Geography Archives: Nicaragua

When CIA-trained terrorists tried to overthrow the Sandinista government in the 1980s, the left erupted in protest. Now the left is cheering for the CIA.

This final article, covering the period from mid-July to the present day, shows how the coup was defeated and what happened in the aftermath.

Burkina Faso’s new President Ibrahim Traoré has vowed to fight imperialism and neocolonialism. Pledging a “refoundation of the nation”, invoking revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara, and quoting Che Guevara, his government has allied with Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.

Of course, the accepted history of the coup attempt, as told by the U.S. government, international bodies such as the UN Human Rights Council and most of the media, is that nearly all the victims were protesters, mainly students, killed by police or by Sandinista “paramilitaries”. The truth is far more complicated; people on the ground, especially those living in the places most affected, became increasingly aware of the opposition’s intentions.

37 years after a 1986 International Court of Justice ruling, the United States still refuses to pay Nicaragua the reparations it legally owes. Today, the Nicaraguan government is demanding that the United Nations take action.

Five years ago, Nicaragua was subject to a violent insurrection that lasted from April through July, 2018. In the second of four articles, we look at how initial support for the coup relied on widespread use of social media.

Nicaragua, the third poorest country in Latin America, has a population of approximately 6.7 million people but has the most extensive and well-equipped public health system in Central America.

“Why did we choose to study in Nicaragua? Hunger, poverty, and illiteracy are major issues plaguing much of the world, and climate change is one of the greatest threats to humans on the planet. Nicaragua is setting an example for sustainable development that addresses all these issues.”

Remarkably, during her visit to Ghana in late March 2023, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the US Treasury Department’s Office of Technical Assistance will ‘deploy a full-time resident advisor in 2023 to Accra to assist the Ministry of Finance in developing and executing medium- to long-term reforms needed to improve debt sustainability and support a competitive, dynamic government debt market’.

The question of how Black people fare in a particular country can be a legitimate issue or a ruse used in the furtherance of U.S. regime change plots.

In the first few months of 2018, Nicaragua hardly appeared to be a strong candidate for an attempted coup. Daniel Ortega’s government had an 80 per cent approval rating in a poll a few months earlier.

While the United States pays little regard to the human rights of many of its own citizens, it manifests intense interest in those of countries that it regards as its enemies.

The Joe Biden administration invited numerous authoritarian far-right leaders to the U.S. State Department’s so-called “Summit for Democracy”, including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Poland’s Andrzej Duda, India’s Narendra Modi, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and Pakistan’s coup regime.

Last week saw the advance release of a summary of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s still-pending detailed report on Nicaragua. The report supposedly results from an investigation by a group of experts of “all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018.”

In an unexpected move on February 9, the Nicaraguan government deported to the United States 222 people who were in prison, and moved to strip them of their citizenship.

Roger McKenzie talks to U.S. writer Dan Kovalik about why the people of Nicaragua need our support in their battle to determine their own future

A poll by mainstream firm Gallup found that Nicaragua is the No. 1 country in the world where citizens feel at peace. Nine of the top 14 countries are in Latin America. But the U.S. constantly attacks the Sandinista government and imposes sanctions on it.

‘Entering adulthood alongside the dwindling of 2020 uprisings for Black liberation (that I had naively seen as the beginning of the end), I felt very stuck. Understanding I am a poor queer Black woman, I saw myself facing a world where the options presented for survival were dehumanizing at best, and the innate dream of living as a free person essentially destroyed.’ – Wawen Ewimbi

The high level of participation of young people and women highlights the profound democratization of Nicaraguan society that has taken place in the last fifteen years.

At the United Nations General Assembly, Nicaragua’s Sandinista government called for a global rebellion against the “imperialist and capitalist system” that is “bleeding the world dry.” Condemning illegal sanctions and war, it urged a new multipolar order.