Statement on Democracy in Nicaragua

DSA Statement of Support for the Struggle for Democracy and Justice in Nicaragua

JANUARY 24, 2019

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) supports the working people and the society at large in Nicaragua in the struggle to restore democracy and to establish justice in that country. Since April 2018 when peaceful protests over a reform of the social security system began, the Nicaraguan government has engaged in an increasingly violent repression of the opposition movement that has led to the virtual abolition of all political and democratic rights. Hundreds have been killed, thousands have been jailed or imprisoned, and while in custody many have been tortured, while tens of thousands have been driven into exile. The repression has particularly affected students, farmers, workers, indigenous peoples, and the middle classes, but also the wealthy.

We Hold the Ortega Government Responsible for Violence

Nicaraguan human rights groups — before they were suppressed — and international organizations that have investigated the situation have placed responsibility for the violence on the government of Daniel Ortega. They have also strongly condemned the Ortega regime for its violations of human rights and its suppression of the democratic rights of assembly and peaceful protest, its closing down of the free press, radio and television, and its arrest of the leaders of non-governmental organizations, the seizure of their computers together with data about their activities and membership. Many of those who have been arrested have suffered beating and torture. Many longtime members of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation, the ruling party, have also placed responsibility on Ortega, as have many others on the left.

We Oppose U.S. Intervention

We recognize that the United States as the dominant imperial power in Latin America for decades has often worked directly or indirectly, through outright imposition of governments or through the subterfuge of support for phony revolutions. The most reliable international investigations, as well as the testimony of former Sandinista leaders, find no evidence of the United States having caused, directed, or controlled the popular uprising that began in April 2018. Since the uprising, President Donald Trump, the Republican Party and Democratic Party leadership, the U.S. State Department, and no doubt the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. government agencies have attempted to intervene in and direct political developments. Their involvement does not in any way discredit the legitimacy of the initial popular protest or of continuing protests and demands for democracy and justice, though it leads us to oppose all U.S. government intervention in Nicaragua. We oppose U.S. military or diplomatic intervention as well as the imposition of economic sanctions that will affect the Nicaraguan population as a whole.

Sacramento Bee Editorial Endorsement -Sleazy or Inept?

Sleazy or inept?

The Bee editorial today endorses Hillary Clinton OK . But, it uses out of context, edited  sound bites as if they were evidence which leads to bad history. That is too bad.

Yes, Sanders said positive things about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in their first period when they  overthrew the U.S. backed Somoza dictatorship. They then established a mixed economy (not socialist) and  U.S. citizens joined them to teach  poor children to read and to write. 

So did I.

Later the Sandinistas were defeated after a brutal war with the U.S. financed Contra rebels with arms and training acquired illegally from Iran.  They lost an election and left power.

To use the out of context phrases selected to imply a conspiracy is the  kind of phony reporting found in the Republican media machine,  or the National Enquirer, not in responsible news papers.

The Bee editorial uses a similar out of context about Sanders support for Cuba.

Here is what he actually said,

“What that was about was saying that the United States was wrong to try to invade Cuba, that the United States was wrong trying to support people to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, that the United States was wrong trying to overthrow in 1954 the democratically elected government of Guatemala," Sanders said. There is video of him speaking highly of both Castro and Daniel Ortega's Sandinista movement in Nicaragua, where Sanders traveled in 1985.

BuzzFeed News posted the video, which originally aired on Channel 17/Town Meeting Television, in June 2015. Sanders remarked that people "forgot that [Castro] educated their kids, gave their kids healthcare, totally transformed the society.”