NSCAG News Briefing February 2025

Dear NSCAG members and supporters,

Who would have imagined the start of a year quite so turbulent as the world is being reshaped at such speed?

Marco Rubio, the new Trump administration Secretary of State is a far right, climate change denier, intent on shaping Latin America in the image of US style 'democracy.'  

In a visit to Central America in the first week of February Rubio visited Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala as part of staking a bogus claim to the Panama Canal, and paving the way to deporting not only Central American migrants but also those from around the world. With the threat of tariffs that would be catastrophic for their economies, these countries have little option but to comply.

During his visit to Costa Rica Rubio declared  Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela 'enemies of humanity' responsible for the migrant crisis, an ominous sign of what might follow..  

Our focus this month is on articles and a webinar highlighting how successful Nicaragua has been in stabilising the economy and reducing high levels of poverty through well integrated national development plans. 

This is an extraordinary achievement in the context of the 2018 attempted coup, the pandemic, the climate crisis that brought two major hurricanes and US and EU sanctions. 

What other government anywhere would have demonstrated this level of resilience?

Find out more from the links to articles in this newsletter, join our webinar on Monday 31 March with three Nicaragua based speakers, and/or experience the reality of Nicaragua by joining a delegation. 

Find out from our three Nicaragua based speakers how Nicaragua has implemented such successful well integrated poverty reduction programmes despite unrelenting US attempts to overthrow the government and impose ‘democracy’ US style. What could the future hold under Trump?

Speakers: Becca Renk, has lived in Ciudad Sandino for more than 20 years working in sustainable community development, currently Director of the Jubilee House Community- CDCA’s health clinic and Coordinator of the Casa Benjamin Linder solidarity project.

Nick Hoskyns, Managing Director of the ethical trading company ETICO, has and worked with rural Nicaraguan co-operatives since 1988, member of the Executive Committee of NSCAG.

John Perry, lives in Masaya, writes about politics and social issues in The Morning Star, FAIR, Covert Action Magazine, and the London Review of Books.

Chair: Julie Lamin, Co-Chair, NSCAG Executive Committee
 

On September 1, 1987, Brian and other US war veterans blocked the railway line at the Concord, CA, naval station, to protest against the shipping of US weapons to Central America.

An approaching train did not stop, and Brian lost both legs below the knee and his right frontal lobe. Despite near death injuries his activism only intensified. As a lawyer and writer, he has documented US policy in over 20 countries including Nicaragua where he now lives.

Over 300 people attended the 20^th Latin America conference that took in the shadow of the Trump administration already deporting thousands to Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, imposing trade tariffs on Mexico and renewing threats against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Dr Aleida Guevara Cuban paediatrician and daughter of Che was the keynote speaker.

In the FilmFest NSCAG showed two videos illustrating the Nicaraguan governmentʼs commitment to food sovereignty, gender equality, co-operatives, and free education. The first is about a Nicaraguan women’s co-operative: transforming lives, protecting the land and the second about an NEU sponsored teacher exchange with Nicaragua. 

On 22 November, President Biden decided that Nicaragua still posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

In doing so he repeated this annual designation from the last Trump administration which are now almost certain to continue with greater ferocity.

What terrifying 'sins' has Nicaragua committed to warrant such a designation in the eyes of the US? 

How has the country succeeded  in reducing high levels of poverty despite an attempted coup, the pandemic, US sanctions, and two major hurricanes and other impacts of the climate crisis? 

What can we learn from Nicaragua about resilience against such odds?

For the first time since 1991 Geraldine is back in Nicaragua taking part in a bird brigade to Solentiname Islands on Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). As well as searching out the islands' birds, the group will be visiting artists, wildlife reserves, and petroglyphs (rock art)ca dating back to the per- Columbian period (before 1492). 

For Geraldine it will also be an opportunity to meet up with members of a community where she stayed as a brigadista on an NSC environmental brigade in 1991. 

The group also travelled down the Rio San Juan  on the border with Costa Rica to a small town called El Castillo, the  scene of a short lived invasion and occupation by none other than Captain Horatio Nelson (regarded as a pirate in Nicaragua) in 1780.

The bird brigade is one of a programme of visits organised by the Casa Ben Linder. Other trips scheduled for this year are:

6-16 March: Power & Protagonism: Women in Nicaragua

May: Co-ops and Communities: Cooperative Movement in Nicaragua

June: Global Health: Family and Community Health in Nicaragua

July: Solidarity in Action: Nicaragua’s Popular Revolution

November: Salud & Solidaridad: Hands-On Healthcare in Nicaragua 

For further information contact: casabenjaminlinder@jdc-cdca.org

The demise of USAID: One of Trump's actions that is having major repercussions globally is his Executive Order to freeze all USAID spending for 90 days except for food programmes and funding to Israel. With an annual budget of more than $40bn covering over 100 countries USAID has been the soft arm of US influence since 1961.
As John Perry writes its demise will not be mourned in Nicaragua where over $3m of USAID funds were channelled to opposition organisations involved in the attempted coup in 2018 and subsequently in efforts to subvert the electoral process by undermining the Sandinista Party.

Nicaragua re-elected as Vice-Chair of UN Committee on Palestine Jaime Hermida Nicaragua’s Representative to the UN stressed Nicaragua’s commitment to  supporting any initiative that leads once and for all to the liberation of Palestine, the end of the Israeli occupation and the setting up of a free, sovereign, independent Palestinian State.  For other forms of Nicaragua - Palestine solidarity see here