In summer 2021, with polls showing the FSLN way ahead in Nicaraguan popularity, the US escalated efforts to demonize the Sandinista government and undermine the election.
Unfortunately, some western progressives joined in the attacks. Below is an excellent response from Richmond California activist Juan Reardon which was posted yesterday (17 Nov 2021).
**********
To the U.S. solidarity workers (1979-1990) who signed the Open Letter to the Nicaraguan government – July 4, 2021
You are progressive activists, but you are “U.S. progressive activists”.
You are not Nicaraguan progressive activists.
You are generous and well meaning people conditioned to see the world from “your country’s perspective’ and your culture.
You expressed solidarity with Nicaragua and its revolution in many forms in the past.
Now you feel obliged to point fingers at the Nicaraguan sovereign government and to tell them how they should organize their society, which laws should they have and which laws they should not have. When should they enforce laws passed by a sovereign national and democratically elected house of representatives and when they should not enforce certain laws because they make you not comfortable.
You acknowledge that “the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship and the building of a new society were acts of a sovereign people determining their own destiny.” But you consider inappropriate the passing legislation by a Nicaragua’s sovereign national democratically elected congress prohibiting the acceptance of foreign money for electoral efforts (when the US has similar laws) and demanding that NGOs and other tax exempt civic organizations receiving finances for non-political activities,from anywhere, open their books and demonstrate the proper use of all money received, as the law require.
You criticized the Nicaraguan sovereign government for arresting and charging citizens who are violating these and other laws.
You are surprisingly naive to believe and suggest that the U.S. government has stopped its aggression against the sovereign people of Nicaragua and that the U.S. had no participation in the ‘soft coup” violence created in 2018, when protest against a social security reform went instantly from peaceful to violent.
The U.S. has been funding and accumulating assets and resources in Nicaragua for decades. The days of the external Contra war may be over, but the US war against Nicaragua goes on internally, and the US empire wants total surrender. It is not that they want more, they want everything.
In 2018 the US and its local hired assets, the powerful and undemocratic extreme forces were those who initiated and promoted the violence.
Any Sandinista encountered by the contra mobs was killed. Sandinista, government and university buildings were set on fire, hospitals were blocked, water systems interrupted, journalists were killed, national police were killed, Sandinista students were lynched, buses were burned, even small children (8 months and 2 years old) died in a Managua burning building, Nicaraguan Cultural resources were destroyed.
You say that you are “well aware of – and detest – the long, shameful history of U.S. government intervention in Nicaragua and many other countries in Latin America.”
However you are choosing to ignore “the illegal and immoral actions of your US government that violate the Nicaraguan people’s right to self-determination” today.
If you, educated activists, historians, writers, political scientists, doctors, health care workers, journalists, believe that the U.S. is not behind the chaos and violence seen in Nicaragua in 2018, you have learned nothing from all your troubles.
You partially acknowledge in your letter that the US continues to do its nasty imperial work when you say: ”However, the crimes of the U.S. government – past and present – are not the cause of, nor do they justify or excuse, the crimes against humanity committed by the current regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
“Crimes against humanity”. Now that is rich for this American crowd who states “In 1990, we were surprised and saddened by the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas,…” and you went back home to talk about it all and to sign, now, this letter as U.S. solidarity workers (1979-1990).
Well the Sandinistas and the majority of the Nicaraguans had to stay and deal with the mess that your non-democratic one-party system imperial government created down there.
You haven’t have much success fixing your own home country, you were unable to prevent the long list continued crimes against the humanity by your government, with your taxes, in your name, during the last 30 years, but here you are posing as “inspectors and judges of revolutions by others”.
There is a big difference between the imperial worldwide aggressions that your government continues to commit and the sovereign defensive actions of a nation who knows its enemies and what lays ahead if it surrenders to imperial demands. Nicaragua is a nation that has experienced invasions, assaults, wars, economic and financial pressures, ports mined, assassinations and many other real crimes against humanity.
A law may be draconian, harsh or severe, but it may be needed for the survival of a sovereign nation under attack. President Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus during the American Civil War comes to mind. The national security laws that you demanded to be made null were passed by a democratically elected house of representatives of the sovereign nation of Nicaragua.
You should be ashamed of adding your voice to the U.S. imperial aggression and facilitating the creation of a political atmosphere that expands further the attacks on Nicaragua.
Joe Biden’s chaos and war crimes need your attention.
Matthew 7:3-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Juan P. Reardon Senior
Richmond, California
November 2021
Nicaraguan family proud to vote on 7 Nov 2021.
In summer 2021, with polls showing the FSLN way ahead in Nicaraguan popularity, the US escalated efforts to demonize the Sandinista government and undermine the election.
Unfortunately, some western progressives joined in the attacks. Below is an excellent response from Richmond California activist Juan Reardon which was posted yesterday (17 Nov 2021).
**********
To the U.S. solidarity workers (1979-1990) who signed the Open Letter to the Nicaraguan government – July 4, 2021
[ Open Letter to the Nicaraguan government from U.S. solidarity workers (1979-1990)
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/open-letter-to-the-nicaraguan-government-from-u-s-solidarity-workers-1979-1990/ ]
You are progressive activists, but you are “U.S. progressive activists”.
You are not Nicaraguan progressive activists.
You are generous and well meaning people conditioned to see the world from “your country’s perspective’ and your culture.
You expressed solidarity with Nicaragua and its revolution in many forms in the past.
Now you feel obliged to point fingers at the Nicaraguan sovereign government and to tell them how they should organize their society, which laws should they have and which laws they should not have. When should they enforce laws passed by a sovereign national and democratically elected house of representatives and when they should not enforce certain laws because they make you not comfortable.
You acknowledge that “the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship and the building of a new society were acts of a sovereign people determining their own destiny.” But you consider inappropriate the passing legislation by a Nicaragua’s sovereign national democratically elected congress prohibiting the acceptance of foreign money for electoral efforts (when the US has similar laws) and demanding that NGOs and other tax exempt civic organizations receiving finances for non-political activities,from anywhere, open their books and demonstrate the proper use of all money received, as the law require.
You criticized the Nicaraguan sovereign government for arresting and charging citizens who are violating these and other laws.
You are surprisingly naive to believe and suggest that the U.S. government has stopped its aggression against the sovereign people of Nicaragua and that the U.S. had no participation in the ‘soft coup” violence created in 2018, when protest against a social security reform went instantly from peaceful to violent.
The U.S. has been funding and accumulating assets and resources in Nicaragua for decades. The days of the external Contra war may be over, but the US war against Nicaragua goes on internally, and the US empire wants total surrender. It is not that they want more, they want everything.
In 2018 the US and its local hired assets, the powerful and undemocratic extreme forces were those who initiated and promoted the violence.
Any Sandinista encountered by the contra mobs was killed. Sandinista, government and university buildings were set on fire, hospitals were blocked, water systems interrupted, journalists were killed, national police were killed, Sandinista students were lynched, buses were burned, even small children (8 months and 2 years old) died in a Managua burning building, Nicaraguan Cultural resources were destroyed.
You say that you are “well aware of – and detest – the long, shameful history of U.S. government intervention in Nicaragua and many other countries in Latin America.”
However you are choosing to ignore “the illegal and immoral actions of your US government that violate the Nicaraguan people’s right to self-determination” today.
If you, educated activists, historians, writers, political scientists, doctors, health care workers, journalists, believe that the U.S. is not behind the chaos and violence seen in Nicaragua in 2018, you have learned nothing from all your troubles.
You partially acknowledge in your letter that the US continues to do its nasty imperial work when you say: ”However, the crimes of the U.S. government – past and present – are not the cause of, nor do they justify or excuse, the crimes against humanity committed by the current regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
“Crimes against humanity”. Now that is rich for this American crowd who states “In 1990, we were surprised and saddened by the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas,…” and you went back home to talk about it all and to sign, now, this letter as U.S. solidarity workers (1979-1990).
Well the Sandinistas and the majority of the Nicaraguans had to stay and deal with the mess that your non-democratic one-party system imperial government created down there.
You haven’t have much success fixing your own home country, you were unable to prevent the long list continued crimes against the humanity by your government, with your taxes, in your name, during the last 30 years, but here you are posing as “inspectors and judges of revolutions by others”.
There is a big difference between the imperial worldwide aggressions that your government continues to commit and the sovereign defensive actions of a nation who knows its enemies and what lays ahead if it surrenders to imperial demands. Nicaragua is a nation that has experienced invasions, assaults, wars, economic and financial pressures, ports mined, assassinations and many other real crimes against humanity.
A law may be draconian, harsh or severe, but it may be needed for the survival of a sovereign nation under attack. President Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus during the American Civil War comes to mind. The national security laws that you demanded to be made null were passed by a democratically elected house of representatives of the sovereign nation of Nicaragua.
You should be ashamed of adding your voice to the U.S. imperial aggression and facilitating the creation of a political atmosphere that expands further the attacks on Nicaragua.
Joe Biden’s chaos and war crimes need your attention.
Matthew 7:3-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Juan P. Reardon Senior
Richmond, California
November 2021