled with a commitment to agroecology and food sovereignty, is what has Monsanto/Bayer, Cargill, and their guardians at USAID worried.

Rita Jill Clark-Gollub is a COHA Assistant Editor/Translator, based in Washington, DC

Erika Takeo is a member of the International Relations Secretariat of the Rural Workers Association (ATC) and Coordinator of the Friends of the ATC solidarity network and is based in Nicaragua

Avery Raimondo, from Friends of the ATC solidarity network, is based in Los Angeles, California

The following guest editors commented on this text:

Christina Schiavoni is a food sovereignty activist based in the US and PhD researcher focused on agrarian studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, Netherlands. She has over a decade of experience studying food sovereignty in Venezuela.

Magda Lanuza, a Nicaraguan who lives in El Salvador, holds a Master’s in International Sustainable Development from Brandeis University and has several years of experience working on social development and environmental protection in Central America.

[Main photo: Lucila Reyes of the Marlon Alvarado community, in Santa Teresa, Carazo where women play an active role in the construction of food sovereignty through peasant organizations and government programs. Shown with tomatoes grown in her agroecological garden. Photo-credit: Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Rural Workers Association or ATC)]

End notes

[1] “World food agency chief: World could see famines of ‘biblical proportions’ within months,” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-famines-united-nations-warning/

[2] “Latin America and Caribbean: Millions more could miss meals due to COVID-19 pandemic,” https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1065032

[3] “2020 Global Nutrition Report,” https://globalnutritionreport.org/

[4] “La contraseña de hambre en Latinoamérica: colgar un trapo rojo,” https://www.lavozdeasturias.es/noticia/actualidad/2020/04/27/contrasena-hambre-colgar-trapo-rojo/0003_202004G27P17991.htm and

https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/mundo/2020/05/21/en-guatemala-y-el-salvador-piden-comida-con-banderas-blancas-1720.html

[5] “Reprimen manifestantes que exigían comida en medio de crisis por coronavirus,” https://notibomba.com/honduras-reprimen-manifestantes-que-exigian-comida-en-medio-de-crisis-por-coronavirus/

[6] “Coronavirus: Chile protesters clash with police over lockdown,” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52717402

[7] “En Guatemala y El Salvador piden comida con banderas blancas,” https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/mundo/2020/05/21/en-guatemala-y-el-salvador-piden-comida-con-banderas-blancas-1720.html

[8] “Policy Brief: The impact of COVID-19 on Food Security and Nutrition,” https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/sg_policy_brief_on_covid_impact_on_food_security.pdf

[9] “The Solution to Food Insecurity is Food Sovereignty,”

https://viacampesina.org/en/the-solution-to-food-insecurity-is-food-sovereignty/

[10] “Factory farms: A pandemic in the making,” https://uspirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/factory-farms-pandemic-making

[11] “Agriculture is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. But it can also be part of the solution. https://investigatemidwest.org/2019/09/27/agriculture-is-one-of-the-biggest-contributors-to-climate-change-but-it-can-also-be-a-part-of-the-solution/ and “Lessons from the Green Revolution,” https://nature.berkeley.edu/srr/Alliance/lessons_from_the_green_revolutio.htm

[12] “Costlier Food Hits Latin America’s Poor and Adds to Unrest Risk,” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-08/costlier-food-hits-latin-america-s-poor-and-adds-to-unrest-risk

[13] La Vía Campesina, 2008, Food Sovereignty for Africa: A challenge at our fingertips, <http://viacampesina.net/downloads/PDF/Brochura_em_INGLES.pdf> p.2

[14] “Hungry for land: small farmers feed the world with less than a quarter of all farmland,” https://www.grain.org/article/entries/4929-hungry-for-land-small-farmers-feed-the-world-with-less-than-a-quarter-of-all-farmland

[15] Website: Friends of the ATC, History, https://friendsatc.org/history/

[16]https://nicaragua.justia.com/nacionales/constitucion-politica-de-nicaragua/titulo-iv/capitulo-iii/#:~:text=Es%20derecho%20de%20los%on on20nicarag%C3%BCenses,Art%C3%ADculo%2064.

[17] Araujo and Godek, “Opportunities and Challenges for Food Sovereignty Policies in Latin America: The Case of Nicaragua,” in Rethinking Food Systems – Structural Challenges, New Strategies and the Law, (New York: Springer, 2014), 51-72.

[18] “Nicaragua’s human rights achievements over the last 10 years,” http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/6571

[19] Araujo and Godek.

[20]CELAC website, Food and Nutrition Security Platform, https://plataformacelac.org/en/pais/nic

[21] “Revolución Sandinista restituye derechos a mujeres y los campesinos,” http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/7702

[22]“Testimonies,” https://friendsatc.org/about/resources/testimonies/

[23] McCune, Nils (2016): “Family, territory, nation: post-neoliberal on agroecological scaling in Nicaragua,” available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314022520_Family_territory_nation_post-neoliberal_agroecological_scaling_in_Nicaragua

[24] INATEC website: https://www.tecnacional.edu.ni/educacion-tecnica/

[25] “How the Climate Crisis is Driving Central American Migration,” https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-climate-crisis-driving-central-american-migration#:~:text=The%20Dry%20Corridor%20is%20an,%2C%20Costa%20Rica%2C%20and%20Panama.&text=It%20has%20to%20do%20with,circulation%20patterns%20near%20Central%20America.

[26] “Nicaraguan Dry Corridor Rural Family Sustainable Development Project,” https://www.ifad.org/en/web/operations/project/id/2000001242

[27] “Revolución Sandinista restituye derechos a mujeres y los campesinos,”  http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/7702

[28] “Draft Nicaragua country strategic plan (2019-2023),” https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000100987/download/

[29] “To the people of Nicaragua and to the world, COVID-19 report, a singular strategy,” page 32,  http://www.tortillaconsal.com/white_book_sars-cov-2_26-5-2020.pdf

[30] “Nicaragua Interim Country Strategic Plan,” https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000020983/download/

[31] “FAO Hunger Map 2015,” http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4674e.pdf

[32] “US Agricultural Exports to Central America’s Northern Triangle Prosper Under CAFTA-DR,” https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/us-agricultural-exports-central-america-s-northern-triangle-prosper-under-cafta-dr#:~:text=Guatemala’s%20top%20agricultural%20imports%20from,export%20destination%20for%20U.S.%20agriculture.

[33] “How Covid-19 is threatening Central America’s economic lifeline,” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52550389

[34] “Desempleo sube y llega a su mayor porcentaje en 10 años todavía sin reflejar los efectos de la covid-19,” https://www.nacion.com/economia/indicadores/desempleo-sube-a-su-maximo-valor-en-10-anos/N5FIK7DHLVBJJGQIW67BANJIWQ/story/

[35] “Desempleo y reducción de ingresos agobian a costarricenses durante la crisis del COVID-19,” https://www.ucr.ac.cr/noticias/2020/04/28/desempleo-y-reduccion-de-ingresos-agobian-a-costarricenses-durante-la-crisis-del-covid-19.html

[36] “Sector agropecuario ha tenido crecimiento significativo en los últimos 12 años,” https://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:87126-sector-agropecuario-ha-tenido-un-crecimiento-significativo-en-los-ultimos-12-anos

[37] “Nicaragua expone plan nacional de producción 2020 a organizaciones no gubernamentales,”  https://barricada.com.ni/nicaragua-expone-plan-nacional-de-produccion-2020-a-organizaciones-no-gubernamentales/?fbclid=IwAR0YlfvREfaBeYC-_8YQxXFAJNeCdUQIWAWni6JVouDJF-0XJXIDtSETBmI

[38] https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/biodiversity-and-genetic-resources/

[39] “Peasant Training Doesn’t Stop: IALA Ixim Ulew Now Online,” https://friendsatc.org/blog/peasant-training-doesnt-stop-iala-ixim-ulew-now-online/

[40] “CLOC-Vía Campesina Returning to the Countryside,” https://viacampesina.org/en/cloc-via-campesina-returning-to-the-countryside/

[41] “Nicaragua Battles COVID-19 and a Disinformation Campaign,” http://www.coha.org/nicaragua-battles-covid-19-and-a-disinformation-campaign/

[42] “USAID, Monsanto, and the real reason behind Delhi’s horrific smoke season,”  https://www.ecologise.in/2018/10/20/the-real-reason-for-delhis-annual-smoke-season/

[43] “Henry Kissinger’s Food Occupation of Iraq Continues to Destroy the Fertile Crescent,”  https://mintpressnews.ru/kissingers-occupation-iraq-destroys-agriculture/226407/

[44] “USAID and GM Food Aid,” https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/USAID_and_GM_Food_Aid.htm

[45] “The Monsanto Effect: Poisoning Latin America,” https://earth.org/the-monsanto-effect-poisoning-latin-america/ and

Website: https://en.centralamericadata.com/en/search?q1=content_en_le:%22Monsanto%22

[46] Kaufman, “US Regime-Change Funding Mechanisms,” in Live from Nicaragua: Uprising or Coup? pp. 173-188, https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.161/jwp.e46.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/live_from_nicaragua_june_2019.pdf.

[47] Zeese and McCune, “Correcting the record: what is really happening in Nicaragua?” in Live from Nicaragua: Uprising or Coup? p. 182, https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.161/jwp.e46.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/live_from_nicaragua_june_2019.pdf

[48] “NicaNotes: Peasant Women Take Stance of Dignity in Face of Crisis,” https://afgj.org/nicanotes-peasant-women-take-stance-of-dignity-in-face-of-crisis

The Reverend Phil Wheaton, an activist and community organizer in the Washington D.C. area, passed away this month. He had worked tirelessly for humanitarian causes, including for Salvadorans who came to the United States in large numbers in the 1980s fleeing their country’s civil war. Sonia Umanzor is one of many Salvadorans who experienced Phil’s solidarity and commitment first-hand. This is her tribute and homage to Phil.

 By Sonia Umanzor
Washington DC

On the morning of May 9 and in the middle of this terrible pandemic, I awakened to the sad news of the physical passing of you, our great brother, friend, and compañero, Phil Wheaton. We knew you affectionately as Felipe. It seems that this world does not want to let you go because this world will never be the same without you, my brother.

Sometimes you seemed so tall and so brave to me, so enraged by the injustices and crimes committed by the most powerful people, while being so tender with us, the most vulnerable, the most long-suffering. You always had an answer, always looked for a path to oppose the mistaken policies of the Empire, and always sent a message of complete intolerance of barbaric acts and the suffering of the peoples of our AMERICA.

Losing you is causing me great pain, as if I had lost a close relative. It must be because we saw you take on our pain and undoubtedly become one of us.

Felipe, you were a true champion of solidarity—not from afar, not from a desk—but by putting your feet into the mud with the most humble people and sharing their risks. You supported Nicaragua throughout the Contra war and then went to live there. You strongly opposed your country’s policies towards our Americas, the Caribbean, and the world.

Honor and Glory to this comrade in struggle who fought shoulder to shoulder with us for a more just world for all people.

I recall how you worked to build the sanctuary movement. In your country you fought so that we refugees and persecuted embodiments of Christ who were fleeing war could have someplace safe to live. When I was granted sanctuary in 1984 at the Church of the Savior, it felt like I was being lifted by miraculous hands from the darkness into light, allowing me to rest in a safe place, no longer waking up screaming in the middle of the night with the recurring nightmare that my family and I would be beheaded by morning. That solidarity brought me back to life and gave me more strength to fight for those following in my footsteps and for my country, El Salvador, which was being bled to death by bombs Made in the USA.

Felipe, I know that you came to realize how important you were for the poor. You always fought to establish the Kingdom of God in this world. You knew that it was possible. You considered it an order from God, a just and generous God. That is why you were so committed to defend immigrants and the poor, without hesitation or doubt. You preached by example. I saw that until the last day of your life.

So many times we sang those songs with you! “When the poor people believe in the poor, we will be able to sing about FREEDOM! When the poor believe in the poor, we can build brotherhood!”

And you celebrated the Eucharist with so much faith and together we sang, “Let us go now, to the banquet, to the feast of the universe. The table’s set and a place is waiting, come everyone with your gifts to share.”

And I will remember you and your long, chatty visits with Reverend Whit Hutchison at our Fr. Rutilio Grande House in Takoma Park, when you would pass by walking your dog, or when you would come to meetings or to celebrations of the lives and example set by the Jesuits who were murdered in 1989, or in honor of Monsignor Romero, or Father Rutilio Grande.

We Salvadorans are grateful to you for your love and devotion. We will stay with you and will not say goodbye, only, “You are with us always, my dear brother Felipe.”

Rest in peace.

Sonia Umanzor is a Community organizer in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

Press materials in Spanish: Phil Wheaton en español (Metro Latino USA)

Obituary in English: Phil Wheaton en Washington Post 

Video interview of Phil Wheaton 

[All pictures taken by Phil’s beloved friends and published on Facebook]

Marc Pilisuk, Jennifer Rountree and Rebecca Ferencik
From Berkeley, CA and Portland, OR

In its attempt to stem a spike in the number of Latin American men, women, and children traveling to the U.S., an unprecedented number of them seeking asylum, the Trump administration has pushed Guatemala and other countries in the region to sign “safe third country” agreements. The U.S. is bound by law to permit those seeking asylum and this new agreement is an attempt by the administration to avoid this obligation by declaring Guatemala as a safe third country, requiring asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador to remain in Guatemala.

Signing an agreement declaring Guatemala a “safe” country does not make it so. Increasing drug and gang-related violence and poverty—an estimated 59% of Guatemalans live in poverty, most of whom are indigenous—are not the ingredients of a safe and secure environment. This environment is largely a result of the legacy of more than half a century of U.S. policy, intervention, and corporate interest and its deleterious effect on Guatemala’s people. 

The Civil War

In the early 1950s, after decades of colonial rule, Guatemala elected Jacobo Arbenz, a nationalist and socialist who sought to transform oligarchic Guatemalan society through land reform and the development of government-owned enterprises. These government enterprises would be in competition with the American corporations, which at the time, dominated the railroad, electric, and fruit-trade industries. Of these American corporations, the United Fruit Company was the most influential. For decades, the company was the largest landowner, employer, and exporter in Guatemala. With nearly half of its land expropriated by Arbenz’ land reform act, United Fruit Company executives and board members (one of whom was then CIA Director Allen Dulles) appealed to the American government. In 1954, the U.S. government installed a puppet leader, overthrowing Arbenz in a coup, undoing his nationalist policies and setting up a strong-arm government that favored the United Fruit Company and other U.S. corporate interests.

Under U.S. guidance, Guatemala’s powerful military force and network of counterinsurgency surveillance—a program purported to stem the tide of communism in the region—continued for more than three decades. From 1960 through 1996, Guatemala was embroiled in a brutal civil war. The succession of military dictatorships were notorious for their scorched earth methods of destroying entire villages—most of them indigenous Mayan communities—in an effort to root out underground guerilla fighters. Their methods included beheading victims and burning them alive, smashing the heads of children on rocks, and raping women. In the fourteen months of Efraín Ríos Montt’s rule in the early 1980s, 10,000 documented killings or disappearances were reported. Conservative figures estimate that 200,000 people were killed or “disappeared” over the course of the war; 93% of the killings are attributed to the Guatemalan military. The United Nation’s Commission for Historical Clarification declared these deaths as genocide because the vast majority of the war’s victims were indigenous Maya. The 1999 report entitled, “Guatemala: Memory of Silence,” also identifies the U.S. involvement in the country as a key factor which contributed to human rights violations, including the training of Guatemalan officers in counterinsurgency techniques and support for the national intelligence system.

Addressing Organized Crime: Corporate Induced Limitations  

The end of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war did not bring peace. Paramilitary bands, many of whom are employed by U.S. and Canadian corporations, continue to roam the Guatemalan countryside targeting indigenous and worker’s rights groups. Similar to United Fruit Company six decades prior, these corporations determine agricultural productivity and the use of natural resources in Guatemala. Companies such as Tahoe Resources Inc., Goldcorp, and Solway group have come to play a dominant role, removing major areas of agriculture and replacing them with silver, gold, and nickel mines, and with no input from local communities. Severe environmental and health consequences occur in surrounding regions, including water shortages and contamination, air pollution, failing crops, skin rashes, infections, and coughs.

The Guatemalan government aids the corporate interests by suppressing peaceful protestors through intimidation tactics, including utilizing false charges, arrests, and the military. The government has declared states of siege, sending in thousands of heavily-armed soldiers to areas where local farmers and activists have opposed the expansion of mining. Indigenous leaders have played a significant role in speaking out against the loss of communal land for subsistence farming and against the deleterious effects of mining on the soil and water. Many of these leaders have been forced into hiding, and in some cases have been falsely accused of being members of drug cartels or other organized crime groups. Others have been killed for speaking out. In 2018 Guatemala recorded the sharpest rise in the murder of environmental defenders, jumping more than fivefold, making it the deadliest country per capita in the world.

Simultaneously, for many years in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, drug cartels had persuaded poor indigenous farmers to replace their traditional crops with poppies. Then under pressure from the U.S., the Guatemalan government eradicated the poppy fields, inflicting violence in the process. This left farmers with no other similarly-valued replacement crop and no replacement income, nor any form of assistance. For a time, poppy farming brought a level of self-sufficiency to farmers and their families. This loss of revenue added to pressures, increasing the wave of Guatemalans migrating to the U.S. In addition, military crackdowns against illegal drugs led to a level of organized crime, making life more dangerous for those who remained.

Attempts to Restore Justice: Presidents Involved in Corruption

In 2007, The UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was created. It came about largely as a result of efforts by students and Mayan leaders, exasperated that attempts to bring perpetrators of the country’s civil war to trial gained no traction in the justice system. The commission supported corruption probes that resulted in the indictment of Guatemala’s former president Otto Perez Molina and vice president Roxana Baldetti and the prosecution of prominent government officials, including members of Congress and the Supreme Court, two former presidents Álvaro Colom and Alfonso Portillo, dozens of corrupt judges, and thousands of corrupt police officers. It also supported the detention of powerful drug traffickers in the country. This year, CICIG’s mandate expired, lacking both the continued support of the United States and the support of Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales, himself under investigation for corruption. In the absence of the CICIG, already powerful organized crime groups are expanding their influence across the country and deepening their partnerships with government officials, the military, and transnational crime networks. Experts observe that, given the current levels of poverty and inequality, this environment of unfettered corruption will only continue to make the country an inhospitable and unsafe place, where families have more reasons to leave than to stay.

Climate Change: Drought Increases Food Insecurity

Land not taken over by foreign mining operations has been impacted by climate change. In recent years, the “Dry Corridor,” the tropical dry forest region on the Pacific Coast of Central America which extends from southern Mexico to Panama, has experienced high temperatures, below-average rainfall and periods of drought, resulting in the significant loss of crops—up to 50-75% for large agricultural operations. For families, the loss of crops have translated to a loss of jobs, income, and subsistence, and has pushed more and more families across the region into food insecurity. Guatemala has the fourth-highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world, with rates as high as 70% among indigenous communities. U.S. Agency for International Development-funded programs, such as Buena Milpa (meaning “good cornfield”), have helped farmers create seed reserves and learn new methods of soil and water conservation. Many of these programs came to a halt earlier this year when the Trump Administration announced it would freeze $450 Million in funding to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras for failure to stop citizens from migrating to the United States. As Latin American experts have pointed out, halting aid may actually increase migration to the U.S., as food insecurity has been one of the primary drivers of migration from Guatemala. 

Conclusion

Guatemala is a case of both global dispossession of people and of advocacy for resistance. The U.S. intervention model has failed in Guatemala. It has used a nation rich in natural resources and in cultural tradition as a tool for extractive resources and for cheap labor. It has relied upon coercion to repress dissent over the failure to provide either decent livelihood or safety for most of its people. Organized community resistance led to CICIG, a UN assisted program, which successfully prosecuted some of the most violent and corrupt violators, but the agency has been undermined by withdrawal of U.S. support over the past two years. Despite dehumanizing efforts to turn away immigrants, Guatemalan families have no choice but to face the hazards of migration to find hope within the wealthy country that has devastated their own. Details differ, but the general problem is repeated in Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Somalia, and in much of central Africa. People will continue to flee until there is reparation for the lives that have been traumatized, until their contaminated lands are replenished, and until the devastating economies and military strongmen who run them, with U.S. assistance, are replaced. The meta problem reflects a global question about sustainable values. A system that allows exploitation of people and of habitats so that a few may prosper, comes to feel the pressure of dissenters. When such dissenters are met with brutality, many choose to flee to find refuge. But the exodus will continue as an inevitable part of a system that is not sustainable and is morally unsatisfactory. It is a system that would have much to learn from traditional Maya wisdom in which tribes of people and their environmental habitats are considered sacred and worthy of preservation.

Advocacy groups have developed both to assist in the plight of refugees and to provide people with viable means to restore their country of origin as a place to live in dignity. Groups such as Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) https://nisgua.org offer a way to support this effort.   

Marc Pilisuk, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus at The University of California Davis and Faculty at Saybrook University, Berkeley, California

Jennifer Rountree, Ph.D., is Project Manager at The Center for Outcomes Research and Education, Portland, Oregon

Rebecca Ferencik, is an Independent Research Analyst, Berkeley, California

Photo credit, central picture: United Nations Women