Abstract: Evolving Relationships: Nicaragua, Israel, and the Palestinians

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Evolving Relationships: Nicaragua, Israel, and the Palestinians

by Marshall Yurow

Nicaragua occupies a special place in the Israeli-Palestinian impact on Latin America. Israeli–Somoza Dynasty ties and Palestinian-Sandinista ties have been well documented over the past 35 years. Yet while the facts are available, the interpretations are still fiercely debated. Both relationships have been portrayed largely in polemical terms. The Israeli-Somoza relationship was viewed as a pariah-state alliance or a “debt of honor.” The Sandinista-Palestinian relationship was viewed as a terrorist connection or brotherhood against a common enemy. Both relationships were seen as static when in fact, having begun as realpolitik, they evolved over time.

Nicaragua ocupa un lugar especial en cuanto al impacto israelí-palestino en América Latina. Los lazos israelí-dinastía Somoza y los vínculos palestino-Sandinistas han sido bien documentados en los últimos 35 años. Sin embargo, aunque los hechos están conocidos, las interpretaciones siguen intensamente debatidas. Ambas relaciones han sido presentadas en gran medida en términos polémicos. La relación israelí-Somoza fue vista como una alianza de estados parias o una “deuda de honor.” La relación Sandinista-palestina fue vista como una conexión terrorista o hermandad contra un enemigo común. Ambas relaciones se consideraron estáticas cuando, de hecho, comenzando como realpolitik, evolucionaron con el tiempo.

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Political Report # 1370 Complicating the Narrative on Nicaragua

by James Phillips, NACLA

Recent news coverage of the crisis in Nicaragua has sought to simplify a complex reality. The prevailing coverage lays the blame for the conflict on Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and presents a politically narrow and historically shallow context. As a result, the message implicit and sometimes explicit in the coverage-that Ortega is the villain and his departure from office would end the conflict or solve the problems underlying the crisis-is distorted and misleading. This rhetoric, furthered by penalizing measures taken by the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress, targets Ortega and by extension Nicaragua as a brutal dictatorship and human rights disaster. Meanwhile, Washington applauds and offers moral and material support for the government of Nicaragua’s neighbor, Honduras, where there is indeed a brutal dictatorship and a human rights disaster. Unlike President Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, Ortega is not seen as a faithful ally of the U.S. and thus faces strong scrutiny and condemnation. This hypocritical double standard highlights the fact that for a long time Ortega himself and Nicaragua, in company with Cuba and Venezuela, have represented a largely symbolic challenge to U.S. hegemony. The anger of U.S. administrations toward Nicaragua, Ortega, and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) goes back to the revolution that in 1979 succeeded in toppling the 43-year-long dictatorship of the Somoza family-Washington’s faithful and corrupt ally through successive Democratic and Republican administrations from Franklin Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter. The current crisis is not simply the story of a brave opposition and a brutal Ortega. It is a long-simmering conflict among different groups within Nicaragua that has been carefully manipulated over the years to put Nicaragua firmly and securely back under U.S. hegemony.

Political Report # 1340 Capitalist Development in Nicaragua and the Mirage of the Left

By William I. Robinson, Truthout

The image carefully cultivated by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his supporters as the standard-bearers of the popular revolutionary process led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in the 1980s has all but crumbled in the wake of the mass protests that broke out last month against pension reform that left dozens of people dead, and hundreds injured and jailed. For some, the protests were a plot organized by the United States to destabilize a revolutionary government. For others, it was an explosion of mass discontent against a corrupt and authoritarian regime. While the United States and the traditional Nicaraguan oligarchy would certainly like to have a more pliant regime in place, they have accommodated themselves to the Ortega government. The Sandinista inner circle has hacked its way into the ranks of the country's elite in a process dating back to the aftermath of the 1980s revolution, proving capable of overseeing a new round of capitalist development since coming back to power in 2007. Ortega and the FSLN have dressed in a leftist discourse their attempt to establish a populist multiclass political alliance around this project of capitalist development under the firm hegemony of capital and Sandinista state elites. While the FSLN retains a mass, if dwindling, base among the country's peasantry and urban poor, the FSLN leadership has made pacts with the traditional oligarchy; suppressed dissent; enriched itself through plunder of state resources and an alliance with transnational capital; and deployed the army, police and paramilitary forces to violently repress peasants, workers and social movements opposing its policies. Now capitalist development is entering into crisis in Nicaragua. The government's announcement that it would cut pension payments to retirees and increase the contribution required by workers and businesses into the pension was the spark that ignited the April uprising. But political tension and social conflict has been building up for years, and it is this crisis of capitalism that forms the larger backdrop to the recent events.