[Peace-discuss] The Empire Turns Its Sights on Nicaragua - Again!

Wed Apr 25 18:44:32 UTC 2018

the NICA Act was getting no apparent movement in the US Senate and appeared
to be a dead letter.  And so, right on cue, we witness violent protests in
Nicaragua which closely resemble the violent guarimbas which have plagued
Venezuela on and off since Nicolas Maduro was elected in 2013.  These
demonstrations will surely be used as a pretext to revive the NICA Act in
the US Senate.

April 25, 2018 

<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/25/the-empire-turns-its-sights-on-nica
ragua-again/> The Empire Turns Its Sights on Nicaragua - Again!

by  <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/6abrakepraya/> Dan Kovalik 

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It was only a matter of time before the US government and its compliant
media would once again put Nicaragua in their sights. And, that time has
indeed come.

Last year, the US House of Representatives voted unanimously in favor of the
Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act of 2017 (NICA Act) which would  cut
that already-poor country off from loans offered by international financial
institutions.

Citing the Alliance for Global Justice,
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-House-Passes-NICA-Act-Against-Nic
aragua-Imperiling-Social-Programs-and-Development-20171003-0030.html>
Telesur reported at the time that "'[t]he Nicaraguan government uses foreign
assistance from the international financial institutions to support social
spending on health and education which have become an ever larger proportion
of the national budget.'" Telesur explained that the NICA Act therefore
"poses a serious danger to the Central American nation's economy and could
result in a humanitarian crisis and waves of economic refugees that would
flee toward the U.S. border, joining waves of migrants from Honduras,
Guatemala and El Salvador."

Currently, Nicaragua is the only country victimized by the US-backed Central
American Wars which is not also a source of immigrants to the US. This is in
no small part due to the Sandinistas' effective social programs.  As for the
Sandinistas' social programs, even
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/world/americas/nicaragua-ortega-protests
.html> the New York Times acknowledged that "[m]any poor people who receive
housing and other government benefits support" Sandinista President, Daniel
Ortega.

Incredibly, as the US is preparing to build a wall ostensibly to keep out
Central American and Mexican migrants, it is poised to exacerbate the very
migration problem it claims to want to stop.  This simply defies all logic
and notions of morality and decency.

As Noam Chomsky has opined numerous times, the US shall never forgive the
Nicaraguan people for overthrowing the US-backed Somoza dictatorship in
1979, for militarily defeating the Contras and for then voting back in the
Sandinistas in 2007.  The NICA Act is pay-back for such crimes.

But meanwhile, the NICA Act was getting no apparent movement in the US
Senate and appeared to be a dead letter.  And so, right on cue, we witness
violent protests in Nicaragua which closely resemble the violent guarimbas
which have plagued Venezuela on and off since Nicolas Maduro was elected in
2013.  These demonstrations will surely be used as a pretext to revive the
NICA Act in the US Senate.

There are a number of curious things about the protests in Nicaragua. First,
while the mainstream press has explained these protests as a response to a
"social security overhaul" announced by the government, it was largely
students and other youth who have been demonstrating, and not those directly
affected by the announced cuts. And, though the government reversed itself
on the previously-announced social security cuts in response to the
protests, the
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/world/americas/nicaragua-ortega-protests
.html> New York Times stated with glee that this probably would not stop the
protests from continuing.

Moreover, it must be pointed out that the proposed social security cuts
which provided the impetus for the protests were themselves necessitated in
no small part by the House passage of the NICA Act which, as
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-House-Passes-NICA-Act-Against-Nic
aragua-Imperiling-Social-Programs-and-Development-20171003-0030.html>
Telesur noted, "has already put a chill on foreign direct investment into
the Nicaraguan economy, having a knock-on effect on local lending activity
and private investments."  Of course, this is all according to plan.

Several alternative Spanish-speaking news outlets, including
<http://misionverdad.com/La-guerra-en-venezuela/coincidencias-guarimbas-nica
ragua-venezuela> the on-line publication Mision Verdad, have detailed a
number of ways in which the violent demonstrations in Nicaragua look like
those organized by the right-wing in Venezuela.  These include (1) the
demonstrators' use of "artisanal weapons," such as mortars and rockets,
designed to obscure "the line between peaceful protest and the tactics of
subversion and urban warfare," and thus to provoke a government response
which could be labeled "a violation of human rights"; (2) attempts to
falsely blame the government for chemical weapons use (a tried and true way
to provoke foreign intervention); (3) the inflation of the number of those
killed in clashes, combined with the downplaying of the deaths of state
security forces; (4) looting of private and public property, including
memorials to left-wing revolutionary leaders such as Hugo Chavez; (5) the
use of snipers; and (6) the support of the Catholic Church and various NGOs
for the anti-government activities.

Not surprisingly, the Cold War-era National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
has recently been giving substantial funding to groups in Nicaragua
seemingly to stoke the very types of anti-government actions taking place
right now.   For example,
<https://www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/nicaragua-2017/> the
NED, in 2017, gave $72,440 to the Comision Permanente de Derechos Humanos de
Nicaragua (CPDHN) for "human rights" monitoring. Curiously, the CPDHN is a
key source the Western press has been relying upon for the lop-sided
information about the current protests and the government's response to
them.

The NED has also been giving substantial monies to youth and student groups
in Nicaragua - such groups now serving as the main source of the current
unrest.  In addition, the NED has given support to "independent" (i.e.,
anti-government) media outlets and to other civil society groups for the
purpose of "raising awareness" about how the Nicaraguan government is
allegedly repressing them.   All told,
<https://www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/nicaragua-2017/> the
NED last year alone gave well over a $1 million in aid to civil society
groups for the purpose of ginning up social strife in Nicaragua.

During the 1980s, Nicaragua - a tiny country which remains the second
poorest in the Hemisphere - inspired many of us, myself included, with its
heroic resistance to violent US aggression.   Nicaragua has remained a
symbol of opposition to US imperialism, and that has galled the
powers-that-be in this country - particularly Neo-Cons such as current
National Security Adviser John Bolton.

We must stand with Nicaragua now, as many of us did before, in opposing
continued US hostilities in the form of the NICA Act and interference in
Nicaragua's internal affairs. Nicaragua deserves such solidarity.

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More articles by: <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/6abrakepraya/> Dan
Kovalik

Daniel Kovalik lives in Pittsburgh and teaches International Human Rights
Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. 

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