1 Nicaragua: the right to live in peace BY FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ LATIN AMERICA, POLITICS, RECENT HTTPS://PRRUK.ORG/NICARAGUA-THE-RIGHT-TO-LIVE-IN-PEACE/ “Sovereignty is not argued about It is defended” – Cesar Augusto Sandino It is an irrefutable fact that the United States orchestrated, financed and unleashed the violent coup attempt in 2018 against the democratically elected FSLN government. Spokespeople of the U.S. establishment, from former president Trump, extreme rightwing senators and deputies, all the way down the food chain of its formidable ‘regime change’ machinery, including National 2 Security Advisor John Bolton, the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and, of course, USAID, repeatedly stated their aim was to bring about ‘regime change’ in Nicaragua. In this connection, the significance of U.S. Nicaraguan proxies is ephemeral and purely utilitarian (does anybody remember Adolfo Calero, Miami-based Contra leader?). Such proxies are activated to sow chaos, violence and confusion to facilitate a U.S.-driven ‘regime change’ intervention, but for the huge U.S. democracycrushing machine, when plans do not work, its proxies are disposable human assets. In the 2018 coup attempt, the operatives on the ground, disguised as civil society bodies committed to the rule of law, democracy, civil liberties, human rights and other fake descriptions, were in fact U.S.-funded proxies entrusted with the task to bring down the FSLN government by means of violence. The resistance of the Nicaraguan people defeated the coup and thus the nation will go to the polls in November 2021, prompting the U.S. ‘regime change’ apparatus to launch, in despair, an international campaign aimed at demonising the electoral process itself. The brutal ‘regime change’ machinery The US, through open and shady channels, disbursed millions to pay, organise, and train thousands of the cadre that would carry out the coup attempt in 2018. Between 2014 and 2017 the U.S. funded over 50 projects in Nicaragua for a total of US$4.2 million. 3 Furthermore, William Grigsby, an investigative journalist, revealed that USAID and the NED distributed over US$30 million to a range of groups opposed to the Nicaraguan government who were involved in the violence of 2018.1 A pro-U.S. commentator, writing in NED-funded magazine Global Americans (1 May 2018), admitted that these resources had been deployed to lay the ‘groundwork for insurrection’: “Looking back at the developments of the last several months it is now quite evident that the U.S. government actively helped build the political space and capacity of Nicaraguan society for the social uprising that is currently unfolding”.2 Furthermore, millions of U.S. taxpayers’ money also went into financing a Nicaraguan coup-plotting media.3 The ingredients of U.S. ‘regime change’ operations are buttressed by illegal unilateral coercive measures (aka sanctions) aimed at isolating internationally the target government and causing as much havoc as possible to its economy so as to destabilise it thus bringing about a crisis, leading to the ousting of the government, and to a U.S.-led transition. For example, since 2016-17, the U.S. has applied 431 and 243 sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba, respectively. With the NICA Act and the RENACER bill, the U.S. is piling up sanctions against Nicaragua’s economy and FSLN government officials. The strategy is invariably complemented by a 4 worldwide intoxicating corporate media demonization campaign labelling these governments ‘authoritarian’ and ‘dictatorial’, sometimes going as far as charging them as ‘fascists’ and, in the case of Nicaragua, even of ‘Somocismo’.4 This technique has been used in the efforts to violently oust the government of Venezuela (including the recognition of Juan Guaidó as “interim president”), and also in the recent violent push to overthrow the government in Cuba5. U.S. National Security Adviser, John Bolton identified Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua (“a troika of tyranny”) as target governments to be overthrown. In the speech (1 Nov 2018), he also praised Bolsonaro as one of the “positive signs for the future of the region”). U.S. war on Latin American democracy Reams have been written about U.S. interventions in Latin America (and the world) both by U.S. sycophants and detractors, who, despite their antipodal viewpoints, agree that notwithstanding the altruistic pronouncements of U.S. officialdom and their accomplices, they have never