By Ben NORTON

Transcript

BEN NORTON: This is Ben Norton with The Grayzone. I am in Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry, and I just sat down for an interview with Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.

We talked about Nicaragua’s historic decision to leave the Organization of American States, and other regional issues here in Latin America.

And we discussed how Nicaragua is part of a movement of countries around the world that are trying to create a new political and economic architecture, resisting US unilateralism and sanctions.

Good morning, Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, thank you for the interview.

On November 19, you announced that Nicaragua is leaving the OAS. Can you explain why Nicaragua made this historic decision?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, thanks a lot Ben, and greetings also to your readers, listeners, or viewers in this case. I want to say that Nicaragua made this decision, the government of President Ortega took the decision to denounce the OAS charter.

And the reason for that is it is a decision that concerns the dignity of the Nicaraguan people, the dignity of the government of reconstruction, of reconciliation and national unity, the government of President Ortega, truly to defend the dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

Because we, in our foreign policy, we are open. We truly seek communication, bilateral relations, and also multilateral relations.

But we have been very clear, and we say that we do not accept foreign interference, nor interventions, that try to meddle in the internal concerns of our country.

And the reason that we have denounced the OAS is because of the policy and attitude, primarily by the United States and the countries subordinated to it, that try to direct and impose the internal policies of Nicaragua and maintain a permanent policy of interference and interventionism, disrespecting the dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

And that truly says why Nicaragua, the government of Nicaragua, the Nicaraguan people, and it has been demanded by the Nicaraguan people, and the institutions and powers of the state have suggested and urged the president of the republic to denounce the OAS charter.

That is to say, ending the state of Nicaragua’s relationship with the OAS, suspending relations. And this is precisely why we sent the statement to the secretary general of the OAS, at the instruction of the president of the republic, Commander Daniel Ortega Saavedra, saying enough is enough.

BEN NORTON: And you said in the letter to the OAS, and to the secretary general of that organization, Luis Almagro, you said that the OAS is an “instrument of interference” of the United States that seeks to impose US hegemony in this region.

The OAS says it is independent. But you don’t think that is true?

DENIS MONCADA: It is not a matter of what I think; it is a matter of what is the concrete, true, objective reality.

The OAS was designed, created precisely by the United States as a way to impose its political decisions, which is defined by the policy of the Monroe Doctrine.

And when the OAS was created, I believe it was Commander Fidel Castro who described it as the “ministry of the colonies.” And truly, that concept, which has already been said for decades, is exactly what defines the OAS.

And think about it, Ben, the OAS, where is it located? It is located, one, in Washington, its permanent location. The OAS is captured there, like a prisoner of the United States.

But in addition to being in Washington, where exactly it is located? A few blocks from the White House, and on the other side a few blocks from the State Department.

If we understand even the geographical location of the OAS in the city, in a building that was built more a century ago, it clearly says that this is a US political and diplomatic instrument, one that supports the main strategic decisions of the United States in relation to the power and hegemony that it tries to maintain over Latin America and the Caribbean.

I think that is the clearest way of explaining why the OAS is not an independent organization, but rather a strategic, political, diplomatic instrument of the United States, that decided to bring together, there near the White House and the State Department, the representatives of all of the states of Latin America and the Caribbean – excluding Cuba, excluding Venezuela, excluding Nicaragua, which is precisely why it is denouncing its charter – so that there the US can simply make its commands and “agreements,” in scare quotes, so that they do what the North American empire decides to do with Latin America and the Caribbean.

BEN NORTON: Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of the OAS, because of the coup d’etat in Bolivia in 2019, and because of the role of the OAS in publishing false accusations of supposed electoral fraud.

Moreover, we have seen that Juan Guaidó, who has never won a single vote to be so-called “president” of Venezuela, he represents Venezuela at the OAS, in Washington.

The OAS, in its charter, says that it is against interference, and in fact it says in its charter that interference in the internal affairs of member states is a violation of the OAS charter.

So, do you think that the OAS violates its own charter?

DENIS MONCADA: Definitely. And there is an interesting element to think about, because the charter of the OAS, if one looks at it in theoretical and conceptual terms, according to the text, it could seem like the charter aligns with the interests of countries, in terms of defending their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states, if the OAS did not have more powers than those that are clearly established in its charter.

If you look at it from the conceptual and theoretical point of view, we could say that the founding charter of the OAS has some elements that could be valid. But the concrete truth, the reality is precisely [the opposite]. You mentioned the case of Bolivia, for example.

That is to say, when those policies are actually carried out in the countries of Latin America, of the peoples defending their own rights, exercising their sovereignty, of self-determination, protecting their historic and fundamental rights, that is what the United States does not like.

And that is precisely when they, in the most intense ways, keep making policies to destabilize and overthrow governments, legitimate, constitutional, democratic governments.

And then the figure of the OAS appears, in very active ways, trying to fulfill the orders of the United States.

If there is a progressive government, if there is a revolutionary government, if there is an advanced government that goes down the path of trying to strengthen the rights of the people, defending itself from aggressor countries, then they act.

The United States orders the OAS to act. And the OAS, we already saw exactly how it acted to destabilize Bolivia and bring about the overthrow of President Evo Morales, in such an unjust, arbitrary, barbaric, savage way.

BEN NORTON: You mentioned that Cuba, the revolutionary government of Cuba, has long criticized the OAS. Commander Fidel Castro said that the OAS is the “ministry of the yankee colonies.” And Venezuela also left the OAS two years ago.

But more and more, it is not just the revolutionary governments in the region, but even liberal governments, like the Argentine government, the Mexican government, they also have criticized the OAS for the coup d’etat in Bolivia.

And this September there was a meeting, a summit of the CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, in Mexico City. You participated in the summit in Mexico.

More and more, there is debate in Latin America about the CELAC being an alternative to the OAS. Do you think that the OAS could serve as an alternative?

DENIS MONCADA: In fact, the CELAC emerged precisely as an alternative for the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, excluding the United States and Canada, which do not participate in the CELAC.

That was precisely the vision of heads of state and governments, and above all the peoples of Latin America, of having an autonomous, independent forum, which responds to the concerns, to the vision, and to the historical needs of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean.

So the CELAC is a real alternative to the OAS. And in fact countries have made an effort precisely to maintain the continuity of the CELAC.

And separately we know that the United States and other countries, including also countries in Europe, are doing everything to neutralize, to stop, to prevent countries from creating and sustaining their organizations that make it possible for them to take a different path, with a vision of strengthening their rights, their policies, their freedoms, and their struggles for independence in defense of sovereignty and self-determination.

BEN NORTON: Three days after the November 7 elections here in Nicaragua, US President Biden signed the Renacer Act, and later imposed more sanctions against Nicaragua, and not only against government officials but also against institutions like Nicaragua’s public prosecutor’s office.

What do you think about these sanctions?

DENIS MONCADA: We do not recognize the extra-territoriality of the laws that the United States approves, whether it be through the Congress or ratified by the US president.

Its laws are laws for its country, for its state, but not for other countries. Nicaragua does not recognize that extra-territoriality.

Nevertheless, we are very clear that we are speaking about the same topic, and we see another factor, another facet of how the empire tries to expand its hegemony, creating laws, with the president approving them, and then trying to apply those laws in other countries.

This includes imposing unilateral coercive measures (sanctions), which we already know are illegal, arbitrary, absurd, and in the case of Nicaragua we have said it, we don’t accept them, we reject them, we condemn them.

It is a form of the empire continuing to exercise the role it believes it has in the world, of being a judge, of being a prosecutor, of playing a role that the international community did not assign to it.

Nevertheless, we see how there is a kind of consistency in that attitude, in that imperial behavior, using all of its different instruments, like the OAS, like the Congress, of passing a resolution and then the empire tries to impose it everywhere.

That is why Nicaragua, our government, the government of President Ortega, has maintained what we say is an anti-imperialist policy, but measured.

And when we say anti-imperialist, it is because we are clear that those who exercise power is a small group of extraordinary power, that even affects the North American people themselves.

The empire is not the North American people. The North American people are not part of the empire. The empire consists of the large organizations, the large economic powers, industrial and military powers, that try to impose themselves on the world to exploit it, to pillage it, to colonize it again.

And it does this to maintain a lifestyle, that is not imposed by the North American people, but rather by the powerful interests, through aggression, through robbing the wealth of countries, in an incredible, shameless way.

BEN NORTON: Currently, one-fourth of the global population lives in countries sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. That is to say, one-fourth of humanity lives in countries under sanctions.

So is there an attempt by sanctioned countries, like Nicaragua and Venezuela and other countries, to build an alternative to this financial system dominated by the United States?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, that is a struggle that has gone on for many decades, because we have to change international relations and systems, among them the international financial system and the international order.

And Nicaragua is part of the countries that are fighting to make those transformations in the international community of nations, and to redesign, redefine, restructure the financial system, the international order in general, of political relations, diplomatic relations too, and above all having peace as a central point.

Truly, what the international community wants is peace, stability, security, work, progress, so that our peoples, all over the world, are able to make the effort to be happy. That is what all humanity wants and desires.

No wars, no conflicts, no tensions, no aggressions, but rather peace, stability, respect between states, respect between governments, respect between peoples.

And to continue advancing, fighting against poverty, strengthening programs of human development. In short, that is what humanity wants.

And doubtlessly we have to strengthen the common struggle of all peoples to change the system.

BEN NORTON: Nicaragua is one of the members of a new group in the United Nations which is called the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter. There’s Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, Palestine, Eritrea, various countries.

What is this group, and what is the importance of an alliance of countries sanctioned by the United States?

DENIS MONCADA: The essence is to defend the UN charter. And the group of countries was formed precisely with that objective.

Why the UN charter? If we are discussing UN reforms and also transforming the system, in the UN charter you find precisely the basic principles that allow for peaceful coexistence, respect between states, attaining and strengthening peace, stability, international security, cooperation between developing countries, to achieve a comprehensive development, to make all of the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development possible.

So that group of countries thinks that we truly need to come together and defend those principles and those values, those fundamental declarations that are established in the UN charter, to be able to thrive as independent states, as sovereign states, and the keep reinforcing the work to maintain, sustain, and strengthen peace, international security, the right of all peoples to live in their own ways, with self-determination and mutual respect.

So it is a group of friends in defense of the UN Charter, which is very important. It has had meetings already in New York and also in Serbia, taking advantage of the meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In short, it is keeping that important cause going, that position of countries, of the international community, of defending life and humanity, of having peace, of strengthening peace, and continuing to advance in a positive sense, in a sense of tranquility for all of humanity.

BEN NORTON: Another member of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations is Iran. And you attended the inauguration of President Raisi, the new president of Iran.

What is the importance of relations between Nicaragua and Iran, and in general with the countries of West Asia? Do you think it is important to strengthen relations between anti-imperialist forces in West Asia and progressive forces here in Latin America?

DENIS MONCADA: Yes, Nicaragua and the government of President Ortega has said very clearly that we maintain broad relations with the entire world. Because they are relationships of friendship, of brotherhood, of fraternity, of cooperation, of solidarity.

And the world should live, should share its interests, its objectives, its needs, in its emergencies, in its pandemics, which is not just Covid-19 but also economic pandemics, political pandemics, pandemics of aggression, pandemics of neo-colonialism.

In this area, we are strengthening and widening our relations with Iran and with other countries in Asia, and in Africa too. Because there are common interests, common visions, shared rights between countries.

And combining together our forces, conversing, holding dialogue, we strengthen our bilateral relations, and multilateral relations.

We are now leaving the OAS, but we are going to strengthen and keep strengthening our communication with the CELAC, our communication and relations with the ALBA-TCP, our relations with other organizations, with the Non-Aligned Movement, with the UN as well.

In short, the relations with Iran and other countries are framed precisely around that vision of widening and strengthening relations with all the countries of the world, a vision that Nicaragua has, and that has been set out by Commander Daniel Ortega.

BEN NORTON: Today in our discussion, there is a theme that links together all of the themes, there is an issue, and that is imperialism. You mentioned that the foreign policy of Nicaragua is an anti-imperialist foreign policy, and internationalist.

In the Sandinista movement, what is the importance of this, of internationalism and anti-imperialism?

DENIS MONCADA: It is important, because if the empire wants to dominate you, it wants to subjugate you, it wants to make you into a colony, as historically has happened in many places, the peoples are conscious of the fact that they have a right to exist as peoples, as countries, as nations, as states, and that they have the right to defend those principles, those values, and that right.

Imperialism wants to dominate you. Internationalism is the relation between states. Anti-imperialism is resisting with justice, with dignity, with strength against this hegemonic policy, which continues to be carried out by the United States and European countries.

BEN NORTON: A few years ago, Nicaragua made an agreement with a Chinese company to build an inter-oceanic canal. And we have seen that this topic, this issue of the inter-oceanic canal, became a major point of conflict in international politics.

We have documents that show that the United States funded opposition groups to organize protests against the inter-oceanic canal. The United States has a long history of trying to build its own inter-oceanic canal.

So what is the importance of this project for Nicaragua?

DENIS MONCADA: Nicaragua has geographic conditions that have made it possible and still make it possible to build a route of inter-oceanic communication, that is to say, a form of facilitating international communication and commercial exchange, everything that a route of communication make possible, of cutting distances, and saving fuel, and making the transportation of consumer goods more efficient from all over the world.

And well, that is Nicaragua’s right. We are building a canal in our territory, sovereign territory, the territory of the Nicaraguan people. And with a vision also of sharing that geography to create a route of communication that benefits the entire world, with Nicaraguan control and management.

The construction of the canal, it keeps moving forward, with investigations being conducted into feasibility and the effects on the environment. In short, with all of the elements, in a responsible way, that say that a state should build a project of great significance, like an inter-oceanic canal.

BEN NORTON: To conclude, in the United States, we speak more and more of the idea of a new cold war, that is to say, the second cold war, but this time not only against Russia, but also against the People’s Republic of China.

In the United States, everything today is about Russia and China. They say that Moscow supposedly stole the election. They say that China created the coronavirus. There is a lot of propaganda in the United States about this.

And here in Latin America, we have seen that this region is part of this so-called new cold war. The United States says, “Latin America is ours, and we don’t want Russia and China to have relations and to do business with the countries here.”

So for Nicaragua, what could the role of Nicaragua be in this so-called second cold war? And what do you think of this conflict between Washington on one side and Moscow and Beijing on the other?

DENIS MONCADA: The United States is an empire. It has been an empire for a long time. Empires try to prevent themselves from disappearing or losing their hegemony. And they will use all instruments, all forms, to maintain their level of power and control.

And obviously they try to stop other countries from developing, growing, expanding their capacities, their possibilities in economic and commercial terms, in the development of their peoples, in the strengthening of their rights, in having a voice on the international stage, in having more responsible relations, that are not invasive, not interventionist, not meddling.

All of this changes the mentality and the perception of humanity as a whole, and shows the precise difference between a hegemonic empire, dominating, intervening, invading, destroying nations and countries, states, and humanity; and between other countries that develop, that resolve their own problems of their population, and socialize in some way their progress, their advances, their technology, their commercial exchange, and of sharing with other countries as well in a very respectful manner, their advances and their development.

And contributing, in a responsible and supportive way, to the facilitation with other countries as well of a plan of cooperation, of investment, of solidarity, to keep advancing, to keep developing and resolving countries’ economic problems which in a way, or very substantially contributes to consolidating peace, stability, security in every country.

And that is precisely the way that we avoid massive irregular migrations, and all of those problems that people are worried about.

So cold war, no, what humanity needs is peace, stability, cooperation, friendship, coexistence.

It is because of that type of tensions that are generated by powers like the United States, or Europe through NATO, that we now see moving to Latin America with the participation of Colombia, which is truly foolish.

So it is a war waged by one power, combined with the powers in Europe, that want to sustain, maintain their control over the world, their hegemony, and to try to prevent other countries from advancing, from developing, from having responsible state policies and sharing with humanity their development, their progress, and moving toward advancing the development of the peoples in a way that is peaceful, friendly, and cooperative, of mutual benefit for these countries that are developing themselves and the countries that are on the path toward developing in search of a better future.

BEN NORTON: Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, thank you so much for the interview.

DENIS MONCADA: Many thanks to you, Ben, and a cordial greeting as well to all of your friends, comrades, and audience.

BEN NORTON: Thank you.

thegrayzone.com

By Ben NORTON

Millions of Nicaraguans went to the polls on November 7, 2021, re-electing the leftist Sandinista Front and President Daniel Ortega by a large margin.

The Joe Biden administration refused to recognize the results, however. The United States and its allies in the European Union and the Organization of American States (OAS) have instead launched what essentially amounts to a new coup attempt against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

On November 10, President Biden signed the RENACER Act, which will impose more crushing sanctions on Nicaragua. Washington’s escalating campaign of economic war was supplemented by the OAS’ claim that the election was “illegitimate.”

This campaign of hybrid warfare aimed at overthrowing Nicaragua’s Sandinista government has many parallels with the ongoing US coup attempts against Venezuela and Cuba, as well as the military putsch the OAS oversaw against Bolivia’s elected socialist President Evo Morales in 2019. Indeed, it involves many of the same tactics and players.

Following the line of Washington and Brussels, international corporate media outlets have spread an array of demonstrably false claims about Nicaragua’s 2021 elections, incorrectly reporting, for instance, that the government banned anti-Sandinista parties, that is imprisoned opposition candidates, or that voter turnout was negligible.

Unlike the foreign reporters spreading these falsehoods from Florida, Costa Rica, or Spain, The Grayzone was on the ground in Nicaragua to observe the electoral process.

This reporter, Ben Norton, visited 4 different polling stations in various parts of Chinandega, one of the largest cities in the country.

There, I spoke to more than a dozen average voters, to hear their experiences and get their perspectives on the election. Everyone I interviewed said the process was clean, fair, and transparent, and that they were able to vote without any difficulties.

There is so much propaganda and fake news in the corporate media trying to discredit Nicaragua’s elections. I visited 4 voting centers, and there were a lot of people voting in a very efficient, quick, and transparent process.

Don’t believe me? Well, I interviewed voters. Watch: pic.twitter.com/62lBFBywah

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 9, 2021

Myth: the opposition was barred from participating in Nicaragua’s 2021 elections

Although its correspondent Natalie Kitroeff was reporting from Mexico, not Nicaragua, the New York Times leveled several baseless accusations against the Sandinista government in an attempt to discredit its electoral victory.

Among the most absurd of these claims is that Nicaragua prevented opposition parties from participating and closed voting stations.

This is simply false. There were a total of seven different alliances participating in Nicaragua’s 2021 elections: five national opposition parties (all of which were right-wing), another regional opposition party on the Caribbean Coast, and finally the leftist Sandinista Front-led alliance, which itself consists of nine parties.

The following parties competed in the November 7 elections:

National opposition parties

• Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC)
• Independent Liberal Party (PLI)
• Alliance for the Republic (APRE)
• Nicaraguan Christian Way (CCN)
• Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance Party (ALN)

Regional opposition party on Caribbean Coast

• Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka (YATAMA)

FSLN alliance

• Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)
• Nationalist Liberal Party (PLN)
• Christian Unity Party (PUC)
• Alternative for Change (AC)
• Nicaraguan Resistance Party (PRN)
• Multiethnic Indigenous Party (PIM)
• Yapti Tasba Masraka Raya Nani Movement Party (Myatamaran)
• Autonomous Liberal Party (PAL)
• Progressive Indigenous Movement Party of the Moskitia (Moskitia Pawanka)

Today is election day in Nicaragua. I visited 4 voting sites, interviewing voters (video coming soon)

Things are very calm, and the voting process is totally open and free, with 7 options on the ballet (6 opposition)

The onslaught of corporate media propaganda is so ridiculous pic.twitter.com/SDroqtdVWn

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 7, 2021

The Sandinistas created a system of political autonomy for Nicaragua’s eastern Caribbean Coast, responding to requests for self-determination by the large Indigenous and Afro-descendent communities there.

This meant that, in the two separate zones of the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN) and South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCS), there were seven options on the ballot in the election for regional lawmakers.

Everywhere else in Nicaragua, there were six options on the ballot, five of which were anti-Sandinista opposition parties.

Myth: voter turnout was negligible

Another unfounded accusation spread by foreign corporate media outlets to attack the integrity of Nicaragua’s elections is that voter participation was supposedly very low.

According to official results from Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE), the Sandinista Front won 75.87% of the total of 2,921,430 votes, with 65.26% turnout.

The main opposition party, the PLC, got 14.33%. The other four opposition parties each got 3% or less.

Western governments sought to discredit these electoral results by claiming the CSE is unreliable. But anyone even vaguely familiar with the history of recent Nicaraguan politics can see that this 2021 outcome is highly consistent with both polling and past results.

In Nicaragua’s 2016 elections, which were observed by the OAS, the FSLN got 72.44% of the vote, and the PLC garnered 15.03%, with 68.2% participation – figures very similar to those of 2021.

And in the 2011 elections, which were monitored by the Carter Center, European Union, and OAS, the Sandinista Front won 62.46% of the vote.

Moreover, the results in the 2021 election are unsurprising when one considers the months of opinion polling before the vote. The most respected, and really only credible, apolitical polling firm in Nicaragua is M&R Consultores. (CID-Gallup did an extremely inaccurate study on behalf of the right-wing opposition, which was plagued with problems and heavily criticized for its bad methodology.)

In the lead-up to the November 7 vote, M&R Consultores’ surveys consistently found that 60 to 70% of Nicaraguans supported the Sandinista Front and the government of President Ortega.

The latest poll from Nicaragua’s top firm shows the leftist Sandinista Front remains by far the most popular force, while support for the right-wing opposition is tiny

69% approve of President Daniel Ortega’s gov’t

73% say it gives them hope

76% feel the country has progressed pic.twitter.com/jpviNSmHQ6

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 26, 2021

When considering these polls in combination with past elections, the 2021 results appear utterly unsurprising. But the cold, hard data did not interrupt the wave of disinformation flowing from corporate media across the world.

Several major news outlets published the dubious claim that only 18.5% of Nicaraguans participated in the vote. In each case, the source was a shady, little-known organization called Urnas Abiertas, which appears to have fabricated the figure out of whole cloth.

Indeed, Urnas Abiertas has not published any raw data publicly, and scarcely exists as an organization.

Urnas Abiertas calls itself a “citizen observatory,” but has no technical credentials to speak of. Its official website and social media pages contain no concrete information about the group and do not even disclose the identities of its staff members.

The report it published after the election is totally anonymous and is just four pages long (in both Spanish and English). The document does not include any of the raw data it supposedly collected. It vaguely describes its methodology in two brief paragraphs, without identifying any of the people who purported to run a massive secret monitoring operation.

The organization’s previous reports are also anonymous, not naming any authors or researchers, and, once again, do not contain raw data or detailed information about methodology.

Moreover, the logos at the bottom of these past reports show that Urnas Abiertas collaborates with a series of right-wing opposition groups in Nicaragua that are funded by CIA cutouts.

In fact, only two people have been publicly identified with this shadowy organization, and both are partisan right-wing activists who work in the Western government-funded nonprofit-industrial complex, without any technical background or experience in election monitoring.

The man most closely linked to Urnas Abiertas is Pedro Salvador Fonseca Herrera, an anti-Sandinista activist sponsored by the European Commission – a clear conflict of interest, given the EU’s refusal to recognize the election and its role in openly funding and supporting the extremist opposition in Nicaragua.

Fonseca Herrera previously worked in Washington, DC as a “consultant” for the Organization of American States (OAS) in 2017 and 2018, during the violent OAS-backed coup attempt in Nicaragua.

Before that, Herrera organized with the regime-change lobby group Techo, which also happens to be the former employer of the only other known person associated with Urnas Abiertas, Olga Valle López.

Valle López’s LinkedIn profile shows that she, too, has worked with Techo, which is funded by Latin American governments and major Western multinational corporations, and pushes their interests in Latin America by destabilizing left-wing states.

Fonseca Herrera and Valle López were identified as “researchers” with Urnas Abiertas in an event in October organized by the US government-funded Wilson Center and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), a Western state-backed lobby group.

The event, a panel discussion titled “Nicaragua 2021 elections: A painful plan to end with democracy,” did not even pretend to be impartial; it explicitly aimed to discredit the country’s vote weeks before it even took place. The host, from International IDEA, referred to the forthcoming vote as an “electoral farce.”

Fonseca Herrera and Valle López spoke alongside US government-funded right-wing Nicaraguan and Venezuelan opposition figures, and their inflammatory comments made it extremely clear that these two anti-Sandinista activists are political operatives, not impartial electoral observers. They had already established their conclusion that Nicaragua’s election was supposedly illegitimate weeks before it even took place.

The panel discussion was in fact the presentation of a report of the same name that Urnas Abiertas published in a joint effort sponsored by International IDEA and Venezuelan right-wing activists at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB).

Unlike the other reports published by Urnas Abiertas, this document named the authors: three foreigners from International IDEA, two Venezuelan anti-Chavista activists, and just two Nicaraguans: Olga Valle y Pedro Fonseca.

In other words, this document that purported to inform people about the situation on the ground in Nicaragua was almost entirely written by non-Nicaraguans outside of the country. And it had the support of a Western government-funded lobby group and Venezuelan right-wing activists at UCAB, a key hub for the anti-Chavista opposition.

UCAB, one of the most elite private universities in Venezuela, is run by the Catholic Church, which has played a major role in coup attempts in both Venezuela and Nicaragua. At the beginning of the US-sponsored putsch in Venezuela in 2019, UCAB hosted coup leader Juan Guaidó. The university is directed by Francisco José Virtuoso, an ultra-conservative priest who openly supported the coup attempt and Guaidó.

In short, Urnas Abiertas is a tiny fringe group run by two young anti-Sandinista activists with no expertise in election monitoring. It is not even clear if they are physically in Nicaragua or outside of the country – although they do have the support of Western governments and the right-wing Venezuelan opposition.

These clear conflicts of interest and Urnas Abiertas’ flagrant lack of credibility did not however stop the Los Angeles Times from publishing a puff piece praising Urnas Abiertas and claiming without a shred of evidence that it secretly mobilized 1,450 volunteers at 563 voting centers across Nicaragua to observe the election.

Considering Urnas Abiertas has fewer than 1,300 followers on Twitter, it seems extremely implausible that such a miniscule outfit could secretly mobilize 1,450 electoral observers, especially without attracting attention from the government. But this did not stop corporate media from printing the absurd claim.

US government-funded opposition media outlets in Nicaragua also amplified the shadowy group’s unsubstantiated allegations of 81.5% abstention in the 2021 election. But once again, they presented absolutely zero evidence to back up these claims.

All indications show Urnas Abiertas to be nothing more than an opposition front group posing as a monitoring organization – and with the stated intent of discrediting the Nicaraguan election results before the vote even took place.

Myth: Nicaragua arrested opposition presidential candidates

An even more common accusation made by Western capitals and corporate media outlets to discredit Nicaragua’s 2021 election is that the Sandinista government arrested seven “presidential hopefuls” from the right-wing opposition.

The figures who were detained have been variously described in the international media as “precandidates” or “possible challengers.” But in reality, not a single one was an actual registered candidate.

On the November 7 election, there were indeed six different presidential candidates to choose from. President Ortega was not even the first name or face on the ballot. (Number one was Walter Espinoza Fernández, the presidential candidate from the PLC.)

As for the opposition figures who were detained several months before the election, The Grayzone documented how they were arrested for conspiring with a foreign government (the United States), taking millions of dollars from Washington in a large money-laundering scheme to organize a violent coup attempt in 2018, in which hundreds of Nicaraguans were killed and the country was destabilized, and in which right-wing extremists hunted down, tortured, and murdered Sandinista activists and state security forces, even setting some on fire.

That the opposition leaders who were detained received millions of dollars from the US government to carry out these operations is an undeniable matter of public record, confirmed by documents from CIA cutouts such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

In any other country on Earth, these figures would have faced similar, if not more severe legal consequences. Accepting millions of dollars in funding from a foreign state as you attempt to violently overthrow your elected government is illegal everywhere on the planet.

But when Nicaragua enforces its laws – even when they are laws modeled after long-existing US legislation – Washington condemns the country as “repressive” or “authoritarian.”

The United States, European Union, and OAS habitually refer to violent criminals as “political prisoners” after they are arrested in Nicaragua. People arrested for murder and rape have ended up on US-sponsored “political prisoner” lists.

In one high-profile case that caused a national scandal in Nicaragua, a charged murderer who had been active in the violent tranque barricades in the 2018 coup attempt was arrested, but later dubbed a “political prisoner” and released under pressure by the US, EU, and OAS. It was not long before he returned to his violent ways, stabbing his pregnant girlfriend to death.

Another US-designated Nicaraguan “political prisoner” was let out of jail, only to be caught again with explosives and guns, planning a terrorist attack on a pro-Sandinista mayor’s office.

.@BenjaminNorton traveled to Jinotepe, Nicaragua to report the shocking story of how the US and OAS lobbied for the release of violent criminals behind a 2018 coup attempt

One man they called a “political prisoner” stabbed his pregnant girlfriend to deathhttps://t.co/6fA6TZOgmO

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) February 28, 2020

If an opposition figure is arrested for violating a law in Nicaragua, in an offense that would be punishable in any country, Washington often reflexively responds by dubbing that person a “political prisoner.” If they are wealthy and powerful, the US claims they were a “presidential hopeful,” even if they made no effort whatsoever to go through the legal process of officially registering as a candidate.

This is a way to try to maintain impunity for US-backed coup-plotters and money-launderers. It is the geopolitical equivalent of the strategy that Washington-sponsored insurgents in Hong Kong openly espoused in the New York Times: “use the most aggressive ‘nonviolent’ actions possible to push the police and the government to their limits,” and then frame that state’s self-defense against foreign aggression as a form of “repression” and “authoritarianism.”

One of the reasons the United States was particularly furious about Nicaragua arresting the coup leaders it had cultivated is because Washington clearly had made plans to repeat the putschist strategy that saw it appoint Juan Guaidó as so-called “interim president” of Venezuela.

US government officials and their right-wing Central American allies not-so-subtly hinted that they planned to recognize right-wing oligarch Cristiana Chamorro as the unelected “interim president” of a parallel Nicaraguan coup regime. When she was arrested for money laundering in June, it foiled their new destabilization plot.

Nicaragua has an election in November and concerns are growing the US may try to impose a fake “interim president” like Juan Guaidó

The US State Dep’t special envoy and right-wing Central American leaders recently referred to opposition oligarch Cristiana Chamorro as “president” pic.twitter.com/MmGIquS2dC

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 24, 2021

Myth: there were no foreign electoral observers and journalists

Another myth spread by foreign media outlets is that there were no foreign observers and journalists in Nicaragua for its 2021 elections. This is yet another massive distortion.

The Nicaraguan government did prevent the Organization of American States (OAS) from sending observers, given the US-funded group’s well-documented role in orchestrating a right-wing military coup in Bolivia in 2019.

But there were hundreds of foreigners accredited to accompany the elections, from more than two dozen countries, including:

• United States
• Canada
• Spain
• France
• Germany
• Britain
• Ireland
• Italy
• Belgium
• China
• Russia
• Argentina
• Peru
• Puerto Rico
• Dominican Republic
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Mexico
• Uruguay
• Venezuela
• Cuba
• Panama
• Brazil
• Chile

In total, there were 232 foreigners accredited from 27 countries, 165 to accompany the election and 67 as journalists.

They monitored voting centers in all 10 departments of Nicaragua (Managua, Masaya, Estelí, Chinandega, León, Granada, Matagalpa, Rivas, Chontales, and Carazo), as well as both Caribbean Coast autonomous regions (RACCN and RACCS).

The Nicaraguan government chose to use the term acompañante (meaning someone who accompanies) to refer to these international monitors, rather than “observer,” because of the history of so-called observers from the OAS and EU meddling in the country’s internal electoral process on behalf of the anti-Sandinista opposition.

225 people accredited to accompany Nicaragua’s election have visited voting centers in 10 departments; Esteli, Chinandega, León, Rivas, Chontales, Matagalpa, Masaya, Granada, Carazo and Managua, and two Autonomous Regions; RACCN and RACCS. pic.twitter.com/YlGX04euG4

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) November 7, 2021

The final misleading charge spread by the New York Times and other corporate media outlets to delegitimize the 2021 elections is that Nicaragua barred parties from holding large public rallies. This is technically true, but not because of political reasons, but rather due to Covid-19 health restrictions.

In fact, the Sandinista Front itself has not held an official rally since March 2020, before any cases were discovered in the country. Many foreign nations have imposed much harsher restrictions, while banning protests and attacking demonstrators with no outrage from the self-declared “international community.”

Latin American left warns of US-OAS coup attempt in Nicaragua

The United States has a long history of blood-soaked meddling in Nicaragua. The US military invaded and occupied the Central American country numerous times in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Then Washington helped install the right-wing dictatorship ruled by General Anastasio Somoza, which it subsequently propped up until the Sandinista Revolution of 1979.

In the 1980s, the CIA waged a terrorist war on Nicaragua, arming and training far-right Contra death squads that, as one of their former leaders admitted, “burn down schools, homes and health centers as fast as the Sandinistas build them.”

Since the violent coup attempt failed in 2018, the US government has been escalating its economic warfare on Nicaragua. Late that year, the Donald Trump administration implemented the NICA Act, which imposed aggressive sanctions on the small Central American nation.

Several more rounds of US sanctions on Nicaragua followed in the next two years. Then, on November 3, in a flagrant form of election meddling, just four days before the 2021 election, the House of Representatives voted 387-35 to pass the RENACER Act, which will hit Nicaragua with a new round of economically punishing sanctions.

The Grayzone reported on a September Congressional session hosted by neoconservative lawmakers, where participants made it clear that Washington had been preparing a brutal campaign of economic warfare against Nicaragua, while also planning to expel the country from the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and Organization of American States (OAS).

On November 9, the OAS officially announced that it had rejected the results of Nicaragua’s elections, branding them “illegitimate.”

This declaration was published almost exactly two years to the day after the OAS did the same in Bolivia, spreading false accusations of “fraud” in order to justify a military coup against the country’s democratically elected president, Evo Morales.

We reject the results of the illegitimate elections in #Nicaragua.

I urge countries of the OAS to respond to this clear violation of the Democratic Charter during its #OASassembly.

Report of the Secretariat for Strengthening of Democracy: @Almagro_OEA2015 https://t.co/8CBUz303Dp

— OAS (@OAS_official) November 9, 2021

In a clear reflection of its ulterior motives, the OAS held a neoliberal “Private Sector Forum” calling on foreign corporations to invest in Latin America on the same day it denounced Nicaragua’s elections.

The conference perfectly encapsulated the corporate priorities of the coup-sponsoring OAS. Among its most notorious participants was the far-right president of Colombia, Iván Duque, who only came to power thanks to the illegal vote-buying scheme of a drug lord named Ñeñe Hernández, at the orders of political kingpin and US asset Álvaro Uribe.

Palabras del Presidente de Colombia @IvanDuque en el XIII Foro del Sector Privado de las Américas en #AsambleaOEA

“Por una América renovada: el rol del sector privado en la recuperación económica y social”

https://t.co/CenV5VdCJp
https://t.co/YOgQAQjAOY pic.twitter.com/Bas8vZLdvj

— OEA (@OEA_oficial) November 9, 2021

As a victim of US-OAS meddling, Evo Morales immediately recognized the warning signs in Nicaragua, and cautioned about the coming coup.

In statements on Twitter after the vote, Morales congratulated “the honorable people of Nicaragua, which in a demonstration of courage and democratic maturity chose brother Daniel Ortega as constitutional president, despite a campaign of lies, blackmail, and threats by the US.”

The former Bolivian president said the United States is attacking “the democratic will and sovereignty of Nicaragua,” and, “The victory of Ortega is the defeat of yankee interventionism.”

When US President Joe Biden demonized Nicaragua’s 2021 vote as an “electoral pantomime,” Morales retorted, “The only ‘pantomime’ is acted out each day in the White House, where so-called ‘presidents,’ instead of serving their people, follow the orders of transnational corporations, the weapons industry, and the CIA.”

While Cuba, Venezuela, and other leftist leaders in Latin America congratulated the Sandinista Front and Ortega for their victory, warning of US destabilization efforts, there is a new generation of young, NGO-cultivated, liberal reformist leaders in the region who are much softer on imperialism.

In Chile, Gabriel Boric – the face of the liberal nonprofit-industrial complex – condemned the Sandinistas and affirmed his “solidarity” with right-wing oligarch Cristiana Chamorro, a scion of the most powerful dynasty in Nicaragua, and the daughter of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the first neoliberal president to take power after the Sandinista Revolution thanks to a massive CIA meddling campaign.

Similarly, the foreign ministry of Peru issued a statement denouncing Nicaragua’s elections. It was the latest sign of the debilitation of the country’s newly inaugurated left-wing President Pedro Castillo, whose proudly anti-imperialist Foreign Minister Héctor Béjar was forced by the military to resign just weeks after entering office.

Béjar warned the forced resignation and the right-wing takeover of Castillo’s foreign ministry was “a soft coup, or the beginning of it.”

So while progressive forces enjoy a resurgence in parts of Latin America, the left is also divided between an older generation of revolutionary anti-imperialists and a newer generation of NGO-backed, media-friendly social democrats who acquiesce to US empire.

President Ortega vows resistance against US meddling

For his part, President Daniel Ortega has vowed to continue resisting US and European attempts to meddle in his country’s internal affairs.

The Nicaraguan leader delivered a fiery speech on November 8, the day after the elections, commemorating the 45th anniversary of the killing of Sandinista Front founder Carlos Fonseca Amador by the US-backed Somoza dictatorship.

“It is impossible for Nicaraguans – and I would say for Latin Americans and Caribbeans – it is impossible to stop talking about the interventionist policies, the expansionist, colonialist policies of the United States of America and the European countries,” Ortega said.

“We are under the threat of the yankee empire, under the aggressions of the yankee empire, and under the threats of the European colonialists. And I’m not the one saying that; they’re saying it,” the Nicaraguan president added.

“They believe that we are their colony, and they want to tell us how to behave, and they want to decide what type of democracy we should practice,” Ortega continued. “They continue with their colonialist practices, to dominate these lands. But not for good, but rather to subjugate them and exploit them, and involve them in their expansionist and warmongering policies.”

Reflecting on his country’s long history of resistance, the Nicaraguan leader declared that its people would not give in to another foreign conquest.

“In the end, they could not defeat Sandino,” he declared. “Whichever [US] president came to power, whether Democrat or Republican, he came to try to oppress Nicaragua. But he always was met with resistance, with heroism, with the fighting spirit of the Nicaraguan people.”

thegrayzone.com

By Ben NORTON

Just days before Nicaragua’s November 7 elections, top social media platforms censored top Nicaraguan news outlets and hundreds of journalists and activists who support their country’s leftist Sandinista government.

The politically motivated campaign of Silicon Valley censorship amounted to a massive purge of Sandinista supporters one week before the vote. It followed US government attacks on the integrity of Nicaragua’s elections, and Washington’s insistence that it will refuse to recognize the results.

The United States sponsored a sadistically violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018, which resulted in hundreds of deaths in a desperate effort to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Daniel Ortega.

Since the putsch failed, both the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations have imposed several rounds of devastating sanctions on Nicaragua. The US Congress plans to levy new heavy-handed sanctions against Nicaragua following the November 7 elections.

Silicon Valley’s crackdown on pro-Sandinista journalists and activists was part and parcel of the US government’s political assault on Nicaragua.

Facebook and Instagram – both of which are owned by the newly rebranded Big Tech giant Meta – suspended 1,300 Nicaragua-based accounts run by pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists in a large-scale crackdown on October 31.

Days before, Twitter did the same, purging many prominent pro-Sandinista journalists and influencers.

On November 1, Sandinista activists whose accounts were suspended by Facebook and Instagram responded by posting videos on Twitter, showing the world that they are indeed real people. But Twitter suspended their accounts as well, seeking to erase all evidence demonstrating that these Nicaraguans are not government bots or part of a coordinated inauthentic operation.

Twitter’s follow-up censorship was effectively a double-tap strike on the freedom of speech of Nicaraguans, whose apparent misdeed is expressing political views that challenge Washington’s objectives.

Insane! Facebook/Instagram falsely claimed left-wing Nicaraguans are govt-run bots, censoring them. So they posted videos on Twitter showing they’re real. But now Twitter is suspending them too!

This is a coordinated purge of Sandinistas, days before Nicaragua’s Nov. 7 election https://t.co/sB7COoxl7Q pic.twitter.com/E2EPVAK5tx

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

The thousands of accounts censored by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter collectively had hundreds of thousands of followers, and represented some of the biggest and most influential media outlets and organizations in Nicaragua, a relatively small country of 6.5 million people.

US Big Tech companies suspending all of these accounts mere days before elections could have a significant, tangible impact on Nicaragua’s electoral results.

The purges exclusively targeted supporters of the socialist, anti-imperialist Sandinista Front party. Zero right-wing opposition supporters in Nicaragua were impacted.

Facebook published a report on November 1 claiming the Sandinistas it censored were part of a “troll farm run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party” that had engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

This is demonstrably false. In reality, what Facebook/Instagram did is purge most high-profile Sandinista supporters on the platforms, then try to justify it by claiming that average Sandinista activists are actually government-run bots.

Facebook implicitly admitted this fact by conceding in the report that there were “authentic accounts” purged in the massive social media crackdown. But Facebook refused to differentiate between the authentic accounts and the alleged “inauthentic” accounts, naming none and instead lumping them all together in order to justify erasing their digital existence.

Unlike Facebook’s investigators, this reporter, Ben Norton, is based in Nicaragua and personally knows dozens of the Nicaraguans whose accounts were censored, and can confirm that they are indeed real people organically expressing their authentic opinions – not trolls, bots, or fake accounts.

I interviewed more than two dozen Sandinista activists whose personal accounts were suspended, and published videos of some of them below, to prove that Facebook’s claims are categorically false.

Facebook’s security team is run by former high-level US government officials

The Facebook report falsely depicting average Sandinista activists as government trolls was co-authored by Ben Nimmo, the leader of Meta’s “Threat Intelligence Team.”

The Grayzone has exposed Nimmo as a former press officer for the US-led NATO military alliance and paid consultant to an actual covert troll farm: the Integrity Initiative, which was established in secret by British military officers to run anti-Russian influence operations through Western media.

Nimmo has served as head of investigations at Graphika, another information warfare initiative that was set up with funding from the US Defense Department’s Minerva Institute, and operates with support from the Pentagon’s top-secret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Nimmo, who is also a senior fellow at the Western government-funded Atlantic Council, meddled in Britain’s 2020 election by smearing leftist Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as the vessel for a supposed Russian active measures operation.

The latest Nimmo-engineered pseudo-scandal highlights Facebook’s role as an imperial information weapon whose security team has been essentially farmed out of the US government.

The head of security policy at Facebook, Nathaniel Gleicher, promoted Nimmo’s report, echoing his false claims.

Before moving to Facebook, Gleicher was director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council. He also worked at the US Department of Justice.

Gleicher clarified that when Facebook accused Nicaragua of running a supposed “troll farm,” it “means that the op is relying on fake accounts to manipulate & deceive their audience.”

According to this definition, Facebook’s report is completely wrong. Many of the accounts it suspended were run by everyday Nicaraguans, and The Grayzone has interviewed them and posted videos below.

1/ Today we shared the removal of a domestic CIB network in Nicaragua that was run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party.https://t.co/505nHhgljV

— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) November 1, 2021

Facebook’s “director of threat disruption,” David Agranovich, also shared Nimmo’s false report.

Like Gleicher, Agranovich worked at the US government before moving to Facebook, serving as director of intelligence for the White House National Security Council.

1/ Today we shared our latest monthly CIB report, which includes a deep-dive into a network in Nicaragua that was run by the government of Nicaragua and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party. https://t.co/2S36MInjeh

— David Agranovich (@DavidAgranovich) November 1, 2021

Both of these US National Security Council veterans actively promoted Facebook’s coordinated purge of pro-Sandinista Nicaraguans.

If you want to know why Facebook/Instagram is purging average Nicaraguans, falsely claiming they’re gov’t “trolls,” this might explain why:

This is Facebook’s director of “threat disruption.” He was formerly director of intelligence for the White House National Security Council https://t.co/L8vtdX5kkv pic.twitter.com/7quffeeo5l

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

The Grayzone contacted Facebook with a request for comment. The head of security communications, Margarita Z. Franklin, replied without any comment, simply linking to Nimmo’s report.

When The Grayzone followed up and asked Franklin about Facebook suspending many real-life Nicaraguans who support their government but are very much not bots, she did not respond.

Meet the Nicaraguans censored by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

The Grayzone spoke with more than two dozen living, breathing Sandinista activists, whom this reporter knows and has met in person, and who were purged in the social media crackdown.

Many said this was the second or third time their accounts had been censored. Several had their Facebook and Twitter accounts removed during a violent US-backed right-wing coup attempt in 2018.

Multiple activists said they are afraid Washington will sponsor another coup attempt or destabilization operations following Nicaragua’s November 7 elections, and because they were banned on social media, the Sandinista supporters will be unable to inform the outside world about what is actually happening in their country.

Ligia Sevilla

Here is Nicaraguan Sandinista activist Ligia Sevilla @ligiasevilla_, who was censored by Facebook@Meta falsely claimed she’s a “fake account,” part of a government-run “troll farm”

Will Facebook retract its false claims and restore her account?@benimmo@DavidAgranovich@olgs7 https://t.co/mDx9QvvtlU pic.twitter.com/wpykMeFon7

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

Sandinista influencer Ligia Sevilla, who had more than 5,500 followers on her personal Instagram account, which was suspended along with her Facebook profile, proclaimed, “I’m not a bot; I’m not a troll. And my social media accounts were censored. Maybe Facebook doesn’t allow us to be Sandinistas?”

After Sevilla shared this video to verify her authenticity, Twitter suspended her account as well – a sign of a coordinated censorship campaign targeting Sandinistas on social media.

Franklin Ruiz

And here is Nicaraguan Sandinista activist Franklin Ruiz G. @ElChequelito, whose personal account was censored by Facebook, which falsely claimed he is a government-run bot/troll.

Still no comment on this political censorship by@Meta@benimmo@DavidAgranovich @ngleicher@olgs7 pic.twitter.com/KTthCikmgi

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

Sandinista activist Franklin Ruiz, whose personal Facebook page was suspended, published a video message as well: “I want to tell you that we are human beings; we are people who, on Facebook, are defending our revolution, defending our country. We are not bots, as Facebook says, or programmed trolls.”

After Ruiz shared this video on Twitter, the platform purged him too.

Hayler Gaitán

This is another Nicaraguan Sandinista activist, Tyler Moreno Diaz @AlexdiazTyler, who was falsely dubbed a government-run bot by Facebook and had his account suspended.

Why won’t @Meta admit its “troll farm” report is totally bogus?@DavidAgranovich@olgs7@benimmo@ngleicher pic.twitter.com/bDS3E5ngre

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

Hayler Gaitán, another Sandinista activist censored by Facebook, published a video explaining, “”I am a young communicator. I am not a troll, as Facebook says, or a bot.”

“I am a young communicator who shares information about the good progress in Nicaragua,” he continued. “We enjoy free healthcare, free education, and other programs that benefit the Nicaraguan people, and that we have been building throughout our history. And they have wanted to take that from us, but they will never be able to.”

After Gaitán posted this video on Twitter, it suspended his account as well.

Darling Huete

This is a Nicaraguan journalist, Darling Huete @DarlingHHuete, who was falsely dubbed a “government-run troll” by Facebook and had her personal account suspended.@Meta refuses to comment on this clearly outrageous censorship scandal@benimmo@DavidAgranovich@ngleicher@olgs7 pic.twitter.com/nyjswjo1Fb

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

Darling Huete is a Nicaraguan journalist whose personal Facebook account was also censored.

“I’m here to tell you that Facebook censored my account, according to it because my account is a troll account or fake account, something that is not true. My account has been active for more than seven years,” she said in a video she posted on Twitter.

“This is clearly political censorship,because I support the government of Nicaragua, so they have decided that my opinion, or my way of thinking, is not appropriate according to the absurd policies of Facebook,” Huete lamented.

After Huete shared this video, Twitter deleted her account, too.

Huete told The Grayzone this is the second time her Facebook and Twitter accounts were suspended. The first time was during the violent US-backed right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018.

Daniela Cienfuegos

This is another Nicaraguan Sandinista supporter, Daniela Cienfuegos @dani100sweet, an activist in the Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores, which Facebook/Instagram suspended and falsely claimed is a gov’t bot farm.

Any comment from @Meta?@benimmo@DavidAgranovich @ngleicher@olgs7 pic.twitter.com/md32dU6WZp

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 1, 2021

Daniela Cienfuegos, an activist with the pro-Sandinista Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores (Network of Youth Communicators), posted a video on Twitter saying, “I wanted to tell you that, no, we are not trolls. We are people who dedicate ourselves to communicate from the trenches, to inform the Nicaraguan people, and on the international stage.”

After Cienfuegos published this, Twitter deleted her account as well.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter censor top pro-Sandinista Nicaraguan journalists and media outlets

The above are just a small sample of Nicaraguans who were falsely smeared as “government-run trolls” by Facebook and erased from social media.

But it wasn’t just individual Nicaraguans who were censored. Major Nicaraguan media outlets that provide a pro-Sandinista perspective were also removed.

On the night of October 31, Facebook removed 140 pages and 24 groups, 100% of which were pro-Sandinista. Among those deleted were:

• official Sandinista newspaper Barricada, which had more than 65,000 followers
• popular youth-run left-wing media outlet Redvolución, which had more than 81,000 followers
• the Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores, or Young Communicators Network, which brings together journalists and media activists from the Sandinista Youth social movement, and which had more than 71,000 followers
• and the individual profiles of dozens of Nicaraguan journalists, activists, and influencers.

At the exact same time as the Facebook purge, its sister platform Instagram took down many of the same pages:

• Barricada, which had more than 9,500 followers
• Redvolución, which had more than 22,700 followers,
• Red de Jóvenes Comunicadores, which had more than 12,600 followers
• and, once again, the personal pages of dozens of Nicaraguan journalists, activists, and influencers.

Instagram also suspended the account of the fashion organization Nicaragua Diseña, which is very popular in Nicaragua, and had more than 42,700 followers.

Unlike the other purged accounts, Nicaragua Diseña is decidedly not a political organization. It is run by Camila Ortega, a daughter of the president, but Nicaragua Diseña intentionally goes out of its way to avoid politics, trying to bring together opposition supporters and Sandinistas in apolitical cultural events.

Just a few days before the coordinated Facebook-Instagram purge, Twitter also removed the accounts of the most prominent pro-Sandinista journalists and influencers on the platform.

On October 28, Twitter suspended the accounts of media activists @ElCuervoNica, @FloryCantoX, @TPU19J, @Jay_Clandestino, and numerous others. Together, these pro-Sandinista communicators had tens of thousands of followers.

Many of them, such as @CuervoNica and @FloryCantoR, had been censored before. This was the second or third account they had created, only to be censored for their political views.

Twitter’s politically motivated censorship is again targeting Latin American leftists:

Influential Nicaraguan Sandinista supporters @ElCuervoNica and @FloryCantoX were suspended

This is the SECOND time the US government thought police at Twitter suspended @FloryCantoR‘s account pic.twitter.com/xlZJWVO9vt

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) October 29, 2021

Silicon Valley’s censorship of Nicaragua always goes in one direction: It is leftist, anti-imperialist supporters of the Sandinista government who are censored, while right-wing opposition activists, many of whom are funded by the US government, are verified and promoted by the social media monopolies.

Numerous Nicaraguan journalists whose individual social media accounts were suspended told The Grayzone they were upset and angry, as they had spent countless hours of work over years building their pages, doing journalism, and sharing information. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter deleted all of that labor in mere seconds.

Some said they fear this censorship will also harm them financially, as they had relied on their social media accounts as a source of income.

In addition to clearly infringing on their rights to freedom of the press and freedom of expression, the latest wave of Silicon Valley censorship has done concrete economic damage to working-class Nicaraguans who had relied on Facebook and Instagram to run small businesses. Several of those affected told The Grayzone they are now locked out of the Facebook and Instagram pages they had used to sell products like food, clothing, or homemade jewelry.

This Silicon Valley censorship thus not only greatly hinders these working-class Nicaraguans’ ability to do their work as journalists, given social media is an integral part of contemporary journalism, but also deprived them of extra sources of income they had relied on to support their families.

Given the US government’s hyperbolic claims of Russian meddling in its 2016 presidential election, the social media purge it has inspired in Nicaragua is stained with irony. After years of investigations, and billions of dollars spent, the only ostensible evidence Washington found of Russian interference was some Facebook posts, including absurd humorous memes.

If these alleged Russian Facebook memes constitute a Pearl Harbor-style attack on North American democracy, as top US government officials have claimed, then what does it mean for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to censor highly influential pro-Sandinista media outlets, journalists, and activists mere days before Nicaragua’s elections?

Aaron Mate discusses Russian troll farms’ dangerous Jesus masturbation memes that allegedly won Donald Trump the election. Full ep https://t.co/0izDspjRxX @aaronjmate @mtaibbi #UsefulIdiotsPod @RollingStone @RSPolitics #russiagate pic.twitter.com/XG2cH6NZ8F

— Katie Halper (@kthalps) May 18, 2020

Besides meddling in foreign elections, North American social media monopolies have systematically and repeatedly censored journalists, politicians, and activists in numerous countries targeted by Washington for regime change, such as Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Russia, and China. On numerous occasions, these Silicon Valley companies have admitted such purges were carried out at the request of the US government.

The Grayzone has documented the many ways in which these Big Tech giants collaborate with Western governments, while promoting US state media and silencing people in countries that Washington has deemed its adversaries.

For their part, the Nicaraguans censored by Facebook and Twitter have vowed to continue their work.

Redvolución wrote that it will keep struggling in the “digital trenches” to “defend the revolution.”

Quenri Madrigal, a prominent Sandinista activist and social media influencer, commented, “We have already witnessed the forms of online censorship targeting other countries, like Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, and Iran. There is a tyranny of transnational technology and social media corporations. They are instruments that don’t belong to the peoples.”

thegrayzone.com

By Ben NORTON

42 years after the victory of the Sandinista revolution, Nicaraguans are still celebrating the gains of the leftist movement, and hoping to take the transformative process to another stage.

This July 19, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans flooded downtown Managua, the capital, to show their support for the revolution and the national government that since 2007 has been led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Oceans of Nicaraguans filled the streets wearing red and black bandanas, waving FSLN flags, and chanting revolutionary slogans.

The celebration wasn’t just one day, but actually an entire week. And it culminated with speeches by President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo, who emphasized gains of the revolution like free universal healthcare and education for all citizens, new high-quality infrastructure, the empowerment of women and the youth, and an assertive stance on the global stage.

Ortega used his speech on July 19 to announce a 5% increase in government spending on social programs, and a corresponding 5% increase in the salaries of public workers.

Murillo vowed to accelerate the government’s war on poverty, linking it to the “diabolical imperialist threat” posed by US intervention. Stressing that underdevelopment of the Global South is an “imperialist imposition that has been used to dominate, divide, diminish,” the Nicaraguan vice president called poverty a “crime against humanity.”

Highlighting Washington’s decades-long war on the Sandinistas, Ortega railed against US imperialism, calling the “yanqui empire” a global dictatorship obsessed with destroying Nicaragua, Russia, China, and any country in its way, led by “rulers who want to impose their hegemony, who want to make themselves owners and lords of the planet, who even want to take over the universe.”

While tens of thousands of Nicaraguans filled Managua to commemorate the revolution, international media outlets blasted out fake news.

Spanish corporate news wire EFE falsely claimed, “Few celebrate Nicaragua’s revolution on its anniversary number 42.” In reality, although they did not receive any coverage in the mainstream foreign press, there were demonstrations this July in support of the Sandinista Front all across Nicaragua, in most the country’s departments and major cities, including Masaya, Estelí, Boaco, Rivas, Chinandega, Jinotega, Matagalpa, Granada, Leon, Chantales, Carazo, and beyond.

The onslaught of disinformation, spread shamelessly by Western corporate outlets, is part of the unconventional warfare that has been waged against Nicaragua and its leftist government, since the Sandinistas returned to power through a series of democratic elections beginning in 2006.

In 2018, the United States backed a violent coup attempt aimed at overthrowing the FSLN and the party’s President Daniel Ortega. For months, right-wing bands waged a campaign of sabotage to destabilize the country, erecting barricades that battered the economy, while hunting down Sandinista activists in their homes and on the street.

The putsch fizzled out in July 2018. But just when it was on the path to recovery, Nicaragua encountered a new series of stumbling blocks.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the world, further damaging Nicaragua’s economy. The US-funded anti-Sandinista opposition exploited the health crisis to launch another bid to sabotage the government.

As if this were not enough, that November, Central America was hit by not one but two hurricanes, Eta and Iota.

Despite the many obstacles, Nicaragua is still moving forward. The Sandinista government guarantees free, socialized, high-quality healthcare and education for all of its citizens.

And while Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the western hemisphere (after Haiti), it has some of the strongest social programs in the region, as well as excellent public infrastructure, on par with that of much richer Latin American countries.

The Sandinistas have also heavily emphasized the role of women in leadership positions. It passed laws requiring government offices to be split at least 50-50 between men and women, leading to the fifth-highest level of gender equality in the entire world, and the highest in Latin America.

The government’s gains are especially impressive when considering that Nicaragua’s neighbors in the so-called Northern Triangle – Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala – are wracked by catastrophic violent crime rates, making them some of the most violent nations on Earth that aren’t officially at war.

Compared to its neighbors, Nicaragua is an oasis of stability and peace. And many Nicaraguans attribute their relative security to the Sandinista Front.

According to a survey taken this May by the mainstream polling firm, M&R Consultores, 76% of Nicaraguans feel their country has progressed in the 14 years of rule of the Sandinista Front. 73% say the government gives them hope, 69% personally approve of President Daniel Ortega, and 63% believe their families will have better lives and jobs with the FSLN staying in power.

When I walked around downtown Managua on the week of July 19, the wellspring of popular support was palpable.

“Thanks to the Sandinista Front and Comandante Ortega, my children can go to college for free, and the public schools are excellent,” said a middle-aged woman. “When I was a child, in the neoliberal period, we had to bring our own desks to school, and there were holes in the walls.”

“We have various new hospitals, and they’re free,” a man effused. “Before you would go and pay a lot, and they would just give you a pill.”

As I strolled down Avenida Bolívar a Chávez (the main street in the capital, where monuments to Venezuelan anti-imperialist leaders Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez had been erected), I spoke with dozens of people who had gathered to celebrate the revolution.

“The roads were horrible before Comandante Ortega returned,” recalled an elderly man. “It was just earth and mud outside my house. Now I have good roads all around my neighborhood.”

“I remember the neoliberal era. We had nothing. They privatized everything. They pillaged the country,” a woman lamented. “Before the Sandinista Front came back, we didn’t even have electricity or water. It went out every day.”

Many women emphasized the role the Sandinista Front has played in empowering them and their family members.

Several Nicaraguans also recognized me and stopped to show gratitude to The Grayzone for reporting on their struggle. “Thank you for telling the truth about what is going on,” a young Sandinista activist said. “The other media outlets say so many lies. They are all lies.”

Before Covid-19 broke out, Managua was the site of massive rallies each July 19, in which hundreds of thousands of Sandinista supporters filled downtown Managua to celebrate. At The Grayzone, we have reported on these enormous popular celebrations, which essentially amount to multi-day parties in the streets.

Both last year and this year, however, the government cancelled the official July 19 celebration, over health concerns due to Covid-19. (I also reported on the 41st anniversary of the revolution in 2020, from inside Managua.)

Yet these cancellations did not stop the hardcore base of the Sandinista Front from filling the streets of  Managua in celebration.

The night before the anniversary, on July 18, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans filled Managua’s Plaza La Fe.

A long line of cars stretched all the way down Avenida Bolívar. Sandinistas were willing to sit in hours of traffic to attend.

During a midnight fireworks launch, Nicaraguans blasted revolutionary music from their cars, and partied into the early morning.

The enthusiasm that many Nicaraguans felt toward the Sandinista Front was tangible. One woman displayed a leg tattoo of President Daniel Ortega.

While tens of thousands of Nicaraguans filled Managua’s Plaza La Fe and Avenida Bolívar on the night of July 18, many more held large community parties, called vigilias, in working-class barrios.

I attended a large gathering in the blue collar neighborhood of San Antonio, where young people mingled with elders and danced to a blend of reggaeton, rap, and música testimonial – revolutionary songs sang in unison and celebrating the Sandinista Front’s victories.

Revelers constantly stopped me to thank me for “reporting what is actually happening” in their country, complaining that the pro-Sandinista majority is ignored by foreign corporate media outlets, which instead act as mouthpieces for the elite right-wing opposition.

An older man related to me the story of how he had left Nicaragua to study in Germany, and later worked in the United States, but later decided to return home because he wanted to support the revolutionary process.

“I have seen the poverty and homeless in the United States, and it is horrible, it is barbaric in a country with so much wealth,” he said.

Another Sandinista supporter exclaimed to me, “We want to thank the people of the United States who support the Sandinista Popular Revolution. The people of the US are not the same as the government; we know that!”

The older man had been involved in the armed struggle in the 1970s, and said that during the ’80s, he met many US activists who arrived in Nicaragua to help build the revolution.

The vigilia in San Antonio was organized by local Sandinista activists, who put a series of poster boards outside of the event, highlighting what they consider to be the most important gains of the revolution.

“The revolution is health for everyone,” read one, showing photos of the socialized healthcare system and new hospitals built under the FSLN government.

“The revolution is: free, high-quality education,” read another poster. It included images of new school infrastructure, a state-of-the-art technological training center, and the free school supply program.

“The revolution is: building road infrastructure and dignified homes,” the boards continued, displaying the Sandinistas’ highly subsidized public housing initiative.

And last but not least was a sign emphasizing, “Without the participation of women, there is no revolution!”

After days of community celebrations of the anniversary across Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo delivered speeches in Plaza de la Revolución, in the heart of Managua.

Ortega proceeded to his speech down Avenida Bolívar, standing through the open roof of his presidential vehicle and waving at the thousands of Nicaraguans who had rallied to commemorate the revolution.

The president’s security team reportedly did not support the decision, but Ortega insisted on greeting his supporters.

Nicaraguan President Ortega: US empire wants to dominate the world and suppress all other powers

Although Nicaragua is a small country of 6 million people, its Sandinista government punches above its weight on the international stage.

In the 2021 celebration, Ortega made it clear that anti-imperialism is at the forefront of the FSLN’s revolutionary program.

The “world is more and more shaken by the desires of the North American rulers, who want to impose their hegemony, who want to make themselves owners and lords of the planet, who even want to take over the universe,” the Nicaraguan president declared. “That is how far their plans go. Because they have atomic bombs, because they have lots of money.”

“And they can’t understand that that era, where imperialism had a period that was temporary, but a period of hegemony, when the balance between the Soviet Union and the United States was broken, that that moment of hegemony that it had, it was a few seconds, and that disappeared,” Ortega said.

“Now the peoples of the world are fighting; the North American people are fighting, bravely, the North American people are fighting, and the peoples of Europe are also fighting,” he continued.

“Those countries that still dream of imposing their colonialist, neocolonialist policies in the world, they are simply outside of reality. That is no longer possible.

“When the universe was created, and in the universe, Earth came up, there was never any god that said, ‘The yanquis are going to be the owners of the world.’ Not in Africa, not in Asia, not in our American lands where are ancestors were, our roots. There were a multitude of gods worshiped by different cultures, and not one god said ‘We must submit ourselves to the yanqui empire.’”

Free public health “clinics and hospitals are for all Nicaraguan families,” not just Sandinistas

In a particularly memorable moment, Ortega argued that Nicaraguan opposition supporters were themselves victims.

“There are even those Nicaraguan families that, for diverse reasons, aren’t able to understand what is the struggle for dignity, for justice, which has to do with their own material realities, and those families are also victims,” he said. “I mean, the people who oppose us, because there are people who oppose us, as a result of the ferocious propaganda that there is, and they are in misery.”

“But when they see that they are passing a new highway, they are happy. And they are not upset because it was the Government of the People-as-President that is building that road,” Ortega continued. “And when a clinic is being built, and when a hospital is being built, as dozens of hospitals have been built in these years [of the Sandinista government], clinics for women, the doors are open for all Nicaraguan families.”

“They are not clinics or hospitals only for Sandinista families. They are clinics and hospitals for all Nicaraguan families!” Ortega emphasized.

He then announced a 5% increase in government spending on social programs, including a 5% raise for public sector workers.

Ortega also stressed the importance of housing the population. “We will continue giving property titles until all Nicaraguans in our homeland have a house, a lot, a place to live, a farm,” he said.

Since 2007, the Sandinista government has given poor and working-class Nicaraguans more than 501,000 property deeds, in both urban and rural areas, Ortega emphasized. This is important because it ensures that Nicaraguans are secure in their homes, and have legal protections so they cannot be displaced by wealthy landlords, corporations, or developers that want to steal and exploit the land they live on.

“When the property is recorded in the [government] registry, there are no latifundia-style thieves who can steal that property from the peasants,” the Nicaraguan president reassured.

Ortega: Coup-plotters provoked Nicaraguan police with violence and wanted them to shoot back

In his discussion of the violent 2018 coup attempt, Daniel Ortega praised the national police for “resisting the provocations, the bullet wounds, the deaths.” He specifically highlighted the officers in the city of Masaya, who were under siege for weeks by heavily armed extremist coup-mongers.

“How difficult it was in that moment to have to tell those comrades there not to shoot back, not to resist, to endure it, not to shoot, while the terrorists were firing bullets, with funding from the yanquis and the oligarchy, attacking every day,” Ortega said.

“It was a provocation. They wanted the police to react, so they could say it was a massacre,” the president continued, explaining the strategy of the US-backed putsch. “The police were simply following orders to resist without firing any bullets, which are the most difficult orders to follow, when an institution is being attacked, when a command is being attacked.”

Ortega’s comments recalled an op-ed published in the New York Times by a US government-backed anti-China activist, titled “A Hong Kong Protester’s Tactic: Get the Police to Hit You.” The unusually candid 2019 article explained how Western-sponsored insurgents employed “aggressive nonviolence to provoke the authorities,” based on a strategy called “Marginal Violence Theory,” which uses “the most aggressive nonviolent actions possible to push the police and the government to their limits.”

But as The Grayzone has reported, the tactics Nicaragua’s opposition employed in 2018 were anything but non-violent.

Ortega: US empire is “crazy” and “wants to dominate all countries”

“This is a complex struggle, because it is a struggle that involves the global interests of the empire that wants to dominate all countries,” Daniel Ortega continued in his speech.

The US empire “wants to suppress other powers, instead of getting along with the powers it wants to suppress them. It wants to suppress the Russian Federation; it wants to subordinate it. It wants to suppress, it wants to subordinate the People’s Republic of China. They’re crazy! They’re crazy!” he said.

The US empire “wants to suppress powers, and they want to suppress nations as well, like Nicaragua,” Ortega went on. “We are a strategic point, and that is where the yanqui persecution of Nicaragua comes from, because here there is a giant resource, which is a canal through Nicaragua.”

And US government officials “don’t want, they have never wanted, as long as Nicaragua has existed, they have imposed treaties so that Nicaragua would not sign any agreement with any country of the world, even European countries, if they don’t authorize it. They gave themselves the right over our land. Because there were traitorous sell-out governments, and they gave themselves the right to say to the Europeans, here you cannot enter, here we will decide the canal, we the United States, the yanqui empire.”

“We are in the middle of that battle, in that struggle, and it is a struggle, yes, one in which we are advancing,” Ortega said.

“Simply, what I can say is that, despite the empire’s attempts to destroy our country, here is Nicaragua, on its feet, firm and moving forward,” the president declared. “Despite the fact that they have tried to destroy the economy, they have killed, spreading terror, they have put into practice terrorism in Nicaragua, they have laundered billions of dollars in Nicaragua to spread terrorism.”

“And there they are doing the calculations where they are carrying out investigations into the infamous foundations, and millions of dollars are showing up here, millions there, and we are talking about millions of dollars to be used to try to destroy the Nicaraguan people. And they have failed.”

While on stage for the anniversary celebration, Ortega honored two female guerrilla fighters who had lost their arms or hands in the Sandinista armed struggle. He also praised the revolutionaries who in the 1980s fought the CIA-trained Contras, which he referred to as “the yanqui government’s mercenaries, criminals, terrorists.”

Before his speech, Ortega grabbed a giant Nicaraguan flag and declared, “This flag does not have and will not have any stars!” It was a symbolic denunciation of the US government’s desperate attempt to try to reimpose control over Nicaragua.

En su discurso hoy conmemorando el 42 aniversario de la Revolución Popular Sandinista, el Comandante Daniel Ortega condenó al imperialismo estadounidense, y agarró una bandera nicaragüense gigante y declaró “Esta bandera no tiene, ni tendrá ninguna estrella!” pic.twitter.com/6c8VNov7nO

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 20, 2021

Ortega was also referencing a popular Sandinista song called Soberanía (Sovereignty), which went viral in Nicaragua this July, and was performed on stage at the celebration. The tune has become a unifying anthem for the Sandinista Front’s 2021 electoral campaign. Its lyrics read as follows:

Sovereignty in my land is written in large letters

And not in ink but rather in blood, throughout history

…

Here we do not want foreign interference

It will never be the same when a Nicaraguan speaks compared to someone outside

Outside, outside they can say what they want

But if you are here in Nicaraguan land, respect my flag

The blue and white flag, which does not have a star

…

Here all countries have their ambassadors

But some of those those men do not respect diplomacy

And there is one, with his arrogance, who makes his way in the White House

And if he wants to speak, he should abandon his position

And he will see how short his time on this Earth lasts

I am not speaking about war, it is only a demand

That he can speak his BS, but outside the country

Outside, outside they can say what they want

But if you are here in Nicaraguan land, respect my flag

The blue and white flag, which does not have a star

For which Sandino raised up the Red and Black [flag]

Nicaraguan VP: Poverty is a ‘crime against humanity’ imposed by imperialism

In her speech at the 42nd anniversary event, Vice President Rosario Murillo also strongly condemned “the most brutal aggressions of North American imperialism” and the “diabolical imperialist threat.”

Murillo also put an emphasis on the need to “continue fighting against poverty, that imperialist imposition that has been used to dominate, divide, diminish.”

The Vice President declared, “We fight against poverty, which is hatred, which is a crime against humanity, and we fight so that its promoters stop those hatreds that they impose with methods that are considered novel or unconventional, but we refuse to refer to them as ‘soft’ or ‘color [revolutions],’ because nothing is light or easygoing or colorful in the shameless and dark minds in the dens where the colonialists and imperialists of the planet plot their crimes.”

This July, the Sandinista Front launched a new five-year National Plan to Fight Against Poverty, especially dedicated to further developing the country and raising living standards for working-class people.

William Grigbsy, a prominent Nicaraguan radio host whose daily program Sin Fronteras (Without Borders) is influential within the Sandinista movement, reflected on Murillo’s speech, emphasizing that the vice president referred to poverty as a “crime against humanity.”

“To me, this is one of the most powerful things that Rosario said,” Grigsby commented. “Poverty is an imperialist imposition. It is the maximum expression of capitalism. Poverty is an imposition; it is not something that we are because we want to be, or because we are stupid, as some people say. No brother, they have imposed it on us, creating the rules to impoverish us, to make us poor, and to live with that terrible scourge that is poverty

Grigsby emphasized the country’s contrast with Haiti: “It is a nation that has so much wealth. But they are pillaging it. The copper, the other minerals, it is being stolen, by the Canadians, the yanquis, the French, and they keep plundering it, in the north of Haiti. They are the owners. They even own the police.”

Grigsby added, “It is the same that has been done against us, that has been against the Salvadoreans, the Hondurans, the Mexicans, any country. They have pillaged these countries and imposed the crime against humanity they call poverty.”

thegrayzone.com

John PERRY

Reports by Reveal News and PBS NewsHour have called for a boycott of “conflict beef” from Nicaragua. The Center for Investigative Reporting’s website Reveal claims to be “fair and comprehensive,” and PBS says it is “trusted,” but their misleading and inaccurate reports could have drastic consequences for Nicaragua, at a time when the country is already struggling to deal with US sanctions, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of two damaging hurricanes.

Their argument is that cattle farmers who produce the beef that is exported have in many cases illegally settled territory in the rainforest that belongs to Indigenous communities, and that the government does little to resolve the violent conflict that results.

There are some 40,000 Indigenous families in Nicaragua, and nearly a third of its territory is legally owned and administered by 300 Indigenous communities. Reveal and PBS focus on Bosawás, the largest tropical rainforest reserve in Central America, which has seven territories belonging to Mayangna and Miskitu Indigenous groups, whose land claims have been recognized by the government. (Since 2006, the governing party in Nicaragua has been the socialist Sandinista Front, a longstanding target of US hostility.)

For decades, non-Indigenous (or mestizo) settlers have entered these areas, some “buying” land from Indigenous communities, even though it cannot legally be sold, and others simply taking it. A history of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal land occupation, along with intermixing of mestizo families with Indigenous people, have produced a multifaceted, volatile situation, which occasionally causes violent disputes.

A local NGO, called CEJUDHCAN, in February 2020 counted 40 deaths of Indigenous people over five years connected to land disputes, with further mestizo deaths uncounted.

The remoteness of the area provides ample scope for reports of violence to be distorted for political purposes. For example, in January, Reuters reported an attack on the Mayangna community of Alal by 80 men, leading to six deaths, 10 people being kidnapped, and houses being destroyed.

Along with local opposition media, The Guardian and BBC repeated the story, apparently based on just two phone calls from people claiming that “the state is doing nothing.” Yet Nicaraguan police investigated quickly, finding 12 houses burned down and two people injured, but no one dead or disappeared.

Mayangna leaders condemned the false reports. Two days later in Wakuruskasna, seven miles from Alal, police found and identified four murder victims. They described a criminal gang responsible for both incidents, capturing one alleged member.

Reveal News journalist Nathan Halverson misrepresents a different incident. In February, a young girl bathing in a river in Santa Clara was reportedly hit by a bullet. Halverson repeats the uncorroborated claim that settlers were “sending a message” to the local Indigenous community: “Leave.”

Halverson dismisses the police’s conclusion that the injury was caused by another child shooting off a gun — a version corroborated by Lejan Mora, president of Santa Clara’s Indigenous government, who knows the family. Community leaders told Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) that the family had been bribed to lie about the “attack.”

Halverson claims the homicide rate in the area “soared so high… that it would rank among the most dangerous places in the world.” Lottie Cunningham Wren, who runs CEJUDHCAN, tells Halverson that the roughly 40 deaths in five years amount to “ethnocide” in which the Indigenous people will “disappear” — an improbable outcome, given that there are 180,000 Miskitu and 30,000 Mayangna people.

Misrepresenting Indigenous land disputes

To those unfamiliar with Nicaragua, news items about Indigenous groups conjure images of uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. Reveal/PBS calls the area “pristine jungle.” Yet these communities have good roads, access to schools, health posts, local municipal services, and government agricultural and technical support.

Romanticized views of forest dwellers create one level of oversimplification. Another, in a region deeply divided between supporters and opponents of Nicaragua’s government, is to report unquestioningly the views of one side, and to suggest ostensibly obvious solutions to land conflicts. Doing so overlooks many obstacles and incorrectly alleges government neglect, ignoring the many advances being made alongside the problems that remain.

All these faults are found in the research behind the Reveal/PBS stories: a report by the Oakland Institute, a California-based progressive think tank that compares the situation of Nicaraguan Indigenous communities with “the peoples and forests in the Brazilian Amazon.”

The report’s author, Anuradha Mittal, has spoken to many Miskitu people aligned with an opposition party, Yatama, but evidently to few if any people from other communities — whether mestizos, Mayangna, Afro-descendants, or the many Miskitu who support the government. Glossing over this political bias, she claims to speak for the Indigenous people’s “courageous struggle” against government indifference.

Mittal recognizes that Nicaragua’s widely applauded Law 445 established Indigenous land rights, but she argues that despite subsequent land titling, the government has failed Indigenous people by not taking “the final, crucial step of the land claims process” known as saneamiento — “sanitation” — which in her interpretation “requires clearing the Indigenous territories of non-Indigenous settlers.” But saneamiento is much more complex than this, as explained below.

Nor does Mittal acknowledge the role of corrupt Yatama leaders who failed to advance saneamiento despite controlling the regional government for almost a decade until 2014, while themselves selling land illegally.

Geographer Nora Sylvander, who has studied the issue since 2012, argues that saneamiento could easily “create more problems than it solves,” and may “exacerbate the conflict and violence” rather than curb it. For example, what happens to long-established settlers who have “bought” their land: Do they get replacement land, and if so where? What happens if settlers resist removal with violence — would the government risk lives to carry it out?

Guillermo Rodriguez of the Center for Justice and International Law, responding to the Oakland Institute report, said, “It’s a really complex situation. In some places, 90% of the current inhabitants are colonos [settlers].”

Many Indigenous leaders argue that saneamiento is actually working, but could do so more quickly with increased resources and closer political coordination by Indigenous territorial administrations with other levels of government. Both Rose Cunningham, the mayor of Waspam, and the Miskitu leader Lejan Mora described the process to us, in which longer-established settlers may be allowed to stay with community agreement while others, often newcomers, are expelled.

In fact, Nicaragua is one of many Latin American countries struggling to develop a viable process of saneamiento, in a Caribbean region which is among the country’s poorest, and where the government assigns limited resources to providing better hospitals, schools, and roads.

Erasing Nicaragua’s supply chain oversight

The crux of the Reveal/PBS pieces is to link the land conflicts in Bosawás, and the alleged failure of government to tackle them, with the production of meat for export. Reveal’s piece is headed “Conflict Beef,” and both it and PBS use pictures of US supermarket meat displays. Both quote Mittal as saying: “The supply chain of beef from Nicaragua is anything but clean.”

This is untrue. The government body responsible for the integrity of the supply chain is IPSA (the Spanish acronym for the Institute for Agricultural Protection and Health). On November 9, IPSA’s director explained to us that they believe their cattle registration and traceability system, approved by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, is as rigorous as any in Latin America.

Through it, IPSA monitors the location and movement of all registered cattle – and only these cattle can enter the supply chain for the export market. Registration of farms and tagging of animals is done by authorized agents, not by producers, and cattle can only be moved, sold, and slaughtered if they have the correct documentation.

None of the 125,253 registered farms are in the strictly protected areas (“nuclei”) of national reserves. One of the largest exporting companies produced a promotional video in November to explain the safeguards it has in place.

All this is ignored by both Nathan Halverson and Anuradha Mittal. The Oakland Institute report laments the “absence of a nationally coordinated traceability system for cattle,” while Halverson cites an unnamed US Department of Agriculture official saying “that there is no recognized system to trace beef within Nicaragua, meaning importers cannot ensure that their beef wasn’t raised on stolen Indigenous land.”

Yet the USDA audits IPSA every two years, and only IPSA-registered cattle are accepted by the six processing plants certified as meeting USDA requirements. None of these are “near the borders of Indigenous lands,” as Halverson claims.

Halverson adds that the European Union doesn’t allow beef imports from Nicaragua, seemingly unaware that the EU already has a pilot project with IPSA to ensure the scheme meets its (higher) requirements.

Of the 705,320 cattle registered by IPSA since 2011, just 11 percent are in the North Atlantic Region, where the Bosawás reserve is located. The region has 13,348 registered farms, but none are in the reserve’s nucleus, and hardly any are in municipalities where land conflicts occur. Waspam, for example, has only 98, and none of them is in southern Tasba Raya, where violence flared in 2015.

Yet clearly there are cattle in the reserve. Although the Oakland Institute report fails to mention it, Miskitu people typically have small numbers of cattle. Many more may be introduced by settlers, either by agreement or illegally. However, while meat (and milk) from these cattle can be sold locally, there are multiple barriers to their entering the export market.

In addition to the IPSA system, cattle trucks leaving the reserve have to comply with municipal administrative requirements, present documents at permanent army checkpoints, and face random police checks.

A group of cattle farmers interviewed for this article in Siuna, the city closest to Bosawás, explained in detail how these measures prevent cattle kept in the reserve from entering the export market, adding that the army also removes illegal ranchers.

Two leaders of the Mayangna nation interviewed for this article described how this is done in coordination with Indigenous forest wardens.

While clearly such evictions are only partially effective, it is extremely difficult to see how the remaining ranchers could evade the army and police and breach the IPSA system to sell cattle for export. Local producers say this is impossible, and neither Mittal nor Halverson offer any evidence to the contrary.

Anti-Sandinista opposition activists hiding behind flawed research

The source of the Reveal/PBS material — the Oakland Institute — is openly hostile to the Nicaraguan government, a fact made obvious by the title of its report, “Nicaragua’s Failed Revolution.”

As well as including a very biased account of the violence the country experienced in 2018, the report makes detailed accusations against Sandinista politicians Myrna Cunningham, Rose Cunningham, and Carlos Alemán Cunningham, noting that they are from the same (Miskitu) family.

The report also refers positively to the work of CEJUDHCAN without pointing out that its director, Lottie Cunningham Wren, now aligned with the US-supported opposition, is part of the same family that the Oakland Institute report alleges is involved in corrupt land dealings.

Based on her work with Anuradha Mittal, Cunningham Wren is also interviewed by Halverson for Reveal/PBS. Two senior Mayangna leaders we spoke to, Arisio Genaro Celso and Eloy Frank Gomez, regard her as simply looking for ways to attack the government while being out of touch with the Mayangna community’s needs.

Likewise, Miskitu leader Mora accuses CEJUDHCAN and Cunningham Wren of blatantly lying about events in the region. Fresly Janes Zamora, Miskitu president of the Twi Yahbra territory, said she is benefiting from violence in the area and not seeking solutions.

Another person interviewed by Halverson, Camilo de Castro Belli, is described as a journalist, but in fact is a fellow at the Aspen Institute, a neoliberal think tank, a committed supporter of Nicaragua’s opposition, and the son of Gioconda Belli, a prominent opposition figure.

Before this piece was written, both Halverson and Mittal were asked for proof of the claimed link between conflicts in Bosawás and beef exports to the US. Although they replied, they offered no proof. A list of suggested corrections to the Reveal article, invited by its editor, was rejected, as was the offer of an article in response to Halverson’s.

Conflict beef from Nicaragua feeds US market amid pandemic https://t.co/r5vGbtiqVu via @reveal @eWords @oak_institute @cejil @OAECoops @GRodriguez__ @BiancaJagger

— Anuradha Mittal (@Mittaloak) October 22, 2020

Media aiding US regime-change agenda

Other media outlets picked up the damaging Reveal/PBS piece: Environmental website One Green Planet linked the story to the enormously different scale of deforestation taking place in the Amazon. KPFA radio in California devoted two episodes of the show A Rude Awakening to interviews with Mittal, in which she made generalized attacks on her critics and on the Daniel Ortega government, again without offering any proof of her claims. Neither responded to complaints.

By making a completely false link between the land conflicts in Nicaragua and the growth of its meat exports to the United States, ostensibly progressive media are fueling the US government’s regime-change agenda, just as they have in relation to Venezuela.

The US pursues this agenda via economic sanctions (renewed by Trump days after recent hurricanes hit Nicaragua) and blatant financial support for opposition groups in the run-up to Nicaragua’s 2021 elections.

If the calls for a boycott of Nicaraguan beef in the Reveal and PBS reports were actually heeded, there would be enormous damage to the Nicaraguan economy and to poor communities in Nicaragua. The livelihoods of no less than 140,000 producers and 600,000 workers would be at risk.

Once again, knowingly or otherwise, US media outlets are complicit in attempts by Nicaraguan opposition groups and the US government to undermine Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

Reveal has a deserved reputation in progressive circles for its work in exposing immigration abuses, conditions faced by Amazon workers, and other issues. It should pay much more careful attention to the sources of its reports on Nicaragua.

thegrayzone.com

A newly released document exposes a US government operation to overthrow the democratically elected socialist government in Nicaragua.

The plot is administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a regime-change vehicle that uses the pretense of “humanitarian aid” to advance Washington’s aggressive foreign-policy interests.

The document (PDF) details the creation of a new “task order” called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) and its plan for “Nicaragua’s transition to democracy” – a euphemism for removing the leftist Sandinista Front for National Liberation (known commonly by the Spanish acronym FSLN) from power.

In the pages, the US government agency uses hardline neoconservative rhetoric, referring to Nicaragua’s elected government as the “Ortega regime,” and making it clear that Washington wants to install a neoliberal administration that will privatize the economy, impose neoliberal reforms, and purge all institutions of any trace of the leftist Sandinista movement.

The USAID regime-change scheme states openly that one of its top “mission goals” is for Nicaragua to “transition to a rules-based market economy” based on the “protection of private property rights.”

The document concludes by calling for the future US-installed regime in Nicaragua to “rebuild institutions” and “reestablish” the military and police; to “dismantle parallel institutions” that support the Sandinista Front; and to persecute FSLN leaders through “transitional justice measures” – in other words, a thorough purge of the Sandinista movement to prevent it from ever returning to power.

In case it was not explicit enough that Washington’s goal was regime change, the 14-page USAID document employed the word “transition” 102 times, including nine times on the first page alone.

USAID declared its intention to assist in what could be an “orderly transition” or a “sudden transition without elections,” which is clear code for a coup. At the same time, it acknowledged that Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition is divided and has little chance of winning the upcoming 2021 national election.

USAID oversees another far-right coup attempt in Latin America

Ever since the Sandinista Front returned to power in Nicaragua through democratic elections in 2006, Washington has been hellbent on trying to topple it.

In 2018, the Donald Trump administration supported a violent coup attempt in Nicaragua, in which far-right gangs took over neighborhoods and paralyzed the country with bloody barricades known as tranques. The US-backed insurgents unleashed a reign of terror, killing and injuring hundreds of Sandinista activists and state security forces; marking the homes of leftist activists, ransacking and burning some down; and torturing and threatening supporters of the elected government.

When the 2018 putsch attempt failed, the US government resorted to a raft of aggressive tactics to bring down Nicaragua’s leadership. In the past two years, the Trump administration has imposed several rounds of suffocating sanctions on the small Central American nation, often with bipartisan support in Congress, not a word of opposition from the Democratic Party, and cheers from the billionaire-funded human rights industry.

The US Agency for International Development was instrumental in the Donald Trump administration’s violent US coup attempts against Venezuela’s elected government in 2019, working directly with the Department of Defense. USAID has poured hundreds of millions of dollars funding the US regime-change efforts against the leftist Chavista government, and has bankrolled the Trump-backed coup regime of Juan Guaidó .

USAID has always functioned as a CIA cutout and soft-power arm for Washington. But under the Trump administration, it has kicked its coup efforts in Latin America into hyper drive.

In April 2020, USAID was taken over by de facto director John Barsa, a hardline Republican businessman, Trump ally, and son of anti-communist Cuban immigrants. In coordination with Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Barsa has turned USAID into a blunt weapon of regime change, openly financing putsch efforts against the socialist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

US govt’s Democracy International posts job listing for USAID coup liaison in Nicaragua

The Grayzone contacted USAID to ask confirmation that the document detailing its plans for a political “transition” in Nicaragua was authentic. The agency did not respond.

We were able, however, to gather evidence demonstrating the document’s legitimacy. The pages spelling out the regime-change plot employ precisely the same language and phrases as a job listing that was posted in late July by another US government-funded organization, Democracy International. In fact, the USAID document appears to be a more detailed job description for this post.

Democracy International stated in its listing on LinkedIn that it was seeking a Nicaraguan national in the capital of Managua to work as a “Senior Level Technical Expert – Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance to provide technical and programmatic support for USAID/Nicaragua’s Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) Task Order.”

Directly echoing the USAID document, the Democracy International job listing said that the “purpose of the Task Order is ‘to provide rapid, responsive, and relevant analytical and technical assistance that bridge USAID/Nicaragua’s efforts to create the conditions for, and support, a peaceful transition to democracy in Nicaragua.’”

This employee would help develop a “Transition Response Plan” – a regime-change scheme. (The brief job listing uses the term “transition” 10 times.)

During the Cold War, coup coordination jobs like these would have been covert positions arranged with the CIA. In the freewheeling 21st century, however, this dirty regime-change work is carried out in the open, and advertised publicly on LinkedIn.

In case it wasn’t clear what this organization’s relationship was to USAID, it stated clearly on the post: “Democracy International, Inc. (DI) provides technical assistance, analytical services and project implementation for democracy, human rights, governance and conflict mitigation programs worldwide for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US State Department and other development partners.”

The job listing explicitly noted that the employee would work with the US government to provide “technical advice and country knowledge to GON (government of Nicaragua) ministries, USG (US government), and other stakeholders.”

Clearly, Democracy International is searching for a local point person to help carry out Washington’s regime-change efforts on the ground. The USAID document spelled out in detail the specific destabilization strategy that this liaison would follow.

The Grayzone called the Democracy International office with a request for comment on the LinkedIn job listing, the RAIN program, and the USAID document. A secretary would not let us speak with a specific member of the international team, simply saying, “We will inform the relevant people that we have received a call and I can give them their name and number and they will call you.”

The secretary asked if The Grayzone had a specific question to respond to. We said, “Local Nicaraguan media outlets have criticized USAID’s RAIN program, which is described in the Democracy International job posting, and characterized it as what appears to be an attempt at orchestrating a coup in the country. Can you respond to that characterization and do you think it is fair or unfair?” The Democracy International secretary replied, “Wow that’s so interesting. I will definitely let them know that you called.”

USAID’s regime-change plot to “transition” Nicaragua to a “market economy”

USAID’s Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN) plan makes it clear that it is just a “short term bridge” to bring about regime change in the country, adding, “It is USAID’s intent to follow RAIN with longer-term programs, which will be determined as the crisis evolves.”

The regime-change plot outlined a “Mission Goal 2” in which “Nicaragua provides basis for future economic growth and increased trade through transition to a rules-based market economy based on transparent and accountable regulatory institutions, fiscal and monetary stability, respect for the rule-of-law and protection of private property rights.”

A supplementary “mission objective” emphasized USAID’s desire for a new neoliberal regime in Nicaragua that “works with the private sector to rebuild institutionality and an efficient and fair administrative bureaucracy” – in other words, mass privatization.

(Among the supposed crimes committed by the Nicaraguan “regime,” USAID lists “confiscation of properties.”)

The USAID document outlined further US priorities for Nicaragua following a successful regime-change operation.

USAID’s “Mission Goal 3” would be “Security reform and rebuilding institutions” to “reestablish independent and professional security forces.” This is clearly a call for purging the police and military of Sandinista loyalists and bring in US trainers to establish a neocolonial-style security force, much like General Keith Dayton did in the occupied West Bank after Palestinian resistance was extinguished following the Second Intifada.

The “new government must act quickly to dismantle parallel institutions,” USAID adds. This is an indirect hint that Washington seeks to destroy the Sandinista Front, the Sandinista Youth, and other grassroots institutions that work with but are independent of the current socialist government. At its most severe, such a proposal could amount to an Augusto Pinochet-style purge of the left in Nicaragua.

“Additionally, it will need to implement transitional justice measures,” the USAID document added. This language, which has also been used in the proxy war on Syria, suggests the new neoliberal Nicaraguan government would be compelled to prosecute Sandinista Front officials, echoing the strategy the US-backed right-wing regimes in Bolivia and Ecuador have used to criminalize the left-wing parties that previously ruled those countries, hunt down former leftist leaders, and throw opposition officials in prison on dubious charges.

Another important part of the RAIN job would include recruiting native coup coordinators to help carry out the regime-change plot. USAID described this responsibility as follows: “Identification of potential Nicaraguan partners for rapid impact Grants Under Task Order to promote transition-related activities.”

The initiative allotted $540,000 in grants to entice Nicaraguan opposition groups into assisting the regime-change effort. (In the second-poorest country in the Western hemisphere, where the minimum wage is between $200 and $300 per month, half a million dollars is no petty sum.)

These funds would compliment the millions of dollars that USAID and the NED provide to right-wing Nicaraguan organizations every year.

The USAID document insisted that “Nicaragua’s immediate future remains highly uncertain.” Yet it acknowledged that the right-wing opposition is divided and unpopular, admitting that its leadership has not “coalesced around a party or candidate.”

Taking into account the weakness of the opposition heading into the 2021 national elections, the USAID plan outlines three scenarios for the overthrow of the socialist government and a “transition” to a US-friendly neoliberal regime.

The first is an “Orderly Transition scenario,” a far-fetched situation in which an unpopular US-backed opposition group somehow manages to win the election.

The second potential regime-change scenario is described as a “Sudden, Unanticipated Transition,” in “which one or more political crises, such as a snap or failed election, a presidential resignation, a major health crisis, a major natural disaster, or internal conflicts, lead to sudden regime crisis and transition either to an interim government or a new government.” This is the coup option, and USAID makes it clear that it would be more than happy with such a situation, and wants its RAIN liaison to prepare for it.

The third is a “Delayed Transition scenario,” in which the Sandinista government remains in power. In this case, USAID says that RAIN would help it destabilize the government in other ways and lead to future regime change.

But USAID didn’t want readers to get the wrong impression. It stressed in the document that its coup would be “gender sensitive in compliance” and based on “gender-informed analytical work.” (Although the women who make up the bulk of the Sandinista base would have to be excluded from Washington’s woke political “transition”).

The USAID document balanced its liberal language on gender with neoconservative rhetoric claiming, “Malign foreign influences, principally Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia, will continue to attempt to strengthen the corrupt autocratic Ortega regime.”

“What if Nicaragua did that in the United States?”

The existence of the USAID regime-change document was first reported on July 31 on the popular Nicaraguan radio and video show Sin Fronteras, hosted by William Grigsby Vado.

Grigsby, a prominent leftist media personality with a large following at the base of the Sandinista Front, condemned the US plot. “It is nauseating, the document; bearing to read it is difficult,” he said in outrage. “You have to have a strong liver to bear it. It pained me a lot.”

“What right does the US government have to contract a firm to subvert public order in any country?” Grigsby fumed. “It is a shameless intervention. Before they did it with the military; in this case they are doing it by subverting public order and funding political opposition activities. That is unacceptable!”

“What if Nicaragua did that in the United States, if for example Daniel Ortega said, ‘Hey, we’re going to help the protesters in Portland’?” he added. “But they reserve to themselves the right to act against the democratic institutionality of a country.”

Grigsby concluded by condemning “yankee imperialism” and slamming Nicaraguan opposition figures who are participating in this regime-change scheme.

“You all can do one of two things,” he thundered at the opposition. “Follow the rules of democracy, accept your defeat, and participate in the political game. Or you can simply remain as treasonists, hitmen, and traitors.”

The USAID document shows Washington pushing the latter option, and driving the country into a deepened conflict.

thegrayzone.com

The New York Times published an astonishingly horrible article the other day titled “Latin America Is Facing a ‘Decline of Democracy’ Under the Pandemic” accusing governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua of exploiting Covid-19 to quash opposition and oppress democracy.

The article sources its jarringly propagandistic claims in multiple US government-funded narrative management operations like the Wilson Center and the National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored Freedom House, the extensively plutocrat-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the United States Naval Academy.

The crown jewel of this piece of State Department stenography reads as follows:

“Adding to these challenges, democracy in Latin America has also lost a champion in the United States, which had played an important role in promoting democracy after the end of the Cold War by financing good governance programs and calling out authoritarian abuses.”

Whoa, nelly.

I wanted to laugh but it isn’t funny that the New York Times thinks it’s okay to publish such a blatantly false statement. pic.twitter.com/cBlcf4aq1l

— Esha (@eshaLegal) July 30, 2020

The fact that America’s most widely regarded newspaper feels perfectly comfortable making such a spectacularly in-your-face lie on behalf of the US government tells you everything you need to know about what the mass media in America really are and what they do.

The United States has never at any time been a champion of democracy in Latin America, before or since the Cold War. It has intervened hundreds of times in the continent’s affairs throughout history with everything from murderous corporate colonialism to deadly CIA regime change operations to overt military invasions. It is currently trying to orchestrate a coup in Venezuela after failing to stage one during the Bush administration, it’s pushing regime change in Nicaragua, and The New York Times itself admitted this year that it was wrong to promote the false US government narrative of electoral shenanigans in Bolivia’s presidential race last year, a narrative which facilitated a bloody fascist coup.

This is propaganda. There is no other word for it. And yet the only time western politicians and news reporters use that word is to talk about nations like Russia and China.

Why is propaganda used in an ostensibly free democracy with an ostensibly free media? Why are its news media outlets so consistently in alignment with every foreign policy objective of US government agencies no matter how destructive and inexcusable? If the media and the government are two separate institutions, why do they so consistently function as though they are not separate?

Well, that’s easy. It’s because they aren’t separate. The only thing keeping this from being seen is the fact that America’s real government isn’t located where people think it is.

In a corporatist system of government, where no hard lines are drawn between corporate/financial power and state power, corporate media is state media. Since bribery is legal in the US political system in the form of corporate lobbying and campaign donations, America’s elected government is controlled by wealthy elites who have money to burn and who benefit from maintaining a specific status quo arrangement.

The fact that this same plutocratic class also owns America’s media, which is now so consolidated that it’s almost entirely run by just six corporations, means that the people who run the government also run the media. This allows America’s true rulers to set up a system which promotes narratives that are favorable to their desired status quo.

Which means that the US has state propaganda. They just don’t call it that themselves.

Strip away the phony two-handed sock puppet show of US electoral politics and look at how power actually moves in that country, and you just see one more tyrannical regime which propagandizes its citizens, brutally cracks down on protesters, deliberately keeps its populace impoverished so they don’t get powerful enough to change things, and attacks any nation which dares to disobey its dictates.

Beneath the thin layer of narrative overlay about freedom and democracy, the US is just one more despotic, bloodthirsty empire. It’s no better than any of the other despotic, bloodthirsty empires throughout history. It just has good PR.

This is Newsweek not Infowars (although Infowars had story first) An ex president visiting the private island of a known pedophile who was running a human trafficking operation with the daughter of a spy. Just think about that the next time you ridicule conspiracy theorists. https://t.co/VDs1wpvide

— Tim Dillon (@TimJDillon) July 31, 2020

Plutocrats not only exert control over America’s media and politics, they also form alliances with the secretive government agencies whose operators remain amid the comings and goings of the official elected government. We see examples of this in the way new money tech plutocrats like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Pierre Omidyar have direct relationships with the CIA and its proxies.

We also see it in the sexual blackmail operation which was facilitated by the late Jeffrey Epstein in connection with billionaire Leslie Wexner and Israeli intelligence, along with potentially the FBI and/or other US intelligence agencies. Today the internet is abuzz as newly unsealed court documents relating to Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell reveal witness testimony regarding underage sex trafficking, with such high-profile names appearing in the documents as Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew.

The Overton window of acceptable political discourse has been shrunk into such a narrow spectrum of debate that talking about even well-known and extensively documented facts involving the real nature of America’s government and media will get you laughingly dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, which is itself a symptom of tight narrative control by a ruling class which much prefers Americans thinking they live in a free democracy whose government they control with their votes.

In the old days you used to be able to tell who your rulers were because they’d sit on thrones and wear golden crowns and make you bow before them. Human consciousness eventually evolved beyond the acceptability of such brazen indignities, so it became necessary for rulers to take on more of a background role while the citizenry clap and cheer for the illusory puppet show of electoral politics.

But the kings are still among us, just as cruel and tyrannical as ever. They’ve just figured out how to mask their tyranny behind the facade of freedom.

But 2020 has been a year of revelations, a trend which seems likely to continue accelerating. Truth cannot stay hidden forever.

medium.com

By Nan McCURDY and Nora MITCHELL

Having failed to depose Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega in their coup attempt in 2018, and having lost most of the support they briefly enjoyed within Nicaragua itself, opponents of the Sandinista government have changed their tactics. They’ve embarked on a long campaign aimed at governments and public opinion in the United States and in Europe to portray Ortega as a dictator who is supposedly curbing press freedoms and free speech, assaulting human rights, murdering opponents, and maintaining “a general environment of threat and insecurity.”

The most recent example of the campaign was an article at Vox by Carl David Goette-Luciak and Caroline Houck, titled “Inside the slow culling of Nicaragua’s free press.” Houck is an editor at Vox and was previously a reporter for Defense One, a news source for the arms industry.

Goette Luciak is a long-time anti-Ortega activist and friend of US-backed Nicaraguan opposition leaders. He was escorted out of Nicaragua by police and border officials after claiming to be a journalist and having written freelance articles for the Washington Post and the Guardian, without the press visa required in Nicaragua (an obligation in many countries, including the United States).

Despite recently posing as a journalist, Goette Luciak initially came to Nicaragua to support anti-canal activists and later formed a close working relationship with the leaders of the violent opposition that drove the attempted coup. He can be seen in multiple photos with them and with their armed lackeys. One of the photos was used for the cover of the book we contributed to, Nicaragua 2018: Uprising or Coup?

The novice reporter, who never had a byline before the coup began, listed himself as “director of investigations” for an obscure outlet run by Azucena “Chena” Castillo, an outspoken member of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) party who was directly involved in the regime change attempt. 

Goette-Luciak is also captured on video taking photos of an old man being tortured by the opposition in the documentary March of the Flowers. In this short video from the June 30^th 2018 march, the reporter appears beginning at 13 seconds.

We began to write about Goette-Luciak because he did nothing after witnessing the torture of the man by violent coup-mongers – his footage of the shocking incident never appeared anywhere.

When he began his journalist career, writing for the Washington Post and the Guardian in 2018, Goette-Luciak never once mentioned the opposition violence he witnessed, the opposition-armed-and-paid thugs he posed for photos with or the torture he witnessed at the Flowers March. The least he could have done in the course of his pro-coup coverage was report the opposition’s brutality that unfolded before his eyes.

Factual errors about the coup and misrepresentations of Nicaragua’s current reality

Goette-Luciak and Houck opened their most recent article by hinting at government limits on the internet, curiously overlook the healthy commercial internet enterprises that populate Nicaragua as well as the audacious government programs providing free internet in parks throughout the country for the population, even in the most isolated parts of the nation.

In the second and twenty-second paragraphs, they claim that government supporters burned down radio stations, for which there is not a shred of evidence. In fact, opposition burned down the private pro-Sandinista Tu Nueva Radio Ya, located in front of the Central American University, one of the seats, then and now, of the opposition. They actually attempted to burn it down twice, succeeding the third time with twenty employees who barely made it out alive. They also burned down Radio Nicaragua and the National Autonomous University Student Center and Radio Station in Leon killing Sandinista student, Christian Cardenas.

The authors went on to claim that the government has restricted free press by blocking newsprint and ink to the newspaper, La Prensa. Few people read newspapers in Nicaragua and slowly print versions have gone by the wayside. La Prensa fired two hundred employees in mid-2018.

The Miami Herald is shutting down because it doesn’t sell enough papers but nobody blames the US government. It’s a tough market for print newspapers all over the world.

The right-wing, US-backed media empire driving the regime change narrative

La Prensa is owned by the right-wing Chamorro family, which fiercely opposes Sandinista rule. Members of this oligarchic dynasty also own Confidencial and direct the nongovernmental organizations CINCO, Invermedia and La Fundacion Violeta Barrios, which serve as intermediaries to channel USAID and National Endowment for Democracy money to other organizations and media.

The Chamorro media empire generates a constant stream of pro-coup propaganda that helps drive the case for US sanctions and intervention. The Chamorro family are known historically for having a monopoly on the US-financed media.

La Prensa had long overdue debts with the customs’ office (Direcion General de Aduana, DGA). Rather than pay the debts, the newspaper has accused the government of blocking their paper and ink supply, and requested help from the US press.

La Prensa also has a long record of abusing the custom’s tax exemptions for newspaper printing materials by using the supplies for other print businesses, and also importing luxury cars and even yachts. The exemption was only for a legitimate work vehicle. 

But the onslaught of negative press from the international media prompted the government to release La Prensa’s materials, relieving the paper of its financial obligation to the customs office.

The international press has been relentless in printing and reprinting deceptive claims that echo the opposition narrative. The Nicaraguan population is overall savvy enough to see through the opposition’s propaganda campaign. Claims of repression against La Prensa have failed to sway the public in large part because it has seen the US use this paper for over fifty years as its main media vehicle against the population, most notably during the US-backed Contra war of the 1980’s.

La Prensa has received funds from the US government since the 1980s, and most openly through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Confidencial is funded through the same source.

Of all the US-backed media personalities who participated directly in Nicaragua’s 2018 coup, inciting a campaign of nationwide violence that saw Sandinistas and unarmed police officers burned and tortured on camera, only Miguel Mora and Lucia Pineda of 100% Noticias faced prison time.

Miguel Mora was convicted of threatening a young policeman, Gabriel de Jesus Vado Ruiz, who was kidnapped, tortured, killed and burned at a roadblock soon after. Mora also threatened a municipal worker, Bismark Martinez, who  was disappeared and found dead a year later after being tortured on camera.  Pineda, for her part, gleefully appeared on camera beside masked bandits who burned down government buildings in the city of Granada, while the fires raged behind them.

Under heavy pressure from the US and Organization for American States, and out of a desire to quell the country’s simmering tensions, the Sandinista government gave amnesty to Mora and Pineda in June 2019.

Knowing what Goette-Luciak did in Nicaragua, for which he was deported on October 1, 2018 and with numerous articles and photos attesting to his behavior, it is more than a little surprising that a media outlet like VOX would publish him.

thegrayzone.com

Meanwhile within a week in Mexico, two environment activists working in a butterfly reserve were found dead. Homero Gomez Gonzalez was discovered drowned and, according to the autopsy, having suffered head trauma. His activism clashed with the interests of illegal logging ventures and clandestine agriculture notably avocado farming, and often advocated for environmental tourism as a stable economic venture. Amado Gomez, Homero’s brother, stated, “Something strange is happening, because they’re finishing off all the activists, the people who are doing something for society.”

Raul Hernandez Romero, a tour guide working in the reserve which was classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008, was found dead, with injuries to the head caused by a sharp object.

In Mexico, artist, activist and mother Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre was killed with a bullet to the head. Her activism defended women, the environment and immigrants

The report by Front Line Defenders released in January 2020 reveals that 304 activists were murdered worldwide in 2019. In Colombia, 106 activists were murdered, making Latin America the most dangerous region for human rights, indigenous and environmental protest. Of the murdered activists, 40 were recognised as indigenous leaders, while at least 53 indigenous activists were threatened. In 2018, the region also topped the statistics for the killings of environment activists.

Indigenous territory remains the target of governments as agriculture and mining endeavours turn towards unexploited land for business. Last Wednesday, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stepped up on his earlier rhetoric in 2019 to make indigenous lands available for mining, agriculture and energy companies, purportedly indicating equal opportunity by allowing indigenous communities to participate in the so-called development of their land. Indigenous communities, however, described the bill as “genocide”.

In September 2019, a protector of Brazil’s indigenous communities was shot dead while riding his motorcycle close to the Brazilian border with Colombia and Peru. A former staff member of FUNAI and chief of environment services, Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was in direct confrontation with the Brazilian government’s capitalist policies. His activism, which included refusing entry to hunters, farmers and loggers, also provided protection for Brazil’s uncontacted indigenous communities.

Few of these cases will make it to mainstream media headlines with the prominence given to Berta Caceres, Macarena Valdes and Marielle Franco. However, remembrance of each victim is necessary even as Latin American governments largely turn a blind eye to the violence linked to multinational ambitions and government policies. Recently, the Brazilian Ambassador to France, Luis Fernando Serra, complained of Franco receiving more attention than the stabbing of Brazil’s Bolsonaro when he was a presidential candidate. What Serra leaves out is the difference in intent between the actions of a person deemed mentally ill, in the case of Bolsonaro’s stabbing, and the actions of a government intent on annihilating indigenous communities to facilitate access, through oppressive policies, of multinational interests in indigenous lands.

The collaboration between the state and its institutions, and multinational companies was also evident in Mexico. As part of the investigations into Gomez’s death, 53 police officers were questioned in relation to the murder. While no information has been forthcoming regarding involvement, Ocampo, where Gomez was murdered is notorious for the operation of violent criminal gangs which secure their power through the bribing of authorities.

With organised crime on the rise, operating under the veneer of business and thus serving government interests, activists will be facing increasing peril without any semblance of protection.

Ben NORTON

One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it seems.

Immediately after overseeing a far-right military coup in Bolivia on November 10, the Trump administration set its sights once again Nicaragua, whose democratically elected Sandinista government defeated a violent right-wing coup attempt in 2018.

Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.

Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country’s left-leaning President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.

As Washington’s rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region’s few remaining progressive governments.

These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing dictatorships across the region.

Trump admin declares Nicaragua a ‘national security threat’

A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington’s target list: “These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua,” Trump declared.

On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing Nicaragua as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring a state of “national emergency” on the Central American country.

Trump’s 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua. The US government has funded and supported many of the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.

The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In December the US Congress approved the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business with Managua.

Trump’s new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its democratically elected government — which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by Washington — as a supposedly violent and corrupt “regime.”

This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.

Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic sanctions. And Trump’s renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on Nicaragua.

The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media, but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.

And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington’s hybrid warfare against Managua.

More aggressive US sanctions against Nicaragua

Voice of America (VOA), the US government’s main foreign broadcasting service, noted that the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.

Washington’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, “The pressure against Nicaragua is going to continue.”

The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.

VOA stated clearly that “Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic pressure on to bring about regime change.”

This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.

And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a “more comprehensive set of regulations,” strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.

Voice of America’s report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more US pressure against their country.

Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua’s military in particular.

“The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that the military will like act the military in Bolivia,” Jagger said, referring to the military officials who violently overthrew Bolivia’s democratically elected president.

Many of these military leaders had been trained at the US government’s School of the Americas, a notorious base of subversion dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to carry out the putsch.

No se ha sancionado el ejército de #Nicaragua “porque tal vez tienen esperanza de que el ejército se va a conducir como el de Bolivia”, @BiancaJagger. https://t.co/43BPEjmEEp pic.twitter.com/6KaT7NVjko

— Voz de América (@VOANoticias) 26 ноября 2019 г.

VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is supported by the US government’s regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US economic war on his country, telling VOA, “There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua and Bolivia] … the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an effect.”

Courtney, who was described by VOA as an “expert on the electoral process,” added, “If there is a stick, there must also be a carrot.” He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and political pressure against Nicaragua’s government.

These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an act of war. Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has characterized US economic warfare “financial terrorism,” explaining that it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.

Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.

Estados Unidos amplió por un año más la vigencia de la Declaración de Emergencia Nacional con respecto a la Situación en Nicaragua. https://t.co/Xq8m8UWVfr

— Alianza Cívica Nicaragua (@AlianzaCivicaNi) 25 ноября 2019 г.

The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that brings together numerous opposition groups, several of which are also funded by the US government’s NED, welcomed the order.

Trump dubs drug cartels in Mexico “terrorists,” refuses to rule out drone strikes

While the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela’s governments is nothing new, Donald Trump is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.

In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his initials AMLO, is Mexico’s first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and even decriminalize drugs.

AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking 86 percent approval rating. And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.

“The neoliberal economic model has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country,” AMLO has declared. “The child of neoliberalism is corruption.”

When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador announced the end to “the long night of neoliberalism.”

AMLO’s left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.

On November 27 — a day after declaring Nicaragua a “national security threat” — Trump announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations.”

Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.

Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. “Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them with drones and things like that?” O’Reilly asked.

The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug cartels in Mexico.

President @realDonaldTrump tells me he is 90 days into the process of designating Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations – which would give US forces more leverage in taking them out. pic.twitter.com/ewSJMkt6rr

— Bill O’Reilly (@BillOReilly) 27 ноября 2019 г.

Trump’s announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for a meeting with the US State Department.

The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.

Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central America.

These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed, trained, and funded far-right Islamist extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani, to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from Washington when he was fighting against Russia.

The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to cartels in Mexico.

Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration’s designation of cartels as terrorists, “They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their national security.”

“Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in Mexico?” Duarte asked.

She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to demonize AMLO, portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator who is supposedly wrecking Mexico’s economy.

Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate Rebels:

Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.

AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate any discussion of coups.

“How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are,” López Obrador tweeted on November 2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, “Now is different.”

“Another coup d’état will now be allowed,” he declared.

¡Qué equivocados están los conservadores y sus halcones!
Pudieron cometer la felonía de derrocar y asesinar a Madero porque este hombre bueno, Apóstol de la Democracia, no supo, o las circunstancias no se lo permitieron, apoyarse en una base social que lo protegiera y respaldara

— Andrés Manuel (@lopezobrador_) 2 ноября 2019 г.

In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.

AMLO’s government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela’s leftist government, throwing a wrench in Washington’s efforts to impose right-wing activist Juan Guaidó as coup leader.

AMLO has welcomed Ecuador’s ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina’s left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the presidency.

In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico for a historic visit.

Trump’s Operation Condor 2.0

For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.

In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing Venezuelans in Miami, Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.

“The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well,” he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in heart of capitalism in the United States.

While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not occupying its oil fields), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.

Though the neoconservative war hawk John Bolton is no longer overseeing US foreign policy, Elliott Abrams remains firmly embedded in the State Department, dusting off his Iran-Contra playbook to decimate socialism in Latin America all over again.

During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered, and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of the US intelligence apparatus.

Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem has only begun.

thegrayzone.com