Alina Duarte
Mexico City

Evo Morales, former President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and President of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba, was a special guest of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) during festivities marking the 212^th anniversary of Mexico’s independence. The other international guests included John and Gabriel Shipton, father and brother of journalist Julian Assange; family of the late farmworker and activist César Chávez; Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che Guevara; and former Uruguayan President “Pepe” Mujica.

On September 15 Morales witnessed President Andrés Manuel López Obrador calling out the cry for independence. In addition to the traditional “¡Viva México!” of the heroes of independence, AMLO yelled, “Death to corruption! Death to racism! Death to classism!”

The former President of Bolivia also stood on a balcony of the National Palace, where he received a standing ovation from the thousands of people attending the festivities. The next day, Morales was just a few yards away from the Mexican President when AMLO called for a five-year worldwide truce.

During his short visit, Evo Morales gave me a few minutes of his time to talk about Mexico, Latin America, lithium, and the present and future of our region.

After meeting with the Mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, Morales met with me at his hotel. He was in a hurry since his flight back to Bolivia was departing in a couple of hours. He gave a rushed greeting, sat down, took a breath, and while he was getting settled, I thanked him for taking the time to answer my questions.

Not one minute into the interview he said that he is in Mexico because he was invited by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

-Let’s cover that first, Evo. You are here precisely by invitation of President López Obrador. You were one of the big-name special guests to attend the Independence Day festivities. You were present when he issued the Cry of Independence—actually two events—the “cry” the night of September 15^th, and the parade on September 16^th, when President López Obrador gave a speech before a military parade, calling for a worldwide truce. The night before he had also called out “Death to Racism! Death to Classism!” etc. What do you think of all that?

-Andrés, the President of Mexico, is Andrés. This president has long been very humanistic, in solidarity, committed to poor families and their social programs. I met this President at his inauguration, and he greeted me saying, “my indigenous brother,” or something like that. After the coup d’etat he saved my life, he helped me, he helped us to return to democracy, along with other presidents such as the president of Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, President [Ernesto] Samper, [José Luis Rodríguez] Zapatero, even the President of Paraguay. And now I have been invited alongside my brother, Pepe Mujica. He invited me together with Julian Assange’s father and Che’s daughter, Aleida Guevara, and other guests. I am honored to participate and attend the Independence Day activities in Mexico.

On September 15th he surprised us by yelling “Death to racism! Death to Corruption! Death to Classism!” That is a strong message, but also a message of integration. I continue to think that some day we will have a plurinational Americas, of peoples for the people. Not America in the sense that the Americans say: “All of Latin America is the backyard of the United States.” What did we hear from the US Southern Command two or three weeks ago? They are concerned about Lithium. But what is more, they consider Latin America to be a neighborhood of the United States. It pains us to still hear these kinds of messages in the 21^st century. There are new leaders, such as my brother Andrés with his proposals. We heard an interesting message, a proposed [global] truce to avoid conflict, and above all, the financial crises that are leading the United States to use NATO to intervene militarily and surround Russia, provoking that armed conflict.

-And in that speech, Evo, President López Obrador said that he proposes a five-year worldwide truce “to address the major, serious economic and social problems that afflict and torment our peoples.” The proposal, which he says Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard will formally present to the UN, “seeks the immediate suspension of military actions and provocations as well as military and missile tests.” It would seek to form a committee to foster dialogue between Russia and Ukraine, for which he even said he would propose the inclusion of Pope Francis and Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, and on behalf of the UN, Secretary General Antonio Gutérrez.” What message does this send outside Mexico?

-First, it shows that our brother and President of Mexico is concerned about the situation with food and energy, that he is concerned with life and humanity. It is a good proposal deserving of our admiration. In fact, it surprised me and I think it surprised everyone, the idea of a truce with mediators from India, Pope Francis, the United Nations, and surely Mexico would also be with the initiative. We salute it and support it and hopefully the whole world will listen to it. I wish that NATO would stop attacking and encircling countries when they do not submit to the empire—that is the underlying issue. I heard that there was a big meeting today with China, India, I’m not sure whether it is with Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Russia. Hopefully it will go well and some light will be shed on how to attain peace, but with social justice.

-I think that these invitations President López Obrador is extending to you and other people are important. He might not have been able to do so four years ago when he came into office, but things have changed regionally. What is your assessment of the role that Mexico is playing in the region with all these issues you have put on the table, including at the global level?

-I feel that there is a democratic rebellion underway throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Two, three years ago there was the Lima Group to overthrow [Nicolás] Maduro. Where is the Lima Group today? Who made up the Lima Group? The former presidents of Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and particularly of Colombia.

-Now they are all gone…

-There is no more Lima Group. Look, after we founded UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) with [Hugo] Chávez, with Lula [da Silva], with [Rafael] Correa, and with [Néstor] Kirschner and other presidents (I very much regret that some parties have become submissive to the Empire), the Lima Group was able to, I would say temporarily, paralyze UNASUR. But together with [Hugo] Chávez and Fidel [Castro] we created CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States). But [Barak] Obama and other U.S. presidents responded to this integration proposal by organizing the Pacific Alliance to maintain the policies of the Washington Consensus or the FTAA.

Now I am wondering, where is the Pacific Alliance? These institutions or organizations that only serve to uphold U.S. policies have been defeated with this democratic rebellion.

-Such as the OAS [Organization of American States]…

-Of course, but in addition, imagine it! I am almost certain that our brother Lula will win (in Brazil) in next month’s election; plus Mexico—that is a great strategic alliance for all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It gives us great hope.

Fifty or 60 years ago, at least, we saw how Cuba was expelled from the OAS. Then countries were afraid of getting expelled from the OAS. Now it is a source of dignified pride to leave the OAS. We have a responsibility to relaunch CELAC in order to truly ensure integration—but not just of heads of state—of their peoples.

-Speaking of Latin America, I want to explore this further because some people call it the second cycle of progressive governments. Others talk about some unique characteristics. The truth is that there is a trend, not only in their discourse, but also in their actions, that are clearly anti-neoliberal and anti-imperialist. We see this with the victory of Gustavo Petro together with Francia Márquez in Colombia. It is important that figures like yourself pointed out that the two of them together made the victory possible, not just Petro. We also have elections in just a few days in Brazil and we see Lula da Silva with great chances of returning. How do you perceive today’s Latin America?

-First, all of the doctrines of empire have collapsed. Where is the Cold War? Where is the War on Terrorism? Why am I saying this? Now, parties of political movements, social movements with socialist tendencies and principles, with communist doctrines, are getting elected to the presidency. This did not exist before; it was only Cuba.

Terrorists… for the Empire, who are the terrorists? Social movements. I recall in 2002 U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha telling people “Don’t vote for Evo Morales; Evo Morales is an Andean Bin Laden and the coca growers are the Taliban.”  He said, “Don’t vote that way, if you vote for Evo, there will be no aid or investment.” What a lie! In 2005 government expenditure was US$1.6 billion. In the last years I was in office before the coup, we programmed more than US$8 billion in government expenditure.

So we “terrorists” are now presidents. [Gabriel] Boric was a student leader; Pedro Castillo who was a rural patrolman or “rondero” and a leader of the teachers’ union, is now president. It was hard, but we won. I feel that the U.S. doctrine is falling to pieces. Look, some of our brothers even took up arms for their liberation 200 years after the founding of their republics, and now they are presidents, such as Daniel Ortega and Gustavo Petro. And some of us organize in social movements and some even took up arms, which I don’t support so much, but the people make it right and time will tell. But what is the danger that I see? When the Empire is in decay it resorts to violence. I do not want to think this but it is what happened to Cristina Fernández a few weeks ago. When the Empire loses its hegemony, it resorts to weapons. For that reason, I think we need to take advantage of this moment to armor ourselves, so that right-wing governments submissive to imperialism never return.

-At another point in time, talking about U.S. interference in the region was viewed as conspiracy theory, a myth, although how they orchestrate destabilization and coups d’etat has been extensively documented. We saw the social uprising in Chile; in Brazil they were liberating Lula but at the same time they were cooking up a coup d’etat in Bolivia. It is now three years since that coup. What is your view of the recovery of democracy in Bolivia, and what are the specific challenges of a right-wing which, as we have seen, has not given up its attempts to destabilize a democratically elected government, in this case, the government of Luis Arce?

-I look at the consciousness of the people. The MAS-IPSP (Movement Toward Socialism-Political Instrument for Sovereignty of the Peoples) has a political, economic, and social agenda beyond the bicentennial. The MAS-IPSP is the largest movement in the history of Bolivia, and it is headed by the indigenous movement. We in the indigenous movement have inherited our history; we have inherited the struggle going back to colonial times. We were threatened with extermination and hated during the days of the Republic, even though we engaged in a political movement to liberate all of Bolivia. I remember perfectly well that in 2005 our platform was based on three points: politically, the re-founding of the nation through the Constitutional Assembly; economically, the nationalization of natural resources and also basic resources; and socially, the redistribution of wealth. We made a lot of history in a short period of time. But there, the underlying theme, sister journalist, is that in addition to being gringos against Indians, the coup was against two things. First, it was against our economic model. The Empire does not accept new economic models that are better than the economic model of neoliberalism as dictated by capitalism. So, it was against our economic model.

And what was the basis of our economic model? The nationalization of our natural resources, but it also started with their industrialization, above all, the industrialization of lithium. You as a journalist know how many messages and evidence there was that the United States caused a coup d’etat over lithium. England had financed the coup over lithium. Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, acknowledged his interests in the Uyuni Salt Flats and there was a coup d’etat.

What is happening should unite all of us much more. It is not only over lithium, over petroleum, over gas, or over natural resources. This is the struggle of humanity. Who do the natural resources belong to? Private parties to loot them for their transnational corporations? Or to the peoples of the world to exploit them for our States, for our governments? Of course, we need to tap into our natural resources while caring for the environment.

-Talking about the United States, Evo, you point out that the coup against you was to get the lithium, something that has been demonstrated, and this is nothing new for the United States to come after the natural resources of Latin America. But the people of Mexico are much more interested in this now that the López Obrador administration has decided to create its own company to industrialize lithium. In early August we read the news that the Bolivian and Mexican governments were trying to establish a partnership, not to sell lithium as a raw material—which is what the major powers want—but a partnership, essentially, to industrialize lithium. What did all of this mean for your administration and particularly what role did it play in the coup d’etat?

-I am a witness to that. In 2010 I was invited to visit South Korea. The job of the president is to do good business for the people. We signed some big agreements and they invited me to look at a new lithium battery industrial plant, which was beautiful. I asked them how much it cost, and the answer was “US$300 million.” At that time, our reserves were growing and we had US$10, US$11 billion in international reserves. I thought, “I can guarantee the US$300 million.” I told the Koreans, “We can build a plant just like it in Bolivia and I can guarantee the investment.” They said, “No, no, no.” And I have many other such memories. That was when I realized that, unfortunately, the industrialized countries only like us if we guarantee raw materials for them.

So then what did I do with Alvaro [García Linera], the vice-president? We started with laboratories, with a pilot plant in the great lithium industry. We hired experts for the laboratories. By the time we did the pilot plant, the young people had already learned and we had a beautiful project. And we decided that foreigners could not be involved in the extraction. Regarding markets, there are agreements and there is no problem.

-(Evo leafs through various media reports around the time of the coup d’Etat against him in 2019 and reads off some of the headlines.)

–Where is that article? November 20, 2019, a few days after the coup d’Etat, “Coup in Bolivia Smells of Lithium,” first-hand report. “Trump Applauds Departure of Morales under Pressure from the Army.” Unfortunately, then the military commanders turned. “Why might the United States be behind the coup in Bolivia?” Senator Richard Black explains that it is over lithium. “U.S. Senator assures that the United States intervened over Lithium.” And that is why the owner of Tesla, the electric car company, said, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” This shows who financed the coup mongers in Bolivia. Last year it was reported, “United Kingdom supported the coup in Bolivia to access its ‘white gold,’” lithium. And they had invested, they had financed it; it was not just their verbal support. That is why in the days of coup the British ambassador was in continuous meetings with the opposition, with the coup plotters.

We have a gold mine here, “The price of lithium went up from US$4,450 per ton of lithium carbonate in 2012, to US$17,000 per ton in 2021,” last year. [Now,] in just a ten-year period it has reached US$78,000 per ton of lithium carbonate!

-In this regard, what message can you send to the government and people of Mexico, thinking that one of the paths chosen has been to nationalize lithium?

-I salute my brother President and the government of Mexico for saying that the lithium belongs to the Mexican people. I understand that it has now been nationalized. How beautiful it would be if Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile were together on this. But in Chile it is totally in private hands; in Argentina, hopefully they can recover it. But in Bolivia and Mexico we should form a strategic partnership to industrialize our lithium.

And I remain convinced, sister journalist, that some countries of Latin America will become powerhouses in something, and we could become lithium powers, with tremendous prices. And they are going to continue to go up. Each of us and our governments have this task. I celebrate the fact that President “Lucho” Arce of Bolivia met with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico. The technical teams are at work. They were asking me what technical people we have. We must share work experiences. We have good technicians; we have learned a lot. We have to come together to launch our industrialization of lithium, but it must be led by our governments. A State controlled by the people, not the usual way of turning it over to transnational corporations; we do not agree with that. In our experience, the nationalization of our natural resources and of strategic companies, helped us change the image of Bolivia quite a bit.

-And, finally, Evo, I do not want to let you go without saying that I saw your arrival in Zacatecas, where you were given a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Zacatecas. We can now call you “Dr. Evo.” Tell me about it.

-Last year they invited me to come and receive some recognition. This year, with this invitation from President Andrés Manuel, I decided to take advantage of my visit to go to Zacatecas. Thanks to the Autonomous University of Zacatecas I was able to meet with the social movements, the peasant Indigenous movement, teachers, some political parties, and also the governor of Zacatecas. The recognition that I received is for the social movements and the Indigenous movement in particular. Without them, I would never have become president, and I thank the university and several comrades for taking this initiative. We talked quite a bit and I visited a mining area. In addition, it is a very interesting colonial town and we have a good relationship. I hope I never lose those relationships of so much trust, to open them up to humble people. Thank you very much.

-Thank you so much for your time, Evo. We hope that you will come back for other occasions, and more often. Thank you for this dialogue.

 

Alina Duarte is a journalist and Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, COHA.

This interview was edited by COHA Director Patricio Zamorano.

Translation by Rita Jill Clark-Gollub, COHA Assistant Editor/Translator

[Main photo credit: Alina Duarte]

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] 

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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 Patrick Synan
Boston

As the trial of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández proceeds,^[1] as Guatemalan Attorney General María Consuelo Porras begins her controversial second term,^[2] and as the state of exception in El Salvador enters its 3rd month^[3], progressive members of Congress and the Senate maintain concerns about police and military funding for governments in the Northern Triangle.

In April, 11 Representatives signed a letter to House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chair Barbara Lee requesting an end to funds promised under the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI).^[4] This follows a bill introduced in the Senate calling for a 5-year suspension of U.S. aid to Honduras. Presently, neither motion has enough support to move forward.^[5]

CARSI failed to improve security

The reasons for such proposals merit consideration. The primary concern listed in each document is the fragility of human rights in the region, but the letter to the State and Foreign Operations subcommittee also explicitly addresses costs. CARSI is expensive and counterproductive, it argues. Literature from human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW)^[6] and The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights supports these claims.^[7]

According to John Lindsay-Poland, who has researched the sale of U.S. arms in Latin America for decades, “evidence is strong that CARSI failed to improve security for people in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, as evidenced by the massive numbers of people who fled during the period of CARSI, at great risk, and that instead CARSI strengthened corrupt anti-democratic governments in those countries. Most of the funds did not go to military and police forces, but benefited economic elites there. Whether CARSI caused the worsening situation or not, it’s at the least been a waste of funds.”^[8]

Meanwhile, those who find value in CARSI’s continuation argue that its problems are more nuanced. Charles Call, non-resident Senior Fellow at Brookings, calls it “cherry picking to pull out CARSI (…) separate from the overall engagement with Central America.” According to Call, a more holistic review of U.S. policy in the region reveals “an approach that is highly technical and ignores the political dimension.”^[9]

CARSI began as the Central American component of the Mérida Initiative in the last year of the Bush administration, but it was rebranded shortly after Obama took office.^[10] According to the State Department one-pager, its objectives were to:

• Create safe streets for the citizens of the region;
• Disrupt the movement of criminals and contraband to, within, and between the nations of Central America;
• Support the development of strong, capable, and accountable Central American governments;
• Re-establish effective state presence, services and security in communities at risk; and
• Foster enhanced levels of coordination and cooperation between the nations of the region, other international partners, and donors to combat regional security threats.^[11]

The multi-million-dollar aid package remains in effect, despite over a decade of deteriorating human rights conditions, ongoing border insecurity and the consolidation of criminal infrastructure in much of the region.

Real accountability, non-existent

In Honduras, while the new presidency of Xiomara Castro is a positive development, the state bureaucracy remains occupied by countless Hernández loyalists^.[12] In Guatemala, President Giamattei has reappointed Attorney General Consuelo Porras after her first term produced the arrest or exile of nearly every anti-corruption or anti-impunity investigator working at the national level, most notably special prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval^.[13] In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele has embarked on a project of dismantling democratic institutions like the Supreme Court^[14] and strengthening the state’s security apparatus, most recently through the state of exception, which enables law enforcement to jail arbitrarily.^[15] Each of the three countries receives millions in U.S. military and police aid each year through CARSI, but no serious accountability measures exist to ensure this money is used to accurately identify, capture, and fairly prosecute the perpetrators of serious crimes.

The U.S. federal government has been conspicuously critical of each country in the past year. Vicepresident Kamala Harris voiced her disapproval when Bukele fired Supreme Court judges and the country’s chief prosecutor.^[16] Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced the government’s designation of Consuelo Porras as a “corrupt and undemocratic actor” earlier this month.^[17] Meanwhile, the Department of Justice’s indictment of former President Juan Orlando Hernández alleges he “corrupted the legitimate institutions of Honduras, including parts of the Honduran National Police, military, and National Congress.”^[18] Nonetheless, despite U.S. concern, designations, or outright criminal charges, the State Department’s police and military funding for regimes in the Northern Triangle has risen steadily.

Honduras

The case of U.S. funding for the Honduran military and police is particularly curious. CARSI coincided with the country’s 12-year descent into lawlessness. The State Department, meanwhile, never made a move to turn off the faucet.

The total disintegration of the rule of law in Honduras began abruptly on June 28, 2009 when then-president Manuel Zelaya was removed from office in a military coup. Zelaya’s increasingly progressive policies were not favored by the landed elite and corporate interests operating in the region. In the year leading up to his ouster, he had unilaterally ordered a 60% increase in the minimum wage and issued a public opinion survey on whether to form a Constituent Assembly^.[19] His removal ushered in 12 years of illegitimate rule by the conservative National Party, whose leaders famously declared Honduras was “open for business”^[20] shortly after coming to power.

The degree to which the U.S. State Department was complicit in the coup is debatable. By referring to the ouster as only a coup and not a military coup, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton performed a delicate legal maneuver to avoid placing the United States in a predicament where by law Congress was obligated to withhold military funding.^[21] Authors like Alexandra Gale at COHA have remarked on the United States’ “selective indignation” towards dictatorships in Latin America, arguing that “Washington has endorsed (…) a range of military dictatorships in Panama, Honduras, and Guatemala, when they were seen as strategic geopolitical allies.”^[22] By not condemning the Honduran coup, the U.S. continued to sponsor a regime that deliberately engaged in human rights abuses for the sake of international business.

In the 1996 HRW World Report, Honduras received substantial praise for “establishing accountability for gross human rights violations that occurred in the 1980s.”^[23] Also in the Honduras section of the report are seven paragraphs dedicated to U.S. policy. This subsection opens by reiterating that Honduras “has taken important and courageous steps to account for the horrific history of Battalion 3-16,” the CIA-trained unit of the Honduran army responsible for a litany of high-profile political assassinations. It then admonishes the U.S., which “has still to do the same.”

This is the last time Honduras appears in a World Report until 2010, a year after the military ouster of Manuel Zelaya, the country’s last democratically elected president at the time, and over a year after CARSI was instated. The nature of the abuses described in subsequent reports progressively worsens; furthermore, each new edition devotes increased text to address prior violations that had not previously been revealed. One particularly enlightening case takes place in the Bajo Aguán valley, in eastern Honduras. According to the 2012 Report:

“More than 30 people were killed between January and August 2011 in the Bajo Aguán valley, a fertile palm oil-producing zone in northern Honduras. A long-simmering land conflict erupted in May when peasants occupied land being cultivated by large privately owned agricultural enterprises. Many victims were members of peasant associations who were allegedly gunned down by security guards working for the enterprises. In addition, four security guards were shot and killed in August 2011, when individuals armed with assault rifles and other arms reportedly tried to take over a ranch. In the absence of criminal investigation, the circumstances of each incident remained unclear. By September no one had been charged for the killings in the Bajo Aguán region.”^[24]

The 2013 Report on the Bajo Aguán is virtually a repeat of 2012, only the victim tally was doubled.^[25] In the 2014 Report, the 2012 number was tripled.^[26] By 2015, after less than a year of the Hernández administration, the case of the Bajo Aguán was replaced by a general section about population displacement, which owes largely to a concern that doesn’t appear in prior World Report analyses of Honduras: gang violence.^[27]

A survey of HRW Reports on Honduras reveals two key points: one, that CARSI funding was practically simultaneous with the breakdown of security in Honduras, which law enforcement was either unsuccessful in preventing or actively promoting; two, the emergence of rampant gang violence in Honduras was a post-CARSI phenomenon, which contradicts the State Department’s allegations that such funding was necessary to stop it.

Honduras drew unprecedented attention from other watchdog organizations as well. Prior to the coup, Honduras had not featured on the Inter-American Commission on Human RIghts’ annual reports for nearly a quarter of a century, its last appearance pertaining to an individual case of citizenship dispute and a case of two missing persons.^[28] By contrast, the IACHR covered post-coup Honduras for 5 consecutive years and returned to include it in its 2016 and 2021 reports. Furthermore, the IACHR published 4 observation reports on Honduras in 2009, 2010, 2015 and 2019.

Predictably, each of the reports addresses the illegitimacy of the coup regime and the escalation of violence in the Bajo Aguán. However, certain sections of these texts go on to address the systemic changes that took place to consolidate the National Party’s control in spite of widespread popular resentment. A 2015 observation report expressed concern over the weakened legitimacy of the police and the increasing presence of military forces throughout the country:

“The national police have lost the trust of citizens due to a lack of effective response, allegations of corruption, and links to organized crime. For this reason, the State has focused its efforts on legal and institutional reforms through which the Armed Forces have been gaining participation in functions that do not necessarily correspond to their nature, related, for example, to regular citizen security tasks. Various actors interviewed during the visit referred to the existence of a growing process of militarization to address insecurity, and therefore a greater presence of the military in the areas of greatest conflict, as well as an “open fight against organized crime,” without a clear process to strengthen the national police. Within this framework, the Military Police was created, as well as a group of judges and prosecutors of national jurisdiction whose objective is to accompany the Military Police to ensure that their actions are framed by law. These judges and prosecutors do not have sufficient guarantees of independence and impartiality to hear known human rights violations by members of said Police. Based on its analysis, the IACHR has identified a series of concerns, among others, that military forces carry out activities that do not imply the defense of the country but rather enforce the law, issues that should correspond to the police.”^[29]

The expansion of military power and purview in Honduras is one of the ways in which the National Party has maintained its political influence in spite of the leftward agenda of the newly elected Castro administration. It is also a source of concern when it comes to the current government’s stability. Allison Lira, director of the Honduras program for the Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective, says, “there continues to be a very serious risk of another coup in Honduras…the military structure is still very much aligned with the interests that led to the [2009] coup in the first place.”^[30] Essential to the Honduran military structure, of course, is the economic support it receives from the United States through programs like CARSI.

Guatemala

Guatemala, typically the largest recipient of CARSI funds,^[31] has appeared yearly on the World Report since the 1990’s. Prior to 2010, reports generally portrayed a society engaged in a hard struggle to heal after decades of civil war. However, a continuing feature of this struggle was the state’s inability to hold the military accountable for crimes against civilians. Reports from 2006 to 2009 open with virtually the same five paragraphs:

“A dozen years after the end of Guatemala’s brutal civil war, impunity remains the norm when it comes to human rights violations. Ongoing violence and intimidation threaten to reverse the little progress that has been made toward promoting accountability. Guatemala’s weak and corrupt law enforcement institutions have proved incapable of containing the powerful organized crime groups that, among other things, are believed to be responsible for attacks on human rights defenders, judges, prosecutors, and others.

Guatemala continues to suffer the effects of an internal armed conflict that ended in 1996. A United Nations-sponsored truth commission estimated that as many as 200,000 people were killed during the 36-year war, and attributed the vast majority of the killings to government forces.

Guatemalans seeking accountability for these abuses face daunting obstacles. Prosecutors and investigators receive grossly inadequate training and resources. The courts routinely fail to resolve judicial appeals and motions in a timely manner, allowing defense attorneys to engage in dilatory legal maneuvering. The army and other state institutions resist cooperating fully with investigations into abuses committed by current or former members. And the police regularly fail to provide adequate protection to judges, prosecutors, and witnesses involved in politically sensitive cases.

Of the 626 massacres documented by the truth commission, only three cases have been successfully prosecuted in the Guatemalan courts. The third conviction came in May 2008, when five former members of a paramilitary “civil patrol” were convicted for the murders of 26 of the 177 civilians massacred in Rio Negro in 1982.

The July 2005 discovery of approximately 80 million documents of the disbanded National Police, including files on Guatemalans who were murdered and “disappeared” during the armed conflict, could play a key role in the prosecution of those who committed human rights abuses during the conflict. By October 2008 …the country’s Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office had processed seven million of those documents, primarily related to cases presently under active investigation. The office plans to open the first part of the archive in 2009.”^[32]

Each of these documents identifies a perpetually weak judicial system and frightened civil societies fumbling in the shadow of an untouchable military and police force. Furthermore, the nearly identical text over four years suggests that no immediate improvements were likely without international pressure. But it isn’t obvious how channeling funds to an army that “resist[s] cooperating” and police who “routinely fail to provide adequate protection” would solve these issues. Subsequent reports do not tell a tale of success.

Far from being a repeat of the previous four years, the 2010 World Report shows an even further decline in the state of human rights in Guatemala. The summary of the section reads:

“Guatemala’s weak and corrupt law enforcement institutions have proved incapable of containing the powerful organized crime groups and criminal gangs that contribute to Guatemala having one the highest violent crime rates in the Americas. Illegal armed groups, which appear to have evolved in part from counterinsurgency forces operating during the civil war that ended in 1996, are believed to be responsible for targeted attacks on civil society actors and justice officials. More than a decade after the end of the conflict, impunity remains the norm when it comes to human rights violations. The ongoing violence and intimidation threaten to reverse the little progress that has been made toward promoting accountability.”^[33]

Rather than aiding military and law enforcement officials in addressing violence and organized crime, CARSI coincided with the strengthening of “illegal armed groups” with ties to military forces. The 2011 Report describes military efforts to address gang violence resulting in “social cleansing.” In other words, the detention and/or disappearance of union organizers and social activists,^[34] The 2012 Report describes similar activity.^[35]

According to the 2013 Report, “President Otto Pérez Molina (…) increasingly used the Guatemalan military in public security operations, despite the serious human rights violations it committed during the country’s civil war.”^[36] This tendency was identified again in 2014^.[37] In 2015, HRW found that a force of 20,000 armed service members was active in a country whose territory measures 42,000 square miles.^[38]

In a 2015 observation report, the IACHR echoes HRW’s concerns about the state’s overreliance on the military to address domestic security challenges; in response it recommends a “return to the police reform agenda, specifically the plan named ‘The Police We Want.’”^[39] This is a particularly intriguing recommendation because “The Police We Want” is published by USAID, the organization through which CARSI funds are channeled. However, further IACHR reporting offers no indication that its recommendation was followed.

The USAID plan was supposed to operate from 2012 to 2020, but in 2014 a new framework for police reform emerged. The Integral Police Model for Community Security (MOPSIC) prioritized community-oriented policing (COP). According to Arturo Matute of the University of the Valley of Guatemala, it was popular among some of the largest foreign aid organizations operating in Guatemala.

“The donor community has backed preventive strategies in the police through the years, including the development of MOPSIC. The U.S. has provided the largest amounts of financial support through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).”^[40]

Despite the promising nature of the framework, however, the rollout of MOPSIC has been weak. Matute observes that presently, “police agents are scarcely trained in it.”^[41]

Despite the inefficacy of police reform, there were some advances in the justice system between 2013 and 2019. The World Reports during this timeframe applaud a series of high-level convictions. In 2013, former president Efrain Ríos Montt was found guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide. In 2015, Otto Pérez Molina was implicated in a tax fraud scandal and resigned. The major force behind this discovery was the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-led investigative team operating in Guatemala since 2006 with a mandate to examine high level corruption cases. The 2016 World Report acknowledged this significant step forward along with restrictions on U.S. aid to Guatemala under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 (this provision had a limited effect on CARSI funds).^[42] For a few short years, accountability appeared on the horizon.

The IACHR also expressed some cautious optimism in its 2015 report, writing: “ The IACHR notes changes in favor of a society committed with human rights, promoted by the work of public officials compromised with justice and human rights defenders as well as social leaders. The support of international human rights agencies, as well as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG, for its acronym in Spanish), has been critical to those efforts.”^[43]

The momentum dissipated, however, in 2018 when Jimmy Morales “flanked by military and police officers, announced that he would not renew CICIG’s mandate when it expire[d] (…) in September 2019. The following week, he announced that he had prohibited CICIG Commissioner Iván Velásquez—who was on a work trip abroad—from re-entering the country.”^[44] This was the beginning of a political purge that only advanced in both speed and intensity during the Giamattei administration under the Attorney Generalship of Consuelo Porras.

The current state of Guatemala is quite grim. Far from witnessing a reduction in crime and gang violence since CARSI was first enacted (despite the package’s stated purpose of addressing these problems), the country now faces a regime dedicated to erasing the branches of state that could make any positive difference. Like Secretary Blinken, the most recent HRW World Report condemns the dissolution of anti-corruption institutions by Consuelo Porras and Giamattei. Neither the White House nor Human Rights Watch, however, mentions the uninterrupted flow of military funding.^[45]

El Salvador

Until recently, El Salvador has hardly featured in the yearly reports from HRW and the IACHR. The reasons for this gap are unclear. However, reports from 2019 onward illustrate a disappointing decline in the state of human rights, largely perpetrated by the state, despite ongoing funding from the United States.

The 2019 HRW World Report reads a lot like the reports from Guatemala and Honduras with respect to the deployment of the military in domestic affairs. It also addresses the discrepancies that abound in the state’s system of reporting deaths at the hands of security forces.

Since taking office in 2014, President Salvador Sánchez Cerén has expanded the military’s role in public security operations, despite a 1992 peace accord stipulation that it not be involved in policing. Killings of alleged gang members by security forces in supposed “armed confrontations” increased from 142 in 2013 to 591 in 2016.^[46]

The placement of the phrase “armed confrontations” in quotes presumably refers to a reporting phenomenon in El Salvador, where practically any death at the hands of police was identified as the result of a confrontation, even when the victims were not in any position to defend themselves. El Faro editor Oscar Martínez details some of these curious blunders in his most recent book, Los muertos y el periodista, saying that “any ‘confrontation’ where no police were injured or they didn’t give access to the crime scene was a massacre.”^[47] In three years, the number of Salvadorans killed in operations of this kind more than quadrupled.

At the same time, U.S. bilateral aid to El Salvador appears to have escalated in kind. In 1996, HRW identified a decline in U.S. assistance, with $27 million being spent between the years 1992 and 1995 on the nascent peace process, whereas the 2019 Report estimated $42 million was delivered in the prior fiscal year alone^[48]. Much of this funding was withheld in 2019, according to the Government Accountability Office, which states that CARSI was cut by over 176 million dollars to penalize El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for the migrant crisis. GAO documentation, however, only identifies staffing cuts for non-State/non-INL projects. As far as program cuts, the percentage of funding withheld from social programs is nearly twice that withheld from State/INL programs.^[49] The 2021 World Report subtly addresses this discrepancy when it notes that “the U.S. appropriated over $72 million in bilateral aid to El Salvador, particularly to reduce extreme violence and strengthen state institutions [italics added]” in the previous fiscal year, up from $62 million the year before.^[50]

Despite steadily increasing security aid, the 2020 World Report once again identifies a rise in “confrontation” killings, stating that: “Salvadoran police and soldiers killed 1,626 people from 2010 through 2017. Authorities claimed that more than 90 percent of the victims were gang members and that nearly all were killed in ‘confrontations.’”^[51] The IACHR published similar findings in its 2021 report, claiming:

“Civil society organizations have stated that, within the last five years, at least 2,173 armed clashes have been recorded, which have led to the death of 1,930 people. Out of these casualties, 96.8 percent were citizens who were identified as gang members according to the official sources. By the end of 2019, the number of recorded conflicts since 2014 rose to 2,514, in which 2,025 people died, out of whom 1,957 were civilians and 68 were police or military officers. In addition to the high number of civilians killed when compared to the number of state agents who were murdered over the same period of time, according to an analysis carried out by the University Observatory for Human Rights of the Central American University, the fatality rate in these clashes was alarming and “clearly indicative of the excessive use of lethal force. Thus (…) the number of dead people (193) was allegedly higher than the number of injured people (76) among those identified as ‘criminals or gang members.’”^[52]

The 2021 World Report notes significant declines in homicides, but simultaneously remarks on egregious attacks on democratic processes and institutions. The introduction describes how then newly elected president Nayib Bukele “entered the Legislative Assembly with armed soldiers in an apparent effort to intimidate legislators into approving a loan for security forces.”^[53] The 2022 World Report details the nature of Bukele’s assault on the judicial sector, explaining that he “removed and replaced all five judges of the Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber, as well as the attorney general (…) appointed five new judges to the Supreme Court, in violation of the process established in the constitution (…) [and] passed two laws dismissing all judges and prosecutors over 60 years of age or with 30 or more years of service.”^[54]

Bukele is not the military or the police, but his repeated and drastic power grabs consolidate his control over how these forces are deployed. His influence thus far over law enforcement is ethically dubious. El Faro, one of the most established Salvadoran press agencies, has linked the lowered homicide rate in 2020 to negotiations between government leaders and gang leaders who received protections, privileges, and in some cases even freedom.^[55] The 2023 Report is likely to address the state of exception and the unprecedented rise in homicides that directly preceded it.

Rooting Out Corruption

“It’s not at all true that an increase in human rights violations is due to CARSI,” says Professor Call. The problem, in his view, is corruption and the slowness of U.S.-led efforts to recognize and penalize it; the aid itself, however, is a gesture of goodwill, without which peace in the region would be far more challenging to secure. As for the Senate bill to suspend aid to Honduras, Call says, “it’s stupid, period,” adding that the newly-elected Castro government is “moving in the right direction.”^[56]

Call’s perspective is emblematic of the more moderate view that is likely to prevail in Congress when the budget for FY23 is passed: the dedication of funds to governments in the Northern Triangle is an otiose debate topic for most U.S. policymakers; among moderates, the more appropriate question is how to root out bad actors, whose actions dilute the efficacy of programs funded by plans like CARSI.

A number of arguably effective measures exist, such as indictments and extradition, the Engel list, support and expansion of DEA-vetted units, community violence prevention (CVP) programs, and more frequent and thorough reviews of the kinds of military and police training programs the U.S. pays for in Central America. The extent to which such measures can be fully executed is limited by certain key factors. “It’s just unfortunate,” Call states, “the attorney general in all three countries is not someone who’s committed to fighting corruption (…) and is quite committed to impunity in Guatemala and El Salvador.”^[57] So far, the Engel list has not weakened commitments of this kind.

According to former U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, Stephen Macfarland, however, it’s still too soon to draw any conclusions about the efficacy of U.S. policy in Central America. In an interview in February with CNN en español, he explained:

“The warning signs [in Guatemala] have gone basically unheard by politicians and shamefully the economic elite. If one thinks of what has happened in Honduras with Juan Orlando Hernández, all that is an investigation that did not begin with (…) the president, but rather with other drug traffickers (…) during three consecutive governments in the United States, that investigation went on. So Guatemalans need to ask themselves: how different are they from Honduras? I would say, in many respects, Guatemala is worse.”^[58]

Macfarland implies that impunity has a lifespan, and like former president Hernández of Honduras, Guatemalan president Giamattei and his administration will one day face justice themselves. Bukele, as well. It’s a matter of time and patience. For the Senators and Congresspeople calling to suspend CARSI funding, however, time and patience have run out.

---

Sources

^[1] “Juan Orlando Hernández: Honduran ex-leader pleads not guilty”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-61393266.amp

^[2] “Guatemalan prosecutor labeled corrupt by U.S. gets tapped for new term”, https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/guatemalan-prosecutor-labeled-corrupt-by-us-gets-tapped-new-term-2022-05-17/

^[3] “El Salvador extends state of emergency amid gang crackdown”, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/26/el-salvador-extends-state-of-emergency-amid-gang-crackdown

^[4] “Letter to Chairwoman Lee”, https://cispes.org/sites/default/files/quill_-_letter_l3588_-_suspend_security_assistance_to_northern_triangle_in_fy23_-_version_1_-_04-26-2022_11-14_am.pdf

^[5] “S.388 – Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act of 2021”, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/388

^[6] This article examines World Reports from the 1990’s up to the present day and finds an overall decline in the state of human rights in the Northern Triangle. An archive of HRW World Reports is accessible at https://www.hrw.org/previous-world-reports

^[7] This article also considers the less frequently published yet far deeper analyses of the human rights situations in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala issued by the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights; it finds police and military repression are consolidated practices in each state and inevitably result in the denial of basic freedoms, including the right to life.

^[8] Correspondence with the author

^[9] Interview with the author.

^[10] “MÉRIDA INITIATIVE The United States Has Provided Counternarcotics and Anticrime Support but Needs Better Performance Measures”, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-10-837.pdf

^[11] “The Central American Regional Security Initiative: A Shared Partnership”, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/183768.pdf

^[12] “How Honduras’s Congress Split in Two”, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/01/honduras-congress-split-crisis-xiomara-castro-inauguration-corruption-libre-national-party/

^[13] “Guatemala’s Former Top Anti-Graft Prosecutor Decries Arrest Warrant”, https://insightcrime.org/news/guatemalas-former-top-anti-graft-prosecutor-decries-arrest-warrant/

^[14] “US concerned over removal of top Salvadoran judges”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56970026.amp

^[15] “El Salvador Declares State of Exception in Response to Wave of Murders”, https://www.coha.org/el-salvador-declares-state-of-exception-in-response-to-wave-of-murders/

^[16] “Kamala Harris Rejects Actions of the President of El Salvador”, https://www.telesurenglish.net/amp/news/US-Rejects-Democracy-Violations-In-El-Salvador-20210503-0003.html

^[17] “Designation of Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras Argueta de Porres for Involvement in Significant Corruption and Consideration of Additional Designations”, https://www.state.gov/designation-of-attorney-general-maria-consuelo-porras-argueta-de-porres-for-involvement-in-significant-corruption-and-consideration-of-additional-designations/

^[18] “United States of America v. Juan Orlando Hernández”, https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1496096/download

^[19] Cunha Filho CM, Coelho AL, Pérez Flores FI. A right-to-left policy switch? An analysis of the Honduran case under Manuel Zelaya. International Political Science Review. 2013;34(5): 526.

^[20] “Honduras is Open for Business”, https://www.coha.org/honduras-is-open-for-business/

^[21] “González: Hillary Clinton’s policy was a Latin American crime story”, https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gonzalez-clinton-policy-latin-american-crime-story-article-1.2598456

^[22] “The State Department’s Selective Indignation to Undemocratic Elections in Latin America”, https://www.coha.org/the-state-departments-inconsistent-and-ineffective-response-to-the-undemocratic-proliferating-through-latin-america/

^[23] “Human RIghts Watch World Report 1996”,  https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/WR96/Americas-08.htm#P719_175896

^[24] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2012”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2012

^[25] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2013”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013

^[26] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2014”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014

^[27] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2015”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015

^[28] “Informe Anual de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos 1984-1985”, http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/84.85sp/Indice.htm

^[29] “Situación de derechos humanos en Honduras”, ​​https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/informes/pdfs/Honduras-es-2015.pdf

^[30] Mendez Gutierrez, Maria José, “Delegation Report Back: Lessons from Central American Resistance & Diasporic Solidarity,” Youtube video, 5:11, posted by “closethesoa,” May 24, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiImEOIRJr8

^[31] “CARSI IN GUATEMALA: Progress, Failure, and Uncertainty”, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/CARSI%20in%20Guatemala.pdf

^[32] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2009”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2009

^[33] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2009”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2010

^[34] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2011”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2011

^[35] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2012”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2012

^[36] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2013”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2013

^[37] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2014”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014

^[38] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2015”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015

^[39] “Situación de derechos humanos en Guatemala: diversidad desigualdad y exclusión”, https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/informes/pdfs/Guatemala2016.pdf

^[40] Matute, Arturo 2020. “Possibilities of Advancing Police Reform in Guatemala through Community -Oriented Policing,” Journal of Human Security, Librello publishing house, vol. 16(2), pages 97-110.

^[41] Matute, Arturo 2020. “Possibilities of Advancing Police Reform in Guatemala through Community -Oriented Policing,” Journal of Human Security, Librello publishing house, vol. 16(2), pages 97-110.

^[42] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2016”, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2016; “ Central America Regional Security Initiative: Background and Policy Issues for Congress”, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R41731.pdf

^[43] “Informe Anual 2015”, https://www.oas.org/es/cidh/docs/anual/2015/doc-es/InformeAnual2015-Cap4-Guatemala-ES.pdf

^[44] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2019”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/hrw_world_report_2019.pdf

^[45] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2022”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2022/01/World%20Report%202022%20web%20pdf_0.pdf

^[46] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2019”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/hrw_world_report_2019.pdf

^[47] Martinez, Los Muertos y el Periodista (Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, 2021) 30.

^[48] “Human Rights Watch World Report 1996”, https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/WR96/Americas-05.htm#P451_111820; “Human Rights Watch World Report 2019”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/hrw_world_report_2019.pdf

^[49] “NORTHERN TRIANGLE OF CENTRAL AMERICA: The 2019 Suspension and Reprogramming of U.S. Funding Adversely Affected Assistance Projects”, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-104366.pdf

^[50] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2021”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/01/2021_hrw_world_report.pdf

^[51] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2020”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/hrw_world_report_2020_0.pdf

^[52] “The Human Rights Situation in El Salvador 2021”, https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/2021_ElSalvador-EN.pdf

^[53] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2021”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/01/2021_hrw_world_report.pdf

^[54] “Human Rights Watch World Report 2022”, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2022/01/World%20Report%202022%20web%20pdf_0.pdf

^[55] “Audios de Carlos Marroquin revelan que masacre de marzo ocurrió por ruptura entree Gobierno y MS”,  https://elfaro.net/es/202205/el_salvador/26175/Audios-de-Carlos-Marroqu%C3%ADn-revelan-que-masacre-de-marzo-ocurri%C3%B3-por-ruptura-entre-Gobierno-y-MS.htm

^[56] Interview with the author

^[57] Interview with the author

^[58] “La gente tiene hambre saber tras la investigación ‘Guatemala Testigo Protegido’”, https://www.audacy.com/cnnespanol/podcasts/conclusiones-23356/la-gente-tiene-hambre-de-saber-tras-la-investigacion-guatemala-testigo-protegido-segun-periodista-de-el-faro-1258204965

By John Perry
Managua, Nicaragua

Two years ago, COHA reported on the manufactured “refugee” crisis around Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica.^[1] Now the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is saying that “102,000 people fled Nicaragua and sought asylum in Costa Rica” in 2021. As this article shows, this statement is inaccurate, adding further to the myth that Nicaragua is suffering a refugee crisis.

On June 20, a group called “SOSNicaragua” which is based in Costa Rica, held a conference to mark World Refugee Day. Called “Breaking down walls, building hope,” it was addressed by the head of the Costa Rican government’s Refugee Unit, Esther Núñez.^[2] She confirmed that, since 2018, Costa Rica had received 175,055 applications for asylum, the majority from Nicaragua. However, the rest of her message must have been less welcome to the participants. Her unit had limited capacity to deal with these cases, she said, but in any case “a large proportion” of the people who apply for refugee status in Costa Rica do so “because they need to regulate their migratory status, but they do not really qualify for asylum” [my emphasis].

A closer look at asylum claims of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica

Núñez was repeating a point made by the then president of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, when numbers of asylum claims first began to grow, after the violent, US-backed coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018. He declared that more than 80% of recent asylum requests came from people who had been living in Costa Rica without documents before Nicaragua’s crisis.^[3] In the four years since this statement, Costa Rica has made a decision on just 7,803 asylum claims from Nicaraguans and has rejected 60% of them.^[4] Even getting an initial appointment to make a claim means a wait of two to three years, according to a Costa Rican NGO that assists refugees.^[5]

Yet the UN behaves as if all the asylum claims are not only justified but are made by people who have recently crossed the border, driven by political persecution in Nicaragua. On June 16, the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, warned that “sociopolitical, economic and human rights crises” in Nicaragua are forcing thousands to leave their homes, in a wave of migration that is growing in “unprecedented numbers.”^[6] Bachelet said that over the last eight months “the number of Nicaraguan refugees and asylum seekers in Costa Rica has doubled, reaching a total of 150,000 new applicants since 2018.″ She made no reference to the Costa Rican government’s assertions that most of these claims come from Nicaraguans already living there before 2018. Nor did she explain that claims have only “doubled” because significant numbers of them have reached the formal stages after sometimes waiting for years to be processed.

Costa Rica and Nicaragua are economically interdependent

As Jeff Abbott points out in The Progressive, “Nicaraguans have been migrating to Costa Rica for decades. The two countries are historically and geographically tied together, with seasonal migration filling important jobs within the Costa Rican economy.”^[7] He quotes the coordinator of Costa Rica’s  Nicaraguan Links Association, describing the “economic interdependence between the two countries.” In fact, around 385,000 Nicaraguans are officially residents in Costa Rica, with perhaps another 200,000 there without official documents, totaling about 10% of the population. In a typical year, there are more than 900,000 official cross-border movements by Nicaraguans, with similar numbers leaving as there are entering the country: principally, migrant workers traveling back and forth, according to Costa Rica’s seasonal job opportunities (see table). Thousands more make unofficial crossings to avoid paying the border fees.

However, official cross-border movements fell by two-thirds in 2020, during the pandemic. Costa Rica was desperate to keep its Nicaraguan workers, with the then vice-president urging Nicaraguans to stay.^[8] But the country was hit hard by COVID-19, which badly affected its tourist trade: The Economist reported that government debt reached one of the highest levels in Latin America and, in return for loans to bail out the government, the IMF insisted on spending cuts.^[9] Poverty now affects nearly one-third of Costa Rican households.^[10] In 2021, over 5,000 more Nicaraguans left Costa Rica than entered it. Although traffic has increased in the first months of 2022, it is still less than half of pre-pandemic levels. Lack of job opportunities in Costa Rica, for Nicaraguans who have historically worked there, is one of the factors leading to more migration north to the United States.

Of course, Nicaragua was also affected by the pandemic, as well as the additional damage caused in November 2020 by two devastating hurricanes. Its economy grew by 10% in 2021, which returned it to pre-pandemic levels, but growth was still not sufficient for the country to recover from the harsh economic effects of the 2018 coup attempt. It is therefore not surprising that, while far fewer Nicaraguans are traveling to Costa Rica to work, a proportion of those already there are looking to regularize their immigration status by seeking asylum, as Esther Núñez pointed out.

Migrants are instead heading to the United States

The temporary breakdown of the historic economic ties between the two countries has almost certainly given extra impetus to Nicaraguan migration northwards, to the United States. Some 163,000 Nicaraguans have been encountered after crossing the U.S. border since January 2020, while before then numbers amounted to a few hundred each month. While (again) this increase is blamed (by the BBC, for example)^[11] on the “atmosphere of terror” in Nicaragua, the reality is more mundane.

As Tom Ricker points out, writing for the Quixote Center,^[12] while political instability may be a factor, it is certainly no more of a factor than it is for the larger migration flows from the “northern triangle” countries (Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala). Post-COVID economic problems are also as great, perhaps greater, in the northern triangle. But there are factors unique to Nicaragua: reduced job opportunities in Costa Rica, the growing effect of U.S. sanctions, and the relatively more favorable treatment which Nicaraguans have received after crossing the U.S. border. Indeed, the BBC quotes the case of a Nicaraguan who declared himself to the U.S. border patrol, was detained for a few weeks and then released to await a court hearing on his case. Many new arrivals get travel permits to join relatives elsewhere in the U.S., and the government pays for bus and air transport. The perception that well-paying U.S. jobs are readily available to Nicaraguans has been created by advertising in social media and the activities of the “coyotes” who facilitate the journey north.

The UN Refugee Agency gets it wrong – again

However, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) appears to be blind to economic factors driving migration, and ever keener to claim that Nicaraguans are escaping political repression. In its recently issued report on Global Trends 2021,^[13] it picks out Nicaragua on a world map showing forced displacement, and a chart shows Nicaragua ranked #2 in the world for asylum applications last year, below Afghanistan but ahead of Syria (see chart).

Of the 111,600 claims attributed to Nicaraguans in 2021, almost all (102,000) are made in Costa Rica. However, the official Costa Rican figure for claims registered by Nicaraguans in 2021 is only slightly more than half of this, at 52,894. How does UNHCR arrive at the higher figure? Key to understanding the statistics is awareness of the extreme slowness with which Costa Rica deals with asylum applications. By the end of 2021, it had dealt with fewer than 7% of the 116,970 applications from Nicaraguans received over the previous four years. In addition to these formal claims, there are around 50,000 more applications at various stages before registration, many of them lodged before 2021. In correspondence with the UNHCR statistics office, they revealed that “In agreement with the Government of Costa Rica,” they added this backlog of what might be called “pre-applications” to the official tally of registered claims, to produce a total of 102,000. But the Global Trends report, far from making this clear, treats this number as relating to new claims in 2021 alone, and concludes that 102,000 Nicaraguans “fled” their country last year (see picture). The caption maintains:“In 2021 some 102,000 people fled Nicaragua and sought asylum in Costa Rica.”

Disinformation, used by opposition media

Why the UNHCR wants to portray Nicaraguans as being as much at risk as people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria is a question only they can answer. It is a convenient ploy for the Costa Rican government, since it receives UN financial assistance to respond to the plight of Nicaraguans.^[14] However, it also gives added momentum to the media message that Nicaraguans are fleeing persecution. Because the increase in Nicaraguan migration northwards is a focus of media attention, exaggerating the flows southwards to Costa Rica adds to the impression of a country in crisis. This adds fuel to the flames for Nicaragua’s opposition media, of course. For example, Confidencial, a web outlet much cited by international media, gives ever more exaggerated versions of the migration figures. It claimed in June that some 400,000 Nicaraguans had left the country since the beginning of 2020. Yet even adding together the encounters over that period at U.S. borders (163,000), with the accumulation of asylum applications in Costa Rica over the same period (93,000), only produces a total of 256,000. And as we have seen, this does not compare like-with-like.

The empirical evidence indicates  that migration to Costa Rica has almost certainly fallen sharply, while there has been a matching increase in migration to the United States. Economic motives are likely to be predominant, although there are political factors too. However, it is far from an “exodus” and it is ridiculous to create a headline (as the BBC does) suggesting that most people would “rather die” than stay in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, and irresponsibly, the UN Refugee Agency is adding to the scare stories, rather than sticking to the facts.

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

---

Sources

[1] “Nicaraguans in Costa Rica: A Manufactured “Refugee” Crisis,” https://www.coha.org/nicaraguans-in-costa-rica-a-manufactured-refugee-crisis/

[2] “Costa Rica ha recibido casi 200.000 solicitudes de refugio en última década,” https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/d%C3%ADa-refugiados-costa-rica_costa-rica-ha-recibido-casi-200.000-solicitudes-de-refugio-en-%C3%BAltima-d%C3%A9cada/47689826

[3] “Presidente de Costa Rica defiende atención a migración nicaragüense por crisis,” https://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/472337-costa-rica-atencion-migracion-nicaraguense-crisis/

[4] Detailed figures quoted are taken from statistical section of the Costa Rica Migration Department website (https://www.migracion.go.cr/Paginas/Centro%20de%20Documentaci%C3%B3n/Estad%C3%ADsticas.aspx), and are correct to April or May 2022, or to December 2021, according to the latest available data.

[5] “More than 20,000 Nicaraguans request asylum in Costa Rica in the first quarter of 2022,” https://www.confidencial.digital/english/more-than-20000-nicaraguans-request-asylum-in-costa-rica-in-the-first-quarter-of-2022/amp/

[6] “UN rights chief warns of ‘unprecedented’ exodus from Nicaragua,” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/16/un-rights-chief-warns-of-unprecedented-exodus-from-nicaragua

[7] “The Other Americans: Is Costa Rica Becoming Another Brick in the U.S. Border Wall?” https://progressive.org/latest/costa-rica-brick-in-us-border-wall-abbott-220420/

[8] “Gobierno pide a residentes nicaragüenses no abandonar el país en los próximos días,” https://semanariouniversidad.com/pais/gobierno-pide-a-residentes-nicaraguenses-no-abandonar-el-pais-en-los-proximos-dias/

[9] “Costa Rica is struggling to maintain its welfare state,” https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/04/15/costa-rica-is-struggling-to-maintain-its-welfare-state

[10] “Tres de cada 10 familias se encuentran en situación de pobreza,” https://www.nodal.am/2022/06/costa-rica-tres-de-cada-10-familias-se-encuentran-en-situacion-de-pobreza/

[11] “US immigration: ‘They’d rather die than return to Nicaragua’,” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61735603

[12] “Migration from Nicaragua is up since October 2021,” https://www.quixote.org/migration-from-nicaragua-is-up-since-october-2021/

[13] https://www.unhcr.org/publications/brochures/62a9d1494/global-trends-report-2021.html

[14] “Costa Rica ha recibido casi 200.000 solicitudes de refugio en última década,” https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/d%C3%ADa-refugiados-costa-rica_costa-rica-ha-recibido-casi-200.000-solicitudes-de-refugio-en-%C3%BAltima-d%C3%A9cada/47689826

By Patricio Zamorano
Washington DC

Brian Nichols, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, visited Honduras the week before the presidential elections. His stated purpose was to “encourage the peaceful, transparent conduct of free and fair national elections.” He did not meet with the de facto President, Juan Orlando Hernández.

The gesture was clear and illuminating on two levels.

First, it showed that the U.S. government had already accepted the irrefutable truth that the center-left coalition led by Xiomara Castro would earn the votes of the Honduran people (as we go to publication, she was in the lead with 53.6%).^[1] Honduras’ 5.1 million voters would also elect three vice-presidents, 298 mayors, 128 deputies to the national legislature, and 20 to the Central American Parliament.

Second, Nichols’ gesture of not meeting with the de facto president once again made clear that Honduras’ future continues to be overwhelmingly determined by the United States. The U.S. maintains its largest military base in Latin America^[2] at Palmerola and supported the narco-government of Juan Orlando Hernández for eight long years, with a clear electoral fraud in the middle of it.

The sanctions on Honduras that never happened

Supporting a third electoral fraud in Honduras would have been a political indecency that even the Northern superpower couldn’t stomach this time, as it did in 2017.^[3] In 2014 there were serious accusations of fraud to which the international community turned a deaf ear. And in 2017, even the Organization of American States (OAS) certified there was fraud when it publicly stated that it could not declare Hernández to be the winner and called for new elections.^[4] But the pressure for “hemispheric democracy” stopped there; the OAS never suspended Honduras from its Permanent Council in Washington, kept its country office in Tegucigalpa open, and basically gave the de facto Hernández government completely normal treatment. There were never any U.S. sanctions against Hernandez’ narco state. If that is not a scandalous double standard, what is?

In the meantime, the U.S. courts did not follow the Trump and Biden script. An investigation by New York prosecutors into drug trafficking by the de facto president’s brother, Tony Hernández,^[5] has placed Juan Orlando Hernández himself on the record as protecting drug traffickers, paying bribes, and engaging in organized crime.^[6]

Military presence of the United States in a narco-state

The levels of violence, crime, and corruption in Honduras have reached historic levels, causing the massive migration of thousands of desperate families to the United States’ southern border (Honduras has the third highest homicide rate in the Americas per 100,000 population^[7]). All of this is occurring under the watchful gaze of the U.S. military in Honduras, including troops and intelligence personnel who, for some reason, are almost comically ineffective against the organized crime that uses Honduras as a trans-shipment point for illegal drugs coming out of Colombia—another U.S. ally.

How is it that Juan Orlando Hernández’ family and dozens of drug cartels can operate so comfortably in the country while under the sophisticated technological surveillance of the U.S. government on Honduran soil? The United States, the biggest consumer of illegal drugs on the planet, is feeding the criminal network that has been rocking Honduras and all of Central America. This crisis also directly impacts Mexico, which has had to deal with major migration pressures at its own borders. Policies from the new Xiomara Castro administration will have influence in this area.

Political and economic feudalism kills thousands

Honduras’ history is one of political feudalism that continues to keep the country trapped among old political forces that have not been able to complete the urgent task of re-founding the country with a new social contract. Each day that the country remains in chaos, dozens of Hondurans lose their lives, are kidnapped, wounded, or forced to flee their country.

The United States and the OAS are directly responsible for the debacle of the past 12 years. The 2009 coup d’etat that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya exposed the fragility of  Honduras’ political institutions. One of the justifications of the coup was that the Zelaya administration was discussing the possibility of reforming the Constitution to democratize it, including opening the possibility of re-electing the president. Just a few years later, the constitutional branch of the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hernández to allow that exact thing to happen; it issued a de facto authorization, without amending the Constitution, so that Juan Orlando Hernández could be re-elected even though Article 239 of the Constitution forbids it.^[8] This time there was no coup or complaint from the U.S.

In 2021 the U.S. and OAS seem to be washing their hands of this scandalous past, eliminating from the equation an undesirable de facto president who is no longer capable of serving the northern country’s geopolitical strategy when his party’s candidate, Nasry Asfura, from Partido Nacional (National Party) only garnered 34% of the vote.

A new stage of uncertainty

The isolation to which the U.S. subjected Juan Orlando Hernández these past few months simply reflected how unpopular the de facto president had become.

The big question is how the U.S. will behave toward the new president, Xiomara Castro. She is the wife of deposed president Manuel Zelaya, a large landholder who underwent a major ideological shift while in office, establishing close relations with the Bolivarian countries and becoming an ally of Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela during the deceased president’s halcyon years.

The alliance that got Xiomara Castro elected includes center-left forces that will face the arduous task of building a government and counteracting the penetration of drug traffickers and organized crime. The alliance includes the Partido Libertad y Refundación (LIBRE, whose coordinator is former President Zelaya), and the “Savior of Honduras” party, chaired by the presidential candidate from whom the election was stolen in 2017, Salvador (Savior) Nasralla. The coalition also includes the Partido Innovación y Unidad-Social Demócrata (PINU-SD), the Alianza Liberal Opositora, and others.

First urgent task: re-found the country politically and socially

But the most important task is to resume the process that was truncated by the 2009 military coup d’etat. The Honduran constitution is profoundly anti-democratic. It still contains articles that Hondurans say are “set in stone”—institutional areas that cannot be reformed (except through dubious acts such as when the Supreme Court allowed Hernández to stand for re-election).

The biggest challenge for Honduras is the new social contract between the State and the citizens, to “democratize access to democracy.” The retrograde, feudal elite that continues to run the country must give real space to allow the 50% of the population languishing in poverty to have representation.^[9] Groups in social movements over issues of gender, peasant and indigenous rights, trade unions, and cultural associations must be able to win seats in Congress, in the political parties, and be part of the presidential cabinet.

The international community could play a vital role in encouraging the democratization that Honduran voters are clearly demanding by giving the new Xiomara Castro administration room, support, and financial aid to make the necessary changes without suffering the economic and political attacks from the U.S. that some leftist governments in Latin America face. It can also put pressure on the entrenched local elites. The Honduran people have suffered enough, as witnessed by the humanitarian tragedy on the U.S. southern border. It is ethically incumbent on all parties that purport to believe in democracy to respect the wishes of the majority of Hondurans to take their country back from the drug lords and organized crime, and build their own form of democracy free from outside interference.

Patricio Zamorano is an international analyst and Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA)

Jill Clark-Gollub contributed as co-editor.

Translation by Jill Clark-Gollub

[Main photo: President-elect of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, shows her ink-stained finger during the presidential election on November 28. Photo credit: Alina Duarte, COHA Senior Research Fellow, from Honduras]

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Sources

^[1] “Elecciones Nacionales de Honduras,” https://resultadosgenerales2021.cne.hn/#resultados/PRE/HN

^[2] “Max Blumenthal drops by the largest US military base in Latin America,” https://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/20/max-blumenthal-palmerola-air-base-honduras/

^[3] “US recognizes re-election of Honduras president despite fraud allegations,” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/us-recognizes-re-election-of-honduras-president-despite-calls-for-a-new-vote

^[4] “Statement by the OAS General Secretariat on the Elections in Honduras,” https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-092/17

^[5] “US court sentences Honduran president’s brother to life in drug case,” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/honduras-president-brother-sentenced-life-drug-trial

^[6] “Is the President of Honduras a Narco-Trafficker?,” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/15/is-the-president-of-honduras-a-narco-trafficker

^[7] “Homicide rates in selected Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2020,” https://www.statista.com/statistics/947781/homicide-rates-latin-america-caribbean-country/

^[8] “Hernandez receives green light to run for reelection as Honduras president,” https://www.efe.com/efe/english/world/hernandez-receives-green-light-to-run-for-reelection-as-honduras-president/50000262-3125310

^[9] “Honduras Poverty Rate 1989-2021,” https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/HND/honduras/poverty-rate

By William  Camacaro and Frederick Mills
From Caracas, Venezuela

On Sunday, November 21, Venezuela held mega-elections in which more than 70,000 candidates from across the political spectrum ran for 3,083 state, city and local offices, marking a resounding victory for this nation’s sovereignty and democratic institutions in the face of Washington’s illegal economic war and the ravages of the pandemic. As this article goes to press, according to the data presented in the first bulletin of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) the governorships of 18 states have been won by the Chavista coalition of the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP); three states, Zulia, Cojedes and Nueva Esparta, went to representatives of the opposition, and two states are too close to call, Apure and Barinas. These two states, in addition to Zulia, are located along Venezuela’s frontier with Colombia, a zone vulnerable to the penetration of Colombian paramilitaries and organized crime.

The participation rate in yesterday’s elections was 41.80% (8,151,793) of 21,159,846. This represents an increase of 11% over the last regional elections held in 2017 which garnered 30.47% participation. It also represents the second lowest participation rate for regional elections in 21 years.

According to Venezuelan journalist Eugenio G. Martínez, divisions among the opposition diluted the votes of opposition candidates in several states, possibly impacting the outcome in close elections in Barinas, Lara, Mérida, Monagas and Táchira.

The participation rate and close races in several states are a wake up call to Chavismo of the need to fortify their base; for the opposition it portends an opportunity, should they manage to forge unity in future electoral campaigns.

It appears that the U.S. has taken a back seat to these historic elections. While the State Department has been busy cultivating an already defunct and notoriously corrupt shadow government without political relevance outside the beltway, more than 300 observers from 55 countries and major electoral observer commissions including the Carter Center and the European Union (EU) were welcomed to Caracas to observe the electoral process. In a preliminary response to a query about the elections on Sunday, chief of the  EU mission Isabel Santos said, everything was proceeding “calmly”.

The case of Alex Saab

An important backdrop to the elections is the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab on October 16, charging him with conspiracy to commit money laundering. This Colombian businessman became a target of Washington’s ire because he had the audacity to use his extensive international business contacts to circumvent illegal U.S. sanctions to import food, fuel and medicines to Venezuela, all at great personal risk, in order to save lives. The kidnapping of the diplomat was a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). It signals Washington’s commitment to continue imposing crippling sanctions. And it dealt a temporary setback to the Norway brokered talks between the government of President Nicolás Maduro  and the opposition taking place in Mexico. Another door to negotiation remains open, however, as major opposition candidates voiced support for the electoral process as the appropriate path for settling political differences, signaling the feasibility of their coexistence with Chavismo.

The opposition and the U.S. sanctions

Moreover, most of the opposition participated in these elections and several prominent candidates used their new found disdain for sanctions as a selling point for their campaigns, and for good reason: the use of such coercive measures by a foreign power as political leverage is immensely unpopular with the majority of Venezuelans. Supporting U.S. sanctions today, for a Venezuelan politician, is tantamount to political suicide.

For example, the Secretary General of Democratic Action Party, Bernabe Gutiérrez, asked people to vote, tweeting: “The era of guarimbas (violent demonstrations) is over.  The time has come to say goodbye to coups, sanctions, and calls for invasion. We Venezuelans have to settle our own problems.”

Domestic terrorism

Of course, there was the ever present threat of a terrorist attack by those extremists who see coexistence between Chavismo and the opposition as the ultimate threat to their hardline agenda to bury all vestiges of the Bolivarian revolution. Thanks to the government’s regional and municipal security plan, however, an arms cache was reportedly intercepted and election day activities took place in an atmosphere of peace.

These elections constitute an important victory for the Venezuelan people because despite the U.S. imposed sanctions, the pandemic, and attempts by Washington to politically isolate this Caribbean nation, the Electoral National Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral, CNE) managed to pull off regional elections with the participation of a plurality of parties in an atmosphere of peace.

William Camacaro is a Senior Analyst at COHA. Frederick Mills is Deputy Director of COHA and electoral observer during this past election

Translations into English are by the authors.

[Main photo credit: Camila Escalante]

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 Rita Jill Clark-Gollub
Managua, Nicaragua

Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council declared President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) winners in an election that drew 65% of the eligible 4.4 million voters. Although Washington and its allies in the region denounced the election as a fraud preceded by repression of the opposition, there was significant participation of the electorate; moreover, despite claims that Ortega ran virtually unopposed, his ticket was contested by several long-standing opposition parties. Winning 75% of the vote, the FSLN demonstrated solid strength despite the U.S. government and mainstream media campaign to delegitimize this election.

Rita Jill Clark-Gollub shares her report from the ground in Nicaragua:

On Sunday, November 7, 2021, millions of Nicaraguan voters showed up at the polls to cast their votes in an orderly, calm election process. I was one of over 165 international accompaniers and at least 40 independent international  journalists who collectively observed the vote at about 60 voting centers in 10 of Nicaragua’s 15 departments as well as its two autonomous regions.

Gender equity

Two pieces of background information provide helpful context. First, the Nicaraguan constitution creates an independent, non-partisan fourth branch of government to run elections, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE). Second, the electoral law was updated this year to bring computer technology into the system, and to bring gender equity to the staff running the elections, thus completing implementation of the gender parity law passed in 2014. This means that all aspects of the CSE must be staffed with an equal number of men and women, and half of all poll workers, including poll watchers designated by the various political parties, must be women.

My observations were in the country’s second largest city, León. My first stop was a voting center at a school in the indigenous neighborhood of Subtiava, where 5,000 people are registered to vote.

Day of the election

Voters had shown up before the doors opened at 7:00 AM, and by 7:40, 500 people had already voted. A voter’s experience started by checking-in with staff manning four laptops. There had been a massive update and confirmation of the voter rolls earlier this year that informed people of their polling places. Voters were able to verify this information on paper and online, which minimized any issues at check-in. On election day, the entire voter roll for the individual voting centers was posted outside. This not only confirmed to people their voting place, but also allowed neighbors to identify names that should not be on the rolls, such as people who had died or moved away. Because of these updates and use of electronic tools, the check-in process was more efficient than people remembered in the past. Some of my fellow accompaniers even timed voters’ experiences and found the whole process usually took less than nine minutes.

After a voter checked in, he or she went to one of 13 classrooms to cast their vote. These are called Juntas Receptoras de Votos (Vote Intake Boards–JRV). Each one is designated to serve between 380-400 voters. Again, the voter roll for that JRV is posted outside the door. When voters came in, they gave their name to the three CSE workers who then checked them off on a paper printout of the roll. Then the CSE checked to find the voter on the pages with printouts of government-issued photo identification cards, and had the voter sign under their picture. After that they were given a copy of the ballot and directed to the three voting booths to mark the ballot. As you can see from this photo of the ballot, it is rather straightforward in showing the various parties running for President and Vice-President, National Assembly, and Central American Parliament. Voters then  placed their folded ballots into the ballot boxes. After that, one of the three CSE members proceeded to mark the voters’ thumbs with indelible ink so that they could not vote twice.

Also present in the room were poll watchers (each party on the ballot is allowed to have a poll watcher present in each JRV for the entire election day) and elections police. The latter primarily provide alcohol to disinfect hands (a common practice in Nicaragua during the pandemic) and assist people with mobility issues to move within the classroom, as well as keeping disorderly people (such as drunks), from disrupting the process. I did not witness any such disruptions, nor did I hear of them (no liquor can be sold on election day). An interesting thing about the Nicaraguan voting process is that the vote tally takes place with paper ballots in the same room in which the votes are cast, and in the presence of the poll watchers. The number of ballots counted, plus the unused ballots, must match the number of ballots given to that room at the beginning of the day. A paper copy of the vote count is submitted to the central CSE, and it is also communicated electronically, but it is the paper trail that prevails in this case. Other international accompaniers who have witnessed elections in several countries said that this provides the most secure elections integrity possible.

“Nicaraguans want peace”

I saw this process repeated numerous times in the four voting centers I visited. I also asked people if they would like to answer a question, and virtually everyone I approached was eager to speak.  I asked: What is the significance of what is happening in Nicaragua today? The answer was surprisingly unanimous among the dozens of people I spoke to: They said, “Nicaraguans want peace.” They also overwhelmingly said that they want to determine their future for themselves and want respect for their sovereignty without interference from the outside.

Plenty presence of the opposition

I found it particularly interesting to speak to the poll watchers from opposition parties that were present in the voting rooms. It bears noting that five traditional opposition parties, some of which have held the presidency in the 21^st century,  ran candidates for president, despite the reports we hear from the U.S. about Daniel Ortega eliminating his opponents. I asked them what they thought about participating in this election as part of the opposition. They generally indicated that it had been a smooth and respectful experience. One gentleman from the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) said, “We want to see what the people think. If a majority of people come out to vote—60 or 70 percent—then the election results will tell us what the people want. But if fewer than half of the electorate turns out to vote, that will mean that people felt they did not have a real choice in this election.”

I imagine the PLI will continue to participate in Nicaragua’s democratic process, despite the fact that the U.S. government is calling for sanctions on participating opposition parties, because of the high turnout. The landslide electoral victory indicates a clear mandate to stay on the path the country has been following since Daniel Ortega came back into office in 2007. If I needed further confirmation that this reflected the will of the people, I got it on the way back to my hotel late Sunday night from seeing people dancing in the streets and setting off fireworks in Managua.

Young voters

Another thing that was very palpable about the Nicaraguan elections experience was the massive involvement of young people. Not only were voters as young as 16 years old (the Nicaraguan voting age) turning out in large numbers, they were also working as poll watchers and accompanying entire families during what they called “a civic festival of democracy.”

As in most countries, the youth are big users of social media. But in Nicaragua about a week before the vote, over a thousand of these young people had their social media accounts shut down, causing them to collectively lose hundreds of thousands of followers. The Silicon Valley platforms said they were stopping a Nicaraguan government troll farm. I spoke with several people who were incensed by this because they personally knew real people who were accused of being bots, or were shut down themselves. A young Sandinista named Xochitl shared with me the screenshots of her FloryCantoX account that had 28,228 followers before Twitter shut it down, telling her that she violated their rules on using spam. This also happened to some of the international visitors to Nicaragua. And I have just heard from Dr. Richard Kohn, who was in Nicaragua observing the elections in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, that all of his photos and videos uploaded to Twitter on election day were removed.

The lies about the process

I am astounded at reports in the mainstream media and from the Biden administration declaring the vote a fraud, and that as few as 20% of the electorate turned out to vote. This flies in the face of my own experience. If I keep talking about it, will I, too, be accused of being a bot? And what does this information warfare mean for democracy in the United States and the American people’s right to know what is happening in other countries?

The Nicaraguan people know their lived reality. We need to continue helping to disseminate their truth.

[Credit main photo: Rita Jill Clark-Gollub/COHA]

By Dan Kovalik
From Pittsburg, PA

On October 16, Colombian businessman and Venezuelan Special Envoy Alex Saab was in practical terms kidnapped for the second time, first by Cabo Verde under pressure from Washington, and now by the U.S., in flagrant violation of international law.

For nearly a year and a half, Saab had been imprisoned on the island nation of Cabo Verde, 400 miles off the northwestern coast of Africa in the Atlantic. As a Bloomberg article explains, “Saab was detained June 12 [2020] when the private plane he was traveling on from Venezuela to Iran made a fuel stop on the Cape Verdean island of Sal.”^[1]  What Bloomberg does not mention is that Saab’s plane was forced to land in Cabo Verde because two other nearby nations in mainland Africa, apparently under pressure from the US, refused to let him land.^[2]

There is no extradition treaty and there was no Interpol order

The capture of Saab was made without any proper legal basis. While Washington prevailed upon Cabo Verde to seize Saab based upon the pretext that the U.S. wanted to extradite him for alleged crimes, the United States has no extradition treaty with Cabo Verde.^[3] Moreover, while Cabo Verde authorities claimed that Saab was detained pursuant to a valid Interpol notice, a regional court in Nigeria found that the detention took place before the Interpol notice was issued, raising huge concerns about the legal validity of Saab’s detention and imprisonment.^[4]

The U.N. also demanded the extradition to be suspended

Indeed, this regional court, The Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice (ECOWAS), explicitly “ruled that Saab should be freed because he was detained before the Red Notice was issued.”^[5]  As Reuters explains, “decisions by that court are final and binding under a 1991 protocol.”

And then, on June 8, 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Committee issued a decision for preliminary measures demanding that the extradition of Saab be suspended and that Saab, who is suffering from cancer, be given the necessary medical attention which he has been denied in Cabo Verde.^[6]

On September 28, 2021, the African Bar Association issued a statement demanding “the immediate and unconditional release of Ambassador Alex Saab, respect for the ECOWAS Court and the Rule of Law in Africa by Cape Verde and all Governments and Institutions in Africa as the African Bar Association will continue to demand for the respect of treaty obligations and the independence of Judiciary in Africa.”^[7]

In spite of the foregoing and the overwhelming opposition to Saab’s extradition amongst the citizenry of Cabo Verde, the Constitutional Court of Cabo Verde approved the extradition of Saab to the U.S. in September of this year.^[8]  To put it simply, Saab was kidnapped in Cabo Verde nearly a year and a half ago, and there he was detained, until his “extradition” to the U.S. on October 16th, despite the lack of any valid extradition treaty and any valid arrest warrant at the time of capture.

While the allegations against him are hotly disputed, what is not in doubt is that Washington is behind his persecution. And it is also clear that the U.S. is interested in Saab, not because of any alleged crimes but because he may hold the key to Venezuela’s ability to circumnavigate Washington’s deadly illegal unilateral sanctions. First and foremost, the allegations against Saab involve alleged embezzlement from food and housing programs in Venezuela. Given that the U.S. is sanctioning Venezuela in an attempt, inter alia, to undermine the ability of Venezuela to maintain such programs, it is patently obvious that Washington has no real, bona fide concerns about someone allegedly taking kickbacks from such programs. And moreover, under established U.S. judicial doctrines of comity and forum non conveniens, it is Venezuela which, in the first instance, has the right to try to prosecute such crimes committed within its own domestic jurisdiction.

Sanctions against Iran: U.S. real reasons to harass Ambassador Saab

Bloomberg explains that Alex Saab was on his way to Iran to negotiate the exchange of Venezuelan gold for much needed gasoline supplies.^[9]  Due to U.S. sanctions, the oil-rich nation of Venezuela is unable to obtain the necessary chemicals and supplies to refine its oil into gasoline which is needed to generate electricity and to transport goods throughout the country.  In addition to gasoline, Saab was also attempting to negotiate the purchase of food, medicines and other critical supplies which have also been made scarce in Venezuela due to U.S. sanctions.^[10]

As explained by Alena Douma, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the unilateral use of coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights:

The hardening of sanctions faced by the country since 2015 undermines . . . the state’s capacity to maintain infrastructure and implement social projects. Today, Venezuela faces a lack of necessary machinery, spare parts, electricity, water, fuel, gas, food and medicine. Venezuelan assets frozen in United States, United Kingdom and Portuguese banks amount to US $6 bln. The purchase of goods and payments by public companies are reportedly blocked or frozen. . .

It has been reported that electricity lines are able to work at less than 20 per cent of their capacity today. . . .

An estimated 90% of households are connected to the national water distribution system. Numerous households, however, report frequent cuts because of electricity outages affecting water pumps and the maintenance of infrastructure, and because of the shortage of qualified maintenance staff. ^[11]

It appears that Alex Saab’s very adeptness in helping Venezuela to get around these sanctions – sanctions which Alena Douma notes are illegal under international law — is the real reason for Washington’s interest in having him detained and extradited.^[12]

As the New York Times explains, while the U.S. has brought vague “money-laundering” charges against Saab, “hard-liners at the Justice and State Departments, including Elliot Abrams, the State Department’s special envoy for Iran and Venezuela,” want to ensure Saab’s continued detention in Cabo Verde lest they “lose an opportunity to punish Mr. [Nicolás] Maduro.”  As the Times continues, the “months long detention of Mr. Saab has stripped Mr. Maduro of an important ally and a major financial fixer at a time when fewer countries are willing or able to come to Venezuela’s aid.  If Mr. Saab cooperates with American officials, he could help untangle Mr. Maduro’s economic web of support and assist the authorities in bringing charges against other allies of the Venezuelan government.”^[13]

And how did the U.S. ensure Cabo Verde’s compliance in all this?  It has used a carrot and a stick approach. The carrot is significant: U.S. economic development assistance to the island nation. In September of 2020, the U.S. embassy in Cabo Verde announced “the U.S. government would invest $1.5 million in Cabo Verde to support the country’s efforts to mitigate the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.”^[14] And in June, 2021, the embassy announced a plan to build a new U.S. embassy adjacent to the government palace:

This year, July 4 will mark a new chapter in Cabo Verde-U.S. history as representatives of both countries dedicate 4.5-hectares of land adjacent to the Government Palace in Praia as the site for a new U.S. embassy.  This exciting, long-anticipated project represents a more than $400 million investment by the U.S. government in the bilateral relationship, with fully $100 million of that total going directly into Cabo Verde’s economy, benefitting local businesses and contractors and creating scores of construction jobs.^[15]

The stick is the deployment of old-fashioned “gun-boat diplomacy” — a term coined by President Teddy Roosevelt.  Thus, as the New York Times explains, the U.S. has anchored the Navy Cruiser San Jacinto off the coast of Cabo Verde to make sure that Saab did not escape somehow.  While U.S. officials claimed that they were doing this in response to “threats” by Venezuela to take all measures to protect Saab’s human rights, the presence of the gun ship appeared calculated as much to ensure no second thoughts by the government of  Cabo Verde as it was to prevent some rescue attempt by Venezuela or its ally Iran. ^[16]

Saab’s extradition case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit which is to decide whether the U.S. has proper cause to extradite Mr. Saab under U.S. and international law. Quite tellingly, the U.S. prosecution has twice postponed the initial hearing in which it was to present evidence and arguments in favor of extradition. And, it has asked for a third postponement.^[17]

The U.S. extracted Saab from Cabo Verde without court sanction

And, so, U.S. authorities, on October 16th, instead of waiting for the 11^th Circuit to decide the merits of the case – a case which they will surely lose — have kidnapped Saab a second time, flying him out of Cabo Verde to the U.S. without court sanction.  It is no coincidence that this kidnapping took place, moreover, the day before Presidential elections in Cabo Verde which brought to power a new leader opposed to Washington’s mistreatment of Saab.

Alex Saab is now sitting in a federal prison in Miami. This is a flagrant violation of both international and U.S. domestic law. In addition, this has already had huge international repercussions, with the government of Venezuela suspending scheduled talks with the opposition in response.

The actions of the U.S. and Cabo Verde against Alex Saab have dealt a serious blow to international law and the security of diplomats worldwide. It sets the dangerous precedent that an individual, and especially a foreign diplomat, can be captured and detained without warrant and then “extradited” to the US without a valid extradition treaty and without an U.S. court authorization. This type of action undermines the rule of law, and indeed establishes “the rule of the jungle” wherein powerful countries like the US can simply ignore rights of individuals to due process and to freedom from arbitrary detention to bully developing countries such as Venezuela.

Dan Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and he is one of COHA’s Senior Research Fellows

COHA Senior Analyst William Camacaro provided research and editorial assistance for this article.

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Sources

^[1] “Maduro Financier Faces Extradition to U.S. After New Ruling.” Bloomberg. Mar 17, 2021. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/maduro-financier-faces-extradition-to-u-s-after-new-ruling-1.1578420 Accessed October 17, 2021.file:///C:UsersOwnerDocuments3953-2021-c-adocx.pdf

^[2] “Deal Maker for Venezuela’s Maduro Can Be Extradited to U.S., Court Rules.” Wall Street Journal. Jan 25, 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/dealmaker-for-venezuelas-maduro-can-be-extradited-to-u-s-court-rules-11609861512 Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[3] “U.S.-Indicted Dealmaker For Venezuela’s Maduro Detained On Way To Iran.” June 14, 2020. https://www.rferl.org/a/maduro-venezuela-money-laundering-iran-/30669592.html Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[4] “Maduro Financier Faces Extradition to U.S. After New Ruling.” Bloomberg. Mar 17, 2021. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/maduro-financier-faces-extradition-to-u-s-after-new-ruling-1.1578420 Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] “UN Committee Rules on Detention of Venezuelan Diplomat Saab.” June 8, 2021.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/UN-Committee-Ruled-on-Detention-of-Venezuelan-Diplomat-Saab-20210608-0015.html Accessed October 17, 2021

^[7] “African Bar Association Statement on Venezuelan Diplomat Alex Saab.” Oct 22, 2021.

https://orinocotribune.com/african-bar-association-statement-on-venezuelan-diplomat-alex-saab/ Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[8] “Cape Verde Poll Shows Alex Saab Extradition Case will Harm Government in October Elections.” AllAfrica Info Wire. Sep. 20, 2021. https://allafrica.com/stories/202109201156.html Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[9] “Maduro Financier Faces Extradition to U.S. After New Ruling.” Bloomberg. Mar 17, 2021. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/maduro-financier-faces-extradition-to-u-s-after-new-ruling-1.1578420 Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[10] Griffith, B. “Extradition of Alex Saab: US takes effort to starve Venezuelans to new lows.” People’s Dispatch. July 7, 2021. https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/07/07/extradition-of-alex-saab-us-takes-effort-to-starve-venezuelans-to-new-lows/ Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[11] Preliminary findings of the visit to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela by the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. Feb. 12, 2021. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26747&LangID=E Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[12] Ibid.

^[13] Schmitt, E., and Turkewitz, J. New York Times. “Navy Warship’s Secret Mission Off West Africa Aims to Help Punish Venezuela.” Dec 22, 2020.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/navy-cape-verde-venezuela.html Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[14] “The United States Provides Over $1.5 million to Help Cabo Verde Respond to COVID-19.” Press Release – September 3, 2020. US Embassy, Cabo Verde. https://cv.usembassy.gov/the-united-states-provides-over-1-5-million-to-help-cabo-verde-respond-to-covid-19/ Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[15] “Article by U.S. Ambassador to Cabo Verde, Jeff Daigle – Land Dedication.” June 30, 2021. US Embassy, Cabo Verde. https://cv.usembassy.gov/article-by-u-s-ambassador-to-cabo-verde-jeff-daigle-land-dedication/ Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[16] Schmitt, E. and Turkewitz, J. “Navy Warship’s Secret Mission Off West Africa Aims to Help Punish Venezuela.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/politics/navy-cape-verde-venezuela.html Accessed October 17, 2021.

^[17] “Defense of Alex Saab Rejects Request for New Extension by US.” Oct 6, 2021.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Defense-of-Alex-Saab-Rejects-Request-for-New-Extension-by-US-20211006-0023.html Accessed October 17, 2021.

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]

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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 COHA Editorial Board
From Washington DC

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) denounces the systematic violations of human rights perpetrated by the security forces of the government of Colombia. The government of President Iván Duque has deployed special units of the police and military to brutally repress broad based demonstrations that began on April 28, 2021 against a neoliberal tax reform package that proposed to rescue Colombia’s IMF credit rating on the backs of the working class. Now that Duque has withdrawn the proposed reform package, protests continue over numerous other topics, including the violations of the peace accords, and urgent labor, health, environmental, and education funding issues.

On May 3, the governmental Defender of Human Rights Office of Colombia registered 19 deaths in various cities and it is investigating 140 cases that include deaths, disappearances, and police abuse. On May 4, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Marta Hurtado, declared: “We are deeply alarmed at developments in the city of Cali in Colombia overnight, where police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against tax reforms, reportedly killing and injuring a number of people.” It appears that even human rights observers face great risks in conducting their investigations.  Juliette de Rivero, representative of the High Commission of Human Rights in Colombia tweeted that in Cali, “some members of the [UN] commission received threats and aggressions, such as gunshots by the police, though no one was hit.”

The presence of nine US military bases inside Colombia and the deployment of Navy warships and aircraft in the Caribbean sends an ominous message to the peoples of South America that Washington will take the side of violators of human rights in the hemisphere while claiming to champion democracy and freedom. On April 6, just weeks prior to the brutal repression perpetrated by Colombian security forces, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted: “Important discussion yesterday with Colombian President @IvanDuque. Our partnership continues to support peace and prosperity in Colombia through cooperation on security, rural development, counternarcotics, and human rights.” On May 4, the Deputy Spokesperson of the Department of State, Jalina Porter, issued a statement declaring that  “the United States is deeply saddened by the loss of life during protests in Colombia in recent days” and that “we recognize the Government of Colombia’s commitment to investigate reports of police excesses and address any violations of human rights.” Numerous human rights organizations of the Americas do not have much confidence in this “commitment” given the horrific human rights record of Colombia in recent years.

The real basis of this US-Colombia “partnership” is that the Colombian conservative forces, including supporters of former President Alvaro Uribe, have been faithful allies in Washington’s efforts to impose U.S. hegemony in the region and use their country to stage regime change operations against non-compliant nations, and in particular, against Venezuela.

The repression we are witnessing is nothing new for Colombia, as COHA has recently reported. In August 2020, the United Nations System in Colombia and United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia issued a joint statement “expressing concern at the occurrence of massacres and the continuous killings of human rights defenders, social leaders and former FARC-EP fighters.” The massacres and displacement of Colombians has continued into 2021 without abatement, all under the watchful “partnership” of Duque’s benefactors in Washington.

COHA therefore calls on the Joe Biden Administration to cut all military assistance to Bogotá, dismantle its enormous military presence inside Colombia, and set a new course of diplomacy in the region based on sovereign equality and mutual respect among nations.

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By William Camacaro
New York

“There will be some who will remember Ramsey Clark as an outsider. There are many more who remember him as a friend of justice, the oppressed, the exploited, and the rule of law. Perhaps he himself would like to be remembered merely as someone who used the law to help others.”

Curtis Doebbler, International Law Attorney

During the heat of the Gulf War under the George H. Bush administration, I had the opportunity in New York to meet an extraordinary human being: Ramsey Clark. It was an event to protest the State Department and Pentagon’s arrogantly labeled “Operation Desert Storm.”

Ramsey was a quixotic figure admired by everyone on stage at the event. This former U.S. Attorney General, incredibly, opposed U.S. intervention in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. On that occasion he gave a detailed speech about the conflict unfolding before our eyes, a war in living color brought into our homes courtesy of CNN. But we saw no blood or dead bodies, only fireworks in what looked like a Nintendo video game in which very little “collateral damage” was shown. It was a long-distance war for which television viewers were kept far removed from the pain and suffering of the Iraqi victims.

Ramsey Clark—a fighter for social movements

Ramsey Clark was an extraordinary anomaly within the U.S. establishment. A lawyer by profession, he rose to be Attorney General, an office which placed him at the forefront of many important struggles for civil and human rights. After leaving the pinnacle of power, he embraced progressive causes around the world, even if it brought him into direct confrontation with U.S. hegemony. This included his opposition to the strategy of applying illegal unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) against countries that did not fall in line with Washington’s foreign policy.

The second time I met Ramsey Clark I knew that he was traveling to Iraq to serve as a defense attorney for Saddam Hussein in a trial imposed by the Western world to convict almost the entire Iraqi cabinet—proceedings that many experts in international law considered illegal. Ramsey also opposed the death penalty as a matter of principle. I was able to overcome my feelings of intimidation before this renowned figure, and approached him. I asked, “Don’t you think it will be very hard for you to accomplish anything in that kangaroo court?”

He answered, “Yes, but it would be worse to do nothing. We must march into battle even though we know we will lose. We must go knowing that we are on the side of truth and justice.” We looked at each other and smiled.

At the top of the U.S judicial system

Ramsey served his country as the 66^th U.S. Attorney General from 1967 to 1969 during the Johnson administration. In his previous post as Assistant Attorney General he had been pivotal in the drafting of some of the most important environmental and civil rights legislation produced by any generation before or since. He contributed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and legislation that later inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency  (EPA).

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After leaving public office, he ran for President of the United States in 1972 and for Senate in 1974 and 1977. He was the son of Supreme Court Justice and former Attorney General, Tom C. Clark. Ramsey also founded the International Action Center with the idea of building a platform for social justice and creating a more just and equal world.

His activism took him to such countries as Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, and many others that were under attack or faced potential aggression from the United States, putting his life in danger countless times.

Lauded the world over

Ramsey opposed the Vietnam war from the outset and remained steadfast in his opposition to unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States around the world.

He was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize in 1992^[1] and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights on December 10, 2008, the sixtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.^[2] He was also given the International Courage of Conscience Award from the Peace Abbey Foundation.^[3]

All of this not only garnered Ramsey tremendous admiration, but also the antagonism of those in the Establishment whom he challenged incessantly.

Solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela

In Latin America he became very engaged in solidarity with Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela. In 1984 the Sandinista government sued the United States at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest court, for its support of the contra army. But Washington withdrew its recognition of the Court’s jurisdiction. The case had both political and legal ramifications for the United States. Ramsey Clark served as an advisor at that time to a young attorney named Paul Reichler who was leading the case.

When he travelled to Nicaragua Ramsey stayed in the home of the revered priest and former Foreign Minister, Father Miguel d’Escoto, who had also served as President of the United Nations General Assembly. They were close friends. On these visits Fr. d’Escoto arranged gatherings with Latin American leaders, and the two of them worked together on a variety of issues for over 40 years, including the situations of Cuba and Nicaragua.

Personal memories of a meeting with a young Nicolás Maduro

Some of my personal experiences speak clearly to the very human nature of Ramsey Clark. In 2000 a young man just elected to the new National Assembly of Venezuela arrived in New York and asked me to arrange his itinerary. The first meeting that the newly elected Bolivarian legislator had in New York was with Ramsey Clark, at his law firm on 12^th Street in downtown Manhattan. This young legislator, Nicolás Maduro, was delighted with this very fraternal conversation with the former Attorney General. And I was able to arrange this even though I had contacted Ramsey at the last minute. He not only received us, but indulged us in a lengthy conversation about almost everything happening in Latin America.

Solidarity with Venezuela based on respect for the rule of law

Ramsey was a leading figure in solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela at many key moments. His support was not ideological, but based on principle. He refused to accept the illegal sanctions policy or any interventionism that violated the sovereignty of other countries. For this reason, he did not hesitate to defend the people and denounce wrongdoing.

On November 8, 2005 at the historic Town Hall of Times Square, New York, we held the biggest event the United States had seen in support of the Venezuelan Revolution, called “Night of Solidarity with Bolivarian Venezuela.” The large venue was near capacity and a Miami Herald journalist in attendance wrote, “Chávez must have a lot of supporters to fill a venue like that in the heart of Manhattan… it must mean that the Bolivarian Revolution has thousands of followers.”

On Saturday, September 23, 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who was part of Venezuela’s delegation attending meetings at the United Nations, was detained by authorities at JFK International Airport for 90 minutes as he was boarding a plane to return home. I was broadcasting live on Radio Pacifica at that time when the Foreign Minister’s assistant called me to explain the situation. I immediately called Ramsey and told him what was happening, asking whether he could help us and go to the Venezuelan mission to the UN. I did not expect him to be able to help at that late hour with such a sudden request, but I was to learn that day about his commitment and devotion to justice. Arrive he did. I was shocked to see him waiting calmly, unrecognized by the Venezuelan diplomats scurrying to and fro. When then Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro arrived, he saw Ramsey and greeted him outside the Venezuelan mission. Roy Chatterton, who was Venezuela’s ambassador to the OAS at the time, served as interpreter for them as they found a quiet place to talk about what to say or not say to the press. The future President of Venezuela listened attentively. Ambassador Chatterton ended it by saying, “A very important suggestion.” Ramsey’s opinions were highly regarded.

Later, on September 13, 2013, I invited Ramsey to another protest, this time before the United States’ diplomatic mission to the United Nations. He attended, without fail, as always. At that event we were going to deliver a document denouncing U.S. intervention in Venezuela. I asked Ramsey if he would mind wearing a tricolor coat with the colors of the Venezuelan flag. He responded, “If I am going to represent Venezuela, I had better put on that coat and it will be an honor.” From a distance we were able to observe the disgruntled face of the First Secretary of the U.S. Embassy to the UN.

Ramsey accompanied us in countless activities, not only in New York city, but also in Washington, DC and Boston. He was an unconditional ally.

Support for the independence and sovereignty of Cuba

Ramsey not only supported Venezuela’s sovereignty, but Cuba’s as well. He was a strong critic of the legal proceedings against the “Cuban Five,” denouncing all the judicial irregularities in the trial. “If I were Attorney General today and learned about this propaganda campaign during the trial of the Cuban Five, I would have to dismiss the charges. Any Attorney General should do the same,” he said.

He had always appreciated the Cuban Revolution. He told the press that, “Fidel has shown that a country in the midst of struggle and short on resources can educate, house, and provide healthcare, jobs, and everything that humanity needs. And look at the rest of the world. We need that model.”

Ramsey Clark died on April 9, 2021 at his home in New York city at the age of 93. He was an example of love for one’s neighbor, respect for life, and passion for justice.

As Curtis Doebbler, colleague and friend to Ramsey Clark for some 30 years, put it,

“There will be some who will remember Ramsey Clark as an outsider. There are many more who remember him as a friend of justice, the oppressed, the exploited, and the rule of law. Perhaps he himself would like to be remembered merely as someone who used the law to help others.”

William Camacaro is a Senior Analyst at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, DC (COHA).

This article was edited by Patricio Zamorano, Director of COHA

Translation by Rita Jill Clark-Gollub, Assistant Editor/Translator, COHA

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Sources

^[1]  “Ramsey Clark”, https://www.amacad.org/person/ramsey-clark

^[2]  “United Nations Human Rights Prize 2008”, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NEWSEVENTS/Pages/UNHRPrize2008.aspx

^[3]  “International Courage of Conscience Award”, https://www.peaceabbey.org/list-of-award-recipients/