US empire attempts to regime-change Nicaragua - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14937899
US meddling machine accused of manipulating death toll in Nicaragua to push regime change and sanctions
A detailed study of the death toll that has been recorded in Nicaragua since the start of a violent campaign to remove President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista government from power shows that at least as many Sandinista supporters were killed as opposition members. The study, “Monopolizing Death”, demonstrates how partisan local NGOs conflated all deaths that occurred since April, including accidents and the murders of Sandinistas, with killings by government forces.

Washington, meanwhile, has seized on the bogus death count to drive the case for sanctions and intensify pressure for regime change.
More.




More regime-change events courtesy of the most destructive empire ever, probably.
#14938543
Chomsky on Regime Change in Nicaragua
With patented angst, Noam Chomsky opined on President Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua to an agreeing Amy Goodman: “But there’s been a lot of corruption, a lot of repression. It’s autocratic, undoubtedly.”

Earlier in their DemocracyNow! interview, the main talking points were established via a video clip of a dissident former official from Ortega’s Sandinista Party: Ortega’s “entire government has been, in essence, neoliberal. Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive.”

Left out of this view is why the US has targeted Nicaragua for regime change. One would think that a neoliberal regime, especially if it were authoritarian and repressive, would be just the ticket to curry favor with Washington.

In Chomsky’s own words, Nicaragua poses a threat of a good example to the US empire

Since Ortega’s return election victory in 2006, Nicaragua had achieved the following, according to NSCAG, despite being the second poorest country in the hemisphere:

+ Second highest economic growth rates and most stable economy in Central America.

+ Only country in the region producing 90% of the food it consumes.

+ Poverty and extreme poverty halved; country with the greatest reduction of extreme poverty.

+ Reaching the UN Millennium Development Goal of cutting malnutrition by half.

+ Free basic healthcare and education.

+ Illiteracy virtually eliminated, down from 36% in 2006.

+ Average economic growth of 5.2% for the past 5 years (IMF and the World Bank).

+ Safest country in Central America (UN Development Program) with one of the lowest crime rates in Latin America.

+ Highest level of gender equality in the Americas (World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2017).

+ Did not contribute to the migrant exodus to the US, unlike neighboring Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

+ Unlike its neighbors, kept out the drug cartels and pioneered community policing.

Nicaragua targeted by the US for regime change
Before April 18, Nicaragua was among the most peaceful and stable countries in the region. The otherwise inexplicable violence that has suddenly engulfed Nicaragua should be understood in the context of it being targeted by the US for regime change.

Nicaragua has provoked the ire of the US for the good things its done, not the bad.

Besides being a “threat” of a good example, Nicaragua is in the anti-imperialist ALBA alliance with Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, and others. The attack on Nicaragua is part of a larger strategy by the US to tear apart regional alliances of resistance to the Empire, though that is not the whole story.

Nicaragua regularly votes against the US in international forums such as challenging retrograde US policies on climate change. An inter-ocean canal through Nicaragua is being considered, which would contend with the Panama Canal. Russia and China invest in Nicaragua, competing with US capital.

The NICA Act, passed by the US House of Representatives and now before the Senate, would initiate economic warfare designed to attack living conditions in Nicaragua through economic sanctions, as well as intensify US intelligence intervention. The ultimate purpose is to depose the democratically-elected Ortega government.

Meanwhile, USAID announced an additional $1.5 million “to support freedom and democracy in Nicaragua” through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to overthrow the democratically elected government and “make this truly a hemisphere of freedom.” That is, freedom for the US empire.

Holding Nicaragua to a higher standard than our own government
Although Chomsky echoes the talking points of the USAID administrator Mark Green about “Ortega’s brutal regime,” he can’t quite bring himself to accept responsibility for regime change. Chomsky despairs, “it’s hard to see a simple way out at this point. It’s a very unfortunate situation.”

Chomsky is concerned about corruption, repression, and autocracy in Nicaragua, urging the democratically elected president to step down and run for re-election. Need it be mentioned that Chomsky chastised leftists who did not “absolutely” support Hillary Clinton? It is from this moral ground that the professor looks down on Nicaragua.

These charges of corruption and such are addressedby long-time solidarity activist Chuck Kaufman:

+ The World Bank, IMF, and EU countries have certified Nicaragua for its effective use of international loans and grants; funds were spent for the purposes they were given, not siphoned off into corruption.

+ Kaufman asks, “why a police force that in 39 years had not repressed the Nicaraguan people would suddenly go berserk,” while videos clearly show the violence of the more militant opposition.

+ Ortega won in 2006 with a 38% plurality, in 2011 with 63%, and 72.5% in 2016. The Organization of American States officially accompanied and certified the vote. Kaufman notes, “Dictators don’t win fair elections by growing margins.”

Alternatives to Ortega would be worse
Those who call for Ortega’s removal need to accept responsibility for what comes after. Here the lesson of Libya is instructive, where the replacement of, in Chomsky’s words, the “brutal tyrant” and “cruel dictator” Qaddafi has resulted in a far worse situation for the Libyan people.

Any replacement of Ortega would be more, not less, neoliberal, oppressive, and authoritarian. When the Nicaraguan people, held hostage to the US-backed Contra war, first voted Ortega out of office in 1990, the incoming US-backed Violeta Chamorro government brought neoliberal structural adjustment and a moribund economy.

The dissident Sandinistas who splintered off from the official party after the party’s election defeat and formed the MRS (Sandinista Renovation Movement) are not a progressive alternative. They are now comfortably ensconced in US-fundedNGOs, regularly making junkets to Washington to pay homage to the likes of Representative Iliana Ros-Lehtinenand Senator Marco Rubio to lobby in favor of the NICA Act. Nor do they represent a popular force, garnering less than 2% in national elections.

When the MRS left the Sandinista party, they took with them almost all those who were better educated, came from more privileged backgrounds, and who spoke English. These formerly left dissidents, now turned to the right in their hatred of Ortega, have many ties with North American activists, which explains some of the confusion today over Nicaragua.

The world, not just Ortega, has changed since the 1980s when the Soviet Union and its allies served as a counter-vailing force to US bullying. What was possible then is not the same in today’s more constrained international arena.

Class war turned upside down
Kevin Zeeseof Popular Resistance aptly characterized the offensive against the democratically elected government of Nicaragua as “a class war turned upside down.” Nicaragua was the most progressive country in Central America with no close rival. Yet some North American left intellectuals are preoccupied with Nicaragua’s shortcomings while not clearly recognizing that it is being attacked by a domestic rightwing in league with the US government.

Noam Chomsky is a leading world left intellectual and should be acclaimed for his contributions. His incisive warning about the US nuclear policy is just one essential example. Nevertheless, he is also indicative of a tendency in the North American left to accept a bit too readily the talking points of imperialist propaganda, regarding the present-day Sandinistas.

There is a disconnect between Chomsky’s urging Nicaraguans to replace Ortega with new elections and his longtime and forceful advocacy against US imperialist depredations of countries like Nicaragua. Such elections in Nicaragua would not only be unconstitutional but would further destabilize a profoundly destabilized situation. Given the unpopularity and disunity of the opposition and the unity and organizational strength of the Sandinistas, Ortega would likely win.

Most important, the key role of Northern American solidarity activists is to end US interference in Nicaragua so that the Nicaraguans can solve their own problems.

The rightwing violence since April in Nicaragua should be understood as a coup attempt. A significant portion of the Nicaraguan people have rallied around their elected government as seen in the massive demonstrations commemorating the Sandinista revolution on July 19.

For now, the rightwing tranques (blockades) have been dismantled and citizens can again freely circulate without being shaken down and threatened. In the aftermath, though, Nicaragua has suffered unacceptable human deaths, massive public property damage, and a wounded economy with the debilitating NICA Act threatening to pass the US Senate.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/03 ... nicaragua/
#14942882
One of the problems many Latin American countries have is that their people are very First-Nation looking. This doesn't bode well for cowboy viewers holding remote controls, shotguns, and pickups that need resources.

The American cowboy-loving public sees "injuns" on TV, and they are ready to believe any lies that Wall Street feeds them, because these smears support all the cowboy-versus-injun movies they enjoyed as young army brat children growing up in suburban barracks equipped with two-tank garages.

See injun. Hear cowboy announcer say "shoot 'em!" Then shoot 'em.

Programmed into young American heads from toddler-hood.
#14943793
In fairness the bill calls on the US to limit loans unless the following happens:


Hold free elections overseen by credible domestic and international electoral observers;
Promote democracy and an independent judicial system and electoral council;
strengthen the rule of law;
Respect the right to freedom of association and expression;
Combat corruption, including investigating and prosecuting government officials credibly alleged to be corrupt; and
Protect the right of political opposition parties, journalists, trade unionists, human rights defenders, and other civil society activists to operate without interference
.

Sounds pretty horrible and colonial to me.

That said.

It may be the Nicaragua shares with other Central and South American states it innate inability to nurture individual freedom. What Chomsky leaves out is that to achieve the admirable results he mentions these things must be accomplished at the point of a bayonet. If that

I don't know why were are so goddamn surprised every time another oppressive or corrupt regime pops up in Central and South America. It is not like it is the first time we have seen this.
#14943810
Drlee wrote:In fairness the bill calls on the US to limit loans unless the following happens:

Sounds pretty horrible and colonial to me.

That said.

It may be the Nicaragua shares with other Central and South American states it innate inability to nurture individual freedom. What Chomsky leaves out is that to achieve the admirable results he mentions these things must be accomplished at the point of a bayonet. If that


Why do you claim that Latinos are incapable of nurturing individual freedom?

I don't know why were are so goddamn surprised every time another oppressive or corrupt regime pops up in Central and South America. It is not like it is the first time we have seen this.


Please note that when this does happen, it is almost always because of US support for a corrupt right wing dictatorship.
#14943894
Why do you claim that Latinos are incapable of nurturing individual freedom?


I didn't say that. Why are you so racist?

Please note that when this does happen, it is almost always because of US support for a corrupt right wing dictatorship.


Nonsense. Objectively untrue.
#14943960
Drlee wrote:I didn't say that. Why are you so racist?


Then what did you mean when you said:
“It may be the Nicaragua shares with other Central and South American states it innate inability to nurture individual freedom.”

It certainly sounds like you are saying that Nicaraguans are inherently incapable of liberal democracy.

Nonsense. Objectively untrue.


The USA supported the Somoza dynasty.

“He [Somoza] may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, About Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945)

Also, you remember Ollie North and a recently senile Reagan being interrogated about the Iran Contra affair, so it makes no sense for you to now pretend this never happened.

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@Sivad

Are you once again attacking everyone who opposes neoliberalism in Latin America by calling them gulagists?
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Sergio Ramírez Mercado (American Spanish: [ˈseɾxjo raˈmiɾes]; born August 5, 1942 in Masatepe, Nicaragua) is a Nicaraguan writer and intellectual who served in the leftist Government Junta of National Reconstruction and as Vice President of the country 1985-1990 under the presidency of Daniel Ortega.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”
Last edited by Sivad on 03 Sep 2018 03:42, edited 2 times in total.
#14944028
@pod

Nope. Won't fly. You said: "Please note that when this does happen, it is almost always because of US support for a corrupt right wing dictatorship.

And this is objectively untrue.
#14944040
Pants-of-dog wrote:Are you once again attacking everyone who opposes neoliberalism in Latin America by calling them gulagists?


If you understood what was happening down there you'd see the irony in your retarded question. The unrest began when Ortega decided to implement neoliberal austerity by slashing benefits and raising taxes. :lol: Ortega is an ersatz gulagist, or some kind of weird neoliberal thug/clientelistic gulagist hybryd.
#14944045
Drlee wrote:@pod

Nope. Won't fly. You said: "Please note that when this does happen, it is almost always because of US support for a corrupt right wing dictatorship.

And this is objectively untrue.


So you choose not to explain what you mean when you say “It may be the Nicaragua shares with other Central and South American states it innate inability to nurture individual freedom.”

I hope you understand why someone might interpret that as saying that Nicaraguans are inherently incapable of liberal democracy.

And since I cannot think of any other dictatorships in Nicaragua other than the Somozas, and since the US has been the main support for the Somozas, it is factually true that when a tinpot dictatorship shows up in Nicaragua, it has always been because of support for a corrupt right wing dictatorship.

If you disagree, please explain which of the following facts is not true:

1. The USA supported the Somoza dynasty.
2. The Somoza dynasty was the only dictatorship in Nicaraguan history.

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@Sivad

Yes, the pension reforms that have since been repealed.

Which then leads to the next question: why is the unrest continuing?

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