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horowitzza

Silent War in Nicaragua: The New Politics of Violence | NACLA - 0 views

nacla.org/...icaragua-new-politics-violence

war nicaragua politics violence diplomacy

shared by horowitzza on 02 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • At 2:30 p.m. on June 15, 2000—more than ten years after the U.S.-sponsored Contra war officially ended in Nicaragua—a guerrilla unit of rearmed ex-Sandinistas and ex-Contras surrounded the small campesino home of Guadalupe Montenegro in the rural municipality of Siuna
  • Without saying a word, the men opened fire indiscriminately, killing Montenegro and all ten members of his family before burning the corpses and torching the house.
  • Perhaps nowhere else in Central America are the problems of demobilized soldiers, weapons left over from the Cold War and poverty more obvious than in the rural area of north-central Nicaragua—a region where the war that began in the 1980s has still not ended.
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  • "the Colombianization of the country,"
  • various residual groups of ex-combatants, some of whom are known by the government to be involved with international weapons and drug smuggling cartels, have started to take control of parts of the socially and economically isolated Caribbean region of Nicaragua.
  • Initially dismissed by the government as "hotheads," "groups of delinquents" or "dogs of war" left over from the 1980s, the rebel groups appear to be anything but a rag-tag army.
  • According to testimonies from local sources, the rearmados are well-armed, expertly trained, equipped with modern methods of communication
  • In response to increased rebel activity in a gold and silver mining area called the "Mining Triangle" (Siuna, Bonanza and La Rosita), the Nicaraguan Army declared a military offensive
  • The legacy of war and violence in Nicaragua is both heart-breaking and angering. In the recent history of the country, violence has always been answered with more violence.
  • During the U.S.-backed Somoza dynasty the state-sponsored repression of the poor by the National Guard was answered by the violence of the Sandinista Revolution, the triumph of which led to the violence of an eight-year-long, U.S.-funded war
jblackwell2

Colombia peace deal: Historic agreement is signed - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-latin-america-37477202

politics colombia war peace

shared by jblackwell2 on 02 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • The Colombian government and left-wing Farc rebels have signed a historic agreement that formally brings an end to 52 years of armed conflict.
  • The last of the major Cold War conflicts killed 260,000 people and left more than six million internally displaced.
  • We will achieve any goal, overcome any hurdle and turn our nation into a country we've always dreamed of - a country in peace."
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  • Correspondents say President Santos has risked his political future on the success of the peace deal.
  • But after 50 years of war, many Colombians still aren't ready to forgive. As President Santos put it, the hard work of building peace now lies ahead.
  • President Santos said this historic moment was a message from Colombia to the world: no more war. "No more war," the crowd chanted in return.
  • However, only hours before the signing, the EU announced it would suspend the Farc from its list.
  • 1964: Set up as armed wing of Communist Party2002: At its height, it had an army of 20,000 fighters controlling up to a third of the country. Senator Ingrid Betancourt kidnapped and held for six years along with 14 other hostages2008: The Farc suffers a series of defeats in its worst year2012: Start of peace talks in Havana2016: Definitive ceasefire
  • jblackwell2 on 02 Nov 16
     
    This article reflects the ending of the long war.
Javier E

A 'Brave' Move by Obama Removes a Wedge in Relations With Latin America - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ations-with-latin-america.html

imperialism foreign policy latin america cold war cuba obama

shared by Javier E on 19 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • After years of watching his influence in Latin America slip away, Mr. Obama suddenly turned the tables this week by declaring a sweeping détente with Cuba, opening the way for a major repositioning of the United States in the region.
  • Washington’s isolation of Cuba has long been a defining fixture of Latin American politics, something that has united governments across the region, regardless of their ideologies. Even some of Washington’s close allies in the Americas have rallied to Cuba’s side.
  • “Our previous Cuba policy was clearly an irritant and a drag on our policy in the region,”
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  • “We have to recognize the gesture of President Barack Obama, a brave gesture and historically necessary, perhaps the most important step of his presidency,” Mr. Maduro said.
  • Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president and former Sandinista rebel, was chastising Mr. Obama just days ago, saying the United States deserved the top spot in a new list of state sponsors of terrorism. Then, on Wednesday, he saluted the “brave decisions” of the American president.
  • “We never thought we would see this moment,” said Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who chided the Obama administration last year over the National Security Agency’s surveillance of her and her top aides. She called the deal with Cuba “a moment which marks a change in civilization.”
  • “It removes an excuse for blaming the United States for things,”
  • “In the last Summit of the Americas, instead of talking about things we wanted to focus on — exports, counternarcotics — we spent a lot of time talking about U.S.-Cuba policy,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “A key factor with any bilateral meeting is, ‘When are you going to change your Cuba policy?’
  • But while sharp differences persist on many issues, other major Washington policy shifts have recently been applauded in the region, including Mr. Obama’s immigration plan and the resettlement in Uruguay of six detainees from Guantánamo Bay.
  • “There will be radical and fundamental change,” said Andrés Pastrana, a former president of Colombia. “I think that to a large extent the anti-imperialist discourse that we have had in the region has ended. The Cold War is over.”
horowitzza

In the Field: Notes from Nicaragua | United States Institute of Peace - 0 views

www.usip.org/...in-the-field-notes-nicaragua

field notes nicaragua united peace

shared by horowitzza on 02 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Nicaragua armed with audio and video recorders and a plan to capture the human dimension of the country’s conflict
  • In a country where the past is intensely alive, we realized we needed to learn some history before we set off.
  • For much of the 20th century, Nicaragua was subjected to dictatorial regimes under the control of the influential Somoza family
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  • In the 1970s, however, the Somoza government’s National Guard found itself increasingly challenged by the insurrectionary Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In 1978, violence escalated into civil war, which the Sandinistas and their allies quickly won.
  • When the Sandinistas took power in 1979, however, many Nicaraguans began to suspect that the new government was just another variation on the country’s authoritarian tradition.
  • The 1980s saw Nicaragua become a battlefield in the wider Cold War as East and West funded a war between the Sandinistas and the Contras (short for the Spanish word contra-revolucionarios--“counterrevolutionaries”).
  • In the past few years, allegations of electoral fraud, harassment of nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists, and efforts to amend the constitution to let the president run again in 2011, have tarnished Ortega’s democratic credentials.
rachelramirez

Ortega vs. the Contras: Nicaragua Endures an '80s Revival - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ua-endures-an-80s-revival.html

Nicaragua contras politics Venezuela

shared by rachelramirez on 04 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Ortega vs. the Contras: Nicaragua Endures an ’80s Revival
  • Tyson and his men are contras — yes, like the ones from the 1980s who received stealth funding during the Reagan administration to topple Mr. Ortega’s leftist Sandinista government.
  • That war ended more than 25 years ago, when Mr. Ortega lost at the polls. But since being re-elected in 2006, Mr. Ortega has come to rule over this Central American nation in sweeping fashion.
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  • They control fuel companies, television stations and public construction projects, which has many critics comparing his family to the right-wing Somoza dynasty that Mr. Ortega helped topple in 1979.
  • They complain they are broke and say the reason they are not more successful is that they do not have international aid, as they did during the Reagan administration.
  • Though Mr. Ortega enjoys strong support among the poor, he was widely criticized for constitutional changes that repealed term limits, allowing him to run this year for a third consecutive term.
  • The government denies that politically motivated rebels in the country still exist, despite occasional attacks on police stations and the killings of Sandinistas and known contras
  • “It is a silent, dirty war that is not recognized,” said Bishop Abelardo Mata, a Roman Catholic leader who has served as something of a mediator between the two sides.
  • Venezuela has provided Nicaragua with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of oil a year on preferential terms, and the government acknowledges that much of it is invested in private companies closely tied to the Ortega family and its allies.
  • “The Ortega-Murillo family is getting richer while the country people starve,” a rebel who calls himself Commander Rafael said about the president and his wife, Rosario Murillo
  • He said the Ortega administration must be doing something right. In January, the World Bank projected Nicaragua’s economy to grow by 4.2 percent in 2016, one of the highest rates in Latin America.
  • It is no wonder: 38 percent of the Venezuelan oil is used to fund social projects. More than 35,000 houses have been distributed among the poor in the past two years, according to a government website. World Bank statistics show that the poverty level dropped six percentage points from 2005 to 2009.
  • “He might have an expensive car, but the other presidents before him had their luxuries but did not help the people,” Veronica Aguilar, 55, said of Mr. Ortega.
  • The rebels are not buying it. In a sign of the new allegiance the socialist administration has to the country’s richest people, the government has lifted import taxes for luxury items like yachts and helicopters.
  • rachelramirez on 04 Jul 16
     
    This article highlights some of the positive change the Ortega family has brought to Nicaragua, despite being flooded with reports of corruption, but it shows how divided the country is. There are contras roaming the country, and have been doing so for 25 years, who refuse to step down, and now finance their resistance by working with cartels within Nicaragua. It seems as though chaos has decided to run through Nicaragua. Additionally, we are able to see that under the current president poverty has decreased and new millionaires have increased. It seems as though a few people have a high concentration of the money in Nicaragua.
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