Nicaragua’s reality: For the many not the few

HubMP2012

JANUARY 20, 2025

Last month, Labour Hub published an article by Mike Phipps, entitled “Nicaragua’s blanket of repression”, which described how the Ortega-Murillo regime has betrayed the legacy of the Sandinista Revolution and makes a US-led neoliberal takeover more feasible. Louise Richards, Director of the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign Action Group, requested the opportunity to reply and below is her response. While we would strongly contest her version of events and her characterisations, we publish this article in the spirit of pluralist left debate.

The Sandinista government is the only government in Nicaraguan history that is implementing well-integrated poverty reduction policies that address the interests of the majority.

As in the 1980s, the US is doing everything possible to oust an elected government by undermining these commitments whether through sanctions (illegal coercive measures) or conducting a policy and propaganda war against Nicaragua.

In his article in Labour Hub (17th December 2024), Mike Phipps has chosen to condemn the Sandinista government, using only sources linked to Nicaragua’ s fractured, incoherent opposition which is backed by US interests.

His article also ignores the wider regional and global context and the long history of US attempts to exploit Nicaragua and shape the country in its own image.

As does much of the mainstream press, Phipps seems unaware of the profound achievements of the Nicaraguan government and its commitment to poverty reduction – not just in theory but in practice. This is based on recognising the economic, social and cultural rights of the majority, the rights to food, education, health care, housing, and gender equality.

Just one example of US interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs is the violent attempted coup in 2018, inspired and funded by the US, who pumped millions of dollars into NGOs and other opposition groups in an attempt to oust the country’s democratically elected government.

In attributing the ‘initial attacks’ to the Nicaraguan government, Phipps is again light on the facts. The three months of violence during the attempted coup actually began with three deaths, none of which were caused by the Nicaraguan government.

One of those was a police officer: 21 more police would be killed, several after being tortured, in those three months, and 400 more were injured. The violent attempted coup was part and parcel of a decades-long campaign by the US to gain control over Nicaragua and bolster its ambition to impose its neo-liberal model on the whole of Latin America.

For three months, opposition thugs, financed and supported by the US, unleashed a campaign of violence and terror on Nicaragua – public buildings, including schools and hospitals, were burned to the ground. Sandinista supporters were targeted, their houses being marked with paint, some were kidnapped, tortured and murdered whilst others were also subject to threats from armed delinquents who manned the roadblocks set up by the opposition across the country and who terrorised whole communities. Social media played a major role in spreading misinformation and lies that fanned the flames of the violence.

In his article, Phipps lionises Dora Maria Tellez, a hero of the revolution who, sadly, has become very much its opponent over the last twenty-five years. She was one of the main organisers of the violence in the city of Masaya, handing out the payments to those carrying it out, and bringing in supplies of food, drugs and ammunition to keep them going.

Tellez broke with the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) to become a founder of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) in the mid ‘90s and then drifted steadily towards the US-backed right wing, collaborating extensively with the US government and holding regular meetings with US officials as revealed here.

Gioconda Belli, also quoted by Phipps, was also one of the founder members of the MRS and part of the opposition group, Civic Alliance.

It is a great pity that Phipps makes only a cursory mention of the tremendous achievements and social progress that have occurred in Nicaragua since 2007. Just to give one example – Nicaragua now has more public hospitals even than its richer neighbours like Costa Rica and Panama – and many of them are newly built.

The human rights of all Nicaraguans have now been enshrined in the new constitution, a fact that Phipps ignores. These include the rights to health, education, housing together with women’s rights and the rights of Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples. It is also based on a principle of non-discrimination against any group.

In the conclusion to his article, Phipps states “the gains of the Sandinista Revolution were real, and some remain so. But if they are to be successfully defended, the corrupt dynasty that has betrayed the Revolution’s great achievements – and persecuted so many of its bravest militants – will have to leave the stage”.

Nicaragua has suffered decades of violence and trauma, a consequence of US interference direct and indirect. The insurrection against the US backed Somoza dictatorship, was followed by the contra war in the 1980s and then the neglect and abandonment of those most impoverished during a series of US-backed neo-liberal governments in the years 1990- 2006. For many, the violence of the 2018 attempted coup triggered painful memories of previous decades.

In this context above all what the majority of Nicaraguans want, whether they support the Sandinista government or not, is peace and stability, not US inspired chaos.

Phipps fails to mention that there is overwhelming electoral support in Nicaragua for Daniel Ortega and the FSLN and it is for the Nicaraguan people, and the Nicaraguan people alone, to decide through the ballot box who their government should be. If Phipps’ wish should come true it is more than likely that the FSLN government would be ousted and replaced by a US-backed neo-liberal government. Nicaraguans only have to look to neighbouring countries, where poverty is deepening and violence is more prevalent, to see what this might mean.

When the Sandinista government returned to power in 2007, it overturned sixteen years of governments backed by the US – during this time, health and education were privatised and trade union rights were decimated. The social and economic rights of the majority, particularly in the countryside and on the Caribbean Coast, were completely neglected.

Since 2007, Dora Maria Tellez and other ex-revolutionaries have supported neo-liberal candidates who were part of that 16-year attempt to reverse the revolution’s achievements. Nicaraguans have bitter experience of betrayals by figures like her – reinforced by memories of the violence in 2018, from which the country is now, thankfully, recovering. The imperative now is to withstand the likely renewed US pressure coming from Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and ensure that further attacks on the revolution’s achievements are repelled.

The NSCAG website is http://www.nscag.org.uk.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jordidemiguel/8304990768. Sandino. Loma de Tiscapa, Managua (Nicaragua) Author: Jordi de Miguel Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed