John Perry
Masaya, Nicaragua

July 19^th is a day of celebration in Nicaragua: the anniversary of the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. But the international media will have it penciled in their diaries for another reason: it’s yet another opportunity to pour scorn on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. We’ll hear again about how the government “clamps down on dissent,”^[1] about its “political prisoners,”^[2] its recent “pantomime election,”^[3] its “damaging crackdown on civil society”^[4] and much more. All of these accusations have been answered but the media will continue to shut out any evidence that conflicts with the consensus narrative about Nicaragua, that its president, Daniel Ortega, has “crushed the Nicaraguan dream.”^[5]

Mainstream media tells its own story

Since the violent, U.S.-directed coup attempt in 2018, in which more than 200 people died, it has been very difficult to find objective analysis of the political situation in Nicaragua in mainstream media, much less any examination of the revolution’s achievements. In disregarding what is actually happening in the country, the media is ignoring and excluding the lived experience of ordinary Nicaraguans, as if their daily lives are irrelevant to any judgment about the direction the country is taking. Most notably, instead of recognizing that 75% of Nicaraguan voters supported the government in last November’s election, in which two-thirds of the electorate participated, the result is seen as “a turn toward an openly dictatorial model.”^[6] This judgment is backed by confected claims of electoral fraud from “secret poll watchers,”^[7] which ignore COHA’s strong evidence that no fraud took place.^[8]

Streets show the political reality

In the run-up to the anniversary of the revolution on July 19^th, Sandinista supporters have been filling the streets of every main city with celebratory marches. In Masaya, where I live, I took part in a procession with around 3,000 people and discovered afterwards that three other marches took place at the same time in different parts of Masaya, with even more people participating in each of those. People have much to celebrate: the city was one of those most damaged by the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua four years ago, but has since lived in peace.

During the attempted coup, for three months the city of Masaya was controlled by armed thugs (still regularly described in the media as “peaceful” protesters). Five police officers and several civilians were killed. The town hall, the main secondary school, the old tourist market and other government buildings were set on fire. Houses of Sandinista supporters were ransacked. Shops were looted and the economic life of one of Nicaragua’s most important commercial centers was suspended. My own doctor’s house went up in flames and a friend who was defending the municipal depot when it was ransacked was kidnapped, tortured and later had to have an arm amputated as a result.

So one strong motive for the marches is to reaffirm most people’s wishes that this should never happen again: 43 years ago a revolutionary war ended in the Sandinistas’ triumph over Somoza, but this was quickly followed by the U.S.-sponsored Contra attacks that cost thousands more lives. For anyone over 35, the violence in 2018 was a sickening reminder of these wars. Since then, not the least of the government’s achievements is that Nicaragua has returned to having the lowest homicide level in Central America,^[9] and people want it to stay that way.

Progress under Sandinistas is not recognized internationally

But this is far from the government’s only success since it returned to power in 2007. It inherited a country broken by 17 years of neoliberal governments by and for the rich (after the Sandinistas lost power in the 1990 election). Nothing worked during those years: there were daily power cuts, roads were in shocking disrepair, some 100,000s of children didn’t go to school and poverty was rampant. When the Sandinistas regained the presidency in 2007, and helped by the alliance with Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and a boom in commodities prices, the government began a massive investment program. For the second poorest country in Latin America, the transformation was remarkable.

Take the practical issues that affect everyone. Power cuts stopped because the new government quickly built small new power stations and then encouraged massive investment in renewable energy. Electricity coverage now reaches over 99% of households, up from just 50% in 2016, with three-quarters now generated from renewables. Piped water reaches 93% of city dwellers compared with 65% in 2007. In 2007, Nicaragua had 2,044 km of paved roads, mostly in bad condition. Now it has 4,300 km, half of them built in the last 15 years, giving it the best roads in Central America.^[10]

Its remarkable advances in health care were evidenced by how Nicaragua handled the COVID-19 pandemic, with (according to the World Health Organization^[11]) a level of excess mortality far lower than that of many wealthier countries in Latin America, including neighboring Costa Rica. It now has one of the world’s highest levels of completed vaccinations against the virus (83%),^[12] exceeding levels in the U.S. and many European countries. There has been massive investment in the public health service: Nicaragua has built 23 new hospitals in the past 15 years and now has more hospital beds (1.8 per 1,000 population)^[13] than richer countries such as Mexico (1.5) and Colombia (1.7).^[14] The country has one of the highest regional levels of public health spending, relative to GDP (“PIB” in Spanish – see chart), and its service is completely free.

Nicaragua is 6th out of 17
Latin American countries in public health investment

Look at education. School attendance increased from 79% to 91% when charges imposed by previous governments were abolished; now pupils get help with uniforms and books and all receive free school lunches. Free education now extends into adulthood, so out of a population of 6.6 million, some 1.7 million are currently receiving public education in some form. Under neoliberal governments illiteracy rose to 22% of the population, and now it’s down to 4-6%.

Strides in gender parity: another victory

Nicaraguan women have been integral to the revolution. More than half of ministerial posts are held by women, an achievement for which Nicaragua is ranked seventh in the world in gender equality in 2022.^[15] Only two countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have a smaller gender pay gap than Nicaragua. More than a third of police officers are female and there are special women’s centers in 119 police stations. Maternal health has been significantly improved, with maternal mortality falling from 92.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2006, to 31.6 in 2021, a reduction of 66%.^[16] This is partly due to the 180 casas maternas where women stay close to a hospital or health center for the weeks before giving birth. The state also provides family planning free of charge in all health centers, including tubal ligations for women who do not wish to have more children. It is also true, of course, that abortion is illegal, but (unlike in other Latin American countries) no woman or doctor has ever been prosecuted under this law.

At the moment, people’s biggest concern is the state of the economy and the cost-of-living crisis. Nicaragua has advantages here, too: it is more than 80% self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and prices have been controlled because the government is capping the cost of fuel (both for vehicles and for cooking). Nicaragua’s economy grew by more than 10% in 2021, returning to 2019, pre-pandemic economic levels, although growth was still not sufficient for the country to recover from the economic damage caused by the 2018 coup attempt. Government debt (forecast to be 46% of GDP in 2022) is lower than its neighbors, especially that of Costa Rica (70%), where poverty now extends to 30% of the population. However, Nicaragua and Costa Rica are economically interdependent, and the latter’s economic problems are a large part of the explanation for the growth in migration by Nicaraguans to the United States.^[17]

Daniel Ortega enjoys high approval ratings

These are only a few of the factors that underlie people’s support for Daniel Ortega’s government. And this support continues: according to polling by CID Gallup,^[18] in early January President Ortega was more popular than the then presidents of Honduras, Costa Rica or Guatemala. M&R Consultants, in a more recent poll,^[19] found that Ortega has a 70% approval rating and ranks second among Latin American presidents. This was obvious when huge numbers of Nicaraguans celebrated November’s election result and it is still obvious as they go out onto the streets during “victorious July”.

At a meeting with Central American foreign ministers in June 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken urged governments “to work to improve the lives of people in our countries in real, concrete ways.”^[20] Blinken deliberately ignores the ample proof that Daniel Ortega’s government is not only doing that but has been more successful in this respect than any other Central American government. Yet the more that the international media parrot Washington’s criticisms of Daniel Ortega, the more that people here will reaffirm their support for his government.

John Perry is a COHA Senior Research Fellow and  writer living in Masaya, Nicaragua.

[Main photo: Sandinista supporters in Masaya, July 2022. Credit: John Perry] 

---

Sources

[1] “Nicaragua Seizes Universities, Inching Toward Dictatorship,” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/world/americas/nicaragua-universities-ortega-dictatorship.html

[2] “Nicaragua’s Secretive Ruling Family Reaches Out Quietly to the U.S.,” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/world/americas/nicaragua-ruling-family-us.html

[3] “Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on Nicaragua’s Sham Elections,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/07/statement-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-on-nicaraguas-sham-elections/

[4] “Nicaragua shuts down 50 non-profits in new crackdown,” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-61333797

[5] “Daniel Ortega and the Crushing of the Nicaraguan Dream,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/04/opinion/daniel-ortega-nicaragua-election.html

[6] “Nicaragua Descends Into Autocratic Rule as Ortega Crushes Dissent,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/world/americas/nicaragua-election-ortega.html

[7] “The secret-poll watchers of Nicaragua. How they monitored a questionable presidential election,” https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-10/how-hundreds-of-nicaraguans-secretly-monitored-the-presidential-election

[8] “If there was ‘fraud’ in Nicaragua’s elections, where is the proof?” https://www.coha.org/if-there-was-fraud-in-nicaraguas-elections-where-is-the-proof/

[9] See https://www.statista.com/statistics/947781/homicide-rates-latin-america-caribbean-country/

[10] “Nicaragua posee las mejores carreteras de Centroamérica,” https://revistamyt.com/nicaragua-posee-las-mejores-carreteras-de-centroamerica/

[11] See https://www.who.int/data/stories/global-excess-deaths-associated-with-covid-19-january-2020-december-2021

[12] See https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

[13] See the Nicaraguan government White paper, downloadable at https://www.el19digital.com/app/webroot/tinymce/source/2020/00-Mayo/25%20MAYO/AL%20PUEBLO%20DE%20NICARAGUA%20Y%20AL%20MUNDO-%20INFORME%20SOBRE%20EL%20COVID-19.pdf

[14] See https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/hospital-bed-density/

[15] The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report for 2022 (https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022/)

[16] “Nicaragua ha logrado disminuir la mortalidad materna,” https://radiolaprimerisima.com/noticias-generales/destacado/nicaragua-ha-logrado-disminuir-la-mortalidad-materna/v

[17] “The UN Refugee Agency is exaggerating the number of Nicaraguan refugees,” https://www.coha.org/the-un-refugee-agency-is-exaggerating-the-number-of-nicaraguan-refugees/

[18] See https://www.cidgallup.com/publicaciones.php

[19] See https://www.myrconsultores.com/mr_pop-panoptico-de-opinion-publica-1ra-edicion-correspondiente-al-primer-trimestre-2022/

[20] “Blinken urges Central America to defend democracy to alleviate migration,” https://ticotimes.net/2021/06/02/blinken-urges-central-america-to-defend-democracy-to-alleviate-migration

By Ben Gutman
From Washington D.C.

In a bold and consequential decision with rippling geopolitical implications, Nicaragua recognized the “One-China Principle” and resumed diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for the first time since the beginning of the neoliberal period in 1990.^[1] This was announced December 9, 2021 shortly after a meeting of the China-CELAC Forum in which CELAC’s 32 Latin American member states^[2] agreed to adopt a China-CELAC Joint Action Plan for Cooperation. The strengthening of Chinese ties with Western Hemisphere partners in a forum without US presence comes as a red flag for US hegemony and control over its own “backyard,” which, since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, has been firmly fenced off from other “external” global actors seeking influence in the region. However, unlike the last two centuries of US imperialism, China offers an approach that respects the rule of law and national sovereignty.

Last January 16, the replacement of Taiwanese investment with the sustainable socio-economic development model of the PRC’s “Belt and Road Initiative” in Nicaragua is particularly threatening to regional US economic domination. In 2014, Nicaragua partnered with a Chinese firm to initiate construction of a second shipping lane connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in addition to the current US-dominated Panama Canal.^[3] The anti-Sandinista opposition party Unamos (formerly known as the Sandinista Renovation Movement or MRS), whose leaders frequently met and provided information to the US embassy, helped organize  an NED-engineered pseudo-movement in opposition to the project, which eventually came to a halt during the political violence of 2018.^[4] The potential relaunch of the Nicaraguan canal project could prove to be a pivotal point in the US’s New Cold War and flailing bid to remain the world’s lone superpower.

Nicaragua leaves the OAS, the de facto diplomatic branch of the US in the Americas

On November 19, following the re-election of President Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan government announced its withdrawal from the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), joining Venezuela and Cuba in what former Bolivian president Evo Morales called “an act of dignity.”^[5] In an official letter to OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada repeated previous condemnation of the OAS as an “instrument of interference and intervention” with the “mission to facilitate hegemony of the United States with its interventionism against the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.”^[6]

As reported by John Perry for COHA, the OAS produced a 16-page report within 48 hours of the alleged “illegitimate elections” that contained no evidence of fraud on election day. In lockstep with the White House’s perverse and ridiculous claim of support for the “inalienable right to democratic self-determination of the Nicaraguan people,” Almagro’s coup-fomenting false narrative of fraud came straight out of the US/OAS playbook used during their facilitation of the 2019 coup d’état against Morales’ MAS party in Bolivia.^[7] Constructed by the US as an anti-socialist alliance of right-wing regimes at the onset of the First Cold War, the OAS and its delegitimization of the 2021 Nicaraguan election reflects continuity of its role as “Ministry of Colonies” of the United States, as it was referred to by Fidel Castro.^[8]

Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the OAS and its reestablishment of relations with the PRC are bold decisions that flex Nicaraguan sovereignty and communicate to developing countries that a path of resistance against Western coercion leads to independence, inclusive development, and promising new opportunities. The Sandinista Front’s defeat of a three-year long US regime change operation, which culminated in the inauguration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on January 10, 2022, has translated the sacrifices made by the Nicaraguan people into a concrete plan to further the egalitarian principles of the Sandinista Revolution.

Against a militarized and neoliberal model for Central America

With support from the fastest growing economy in the world with a population of 1.4 billion, in addition to an array of other governments and solidarity movements, Nicaragua has earned the ability to lead a more aggressive charge against Washington’s proposed militarized security and neoliberal development model for Central America.^[9] Such a model which aims to enrich corporations through private investment and austerity to the detriment of the poor and working-class remains the antithesis to the Chinese and Sandinista revolutions. During his inauguration speech, President Ortega elucidated this key point, stating that the “Chinese revolution and the Sandinista revolution [have] the same north, the same path, the same destiny, which is to end poverty.”

As the process of poverty alleviation runs contrary to the exploitative goals of Western imperialists, the US and EU levied coordinated unilateral coercive measures against Nicaraguan officials on the day of President Ortega’s inauguration.^[10] However, the strategy of relentless hybrid warfare used to isolate and punish “enemy states” like Nicaragua has lost some of its impact. “The unipolar world is over. It’s a multipolar world,” said Black Alliance for Peace’s Margaret Kimberley at the inauguration. The Nicaraguan people’s defeat of US regime change attempts over the last three years is a remarkable accomplishment that helped the paradigm shift towards a multi-polar world. However, it is important to recognize the inevitable sacrifices that come with resistance, to dissect imperial destabilization strategies, and to reflect on the manufactured policies that have brought us to where we are today.

Revisiting the 2018 Attempted Coup, and the US media supported narrative

In Nicaragua-based journalist Ben Norton’s investigation titled “How USAID Created Nicaragua’s Anti-Sandinista Media Apparatus, Now under Money Laundering Investigation,” Norton presents documented evidence that the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation received more than $7 million of the $10 million funneled to Nicaraguan opposition media from the US’s soft-power arm the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) between 2014 and 2021.^[11] The majority of this funding was distributed amongst some 25 publications including Chamorro Foundation-owned outlets that are widely quoted by the international press and elite US think tanks like the Open Society Foundation, which characterized El Nuevo Diario, Confidencial, and La Prensa (all Chamorro owned) as “the most important online news providers” in Nicaragua.^[12] As reported by Norton, the foreign funding and cultivation of these opposition and media groups led to arrests under Nicaragua’s law 1055, which was then framed by the corporate media as an authoritarian crackdown against opposition leaders.

Many international corporate media outlets like the BBC framed “Nicaragua’s worsening crisis” in 2018 as “unexpected” and a result of grassroots movements peacefully protesting against a corrupt dictatorship.^[13] This false narrative was exposed by John Perry in a report for The Grayzone titled “A Response to Misinformation on Nicaragua: It Was a Coup, Not a ‘Massacre.’” First, Perry points out that even anti-Ortega mainstream academics had admitted that US institutions like the USAID and NED were “laying the groundwork for insurrection,” debunking the narrative that the protests were organic and fortuitous.^[14] Second, Perry makes it clear that in an attempt to facilitate the established “peaceful protester” narrative by white-washing violence perpetrated by coup-supporters, academics and corporate media engaged in the systematic omission of inconvenient facts including the murder of 22 police officers and the torture of Sandinista civilians. The Nicaragua-based anti-imperialist collective Tortilla con Sal published independent researcher Enrique Hendrix’s in-depth analysis of this bad-faith framing as well as additional evidence backing claims of torture used against Sandinistas.

Much like corporate media and billionaire-funded foundations, a Nicaraguan human rights industry intricately connected and funded by US and European governments pushed propaganda, including the decontextualization of deaths and faulty death count figures, to provide cover for US regime change goals masquerading as unprovoked government repression.^[15] In the article “The Rise and Fall of Nicaragua’s ‘Human Rights’ organizations” published in the Alliance for Global Justice’s NicaNotes, John Perry relays how three vocally anti-Sandinista human rights groups wielded disproportionate influence over the narratives presented in international bodies such as Amnesty International and the UN Commission for Human Rights (UNCHR). For example, included in the UNCHR’s 2018 report on Nicaragua were detailed references to the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH), which was created by the Reagan administration to whitewash Contra atrocities and received $88,000 from the NED and $348,000 from other US sources in 2018.

In June of 2019, to the dismay of many Sandinistas whose family members were murdered during the coup attempt, the Nicaraguan government passed an Amnesty Law pardoning and expunging the records of those involved in violent and treasonous acts as part of a national dialogue with the opposition.^[16] This clemency came even after the opposition refused to ask the United States to end illegal unilateral coercive measures packaged as the 2018 NICA Act (passed in the US House of Representatives with zero opposition by a 435-0 margin), which opposition activists themselves had requested in 2015.^[17] During coverage of the peace and reconciliation process and in a continuation of the 2018 information warfare campaign, corporate media outlets like Reuters took a rather one-sided approach highlighting the law’s “protection to police and others who took part in a violent clampdown on anti-government protesters,” but failed to mention the violent acts committed against the police by these so-called anti-government protesters.^[18]

US Hybrid Warfare Revisited during the 2021 Nicaraguan Presidential Election

In the months prior to the November 7 election, the US government and its affiliated ecosystem of obedient corporate media, social media, and hawkish think tanks took aim at Nicaragua in an effort to further isolate the nation with the ultimate goal of regime change to a more business-friendly neoliberal leadership.

A USAID regime change document leaked to independent Nicaraguan journalist William Grigsby in July 2020 and analyzed in John Perry’s “The US Contracts Out its Regime Change Operation in Nicaragua” provides useful insight into US destabilization plans. This RAIN or Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua document provides Terms of Reference for a contract to hire a company to oversee the “transition to democracy” in Nicaragua. The word “transition,” an obvious euphemism for regime change, is used more than 60 times throughout the document to describe different post-election scenarios. In the case of a “delayed transition” or Sandinista victory, the hired company would provide “research and planning for USAID and for civil society leadership with discrete technical assistance.” In other words, the company would continue USAID’s work subverting Nicaragua’s democratic process by funding, training, and directing opposition groups and media hostile to the FSLN.

However, despite clear evidence that the US was engaged in a multidimensional destabilization campaign before, during, and after the 2018 coup attempt, even progressive publications like NACLA failed to accurately report on events in Nicaragua. In the article “How Can Some Progressives Get Basic Information About Nicaragua So Wrong?” John Perry and Rick Stirling dismantle a popular State Department narrative promoted by NACLA that the November 7 election was rigged because seven potential candidates were prevented from running for president, by laying out the real crimes of which they are accused and the dubiousness of their candidacies. While the corporate media pushed this narrative ad nauseum regarding Nicaragua, it was almost completely absent prior to the 2021 Ecuadorian presidential election during which neoliberal president Lenin Moreno jailed, exiled, and banned Correístas from running in elections.^[19]

In addition to news media propaganda, a bizarre censorship campaign launched by social media monopoly Facebook in the days leading up to the November 7 election silenced around 1,300 Nicaragua-based accounts run by pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, as reported by The Grayzone’s Ben Norton.^[20] Facebook justified this action by claiming that the censored accounts were part of a “troll farm run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party.”^[21] In John Perry’s COHA article titled “Facebook Does the US Government’s Censorship Work in Nicaraguan Elections”, Perry points out that “many commentators suffered double censorship: blocked because they were falsely accused of being bots, then prevented from proving that the accusations were false when they posted videos of themselves as real people.” Facebook and other tech giants like Google and Microsoft have an extensive history of collaboration with the U.S. security state, often enjoying lucrative U.S. Defense Department contracts, and are known to have a revolving door with the public sector.^[22] Norton shows this connection by exposing Facebook’s Head of Security Policy Nathaniel Gleicher as the former director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council who had also worked at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Despite intense and ongoing hybrid warfare targeting the integrity of Nicaragua’s 2021 presidential election, 65% of the eligible 4.4 million Nicaraguans voted and 75% of those voters chose to re-elect Comandante Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista Front. While the Nicaraguan government did prevent the OAS from sending observers given its role in the 2019 Bolivian coup, there were 165 election observers and 67 journalists from 27 countries present on November 7.^[23] Members of delegations from the U.S. and Canada, including COHA’s Jill Clark-Gollub, who observed the elections held a press conference during which they characterized the election process as “efficient, transparent, with widespread turnout and participation of opposition parties.”^[24] In the COHA report “Despite US led Dirty Campaign, Nicaraguans Came Out in Force in Support of the FSLN”, Clark-Gollub expressed her disbelief that corporate media and the Biden administration had declared the vote a fraud with as few as 20% of the electorate turned out to vote. “This flies in the face of my own experience,” Clark-Gollub said.^[25] However, despite US and NATO rejection of the election results, 153 sovereign nations around the world supported Nicaraguan democracy by recognizing the election results at the United Nations.^[26]

Conclusion: A Brighter Future for Inclusive Economic Development in Nicaragua?

After more than a century of US aggression, including three decades of global hegemonic control, Obama’s “pivot” to Asia in 2016 marked a paradigm shift and the start of a New Cold War against China. The People’s Republic of China’s unparalleled economic growth and eagerness to use its deep coffers to jumpstart economic development projects in the “third world” is a direct threat to neoliberal capitalist hegemony, as China offers developing nations an alternative to the predatory debt traps sprung by western lending institutions like the World Bank and IMF.

Mere weeks after Nicaragua’s resumption of diplomatic relations with the PRC, Chinese government representative Yu Bo extended an invitation to Nicaragua to join its Belt and Road Initiative during the newly established Chinese embassy’s flag-raising ceremony in Managua. Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada responded to the invitation with approval stating, “we are sure that we will continue working together, strengthening each day the fraternal ties of friendship, cooperation, investment, [and] expanding communication channels with the Belt and Road…”.

This bilateral economic partnership brings a potential scaffolding with which the “pueblo presidente” can “start with a clean slate” and get back on the road to the progress being made prior to April 2018. In the words of Comandante Ortega, this means “building peace to combat poverty…so that there can be roads and paths…so families can feel confident; their children can feel confident in their work; [and so] they feel confident in having a dignified life.” Nicaraguans can also feel confident that economic development in partnership with the Chinese will not come with the relinquishment of national sovereignty through coerced neoliberal structural adjustment programs or debt trap gangsterism.

If the Sandinista government chooses to reject future development proposals put forth by China through Belt and Road, they can expect good faith negotiation without the threat of violent hybrid warfare favored by the U.S. and NATO. In a 2019 interview,  Jamaican-British rapper Akala explains this key difference in the context of Jamaican participation in the Belt and Road Initiative: “there are several projects that the Chinese have proposed in Jamaica that the Jamaican people said ‘no’ to [so] the Jamaican government had to say ‘no’… what was the Chinese response? Was it to send the CIA in? Was it to overthrow the Jamaican democracy? Was it to cut off aid to Jamaica? No. They said ok, we proposed a business deal and you said no. Here’s another one.”

Ben Gutman is an independent writer, researcher, and organizer pursuing an MA in Global Communication from The George Washington University. He is currently working on his capstone research and digital media project on the outsourcing of US border militarization to Guatemala in collaboration with the Guatemala Solidarity Project and the Promoters of Migrant Liberation.    

Jill-Clark Gollub, COHA’s Asistant Editor, and Patricio Zamorano, COHA’s Director, contributed as editors of this essay

[Main photo: video-screenshot from Kawsachun News]

---

Sources

[1] Escalante, Camila. “China and Nicaragua to Collab on New Multipolar World.” Kawsachun News, 10 Dec. 2021, kawsachunnews.com/china-and-nicaragua-to-collab-on-new-multipolar-world.

[2] Officially formalized in 2011 as an alternative to the OAS, CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) is a cooperative venture among developing nations.

[3] Voltaire Network. “Nicaragua Could Bring Canal Project Back to Life.” Voltaire Network, 12 Dec. 2021, www.voltairenet.org/article215032.html.

[4] Norton, B. (2021, November 18). From Nicaraguan revolutionaries to US embassy informants: How Washington recruited ex-sandinistas like Dora María Téllez and her mrs party. The Grayzone. Retrieved January 15, 2022, from https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/05/nicaragua-us-informant-dora-maria-tellez-mrs/

[5] JF, teleSUR/. “Withdrawal of Nicaragua from OAS Is an Act of Dignity: Morales.” News | teleSUR English. teleSUR, November 22, 2021. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Withdrawal-Of-Nicaragua-From-OAS-Is-An-Act-Of-Dignity-Morales-20211122-0002.html.

[6] Norton, Benjamin. “Nicaragua Leaves US-Controlled, Coup-Plotting OAS: ‘We Are Not a Colony.’” Medium, 19 Nov. 2021, benjaminnorton.medium.com/nicaragua-leaves-us-controlled-coup-plotting-oas-we-are-not-a-colony-2ffe83c319ae.

[7] Curiel, John, and Jack Williams. “Bolivia Dismissed Its October Elections as Fraudulent. Our Research Found No Reason to Suspect Fraud.” Washington Post, 27 Feb. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-dismissed-its-october-elections-fraudulent-our-research-found-no-reason-suspect-fraud.

[8] Staff, Reuters. “Castro Says Cuba Doesn’t Want to Rejoin ‘Vile’ OAS.” U.S., 15 Apr. 2009, www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-castro-oas-sb-idUKTRE53E07K20090415.

[9] Chomsky, A. (2021, March 30). Will Biden’s central american plan slow migration (or speed it up)? TomDispatch.com. Retrieved January 15, 2022, from https://tomdispatch.com/will-bidens-central-american-plan-slow-migration-or-speed-it-up/

[10] Al Jazeera. (2022, January 10). US slaps new sanctions on Nicaragua on Ortega’s Inauguration Day. Elections News | Al Jazeera. Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/10/us-slaps-new-sanctions-on-nicaragua-on-ortegas-inauguration-day

[11] Norton, Ben. “How USAID Created Nicaragua’s Anti-Sandinista Media Apparatus, Now under Money Laundering Investigation.” The Grayzone, 26 June 2021, thegrayzone.com/2021/06/01/cia-usaid-nicaragua-right-wing-media.

[12] Perry, John. “NPR Should Ask Where Nicaraguan Non-Profits’ Money Comes From.” CounterPunch.Org, 23 May 2021, www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/24/npr-should-ask-where-nicaraguan-non-profits-money-comes-from.

[13] BBC News. “Downward Spiral: Nicaragua’s Worsening Crisis.” BBC News, 16 July 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44398673.

[14] Waddell, Benjamin. “Laying the Groundwork for Insurrection: A Closer Look at the U.S. Role in Nicaragua’s Social Unrest.” Global Americans, 10 July 2020, theglobalamericans.org/2018/05/laying-groundwork-insurrection-closer-look-u-s-role-nicaraguas-social-unrest.

[15] Perry, John. “NicaNotes: The Rise and Fall of Nicaragua’s ‘Human Rights’ Organizations.” Alliance for Global Justice, 21 Aug. 2019, afgj.org/nicanotes-the-rise-and-fall-of-nicaraguas-human-rights-organizations.

[16] teleSUR/ov-MV. “Nicaragua Approves Amnesty Law To Bring Peace.” News | TeleSUR English, 9 June 2019, www.telesurenglish.net/news/Nicaragua-Approves-Amnesty-Law-To-Bring-Peace-20190609-0001.html.

[17] Nicanotes: The revolution won’t be stopped: Nicaragua advances despite US unconventional warfare. Alliance for Global Justice. (2020, July 22). Retrieved January 16, 2022, from https://afgj.org/nicanotes-the-revolution-wont-be-stopped-nicaragua-advances-despite-us-unconventional-warfare

[18] Lopez, Ismael. “Nicaraguan Congress Approves Ortega-Backed Amnesty Law.” U.S., 9 June 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-nicaragua-amnesty-idUSKCN1TA00U.

[19] Emersberger, J. (2021, February 16). Ignoring repression and dirty tricks in coverage of Ecuador’s election. FAIR. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://fair.org/home/ignoring-repression-and-dirty-tricks-in-coverage-of-ecuadors-election/

[20] Norton, Ben. “Meet the Nicaraguans Facebook Falsely Branded Bots and Censored Days before Elections.” The Grayzone, 2 Nov. 2021, thegrayzone.com/2021/11/02/facebook-twitter-purge-sandinista-nicaragua.

[21] Company, Facebook. “October 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report.” Meta, 5 Nov. 2021, about.fb.com/news/2021/11/october-2021-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-report.

[22] Levine, Yasha. Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet. Icon Books Ltd, 2019.

[23] Norton, Ben. “Debunking Myths about Nicaragua’s 2021 Elections, under Attack by USA/EU/OAS.” The Grayzone, 12 Nov. 2021, thegrayzone.com/2021/11/11/nicaragua-2021-elections.

[24] Escalante, Camilla. “North Americans Debunk US & OAS Claims on Nicaragua Election.” Kawsachun News, 10 Nov. 2021, kawsachunnews.com/north-americans-debunk-us-oas-claims-on-nicaragua-election.

[25] Clark-Gollub, Rita Jill. “Despite US Led Dirty Campaign, Nicaraguans Came Out in Force in Support of the FSLN.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, 12 Nov. 2021, www.coha.org/despite-us-led-dirty-campaign-nicaraguans-came-out-in-force-in-support-of-the-fsln.

[26] Kohn, Richard. “NicaNotes: Nicaragua’s Election Was Free and Fair.” Alliance for Global Justice, 2 Dec. 2021, afgj.org/nicanotes-12-02-2021.

By John Perry
From Masaya, Nicaragua

Official results from Nicaragua’s elections on November 7 showed Daniel Ortega re-elected as president with 75% of the vote. On the same day, President Joe Biden dismissed the ballot as a “pantomime election”^[1] and within 48 hours the Organization of American States (OAS) had produced a 16-page report setting out its criticisms.^[2] It demanded the annulment of the elections and the holding of new ones, disregarding international and OAS rules that require respect for the sovereignty of nations. Yet it contained no evidence of problems on election day itself that would substantiate its objections. Nevertheless, local and international media were quick to endorse the accusations that widespread fraud had taken place.

This article tries to identify the basis of these accusations, examines the evidence offered to support them and shows why, in practice, the massive fraud being alleged was very unlikely to have happened.

The electoral process – in brief

Before addressing the allegations, let’s look briefly at the process. Nicaragua has developed an electoral system which is probably one of the most secure and tamper-proof in Latin America, with multiple checks on the identity of voters and the validity of ballots.^[3] There were 13,459 polling stations covering up to 400 voters each, in an operation involving about 245,000 volunteers and officials across the country.

Jill Clark-Gollub has described at COHA how this worked on the day.^[4] Briefly, each voter must:

1. Go to vote in person (there are no postal or proxy votes).
2. Have a valid identity card that carries their photo and signature.
3. Be entered on the electoral register for the polling station, where their name is ticked off (in most cases this is computerized).
4. Have their ID checked against a print-out which has a small version of their photo and their signature: they sign on top of this to certify that they are going to use their vote.
5. Be given a ballot paper, which is stamped and initialed by an official before being handed over (see photo).
6. Make their vote in secret and put the paper in a ballot box.
7. Retrieve their ID card, and have their right thumb marked with indelible ink to show they have voted.

Each polling station has representatives of the political parties (in the U.S. they would be called party poll watchers). The poll watchers are there from the time the polling station opens until it closes – they watch everything – and at the end of the day they also sign the record of the polling. The numbers of votes, in total and for each party, are counted when polling closes and the results certified by the party representatives. The ballot boxes are then taken to a central counting center, accompanied by police or army officers, with each box tagged to ensure that it cannot be tampered with or replaced. The count at the center must match the count in the polling station, and this is again monitored by the poll watchers. Counting starts as the boxes are received and continues non-stop until every vote has been dealt with.

Despite these precautions, the international media and the opposition groups who were not represented on the ballot have not hesitated to condemn the process. For example, William Robinson, writing for NACLA, claims there was “a total absence of safeguards against fraud.”^[5] The different critics make one or more of these accusations:

1. That opponents who would have entered the election were prevented from running, and their participation would have secured Ortega’s defeat.
2. That the size of the registered electorate was manipulated in the government’s favor.
3. That polls showed that the government was deeply unpopular, therefore the election result must have been a fake.
4. That the high proportion of spoiled ballots was a concerted “protest vote.”
5. That, after the opposition called on its supporters to abstain, most people did so.
6. That the government “added” one million votes in its favor.

Here we show the plentiful evidence to contest these allegations.

1. Potential election winners were excluded

“After methodically choking off competition and dissent, Mr. Ortega has all but ensured his victory in presidential elections on Sunday, representing a turn toward an openly dictatorial model that could set an example for other leaders across Latin America.” (New York Times, November 7)^[6]

Most of the international media ignored who was on the ballot and focused instead on the arrests of opposition figures earlier this year, which allegedly removed all effective opposition. The reasons for the arrests have been dealt with by Yader Lanuza and Peter Bolton,^[7] but briefly they were for violations of laws relating to improper use of money sent to non-profit organizations, receiving money from a foreign power intended to undermine the Nicaraguan state and influence its elections, and seeking international sanctions against Nicaragua.

But in fact, the ballot included five candidates challenging Daniel Ortega for the presidency (see photo). The NYT said, wrongly, that all “are little-known members of parties aligned with his Sandinista government”). However, these are historic parties – two of them (the PLC and PLI) had formed governments in the years 1990-2006, and in the case of the PLC in particular enjoy strong traditional support. The Sandinista front itself won as part of an alliance of nine legal parties.

Regardless of the arguments about the validity of the arrests, there is no plausible scenario where, if one of those arrested had been eligible to stand, they would have amassed sufficient votes to win. Not only was this unlikely because of the math (see below), but also because not a single one of those arrested had then been chosen as a candidate, the newer opposition parties that might have chosen them were unable to agree on how to stand or who to choose, and none had any program other than vague calls to re-establish “democracy” and “release political prisoners.”

Nevertheless, according to a CID-Gallup poll in October,^[8] the most popular opposition figure, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, had 63% popular support. Let us take a look at a possible scenario, assuming he had been allowed to stand for one of the newer parties:

• Suppose that, as a consequence of his participation, electoral turnout had increased, reaching its highest in recent elections (73.9% in 2011). This would have produced a total of 3,309,000 valid votes, an increase of around 400,000.
• Assume for the moment that the Ortega vote remained the same, and that Chamorro had gained all the non-Ortega votes, including all those won by the other opposition parties:

Chamorro’s total vote would have been about 1,200,000.

• However, it would still have fallen short of Ortega’s by more than 800,000 votes.
• So to have won, Chamorro would have needed to persuade over a fifth of Ortega voters (almost 440,000) to swap sides, despite the deep hostility towards the Chamorros shown by most Sandinistas.

In practice, of course, it was highly unlikely that Chamorro would have stood as the sole opposition candidate, not only because he had rivals from the “traditional” opposition parties such as the PLC, but also because even as the election approached the newer opposition was divided into different groups backing different potential candidates. A divided opposition would have had an even smaller chance of winning.

2. The size of the registered electorate was manipulated

“In order to put Ortega’s electoral victory cards on the table, the CSE [Electoral Council] proceeded to increase the registration of the number of people eligible to vote.” (Confidencial)

“…experts estimated that this year’s roll should be at least 5.5 million.” (La Prensa)

The second accusation is that the electoral register of 4,478,334 potential voters was manipulated in the government’s favor, although critics can’t agree on whether the register was inflated or deliberately shrunk.

Opposition website Confidencial argued that the growth since 2016 of around 600,000 in the total numbers eligible to vote was implausible, and it was also implausible that 97% of those eligible were actually registered.^[9] However, when opposition newspaper La Prensa assessed the size of the registered electorate, their complaint was that it was too small.^[10] According to their analysis, the register should have had approximately 5.5 million voters, so the government was presumably intent on cutting out voters in areas where it has low support.

Either accusation is easily answered. The natural growth in the tranche of the population aged over 16 (those eligible to vote) accounts for about half the increase in the size of the register.^[11] Both Confidencial and La Prensa deliberately ignore the huge improvement in the registry of citizenship since 2016, so that almost all the adult population now have identity cards, needed for many everyday transactions, and which automatically enter the holder on the electoral register. Rather than being implausible that 97% of citizens are registered, as Confidencial claimed, it is an intended outcome of the modernized system, which aims for 100% registration. This means that the register has gained in accuracy as the campaign to extend ID cards to the whole population nears its goal.

3. The government is deeply unpopular, contradicting the election result

“A recent poll showed that 78 percent of Nicaraguans see the possible re-election of Mr. Ortega as illegitimate and that just 9 percent support the governing party.” (New York Times, November 7)^[12]

The official election results give the ruling Sandinista Front 71.67% of the votes, if spoiled ballots are included (75.87% if they are excluded). This is similar to the 72.44% vote share obtained in the 2016 election. The second party, the PLC, gained 14% of the vote, similar to its 15% share in 2016.

Opinion polls cited by the international media and the opposition purport to tell an entirely different story. According to a poll by Costa Rican firm CID Gallup (not part of the internationally known Gallup organization), in September-October only 19% of adults would have voted for Ortega had the election been held then, while 65% would support an opposition candidate. In a slightly later CID Gallup survey, paid for by Confidencial, 76% of adults questioned said that Ortega’s re-election would be “illegitimate;” his party’s level of support had by then fallen to only 9% (i.e. about 400,000 potential votes).

The CID Gallup poll’s findings on levels of support for different political parties are rather baffling. While some 68% of those questioned said they were likely to vote, the vast majority (77%) claimed to favor no particular party. Levels of support for individual parties were therefore tiny: the Sandinista Front was judged to have most support, but favored by only 8% of voters, while others had even smaller followings. Those questioned had the option of choosing one of the supposedly popular parties that were prevented from running, but these also received miniscule support: 5% for the CxL (Ciudadanos por la Libertad) and just 2% for the UNAB (Unidad Azul y Blanco). Had these parties been allowed to take part in the election, their candidates might have been one of the supposedly popular figures arrested beforehand, such as Juan Sebastián Chamorro.

None of the international media who cite the CID Gallup poll question the credibility and consistency of these findings. Nor do they ever mention the more regular and more extensive opinion polls conducted by Nicaragua-based M&R Consultores, which gave a much different picture (see chart). Their results show Daniel Ortega with a 70% share of the vote, a percentage which had increased steadily as the polls approached. M&R claims its surveys are more rigorous, covering more of the country, with 4,282 face-to-face interviews while CID Gallup relies on cell phone calls for its 1,200 responses.

Adding to the implausibility of the CID Gallup poll findings is the fact that some 2.1 million Nicaraguans, slightly under half the adult population, are card-carrying members (militantes) of the Sandinista Front, following a membership drive over the last two years. That less than a quarter of these would vote for the party of which they are members seems, at best, highly unlikely. CID Gallup’s findings would also of course imply that no one who was not a party member would support the government, which is also highly unlikely. Nevertheless, even on election day, opposition leaders such as Kitty Monterrey (herself prevented from standing) hubristically claimed that more than 90% of voters would cast their ballot against Ortega.^[13]

4. Invalid votes “won”

“Null votes confirm Daniel Ortega’s re-election farce” (headline in El Faro)

Because the CID Gallup poll appeared to show a high proportion of voters having no party allegiance, there have been a couple of attempts to argue that a protest vote, ie. people spoiling their ballots, “won” the election. There is some very limited truth in this, in that the proportion of ballots spoiled was notably higher than usual, at about 5%, rather than a more typical 1-2%, and these additional spoiled ballots may have represented a “protest vote.”

The El Salvadoran website El Faro, which regularly gives a platform to Nicaragua’s opposition, tried to show “the strength of the invalid votes.” After claiming that abstentions reflected a “third force,” El Faro published a graphic (below) showing how spoiled ballots “outvoted” the opposition parties.^[14]

However, a proper comparison between the percentage of invalid votes and those gained by the different parties puts this in perspective (see pie chart). As can be seen, the partial graphic displayed by El Faro gives the votos nulos far more importance than they merit: yes, there were more spoilt ballots than votes for some of the minor parties, but the proportion was well below that gained by the PLC and, of course, by the FSLN. The 161,687 spoiled votes hardly show the electoral “farce,” depicted by El Faro. They were presumably hoping that their readers, glancing at the story and the graphic, would get the impression that the protest vote had “won.” Inadvertently, El Faro’s story also undermines the accusation (see below) that abstentions “won.” If it were really true that only 850,000 people voted, as the abstention camp claims, the 161,687 spoiled votes would have formed an improbably high proportion (19%) of the total.

Another approach to exaggerating the importance of votos nulos was pursued by La Prensa.^[15] On each ballot paper there were four voting options so, according to La Prensa, the protest vote was four times the actual total of invalid votes, therefore reaching 666,866, rather than 161,687. This suggests a degree of desperation on La Prensa’s part in its search for ways to discredit the election.

5. Abstentions “won”

“Once polls opened early on Sunday morning, some polling stations had lines as Nicaraguans turned out to cast their ballots. But as the day progressed, many of the stations were largely empty. The streets of the capital, Managua, were also quiet, with little to show that a significant election was underway.” (New York Times, November 7)^[16]

Official results show 66% of registered voters took part in the election, a level within the range (61-74%) of the previous three elections. It is also a level of participation similar to the last elections in the U.S. and the U.K. (which were both higher than normal) and in the middle of the range of participation in other countries’ recent elections.^[17]

The international media largely ignore this and cite the opposition website Urnas Abiertas (“Open ballot boxes”) which claims that 81.5% of voters abstained (see graphic).^[18] In other words, while officially 2,921,430 voted (including spoiled ballots), Urnas Abiertas say the real figure was more like 850,000.

Urnas Abiertas do not, however, provide any evidence of it other than their claimed survey of attendance at a sample of polling stations, which is only briefly described in a few lines of their four-page report.^[19] It offers no technical details of their work or examples of polling stations which they surveyed. Described as “independent” by right-wing newspaper La Prensa,^[20] Ben Norton shows how Urnas Abiertas is an obscure organization with few followers and is operated by known opposition supporters.^[21]

Various opposition media, such as 100% Noticias, published pictures of “empty streets” or empty polling stations” on November 7, presumably as evidence that the opposition’s campaign to boycott the elections had been successful.^[22] In typical fashion, international media picked up the story and, of course, opposition supporters were busy phoning their contacts in the U.S. and elsewhere to give the story credence.

The local media had conveniently forgotten a story they covered earlier in the year. In July, the electoral authorities published a provisional electoral register, and invited voters to verify their entries and check they were allocated to the correct polling station. This exercise was massively supported, by 2.82 million voters out of a possible 4.34 million then registered (the registered total has since increased by about 130,000 as entries were updated).^[23] The opposition media, intent on showing supposed anomalies in this process, inadvertently also showed the scale of the response it received from the public, with videos of queues of people waiting to verify their vote.^[24] The likelihood is that, having turned up at the polling station to check their right to vote, people turned up again on November 7 to use it, and the similarity in numbers who did both confirms that this was the case.

The photos of “empty streets” and “empty polling stations” were in any case highly misleading: it is easy to take such shots, especially on a Sunday when businesses and schools are closed, and especially at the hottest time of day. Furthermore, a simple calculation of the likely attendance at each polling station, open for 11 hours with (on average) 333 potential voters and 216 who actually voted, shows that roughly 20 people an hour would have passed through each one. Given that each person needs only a few minutes to vote, it is obvious why queues occurred only when groups of voters arrived simultaneously.

6. The Sandinistas added at least one million votes

“To the amount of votes reported in favor of Ortega, the CSE [Electoral Council] fraud added about one million extra votes.” (Confidencial)

Critics argue that massive abstentions mean that fake votes were created, but they can’t agree how many. Confidencial suggests that it was 1,069,225, while the implication of the “survey” by Urnas Abiertas is that false votes totaled 2,032,067. Confidencial helpfully produced a table (see above) comparing the official (CSE) result with its own and those from Urnas Abiertas, adding for comparison the official results from previous elections.^[25] (As with many of the other opposition graphics, one suspects that spurious accuracy is given to their data to make them appear more authentic.)

An attempt was made to substantiate the fraud accusation when a false image of a “manipulated” electoral scrutiny form was circulated by the opposition ahead of the election, suggesting that exaggerated vote totals were being prepared in readiness for November 7.^[26] It proved to be a copy of a sample document circulated openly in its briefing materials by the Electoral Council.

In practice, the obstacles to the organization of this scale of fraud can be seen from the brief description already given of how votes were verified on polling day. Clearly, creating 1 to 2 million false votes would require a large proportion of the 13,459 polling stations and 245,000 officials to be engaged in the process. This is because the fraud would have to start at the points where votes were cast, because if the false votes had been created centrally the discrepancy with local voting tallies would be blatantly obvious.

Is it really feasible that every polling station (or most of them) created up to 200 false votes from entries on their register using blank ballot forms, stamped as authorized by officials, at the risk that real people with those votes would turn up and find they had already “voted”? Or, if it was done after polls closed, would there have been no complaint from poll watchers from rival parties, and would none of the 245,000 people involved have leaked the truth about what really happened, in a country as chismoso (gossipy) as Nicaragua? The whole notion is absurd.

As I write this, it is one week since the election took place. I have been unable to find any evidence of actual fraud (as opposed to speculation about fraud) in any of the main media which support the main opposition groups.

The real response to the accusations

While this article has exposed the implausibility of the various accusations, the real response to them was the scenes on the streets on election day and during the celebrations when the results were announced officially on November 8. While some of the media portrayed empty streets and deserted polling stations, there were hundreds of photos (see below, from Bilwí) which showed the opposite.

Many international representatives who acted as election “accompaniers” confirm that the polls were well attended and that people talked freely and often enthusiastically about the process, even those opposed to the government (see reports by, for example, Roger Harris, Rick Sterling and Margaret Kimberley).^[27]

Living in Masaya, which had been a stronghold of opposition support in the violence of 2018, I was amazed by the response to the president’s speech after the result was announced: tens of thousands of people poured onto the streets on Monday November 8, especially in poorer barrios, waving Sandinista flags and even holding up portraits of Daniel Ortega. While clearly a minority opposed his re-election, it was equally clear that the majority supported it.

John Perry is a writer living in Masaya, Nicaragua.

[Main Photo: People waiting in line to vote. Credit photo: El 19 Digital)

---

Sources

[1] “Statement by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. on Nicaragua’s Sham Elections,” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/11/07/statement-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-on-nicaraguas-sham-elections/

[2] See https://twitter.com/OAS_official/status/1458059374077911051?s=20

[3] Nan McCurdy provides a detailed description here: http://www.tortillaconsal.com/tortilla/node/13116

[4] “Despite US led Dirty Campaign, Nicaraguans Came Out in Force in Support of the FSLN,” https://www.coha.org/despite-us-led-dirty-campaign-nicaraguans-came-out-in-force-in-support-of-the-fsln/

[5] “Nicaragua: Chronicle of an Election Foretold,” https://nacla.org/news/2021/11/08/nicaragua-election-ortega

[6] “Nicaragua Descends Into Autocratic Rule as Ortega Crushes Dissent,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/world/americas/nicaragua-election-ortega.html

[7] “United States Once Again Attacking Government of Nicaragua,” https://afgj.org/nicanotes-09-23-2021; “Here’s what the corporate-owned media won’t tell you about the arrests in Nicaragua,” https://www.thecanary.co/global/2021/06/18/heres-what-the-corporate-owned-media-wont-tell-you-about-the-arrests-in-nicaragua/

[8] “CID-Gallup: Candidato opositor barrería a Ortega el 7 de noviembre: 65% vs. 19%,” https://www.confidencial.com.ni/politica/cid-gallup-candidato-opositor-barreria-a-ortega-el-7-de-noviembre-65-vs-19/

[9] “Chronicle of a massive and premeditated electoral fraud on November 7,” https://www.confidencial.com.ni/english/chronicle-of-a-massive-and-premeditated-electoral-fraud-on-november-7/

[10] “CSE publica Padrón Electoral definitivo que usará en la votación del 7 de noviembre,” https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2021/09/26/politica/2885887-cse-publica-padron-electoral-definitivo-que-usara-en-la-votacion-del-7-de-noviembre

[11] Data on the age-ranges of the Nicaraguan population can be found at https://datosmacro.expansion.com/demografia/estructura-poblacion/nicaragua

[12] “Nicaragua Descends Into Autocratic Rule as Ortega Crushes Dissent,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/world/americas/nicaragua-election-ortega.html

[13] “Más del 90% va a votar en contra de Ortega en las elecciones en Nicaragua, asegura opositora,” https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/mas-del-90-de-la-poblaci%C3%B3n-esta-en-contra-de-ortega-kitty-monterrey/6303518.html

[14] “Los votos nulos confirman la farsa en la reelección de Daniel Ortega,” https://elfaro.net/es/202111/centroamerica/25834/Los-votos-nulos-confirman-la-farsa-en-la-reelecci%C3%B3n-de-Daniel-Ortega.htm

[15] “El voto nulo y el abstencionismo, los dos grandes ganadores en las votaciones,” https://nicaraguainvestiga.com/politica/65446-no-voto-abstencionismo-grandes-ganadores-votaciones/

[16] “Nicaragua Descends Into Autocratic Rule as Ortega Crushes Dissent,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/world/americas/nicaragua-election-ortega.html

[17] “In past elections, U.S. trailed most developed countries in voter turnout,” https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/03/in-past-elections-u-s-trailed-most-developed-countries-in-voter-turnout/

[18] “Urnas Abiertas estima 81.5% de abstención en votaciones,” https://www.confidencial.com.ni/politica/votacion-plagada-de-violencia-politica-irregularidades-y-coaccion-del-voto-denuncia-urnas-abiertas/

[19] Downloadable at https://urnasabiertas.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ENG-Nicaragua-2021_Election-Day.pdf

[20] “¿Qué hay detrás del 75 por ciento que se recetó Ortega como resultado electoral?,” https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2021/11/13/politica/2909124-que-hay-detras-del-75-por-ciento-que-se-receto-ortega-como-resultado-electoral

[21] “Debunking Myths About Nicaragua’s 2021 Election,” https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/11/nicaragua-2021-elections/

[22] “Calles vacías en Managua, ante inicio de proceso de votaciones electorales,” https://100noticias.com.ni/galerias/18537/

[23] “Casi tres millones se verificaron para votar en Nicaragua, según Electoral,” https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/nicaragua-elecciones_casi-tres-millones-se-verificaron-para-votar-en-nicaragua–seg%C3%BAn-electoral/46818586

[24] “Padrón con personas fallecidas, asedio y control del FSLN marcan verificación ciudadana en Nicaragua,” https://www.expedientepublico.org/padron-con-personas-fallecidas-asedio-y-control-del-fsln-marcan-verificacion-ciudadana-en-nicaragua/

[25] “Crónica de un fraude electoral masivo (y premeditado) el 7 de noviembre,” https://www.confidencial.com.ni/opinion/cronica-de-un-fraude-electoral-masivo-y-premeditado-el-7-de-noviembre/

[26] “La foto que muestra una acta de escrutinio electoral de Jalapa, Nueva Segovia, es falsa,” https://www.despacho505.com/la-foto-que-muestra-una-acta-de-escrutinio-electoral-de-jalapa-nueva-segovia-es-falsa/

[27] See respectively: https://popularresistance.org/nicaragua-celebrates-democracy-election-day-report/; https://www.laprogressive.com/election-day-in-nicaragua/; https://www.blackagendareport.com/us-threatens-regime-change-nicaragua

By John Perry
From Masaya, Nicaragua

A few days before the Nicaraguan presidential elections on November 7, Facebook and other social media companies began closing down many of the pages used by Sandinista supporters in their campaign to re-elect President Daniel Ortega. This blatant censorship move was said to be because they had discovered “troll farms” operated by government agencies. But many of the 1,500 accounts closed appear simply to belong to pro-Sandinista journalists or young commentators. TikTok, Twitter and Instagram took similar action, and Google said that it has closed 82 YouTube channels and three blogs in a related operation.

Among those closed were several well-known pro-Sandinista accounts with thousands of followers on Facebook-owned Instagram, including those of the online new sites Barricada, Redvolución and Red de Comunicadores.^[1] They even suspended the popular fashion organization Nicaragua Diseña.^[2] When such websites attempted to create new accounts, they were also blocked.

Censorship extended to neutral websites covering the election. For example, Carta Bodan’s daily newsletter on November 2 carried brief descriptions of five opposition candidates.^[3] When colleagues tried to share this link on their Facebook pages it was rejected. The fact that there are five opponents of Daniel Ortega standing might be an inconvenient truth, of course, given that many of the reports of Facebook’s censorship repeated the U.S. government’s contention that the Nicaraguan elections are a “sham” with no real opponents (despite the fact that two of the parties standing were in government between 1990 and 2007).^[4]

Facebook’s head of security, Nathaniel Gleicher, tweeted justifications for its actions, even admitting that “this is a domestic op, with links to multiple gov’t institutions and the FSLN party. We don’t see evidence of foreign actors behind this campaign.” Gleicher failed to respond to accusations that huge numbers of genuine accounts had been disabled.^[5]

The Grayzone’s Ben Norton contacted several pro-Sandinista journalists and commentators who had lost their Facebook or Twitter accounts.^[6] These included young Sandinista Ligia Sevilla, who attempted to show her genuine status on her Twitter account, which was immediately suspended.^[7] The same happened to well-known Sandinista activist Daniela Cienfuegos.^[8] Darling Huete, a journalist, had the same experience.^[9] Some, like ElCuervoNica,^[10] managed to set up alternative accounts. Effectively many commentators suffered double censorship: blocked because they were falsely accused of being bots, then prevented from proving that the accusations were false when they posted videos of themselves as real people. One journalist who complained to Facebook was simply told that “For security reasons we can’t tell you why your account was removed.”

Exploring the motivations for Facebook’s actions, Norton points out its government connections. For example, Gleicher was director for cybersecurity policy at the National Security Council and previously worked at the Department of Justice. Other senior Facebook executives involved have similar government connections.

International media such as Reuters and the BBC simply took Facebook’s justification at face value – that it had disabled a “cross-government troll operation.”^[11] Even media such as Aljazeera, often critical of the U.S. government, carried reports on what Facebook had done without adverse comment.^[12] Apart from The Grayzone, only the U.K.’s Morning Star appears to have criticized Facebook’s decisions.^[13] Anti-Sandinista news sites, such as Artículo 66, listed the accounts affected, calling them “propaganda” and disseminators of “false news,” even though they are themselves well-established propaganda sources for the opposition.^[14] None questioned why this had occurred days before a crucial election, or how it happened that action was coordinated across different social media outlets. The Financial Times reported, without comment, that the Facebook pages were followed by 784,500 users, even though this might have alerted them to the fact that most if not all the pages were genuine.^[15]

The FT even compared the government’s operation to that of the Russian government’s St. Petersburg troll farm, accused of meddling in two recent U.S. elections.^[16] It ignored a crucial difference: that the Nicaraguan accounts closed were engaged in campaigning during their own country’s elections, not interfering in anyone else’s. Even more obviously, having made this comparison, it failed to ask why Facebook is itself interfering in an election campaign, and whether it is doing so at the behest of the U.S. government.

John Perry is a writer living in Masaya, Nicaragua.

---

Sources

[1] Original links: https://instagram.com/barricada79; https://instagram.com/redvolucionnic; https://instagram.com/somosredjs

[2] Original link: https://www.instagram.com/nicaragua_disena/

[3] See http://cartabodan.net/boletin/01nov21pm.html

[4] “Blinken accuses Nicaragua’s Ortega of preparing ‘sham election’,” https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/blinken-accuses-nicaraguas-ortega-preparing-sham-election-2021-10-22/

[5] See https://twitter.com/ngleicher/status/1455241703678365696

[6] “xxx,” https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/02/facebook-twitter-purge-sandinista-nicaragua/

[7] See https://twitter.com/ligiasevilla_

[8] See https://twitter.com/dani100sweet

[9] See https://twitter.com/DarlingHHuete

[10] See https://twitter.com/elcuerv0nica

[11] See “Facebook says it removed troll farm run by Nicaraguan government,” https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/facebook-says-it-removed-troll-farm-run-by-nicaraguan-government-2021-11-01/ xxx and “Cómo funcionaba la ‘granja de troles’ desmantelada por Facebook en Nicaragua,” https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-59136577

[12] “Facebook says it shut down Nicaraguan government-run troll farm,” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/1/facebook-says-it-shut-down-nicaraguan-government-run-troll-farm

[13] “Facebook accused of censoring Sandinista media organisations ahead of Sunday’s election,” https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/facebook-accused-of-censoring-sandinista-media-organisations-ahead-of-sunday-election

[14] “Estas son las cuentas de troles orteguistas,” https://www.articulo66.com/2021/11/01/troles-orteguistas-facebook-instagram-cuentas-eliminadas-manipulacion-nicaragua/

[15] “Nicaragua’s government accused by Facebook of running social media troll farm,” https://www.ft.com/content/0998f9ac-7e37-430e-a411-2456b9124e7c

[16] “Russian troll farm makes US comeback,” https://www.ft.com/content/447724b0-bc98-4690-a150-674f451d1b3e

By Richard Kohn, Ph.D.
From Columbia, MD

Recently, there have been reports in the news media that Nicaragua is destroying its rain forests and allowing beef ranchers to convert them to pastures in the country’s vast nature reserves.  A network of supposed human rights and environmental groups are calling for an increase in the intensity of sanctions against Nicaragua, ending beef imports from Nicaragua, and ending international carbon trading credits that support reforestation programs there.

Contrary to this misleading narrative, the nature reserves in Nicaragua are not being deforested, and the Nicaraguan government has been promoting more sustainable beef production and reforestation.  Economic sanctions could jeopardize these efforts.

My personal experience refutes misleading news

I am a professor of animal science at the University of Maryland specializing in evaluating environmental impacts of animal production systems–especially for beef and dairy.  I am very familiar with Nicaragua since I lived there from 1987 to 1988 working with ranchers as an extensionist. I have visited since then, most recently in January of 2020 when I attended a study delegation that examined agroecology as practiced in Nicaragua. On this last trip, I started a dialogue with counterparts in my field through the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Rural Workers Association) to lay the groundwork for a University of Maryland study abroad course in Nicaragua in agriculture and environmental studies. After seeing the statements in the U.S. media about Nicaraguan beef production that were inconsistent with my first-hand knowledge of the country, I decided to investigate the issue.

Nicaragua is a member of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which has enabled it to benefit from higher prices for grass-fed beef.  In an apparent violation of the agreement, in 2018 the U.S. applied sanctions on Nicaragua that interrupted free trade. These sanctions prevent Nicaragua from obtaining loans from international lending authorities and freeze the foreign assets of many individual Nicaraguans.^[1]  Now there is a bill called the RENACER Act in front of both houses of Congress^[2]  which would impose harsh economic sanctions on the country aimed at returning it to extreme poverty in order to help an opposition candidate win this year’s election in Nicaragua. And if that fails, win support for the possibility of a planned coup attempt thereafter.^[3]

Beef production and the environment

The U.S. news media often exaggerate the environmental impact of beef production. For example, articles online and in the popular press attribute as much as 60% of greenhouse gas emissions to consumption of meat. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the actual contribution is estimated to be about 2% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.^[4] Fossil fuel production and use is responsible for 90%.  A little more greenhouse gas is emitted from production of imported beef, but it doesn’t appreciably affect the total.

The mainstream news media often misinform about beef production to an even greater extent when that beef production occurs in a country the U.S. government has selected for regime change. The percentage of domestic greenhouse gas emissions coming from beef production is higher for Nicaragua than that for the U.S. because Nicaragua has much lower total greenhouse gas emissions from other sources, including fossil fuels. The total greenhouse gas production per capita in the U.S. excluding land use change (mostly from fossil fuels) is eight times higher than for Nicaragua.^[5]

Often, reported greenhouse gas emissions from beef production include land-use changes for expanded beef production.  Although the estimates published in the mainstream media are often too high, there can be some increase in greenhouse gas emissions from land use change.  When land is converted from forest to pasture, less carbon is stored in the forest canopy, and therefore the carbon is presumed to be added to the atmosphere.  The deforestation that occurs in developing countries occurs for many reasons besides the need for cattle grazing. Furthermore, when forests are converted to row crops for food production, even less carbon is stored in crop cover and soil compared with either cattle grazing or forestry.  The U.S. converted much of its forest to agricultural land decades ago, so currently there isn’t much land use change associated with conversion of forests to agriculture in this country.  In developing countries however, ongoing land use change accounts for a significant percentage of estimated greenhouse gas emissions.

International climate agreements such as the Paris Accords charge each country with decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by a similar percentage irrespective of what industries they have, what products they import or export, or whether they already have low greenhouse gas emissions. Countries that already have low greenhouse gas emissions could have a more difficult time cutting the few emissions they have; reforestation is one option.  Reforestation decreases estimates of global greenhouse gas emissions no matter where the reforestation occurs, but developing countries face greater pressure to protect and replant their forests since they can’t decrease greenhouse gas emissions as easily as wealthy countries by using less fossil fuel because they already use very little.

A little summary on U.S. intervention in Nicaragua

For many years, Nicaragua exported beef as well as coffee and bananas, and the U.S. government supported international agribusinesses and the wealthy landowners in that country.  The U.S. Marines invaded Nicaragua in 1909 to protect U.S. investments.  A Nicaraguan revolutionary, Augusto Sandino, fought a guerilla campaign that ousted the U.S. Marines in 1933.  The U.S. then negotiated the installation of one of the world’s most notorious dictators, Anastasio Somoza, whose family ruled Nicaragua until 1979.   A guerrilla army calling itself the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN), or Sandinistas, deposed the Somoza dynasty after 45 years of dictatorship.  The Sandinistas established democratic elections and converted themselves from guerrilla army to political party.  Many wealthy landowners fled the country and the new government redistributed abandoned properties to peasant farmers.^[6]

Then the U.S. organized the so-called Contras–right wing rebel groups, including former Somoza National Guard fighters in Honduras– who crossed over the border at night and attacked the symbols of the Sandinista revolution: healthcare clinics, schools, and of course, small farms. Most of the fighting was in rural areas.  This, together with a harsh economic embargo and the mining of Nicaragua’s harbors by the CIA, soon had the country mired in more poverty and hardship.  A U.S.-backed Presidential candidate won elections in 1990 even though most people polled supported the Sandinistas but were tired of war. Three successive neo-liberal governments ruled Nicaragua over the next 16 years.  Facing continued poverty, the population re-elected Daniel Ortega from the FSLN Party as President in 2006, and he has repeatedly won re-election thereafter.  Since the Sandinistas returned to office, poverty and extreme poverty decreased to half of previous levels; literacy and healthcare have improved; and many indigenous people have been given title to collectively own land in eastern Nicaragua.^[7]

The previous U.S.-backed governments in Nicaragua re-directed the economy toward servicing the interests of the United States: large private farms were engaged exclusively in export agriculture while most landless peasants went hungry.  Since 2007 the Sandinistas have diversified agriculture to meet the needs of their own population.  Although the Sandinistas support a variety of food production practices, and the country has become more than 90% food self-sufficient,^[8] the export of crops like beef and coffee is still important to Nicaragua’s economy. Increasing sanctions by stopping export of beef to the US would be yet another blow to the country’s efforts to improve the standard of living of its people.

Improved cattle management in Nicaragua

Cattle do contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but proper management can mitigate this. Good cattle feeding and waste management practices can decrease methane and nitrous oxide emissions, and cropping and grazing practices can either deplete or accumulate carbon stores in soils and crops. In many parts of Nicaragua, grass-fed beef ranching and milk production are practiced sustainably, and several beef and dairy producers’ organizations have recently signed an agreement to promote more sustainable practices.^[9] Managing cattle for faster rates of growth is one way to decrease emissions of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. U.S. beef production is highly efficient in this regard, but there is a lot of opportunity in Nicaragua to improve pastures’ ability to support faster growth by using more digestible plants.

Another sustainable practice is to have continuous pastures with trees that constantly build and trap organic matter in soils. This is particularly helpful since much of Nicaraguan land is too hilly or receives too little rainfall to be suitable for annual row crops; torrential rains routinely come at the end of the dry season, washing away soils on any hilly fields that lack groundcover.  When forests on steep slopes are destroyed and carelessly converted to agriculture without consideration of the long-term potential for erosion, soil carbon can be depleted and soon the tired soils also produce less vegetation. The carbon lost is added to the air. Here, mitigation by including trees in pastures is important. Although forests capture more carbon than pastures, trees in pastures grow faster and trap more carbon per tree.  In 2020, I showed a picture to a Nicaraguan farmer of a beautiful pasture with trees interspersed within it and framed by rustic fence posts. He said it was nice, but they should have used trees in place of the fence posts, as is now the norm.  He was right and there definitely have been campaigns to improve grazing practices and plant more trees.

A final point to bear in mind is that the beef industry brings significant revenue to the country—money that is currently used for poverty alleviation programs and reforestation—but has a small impact on U.S. industry. The 700 million U.S. dollars Nicaragua exports annually in beef and dairy accounts for 25% of the nation’s foreign exchange, but only 5% of the U.S.’ imports (after Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico.)^[10]

Nicaragua and its programs to replant trees

The Nicaraguan government has been using carbon trading programs to incentivize tree planting and improve pastures with more nutritious plants. These practices decrease the greenhouse gas impact of beef ranching in Nicaragua.

The World Bank published the tree coverage maps in Figure 1.⁷ Much of the deforestation had already occurred before the Sandinistas returned to power, as one can see from thinning of the forests in the northeast between 2000 and 2005 during the end of the neoliberal governments, and further thinning in the region between 2010 and 2014.  This territory is controlled by indigenous communities and they have developed some of it for domestic use in crops and livestock, but the large natural reserves remain. The 2014 map shows recovering tree coverage once trees were planted throughout the country since the Sandinistas returned to power in 2007.

False news that doesn’t recognize Nicaragua’s success

The mainstream news media and websites claiming to represent environmental organizations have been calling to defund Nicaragua. They accuse the Sandinistas of contributing to climate change by destroying forests to convert land to pastures to export beef.  For example, last October, PBS Newshour ran a story called “Conflict Beef”, claiming that indigenous people were being run off their land and killed to make room for more cattle ranching.^[11]  They claimed the disputes were driven by the sudden increase in demand for beef in the U.S. because of lower domestic beef production due to the pandemic.  The implication was that the U.S. should stop importing beef from Nicaragua for humanitarian reasons.  It should be noted that according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there were no increases in beef imports to the U.S. from Nicaragua during the pandemic.^[12]  Furthermore, the large nature reserves in Nicaragua have not been deforested, and although there have been illegal land grabs in some remote areas, the government has been attempting to prevent them.

Some groups have called for the World Bank to stop funding Nicaragua’s reforestation programs.  For example, the anti-Sandinista environmental organization COCIBOLCA, which is led by the celebrity Bianca Jagger, opposes World Bank funding of reforestation programs in Nicaragua.^[13]  The Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista newspaper La Prensa reported^[14] that funding for the program to continue reforestation in Nicaragua has already been canceled according to sources from the World Bank.  However, reports in La Prensa are often inaccurate, and information directly from the World Bank has indicated a high   level of satisfaction with the Nicaraguan government’s administration of its programs. ^[15]

Whether or not international funding for reforestation has already been cut, pressure from the vast media network against Nicaragua will be used to continue pushing for more sanctions and more interference with its economy.

U.S. sanctions have the potential to create a large impact on Nicaragua’s forests.  It is the small military and police force that are charged with protecting land resources and indigenous people who live in remote forested areas, and US sanctions directly target those entities. The latest round of sanctions before the U.S. Congress will completely embargo supplies to the military and police from imported goods from the U.S., for example. Other U.S. sanctions block international funding for programs in Nicaragua which may include reforestation programs. Because the U.S. sanctions are broad and vague and the enforcement is arbitrary and severe, there is a real risk of over-enforcement in which investors avoid Nicaragua all together.  The economic damage done by the sanctions will force the Nicaraguan government to choose between feeding the population and preserving the forests, as it will likely no longer be able to do both.

Campaign to benefit U.S. political allies in Nicaragua

The carbon footprint of the average Nicaraguan is miniscule compared to that of the average U.S. citizen.  The Sandinista-led government has been planting trees and improving environmental efficiency of beef production while the previous U.S.-backed administrations saw the overharvesting of forests to increase beef exports.

The result of current and proposed U.S. sanctions on Nicaragua will be to plunge the country back into poverty, increase hunger, and prevent Nicaragua from decreasing its greenhouse gas emissions.  The objective is to blame all of these problems on the Sandinistas in order to favor candidates that will better serve the interests of U.S. corporations.  Those interests include the deregulated cheap exploitation of Nicaragua’s labor, land, and other natural resources.

Therefore, sanctions on Nicaragua are likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions whether or not they cause the replacement of the Nicaraguan government.

Richard Kohn is a professor of Animal Science at the University of Maryland. His research interests include evaluating the environmental impacts of animal production systems.

[Main photo: Pasture in Estelí Department, Nicaragua. The long dry season and low water table limit the amount of row crops that can be grown.  Stockpiled pastures like this keep the ground covered to prevent erosion. Photo credit: R. Kohn, 2020]

---

Sources

[1] Nicaragua Human Rights and Anticorruption Act, 2018. House Resolution 1918. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1918

[2] RENACER Act, 2021. Senate Bill 1041 and 1064. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1041

[3] Perry, J. The US contracts out its regime change operation in Nicaragua. Council on Hemispheric Affairs. August 4, 2020. https://www.coha.org/the-us-contracts-out-its-regime-change-operation-in-nicaragua/

[4] US Environmental Protection Agency, 2021. Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Agricultural Sector Emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

[5] https://www.climatewatchdata.org/ghg-emissions?breakBy=countries&calculation=PER_CAPITA&end_year=2018&regions=NIC%2CUSA&sectors=total-excluding-lucf&source=CAIT&start_year=1990

[6] Collins, J. 1982. What Difference Could a Revolution Make? Food and Farming in the New Nicaragua. Institute of Food and Development Policy.

[7] World Bank 2021. World Bank Data: Country Specific, Nicaragua. Accessed May, 29, 2021. https://data.worldbank.org/country/NI

[8] World Bank 2015. Agriculture in Nicaragua: Performance, Challenges, and Options.

http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/532131485440242670/pdf/102989-WP-P152101-Box394848B-OUO-9.pdf

[9] Cattle and Dairy Sector Signs Environmental Sustainability Agenda. Yahoo Finance (online) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cattle-dairy-sector-signs-environmental-110000324.html

[10] United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Data downloaded July 6, 2021. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-international-trade-data/

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ULooc8pdJ4

[12] United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Data downloaded July 6, 2021. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-international-trade-data/

[13] López, L. B. 2019. Dictadura de Nicaragua da por hecho que echó mano a los 55 millones de dólares de los fondos verdes del Banco Mundial. La Prensa, Nov. 14, 2019. https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2019/11/14/nacionales/2610668-dictadura-de-nicaragua-fondos-verdes-del-banco-mundial.

[14] Estrada Galo, J. 2021.  Banco Mundial niega al régimen fondos por US$55 millones para la reducción de emisión de carbono. La Prensa, Feb. 24, 2021. https://www.laprensa.com.ni/2021/02/24/nacionales/2788559-banco-mundial-niega-al-regimen-fondos-por-55-millones-para-la-reduccion-de-carbono

[15] Scott Kinnon. 2020. Letter to COCIBOLCA from World Bank on the effectiveness of Nicaragua’s reforestation programs. Sep. 23, 2020. https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/system/files/documents/Bank%20response%20to%20Letter%20from%20environmental%20organizations%20in%20Nicaragua.pdf

By John Perry
From Masaya, Nicaragua

Both Honduras and Nicaragua hold presidential elections in November 2021 and the US government has a strong interest in both, although for rather different reasons. Both have incumbent presidents who will either stand again or, in the case of Honduras, more likely be replaced as candidate by a successor seen as reliably committed to the same style of government. Given that both countries are economically and militarily tiny, it might be thought that Washington would be unconcerned by their internal affairs, but in reality it sees much at stake.

Promoting democracy or promoting “polyarchy”?

The issues that concern the US in Central America are rooted in more than a century of intervention in its politics. The forms of intervention have changed, of course, but always based on the fundamental aim of pursuing US corporate interests. For decades this meant supporting dictators like Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza or Guatemala’s Efraín Ríos Montt, but later it was more convenient to “promote democracy” until, two decades ago, democratic elections in Latin America produced the “wrong” results. This brought a further shift in US intervention, towards what William Robinson (who worked in Nicaragua in the 1980s) called promoting polyarchy,^[1] a limited form of democracy with “elite rule by transnational capitalists and agents or allies, in which the participation of the masses is limited to choosing among competing elites in tightly controlled elections” (a system which has applied in Honduras for several decades). Robinson added that “democracy promotion” and electoral intervention programs were combined with “coercive and other forms of diplomacy, economic aid or sanctions, international media and propaganda campaigns(…) military or paramilitary actions, covert operations and so on” to destabilize undesirable left-wing governments. Timothy Gill argues that this policy now has a further twist,^[2] towards “supporting opposition actors to unseat democratically-elected far leftist leaders,” using agencies like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. Such measures have been deployed in Nicaragua for the last 15 years.^[3]

Support this progressive voice and be a part of it. Donate to COHA today. Click here

In considering the dilemmas Washington faces in pursuing its interests, this article sets aside for the moment the obvious case for respecting the sovereignty of both countries as the US has no legitimate right to interfere in them. Not only is this argument correct but it is one deployed by the US itself in relation to its own elections: it has complained loudly about alleged Russian interference and has strict laws in place to deter foreign influence in US politics. Yet it openly tries to influence other countries’ elections and condemns as ‘repressive’ those governments which deploy similar laws. A former US Congressman, the libertarian Ron Paul, is reported to have said that “It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections ‘promoting democracy.’ How would we Americans feel if for example the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China?”^[4]

US concerns in Central America

What are US concerns in Central America? Foremost in its effect on US domestic politics is the issue of migrants crossing its southwest border, which in 2021 has hit levels not seen for two decades^[5] and is forecast by officials to reach one million arrivals over the course of the year,^[6] with many of these coming from Honduras but few from Nicaragua. Drug trafficking is another concern related to the US’s porous border, with Central America used as a staging post for shipments from Colombia and elsewhere. A third concern is that, despite their small size, the US considers both countries to be of strategic importance. Honduras is a US military asset because its base at Soto Cano (one of 76 in Latin America), gives it quick access to the rest of the region. In contrast, Nicaragua is categorized as “an extraordinary and unusual threat” to US security which, according to Admiral Fuller,^[7] head of the US Southern Command, is “trying to destabilize democracies in the area.” Fourth, in terms of human rights, the US categorizes both countries as deficient, although the State Department’s recent 2020 reports suggest far greater concern with Nicaragua (to which it devotes 39 pages) than Honduras (just 27 pages).^[8]

The fifth factor driving US interest in the outcome of the November elections is one largely unmentioned in official discourse but is perhaps the most important: that the two countries represent completely different economic models. While both are open to international markets and for both the US is their main trading partner, Honduras is pursuing an extreme, neoliberal development model based on the extraction of natural resources at whatever cost to local communities, a minimal role for the public sector, and maintaining the continent’s second most unequal income distribution (after Brazil)^[9]. On the other hand, Nicaragua has a mixed economy, with policies focused on public sector and social investment, anti-poverty initiatives, and promotion of small enterprise and food sovereignty, which have cut extreme poverty by more than half since 2007^[10].

Given the importance of this fifth factor, the US might be expected to support the present governing model in Honduras while favoring the opposition in Nicaragua. Indeed, as far as the latter is concerned, this is what is happening: the US has maintained an antagonistic stance towards Daniel Ortega’s government with sanctions aimed both at Nicaragua’s economy and at individual government officials; it has persuaded allies such as the European Union and the UK to follow suit; it is proactively funding opposition groups and local media through the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID, and it has instituted the “RAIN” programme (“Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua”)^[11] which is explicitly aimed at achieving Ortega’s electoral downfall.

However, while this may be the obvious stance for the US to take, with clear precedents from the 1980s and earlier, it is far from clear that it really serves US interests, as we shall see.

The US dilemma in Honduras

In Honduras, the US faces a dilemma. Its president, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), was favored by the Trump administration principally because he is a strongman (utilizing la mano dura, in Spanish) who is willing to forcibly stop Honduran migrants from leaving the country and who signed an absurd “safe country” agreement implying that Honduras was a haven for asylum seekers. A similar agreement with Guatemala led a Trump-era official to declare that “The Guatemalan border with Chiapas [in Mexico] is now our southern border.”^[12] In return, Trump was willing to acquiesce in the disastrous domestic policies being pursued by JOH even though they are pushing more Hondurans to attempt to leave.

Part of President Joe Biden’s problem in dealing with Honduras is that the blame for its disastrous policies extends back to Barack Obama’s presidency when, in 2009, he turned a blind eye^[13] to the military coup which deposed the progressive President Manuel Zelaya. The coup led to a succession of neoliberal governments and legitimized a series of flawed elections which culminated, in 2017, with JOH being returned as president even though the counting of the vote was clearly fraudulent.^[14] Since 2009, opposition has been suppressed by increasingly militarized police forces (the country has several different ones)^[15] which, far from preventing the endemic gang violence, appear to have fostered it, so that many migrants say they are literally running for their lives. Human rights abuses were brought to international attention by the murder of Indigenous land rights activist Berta Cáceres in 2016,^[16] the most notorious of a continuing series of assassinations and disappearances of community activists. Corruption is also rife, with the US-favored elites able to steal from the state with virtual impunity after the failure and disbanding of a US-sponsored anti-corruption body known as the MACCIH (Misión de Apoyo Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad en Honduras).^[17] Since it was closed, 93% of those accused in corruption cases begun by the MACCIH have been freed.^[18]

Honduras, a new “narcostate”

Nothing has illustrated Biden’s dilemma more clearly than two recent US prosecutions for drug-running which have implicated numerous Honduran government officials and led to it being labelled a “narcostate”. The first was the conviction of JOH’s brother Tony,^[19] who faces at least 30 years in prison for bringing 200,000 kilos of cocaine into the US. The prosecution concluded that drug traffickers “infiltrated” and “controlled” the Honduran government.^[20] The defendant in the second case, Geovanny Fuentes, claimed that his drug labs were protected by the military on the orders of JOH himself,^[21] quoting him as saying that he would “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos” by flooding the US with cocaine. While JOH was quick to deny the allegations and to remind Biden of their past friendship, the new administration has been obliged to distance itself, saying that “We are committed to partnering (…) with those in the Honduran Government that are committed to working with us to root out the corruption that has become really endemic to that country.”^[22] A US Special Envoy recently went on a four-day visit to Guatemala and El Salvador to investigate the root causes of migration, but not to Honduras.^[23] To worsen matters, Honduras is reported to have been “flooded” with Colombian cocaine since the start of 2021.^[24]

Corruption affects fight against COVID-19

A combination of natural disasters has highlighted the ways in which the narcostate fails not just the poor but the majority of Hondurans. In November 2020, two hurricanes hit a country totally unprepared for them, destroying 6,000 homes and seriously damaging 85,000 more.^[25] Six months afterwards, the international organization Médecins Sans Frontières said the government’s response had been “inadequate”, leaving more than 55,000 people still living in temporary shelters.^[26] Poverty in Honduras increased to 70% in 2020,^[27] up 10.7 percentage points from 59.3% in 2019, driven by tropical storm damage and by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The massive disruption has provoked a fresh peak of coronavirus infections in 2021. Honduras has the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate in Central America, to the point where mayors in seven cities near the border with El Salvador asked for and received vaccines from their Salvadoran counterparts.^[28] Hondurans living near the Nicaraguan border are crossing it to get vaccinated.^[29] Weakened by corruption and underfunding, the health service has been overwhelmed. In April, a senior doctor reported “the collapse of the hospital network” which is now on a “war footing.”^[30] Of seven mobile hospitals ordered last year to fill the gaps, only two are working properly. The head of the agency which made the $47 million deal to buy the hospitals, accused of corruption, was sacked. People protested at one of the mobile units under the banner: “If it were a narco lab, it would be working.”^[31]

Despite its terrible track record, the National Party, in power since the 2009 coup, faces a divided opposition, posing further dilemmas for the US. Opinion polls suggest that the left-of-center LIBRE party, headed by Xiomara Castro, wife of Manual Zelaya who was deposed in the 2009 coup, is best-placed to threaten the National Party.^[32] Her position could have been strengthened via an alliance with other opposition parties but this has not happened. Although the Liberal Party represents the traditional opposition, its candidate Yani Rosenthal served a prison sentence in the United States in 2017 for money laundering, meaning that Biden cannot easily back him. In any case, most observers think that JOH’s National Party will prevail, either through renewed electoral fraud^[33] or by buying votes, or both, as it did in 2017. JOH has resisted pressure for transparency in election funding,^[34] was accused by opponents of having no interest in electoral reform,^[35] and pushed through purely cosmetic changes to electoral law on the last possible day in the election timetable.^[36]

Nevertheless, the US State Department urged the Honduran Congress^[37] to approve the new law and, when it did, the Organization of American States (OAS) called it a “significant step forward.”^[38] They did this despite having produced clear evidence of fraud in the last elections, which the OAS said had “low integrity,” even calling for the elections to be rerun.^[39] Maneuvers like these suggest that the US might well swallow its objections to corruption and back the National Party, while insisting that it choose a candidate to replace JOH. But – if his successor governs in the same mold – corruption, poverty, and violence are likely to continue, spurring fresh migration.

The US dilemma in Nicaragua: Ortega leads the polls

Notwithstanding its political hostility towards Daniel Ortega’s government, the US cannot avoid noting that few Nicaraguans head north towards its southwest border. Nicaragua is also more successful than its neighbors in combating the drug trade.^[40] It recently regained its status as one of the safest countries in Latin America,^[41] despite the violent protests of 2018, even while Honduras remains one of the most dangerous. After a two-month peak of COVID-19 infections and deaths in mid-2020, Nicaragua has had a much lower incidence of the virus than its neighbors; as a result, the  economic damage it experienced in 2020 was about half the average for Latin America generally.^[42] The two November hurricanes, which hit Nicaragua first, caused relatively few deaths and aid was quickly sent to the regions most affected.^[43]

As in Honduras, the Nicaraguan opposition is divided, but this gives the US a different problem: should it urge Ortega’s opponents to unite behind a single candidate whom it backs to win, or should it denounce the election as a fraud (as it last did in 1984), persuade the opposition to stand down, and attempt to delegitimize the winner? The latest opinion poll gives Ortega a substantial lead (69% of voting intentions compared with 21% for the opposition if it has a single candidate), making Washington’s dilemma worse: as things appear now, barely six months from the polls, there might be a decisive Sandinista win that would be difficult for the US to discredit, especially as several political parties are now committed to taking part. Inevitably Washington is laying the groundwork to do this, joining the OAS in criticizing Nicaragua for not implementing radical electoral reforms, even though there were no more than minor criticisms of the electoral process last time around (the OAS said at the time that any faults in the 2017 election “have not substantially affected the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box.”)^[44]

Most recently, Washington has had new opportunities to attack the Nicaraguan electoral process as its authorities have moved to take legal action against opposition figures involved in corrupt practices. Washington alleges that the Ortega government is trying to debar them from standing in the elections, describing as ‘candidates’ those accused of the crimes, even though no party has yet selected who will stand. The most notable case is that of Cristiana Chamorro, under investigation for illegal use of foreign funds sent to the Nicaraguan non-profit that she controls. The money came from USAID and other US or European sources of the kind noted by Timothy Gill (see above), and was redirected to right-wing media outlets hostile to the Sandinista government. Chamorro closed her non-profit foundation in February this year, ostensibly to avoid compliance with a new Nicaraguan law controlling the receipt of funds from foreign governments which is very similar to the US’s own Foreign Agents Registration Act. In other words, Nicaragua is now, and perhaps belatedly, using the same measures to control foreign influence over its politics as the US government has had in place since 1938. Ben Norton, who has analyzed in detail the sources of Chamorro’s funding, says that the Nicaraguan media it finances “are an integral part of a political opposition that Washington has carefully managed, trained, and funded with millions of dollars over the past decade.”

The US faces a deeper dilemma in Nicaragua of which it must surely be aware, even if it ignores it in public discourse. None of the Nicaraguan opposition groups which it supports have so far put forward any platform other than vague intentions to “promote democracy.” But several were Trump supporters or have befriended right-wing US politicians such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and others. Many were also prominent figures in Nicaragua’s neoliberal governments between 1990 and 2006, under which poverty deepened and corruption became rampant. The opposition coup attempt in 2018 was fueled by the free flow of money, weapons, and drugs to those who held cities under siege when the country was paralyzed by roadblocks.^[45] It therefore seems highly likely that if Sandinismo were to be displaced, the outcome would be a neoliberal government of the kind that has produced social collapse in Honduras.

In 2005, when neoliberal policies were at their worst, surveys suggested that almost 70% of Nicaraguans wanted to emigrate, compared with fewer than half that number now.^[46] This could easily change. It can hardly be in the interest of the US for “caravans” of Nicaraguan migrants to start heading north towards its southwest border, along with their neighbors from Honduras. Yet  Washington’s conflicted policies in Central America are likely to drive more migration, not reduce it.

John Perry is a writer living in Masaya, Nicaragua.

[Main Photo-Credit: Public domain, U.S. Joint Task Force – Bravo Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras. Flickr.com]

---

Sources

[1] “Promoting polyarchy: 20 years later,” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0047117813489655a

[2] “From Promoting Political Polyarchy to Defeating Participatory Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy towards the Far Left in Latin America,” https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/view/750/1020

[3] “How the USAID prepared the conditions for a non-violent coup,” https://bbackdoors.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/how-the-usaid-prepared-the-conditions-for-a-non-violent-coup-detat-against-the-nicaraguan-government-part-i/

[4] Quoted in “America’s new regime change formula,” http://dailyalochona.blogspot.com/2011/02/alochona-americas-new-regime-change.html

[5] “Southwest border crossings on pace for highest levels in 20 years, Biden admin says,” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/southwest-border-crossings-pace-highest-levels-20-years-biden-admin-n1261192

[6] “More than a million migrants expected at U.S.-Mexico border this year – U.S. official,” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-border-idUSKBN2BM3FN

[7] “Admiral Says U.S. Aims to Expand Competitive Space in Latin America,” https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2473739/admiral-says-us-aims-to-expand-competitive-space-in-latin-america/

[8] Available at https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/

[9] “Income distribution inequality based on Gini coefficient in Latin America as of 2017, by country,” https://www.statista.com/statistics/980285/income-distribution-gini-coefficient-latin-america-caribbean-country/

[10] Paper presented by Nicaraguan Government to the Virtual High-Level Meeting on Poverty Eradication “Trends, Options And Strategies In Global Poverty Eradication,” United Nations, 30 June 2020.

[11] “The US contracts out its regime change operation in Nicaragua,” https://www.coha.org/the-us-contracts-out-its-regime-change-operation-in-nicaragua/

[12] “Our southern border is now with Guatemala,” http://latinalista.com/general/historic-partnership-agreements-signed

[13] “Yes, it was a coup,” http://latinalista.com/general/historic-partnership-agreements-signed

[14] “Low integrity,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2017/december/low-integrity

[15] “The plunder continues,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/december/the-plunder-continues

[16] “The Murder of Berta Cáceres,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2016/march/the-murder-of-berta-caceres

[17] “A Death Foretold: MACCIH Shuts Down in Honduras,” https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/a-death-foretold-maccih-shuts-down-in-honduras/

[18] “El 93 por ciento de acusados por la extinta MACCIH fueron puestos en libertad,” https://elpulso.hn/2021/05/19/el-93-por-ciento-de-acusados-por-la-extinta-maccih-fueron-puestos-en-libertad/

[19] “The Hernández Brothers,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/october/the-hernandez-brothers

[20] “Honduran President’s Brother Is Found Guilty of Drug Trafficking,” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/world/americas/honduras-president-brother-drug-trafficking.html

[21] “If it were a narco lab, it would be working,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2021/february/if-it-were-a-narco-lab-it-would-be-working

[22] “Canciller Rosales discute sobre migración y daños de Eta e Iota con el titular de Seguridad Nacional de EEUU,” https://proceso.hn/canciller-rosales-discute-sobre-migracion-tps-y-danos-de-huracanes-con-el-secretario-de-seguridad-nacional-de-eeuu/

[23] “Subrayan que la no visita a Honduras de Ricardo Zúñiga, deja claro el rechazo del gobierno de Juan Orlando Hernández,” https://confidencialhn.com/subrayan-que-la-no-visita-a-honduras-de-ricardo-zuniga-deja-claro-el-rechazo-del-gobierno-de-juan-orlando-hernandez/

[24] “Carteles colombianos inundan de cocaína a Honduras,” https://proceso.hn/carteles-colombianos-inundan-honduras-de-cocaina/

[25] “Hurricane Eta hits the Mosquito Coast,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/november/hurricane-eta-hits-the-mosquito-coast

[26] “Respuesta de gobierno a seis meses de Eta y Iota ha sido insuficiente, alerta MSF,” https://proceso.hn/respuesta-de-gobierno-a-seis-meses-de-eta-e-iota-ha-sido-insuficiente-alerta-msf/

[27] “La pobreza en Honduras subió a 70 % en 2020 por culpa de Eta, Iota y la COVID,” https://proceso.hn/la-pobreza-en-honduras-subio-a-70-en-2020-por-culpa-de-eta-iota-y-la-covid/

[28] “Honduras recibe 17 mil dosis de vacunas,” https://www.elheraldo.hn/pais/1463583-466/honduras-vacunas-donadas-salvador-bukele-alcaldes

[29] “Hondureños ven a Nicaragua como destino de vacunación,” https://www.elheraldo.hn/pais/1466318-466/hondurenos-nicaragua-destino-vacuna-covid

[30] “HOSPITALES ACTIVAN “CÓDIGO DE GUERRA” ANTE COLAPSO POR COVID,” http://www.web.ellibertador.hn/index.php/noticias/nacionales/2825-honduras-hospitales-activan-codigo-de-guerra-ante-colapso-por-covid

[31] “If it were a narco lab, it would be working,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2021/february/if-it-were-a-narco-lab-it-would-be-working

[32] “Esposa de Zelaya en empate técnico por presidencia de Honduras,” https://www.radiotelevisionmarti.com/a/honduras-manuel-zelaya-esposa/18968.html; but see also this more recent poll showing the National Party in the lead: http://cespad.org.hn/2021/05/13/analisis-fragmentacion-y-necesidad-de-articulacion-politica-un-analisis-sobre-la-fidelidad-partidaria-y-la-intencion-del-voto-en-honduras/

[33] “Denuncian que el oficialismo se opone a nueva Ley Electoral para “cometer fraude” en noviembre,” https://elpulso.hn/2021/04/30/denuncian-que-el-oficialismo-se-opone-a-nueva-ley-electoral-para-cometer-fraude-en-noviembre/

[34] “Demandan organizaciones ante IAIP: Resolución que reserva información sobre campañas políticas debe ser anulada,” https://pasosdeanimalgrande.com/es-co/contexto/item/3161-demandan-organizaciones-ante-iaip-resolucion-que-reserva-informacion-sobre-campanas-politicas-debe-ser-anulada

[35] “Jari Dixon: El más interesado en no tener nueva Ley Electoral es el Partido Nacional,” https://confidencialhn.com/jari-dixon-el-mas-interesado-en-no-tener-nueva-ley-electoral-es-el-partido-nacional/

[36] “Nueva Ley Electoral de Honduras no garantiza evitar una nueva crisis, según analistas,” https://contracorriente.red/2021/05/27/nueva-ley-electoral-de-honduras-no-garantiza-evitar-una-nueva-crisis-segun-analistas/

[37] See https://twitter.com/WHAAsstSecty/status/1395873650386014215

[38] “OEA califica como avance significativo aprobación de la nueva Ley Electoral de Honduras,”  https://proceso.hn/oea-califica-como-avance-significativo-aprobacion-de-la-nueva-ley-electoral-de-honduras/

[39] “Low integrity,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2017/december/low-integrity

[40] “GameChangers 2020: The Resurgence of the Central American Cocaine Highway,” https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/resurgence-central-american-cocaine-highway/

[41] “Balance de InSight Crime de los homicidios en 2020,” https://es.insightcrime.org/noticias/analisis/balance-insight-crime-homicidios-2020/

[42] See https://statistics.cepal.org/yearbook/2020/

[43] “Hurricane Eta hits the Mosquito Coast,” https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/november/hurricane-eta-hits-the-mosquito-coast

[44] See the OAS preliminary report at https://www.oas.org/es/centro_noticias/comunicado_prensa.asp?sCodigo=C-079/17

[45] “Objetivos y estrategias en el intento de golpe de Estado en 2018,” ​https://www.unan.edu.ni/index.php/articulos-entrevistas-reportajes/las-estrategias-en-el-intento-de-golpe-de-abril.odp

[46] See https://www.myrconsultores.com/nicaragua-rumbo-a-noviembre-2021/