A Response To Misinformation On Nicaragua: It Was A Coup, Not A ‘Massacre’ – OpEd

By

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading.”

Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on.

Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events.

The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately.

First, Mary Ellsberg says that those who claim ‘the opposition has been defeated’ are wrong. She shows a photo of a large demonstration to prove her point. However, this demonstration occurred months ago, on May 30. It was taken at the peak of the opposition’s support. Subsequent demonstrations have seen numbers fall to levels that they must find embarrassingly low.

In contrast, while Ellsberg claims that Ortega and vice-president Murillo lack support, there were massive pro-government demonstrations throughout July, culminating in the biggest on July 19, not just in Managua but in towns and cities up and down the country. They have continued since.

The truth is that, in terms of demonstrations, strikes, and barricades on the streets, opposition support fell away rapidly once people began to see through its lies and the violence and chaos it caused.

Second, Ellsberg minimizes the importance of US money and right-wing support for the opposition. But the anti-Sandinista “Civic Alliance” gives little indication of its own political agenda for Nicaragua, beyond getting rid of the elected government, so it is perfectly legitimate to ask where its political support comes from.

Opposition protest numbers are rapidly dwindling. This puny march was observed in Managua on July 26.
Opposition protest numbers are rapidly dwindling. This puny march was observed in Managua on July 26.

Even Ortega critics, like Ben Waddell, have said that US agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy have been laying the groundwork for insurrection by giving financial support to the Nicaraguan opposition.

In the middle of the crisis, its leaders traveled to Washington and Miami, funded by Freedom House, to meet right-wing Republicans like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz ,and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Student leaders went on to seek support from the extreme right in El Salvador, meeting officials of the Arena party.

More recently, they appeared at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, a bastion of right-wing militarism and pro-Israel extremism. What does all this tell us about their political intentions?

Third, while the deaths in the protests are a major tragedy, calling them a “massacre” gives credence to the exaggerated and cynically manipulated numbers being used by the opposition. A detailed analysis of casualties in the first two months, which eliminated double-counted and incidents unrelated to the protests, found there had been 119 deaths, divided equally between both “sides.” A recent official count logs 197 deaths by late July.

Ellsberg cites higher figures from reports by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR), but they lost any credibility they might have had by jumping to conclusions based on the work of the two local human rights bodies, which both have a long history of open bias against the Sandinista government. Paulo Abrāo, head of IACHR, far from being a neutral observer, openly declared his support for student protesters on May 19 when they had just violently held up a bus full of people returning from a peace demonstration, resulting in various injuries.

Fourth, like the opposition leaders themselves, Ellsberg refers to “peaceful” protesters and refuses to accept the violence which they perpetrated. This has included the murder of 22 police, plus many government officials and Sandinista supporters, the most recent a few days ago in Matagalpa. Several Sandinistas have endured gruesome torture.

She refers to the violent scenes when government forces managed to reopen access to the cities of Jinotepe and Diriamba, in which Sandinista supporters attacked priests and bishops. (Ironically, they were protected by a heavy police escort, the very police the bishops had earlier asked to be taken off the streets.) What she fails to say is how angry people were at the church being used as a place of sanctuary for armed protesters who terrorized these two cities for over a month, holding about 400 drivers and their vehicles hostage on the main highway.

The government would never have been able to remove the hundreds of barricades the opposition erected if they hadn’t had popular support to do so.

Now that the coup has been defeated, much more evidence of violence is coming to light, such as the testimony by Dania Valeska, one of the student protesters, about the arming of the people who occupied one of the main universities (the UNAN).

Ellsberg shows a picture of Valeska in one of the video appeals (“Mama, forgive me…”) she made while allegedly under attack at the UNAN, later shown to be play-acting. That fake video was used by the opposition and their media friends all over the US and Europe.

Mary Ellsberg is right in one respect: the opposition has gained the support of international media, and of the US administration and the now mainly right-wing governments in the rest of Latin America. The opposition is clinging on to these allies, helped by the false picture painted by articles such as Ellsberg’s, while their support in Nicaragua itself is fading.

Since mid-July the country has been gradually returning to normal; Sandinista supporters have returned to the streets; the barricades have been dismantled (often by local people themselves); and the violence has largely stopped. The enormous damage done by protesters to public buildings, health centers, roads, and dozens of private houses is being repaired. Businesses and schools that were closed have reopened. Daily life has resumed and tourists have begun to reappear.

The coup has failed, but Mary Ellsberg and others still continue to try to persuade the rest of the world that Nicaragua’s crisis is ‘far from over’.

*Charles Redvers is a Canadian who has known and lived in Nicaragua at different times over the last three decades, currently in León. He is the author of ‘Nicaragua’s failed coup’ (https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/charles-redvers/nicaragua-s-failed-coup).

This article appeared at the Gray Zone Project.

4 thoughts on “A Response To Misinformation On Nicaragua: It Was A Coup, Not A ‘Massacre’ – OpEd

  • August 16, 2018 at 7:46 am
    Permalink

    I’ve yet to see a single piece of evidence that there was a coup attempt. I’m not saying that there was no such attempt, just that there’s been no evidence put forth. Just talk from Ortega. There’s ample evidence of pro-government paramilitaries assaulting students and protesters, on the other hand.

    And yes, the crisis in Nicaragua is far from over (especially in Managua). Hundreds of people are applying for asylum to Costa Rica every day. There are still hundreds of political prisoners.

    Reply
  • August 16, 2018 at 9:29 am
    Permalink

    Please provide a source for the claim that Valeska’s video was fake or “play-acting”. I watched the testimony video but she never claimed that the video is fake.

    Reply
  • August 16, 2018 at 12:57 pm
    Permalink

    Whoever wrote this obviously does not live in Nicaragua or has some big benefit from the Ortega’s regime. There was no coup, there were people tired of Ortega’s dictatorship protesting peacefully, the government attacked them, and they had to defend themselves, not by using weapons “sponsored by US” but by homemade mortars and stones. For god’s sake, do you think if they were supported by the CIA, etc. as Ortega puts it, he would still be in power?? he would be thrown off already.
    More than 400 people were assassinated by the regime, they have relatives and friends who can confirm that, do you dare to tell them in their face that their loved ones killed each other?
    Get the facts before you publish biased leftists articles. Why do you think most of countries support the people of Nicaragua who are against Ortega? who are with him? of course Venezuela, Bolivia, and some Russians, and some leftists who actually don’t live under a dictatorship but think communism is the way to go. Experience it first, then give your opinion.
    PD: do you actually publish comments? I don’t see any, and I’m sure many people will have an opinion on this.

    Reply
  • August 18, 2018 at 4:07 am
    Permalink

    I wonder if this author is being paid to publish this trash, or if they are doing it out of some sadly misinformed perception of reality.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Andrew Carrico Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *