In recent weeks, a motley crew of writers has found common cause in attacking Nicaraguas Sandinista government: Jaden Hong, a high-school student from Sammamish, Washington, who has never visited the country; Jared O. Bell, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer; Barb Arland-Fye, editor of a Catholic newspaper in Iowa; and Gioconda Belli, a 76-year-old Nicaraguan novelist in self-exile. Writing in outlets ranging from The Teen Magazine to the New York Times, they have produced a string of biased, ill-informed pieces that repeat the same well-worn falsehoods about Nicaraguas elected government.
By John Perry and Roger D. Harris
Their attacks on Nicaraguas revolution reflect Washingtons talking points as it pursues its regime-change agenda. Jaden Hong tells Gen Z in The Teen Magazine thatNicaraguas democracy is fading. Jared O. Bell, who lost his USAID job in Managua when Trump shuttered the agency, complains in Peace Voice about the countrysstolen democracy.Barb Arland-Fye, in The Catholic Messenger,writes glowinglyabout a key organizer of the violent coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018. Novelist Gioconda Belli is given a guest essay in the New York Times tolamenther countrys dictator.
Belli, born in Nicaragua but living abroad since the 1980s, has been a critic of the Sandinista government since it first regained power through the ballot box in 2007. Her status as a novelist ensures that theNYT, theGuardian, SpainsEl Paisand other mainstream outlets give her space to vent her anger against a revolution which she supported initially but has sincelabeleda farse.
Many of Nicaraguas liberal intellectuals opposed the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s, but their commitment faded as the initial glamour of the revolution turned into the hard work of tackling the needs of the countrys poor and working people. As ordinary Nicaraguans were given greater voice, and taxes were raised to pay for new schools and hospitals (60% of the countrys budget goes to social programs), they maligned peoples power as an emerging dictatorship.
The list of privileged critics of the Sandinista government, whose status gives them access to the New York Times and other corporate outlets, include Belli and her brother Humberto, along with Sergio Ramirez (a novelistbetrayedby the revolution), journalist Carlos Chamorro and many more. Some work directly for mainstream media, such as Wilfredo Miranda (El Pais) and Gabriela Selser (Reuters). Supposedly revolutionary in their youth, they are now part of Washingtons soft power apparatus and help feed its imperialist agenda.
Of the lies in Bellis recentNYT article, one stands out: that peaceful protesters were shot during the coup attempt against Nicaraguas elected government in 2018. This falsehood is repeated in the other three articles. Bell says that student-led protests were met with brutal, deadly repression. Hong says that lethal force led to 355 dead and hundreds injured. For Arland-Fye, it was a deadly crackdown. That the protestors were far from peaceful is obvious from the fact that 22 police officers were killed and over 400 injured in attacks launched from the hundreds of roadblocks erected by the coup-mongers throughout the country.
Arland-Fyes sycophantic piece is about opposition figure Bishop Silvio Jos Bez Ortega. The cleric hadcalledthe coup roadblocks a wonderful idea and said he hoped to see President Daniel Ortega in front of a firing squad. The Iowa bishopric, for which Arland-Fye writes, has justawardedBaez a peace prize.
The suggestion that Trump is following an Ortega playbook appears in two of the articles: it could hardly be more absurd. Unlike Ortega, Trump is not building public hospitals, hes dismantling Medicare. Also unlike Ortega, he isnt presiding over a country which ischampioningthe shift to renewable energy; nor is hebuilding7,000 affordable homes each year. Trump, instead, is drastically cutting federal spending for social needs.
Rather than following a Nicaraguan playbook" of peaceful cooperation with its neighbors, both Trump administrations (and Bidens, both echoingReaganin 1985) have incredulously declared Nicaragua an extraordinary threat to the national security of the US. But it is Nicaraguas remarkable battle against poverty, unmentioned in the articles, that is seen by Washington as the real threat, because it challenges the neoliberal order.
The article by Bell, a former USAID worker, is perhaps unintentionally the most revealing. Prior to the 2018 coup attempt, USAID spent millions of dollarscreatingNicaraguas anti-Sandinista media apparatus. After the coup attempt failed, the Sandinista government justifiably closed NGOs and media outlets funded by USAID or its auxiliary body, the National Endowment for Democracy. They did so based on legislation patterned after the USs Foreign Agents Registration Act. Nevertheless this fundingcontinuesgoing to anti-Sandinista outfits in Costa Rica and in the US itself.
USAID had maintained a Nicaraguan presence by having staffers like Bell in the US embassy in Managua. Their role, as his article makes clear, was not to assist the government in fighting poverty but to engage with exiled civil society leaders and independent [sic] journalists opposed to the revolution. The independence of US government-funded journalists goes unquestioned.
Meanwhile, the USAID, while formally independent, now operates under the direction of the State Department. But its clandestine work assuredly continues.
The saddest of the four articles is by teenager Jaden Hong. If he were to visit Nicaragua, he would see for himself how young people have free, good quality education right through to university level and beyond. He would see how the government has addressed malnutrition in youngsters by providing all of them with free school meals. He would note that parks, playgrounds and sports facilities have sprung up around the country.
Above all, if he took part in one of the frequent mass demonstrations in support of the government, he might wonder at the fact that most of those around him are other young people. Unlike Gioconda Belli, they are too young to recall the revolutionary years of the 1980s. But they are old enough to recognize the revolutions achievements and to be determined to protect them from Washingtons attacks.
Nicaragua-basedJohn Perryis with theNicaragua Solidarity Coalitionand writes for the Grayzone, London Review of Books, FAIR, and CovertAction.Roger D. Harrisis with theTask Force on the Americas, theUS Peace Council, and theVenezuela Solidarity Network.
Pressenza New York
