ah, the 1st commander of the lebanese army after independence from france, who took over as president at the time of crisis in a deeply divided country. 50 years after his death, al jazeera woo told the story edgy, her architect as the modern lebanese states soldiers, statesman, honor j 0 church processions band in nicaragua. the latest planned down by president daniel ortega as he seeks to prevent anti government unrest. opposed by the us and accused of human life abuses. ortega has also moved closer to china and russia. so what's next for nicolai? this is inside story. ah.

hello and welcome to the program. i am fully batty bo, danny and ortega is one of latin america's great political survivors. the left is guerrilla leader who sees power after topping a right wing u. s. banks, regime in 1979 accepted defeated elections in 1990. but he was voted back as president in 2006, and has been in the top jobs since after 3 further elections. during this time, he's been accused of increased repression and has been ostracized by the us and it's western allies. demonstrations which began 5 years ago marks the start of the crackdown on descent. victoria gate and b has the background. yeah. when president daniel will take a tried to cut welfare benefits to reduce the deficit in 2018 people responded with anger and protests. the reforms were later dropped. but the demonstrations intensive. i'd into

a movement against ortega and his government in the months that followed you take or did a crackdown targeting human rights groups, journalists, and activists. at least 300 nicaraguans were killed and tens of thousands were forced into exile. ortega faced widespread international condemnation. the un said there was evidence of extra judicial killings, torture and arbitrary detentions the u. s. placed new sanctions on nicaragua, washington in the past, backed, and on the contrary, in neighbouring honduras, who sought and failed to overthrow ortega to day b. u. s. says he, the dictator recently will take a form closer ties with russia and china. he's cool for the expulsion of taiwan as an observer of the central american integration system. and once russia to join the block risa bus, emily that young you, that yankee military base called taiwan or taipei,

that yankee military base must be withdrawn, expelled from the central american integration system in nicaragua, attention between the catholic church and ortega remains or take, or accuses priests of backing the 2018 protests. a law say that i can tell you that faith is the last thing we catholics against loose hair in nicaragua. it's the last thing. if we carry it with us, we will be able to do anything or take as sandinista as socialist movement was supported by many on the left world wide when it seized power from the us backed right wing somoza. in 1979, he retains a core of loyal support in the country from those revolutionary days, but is accused by opponents of using repression to stay in power. victoria gate and b for inside story. or daniel ortega is now in the 17th year of his 2nd stint, does nicaragua, leader. this is this 4th consecutive term as president since 2007. despite leading

an unpopular government, ortega came to power as a commander in the sandinista, a gorilla movement, which overthrew nicaragua dictatorship in 1979. he became president in 1985 in 1990. he lost power, but he stood for and won the presidency in 2006, taking office in january 2007 has been president ever since his consolidated his control using force to silence descent while elevating his wife and loyalists to high positions poverty, natural disasters and the pandemic lead to a mass exodus of people from nicaragua to the border with the united states over the past few years. ortega has been blamed for not doing enough to strengthen the economy. ah. are plenty then to discuss with our guests. joining us from managua is ben norton, who's an investigative journalist and editor in chief of geopolitical economy report. a nicaraguan news website from los angeles in the u. s. were joined by

astrid monte allegra who supervising attorney for the nicaraguan american human rights alliance. and don cova, lik a human rights lawyer and author of nicaragua, a history of u. s. intervention and resistance is joining us from pittsburgh. thank you so much for joining us on inside story, a warm welcome to you all. ben, if i can start with you in managua, you say ben, that there's a lot of this information on nicaragua. so can you start off by telling us the reality of the situation in the country today? what is happening? absolutely, we have to understand what's going on in nicaragua today in the historical context of latin america for 200 years. this is the anniversary of the so called the monroe doctrine in which the united states has treated latin america as its proverbial back yard, or joe biden recently said front yard. but it shows this very arrogant mentality in which unfortunately, washington has not tolerated. many independent governments in the region,

especially left when governments, cuba has been under sanctions under a blockade for more than 60 years by the united states and every single year at the united nations. the entire world except the u. s. condemns that blockade. and in the case of nicaragua, it's a very similar history. you mention some of that history including the u. s. support for the contrast these right wing violent guerrillas that tried to overthrow the government in the 19 eighties and right now in the crowd was suffering under unilateral sanctions imposed by the u. s. and violation of international law. so this brings us to 2018. 2018 was a violent qu attempts, and there have been many qu, attempts, and crews across latin america. in fact, the crew in 2019 in bolivia again to the indigenous left wing president abram. what, alas, which was also backed by the trump administration, was very similar to what was attempted here in nicaragua, in 2018. unfortunately, there were, there were hundreds of deaths, very tragic,

but those were deaths on both sides. so when we talk about the deaths in 2018, we're also talking about some, the nice, the activists and police officers who were killed in the case of a very famous police officer named gabby. valerie, there is a park appear named after him. he was kidnapped and tortured, and his body was set and fire by these right wing and surgeons in the cool times in 2018. unfortunately, we never hear the names of those victims. it's portrayed as a one sided crack down and protests when in reality there were protests. but there were also violent forces who are trying to over. so the government. ok, but what is the reality of the situation in the country today in terms of the economy in terms of human rights you're in nicaragua, tell us about what's happening and are they credible achievements at the international community is being, is not seeing and is ignoring perhaps when, when we talk about the economy in nicaragua, we have to always consider that at least according to nominal g,

d p. this is the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere aster haiti. yet, despite that, the social services of the son, the needs to government are pretty incredible. i'm originally from united states. i've lived here for several years. in the united states, there's no free universal health care and education here, despite the lack of resources, education is written into the constitution created. since the sandinista came back, that education is a right, a guaranteed right, higher education, as well as all levels of health care. i have friends whose parents had cancer and they got cancer treatment for free, whereas in the united states, which is very wealthy countries, the most common cause of bankruptcy is medical bills. and addition, there are also significant social services right now. the son, the niece, the government, is, is spending large amounts of money with the support from its allies to build tens of thousands of public housing units to give housing, to poor and working people. so the kinds compared to the rest of the region in

central america, nicaragua is also the safest country in the region where i'm, i'm sorry to interrupt you, been, i mean, you painted a picture there of, you know, a thriving what looks like a thriving nicaragua when when you talk about social studies says, but that doesn't explain why there so many nicaraguans leaving the country. i think a 180000 crossed into the united states in the la 1st 11 months of just last year. i'll come back to that in just a moment and ask you why, why people then if, if things and not as bad as the western world is getting them wire, then nicaraguans leading. but i want to bring a don and astrid into the conversation down. i want to ask you about a point. i've been made about 2018, an approach. i say, i said that was an attempt at co and this is what ortega has claimed as well and attempted cool by, by 4 in backers. are they any credible? is there any credibility to those grades?

well, absolutely. i mean in fact, i mean the opposition was very vocal about what they wanted. when a, danny ortega very quickly announced to pci log to end the crisis. you had a leaders of the opposition, including the catholic church calling for danny ortega do immediately step down. and by the way, this is a president, danny ortega, who, a few months before had an 80 percent approval rate. okay. so, and they're calling for him to step down. they were very clear that that's what they want. and has been noted. you had at least 22 o meters learning the americans they, i mean the opposition with the support of the united state just in fact the u. s. there was this interesting magazine ah, global reports. i think there was water is called a that said that the u. s. helped of helped in sight the insurrection in

2018. the u. s. he millions of dollars to these opposition groups and supported this violent coo against the government. and it should be noted by i'm a practicing roman catholic. okay. but the catholic church in nicaragua is incredibly reactionary. they were part of the coo, there were caches of arms found in various churches are various creased, oversaw torture in the churches are met, one man, he lost his arm after being tortured and in the church that he attended. ah, so this is not about repressing the church or repressing civil institutions. this is about a coup attempt that was violent, that killed. ah, the statistic i saw was something like 220 people died during the insurrection and it was about 5050 on both sides. okay,

$22.00 police officers and that created billions of dollars and property, destruction, and yes, damage the economy. ah, which of course was followed by several rounds of economic sanctions by the united states, which yes, have done damage to the economy of nicaragua. as trade, let me bring in to the conversation because you work with nicaraguans who are seeking asylum in the u. s. and their journey to a new life is often a very difficult one. i talked to us about their experiences, what they tell you is driving them to leave the country one. thank you very much for the opportunity. i'd like to mention that despite the allegations that there's been some sort of qu from the right, i must point out that many of the political prisoners that were recently released by the ortega regime were in fact the members of a left leaning ideology, ideological political party, and r s,

which is not by any stretch of the imagination, right? or right leaning for one instance for the 2nd instance in terms of the social services that are available in nicaragua and the respect for the rule of law. yes, public education is a social services as well as health care, but i would like to venture into the quality of the book. i haven't lived in nicaragua, i haven't raised my children in nicaragua, and i understand the limit is very limited quality, both in social and educational services available from the government. and also i'd like to point out that the sanctions are not unilateral. they're not only directed towards the government, they're actually directed towards specific people who have been accused by witnesses and victims and international tribunals for violations of

human rights and for violations of their express right. to travel freely within and outside of the country. there have been hundreds of formal state employees who have not been allowed the right to leave the country simply for the fact that they are government employees. and i myself, have encountered these people on a daily basis. so i would like to know what is the justification that a legitimate government of nicaragua provide for having its own people held captive . okay, ben, ben, would you like to answer that because i saw that you were disagreeing with what i asked. you was saying that what is the justification the government is giving for arresting all these people? there are several points that were very misleading. first of all, the so called m r. s. party, previously known as the movement for the renovation of san niece, mo, has never been a left wing party. it was created in 1994 by the right wing,

split out of the sandinista party. after they lost power in 1990, and they explicitly opposed socialism, if you read their opening statement, they explicitly explicitly opposed anti imperialism. and then they immediately formed that alliance with the right wing in nicaragua, including the oligarchy, and one of them of the legacy. so that's a completely false claim. secondly, the claim that the health and education are of low quality. i mean, that's absolutely ridiculous. again, we have to compare apples to oranges. nicaragua is a poor country, but when you compare nicaragua to its neighbors, you can compare nicaragua to the united states, which is a country that became rich through wars and slavery and ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples when compared with the navy. nicaragua was absolutely nicaragua, social services are significantly better than a country like haiti, or hunter, as i mean, it's a preposterous comparison. furthermore, what i mean, what is the driving people to needs than been? well, what is driving people to leave? is it the fear of the or take

a government or is it the economic economic situation out the country that's forcing people to meet? i have studied u. s. immigration statistics very closely, and the immigrant outflow of nicaraguans is very recent until a few years ago, the vast majority of immigrants from central america were from honduras, guatemala, and al salvador. something changed very recently about a year ago, and that was the u. s. government publicly said that people from nicaragua, cuba and venezuela are welcome in the united states because the united states, the spokeswoman for the bite administration claims that they were roughly and communism crace exponentially since 2018. these numbers are not enough for last year. i'm sorry, been that is clearly just untrue. these numbers have gone up since 2018 and the humanitarian for all was indirect response to those numbers. ok, dana, there was if i didn't want to increase it was, i think light increase after 2018 because there are people who are fleeing because

again, there is violence and instability fueled by the united states and other countries and a violent rising opposition. it but especially in the past year, the number of immigrants has significantly impact because not fight administration with abilene reporters. ok, dan on certainly not do not join us in this conversation either. this of course is out of band full time between been an ostrich. let me just ask you, dan, because you are human rights lawyer. what has changed yet with white 80 again, what did change after 2018 were several things is been mention of course people were upset about the violence and instability over the summer. but also the economy was greatly hurt by the by the insurrection, which of course targeted the economy. the opposition set up all these cron gaze these barricades around the country. thousands were set up that undermined the

economy prevented commerce even international commerce. they were truckers going from unders to to coast, to rekey that were stuck in nicaragua. it was intended to hurt the economy. it did in then the u. s. piled on was sanctioned this year. you don't have warranty autonomy. economy. the barricade were intended, of course they were what were hiding, and i say know something. i'm sorry, a gun finish. i'm going to be and you'll, you'll get to respond. i know. go ahead, let me say something they were intended to hurt the economy. they have been of course this is a, this is a very typical tactic of blaming the victim. the u. s. imposed sanctions to hurt the economy. it hurts the economy and then the u. s. as a look, you have a troubled economy. meanwhile, let me just point out a couple things you know, you asked about, you know, some of the good things happening in nicaragua. the u. n is ranked nicaragua,

the 7th, highest country in terms of gender equality, honor, 7th, the u. s. and u. k. aren't even the top 10, which is an incredible treatment about mentions that nicaragua has this, is his historically been the 2nd course country in latin america. in fact, it's now the 3rd pores under he's now the 2nd course after the us back to in 2009. so, you know the u. s. he's very happy to overthrow governments install dictatorships. i did it on doris. 2009. i could help doing guru this year. i'm in those countries are not isolated and i think that's very important to point. okay, astrid, you can respond now both ben and dan say the picture is not as bleak as the u. s. and it's western allies paint it to be that they are, they have been some achievement under ortega. what he say to that. i say that if

that were the case, we wouldn't be on the show today talking about the hundreds of thousands of nicaraguan exiles who have fled nicaragua, not just to the u. s, but euro costa rica and the rest of the world as well. also, i would say that the economy and economics is no reason to turn a blind eye to human rights. you should know that, dan, we were where we are today because of what the world has done in response to world war 2. and there's no reason why we should turn a blind eye to human rights violations in the name of an economy. and yet, nicaragua, people may very well be happy that that mean that they're not being abused by the government that is meant to protect. and i just want to broaden out the conversation a bit. and dan, bring you into it. i, we've seen nicaragua now increasingly turning to china and russia, lots of agreements with the chinese and the russians. what can they, what can or take i get out of, of those relationships? well, 1st of all, i think it's fair to say that nicaragua was forced to turn to china and russia

because of us economic sanctions, right? which have cut off international financing from nicaragua, which by the way it was using for social programs. in fact, the world bank and i, a method applauded the sandinista governments use of i m f funds for those purposes . so of course, one year financing is cut off when you have trouble getting the u. s. dollar because of sanctions, you're gonna have to turn to other currencies and other countries. that's exactly what danny ortega's done and he's hoping now he'll get real development help from china. and from russia have new economic trading partners, and again, the maybe be able to, we nicaragua, off the u. s. dollar, which the us uses to dominate other countries just site nicaragua. this is happening around the world. the u. s. right now has about one 3rd of the world's

population under sanctions. and given that and again, all that is the u. s. is able to do through dollar dub dub and it's through so called dollar diplomacy, which goes back to world president william our tap. and so countries act, nicaragua, had no choice but to seek trading partners outside the u. s. sphere of influence. but of course, when they do that, when the us forces and to do it then to us, blame them for doing it again. this is class, it is exactly what happened during the country war where of course, nicaragua was forced to turn to the soviet union for help. and then the u. s. blame them for turning to the soviet of this is your thought about a situation. asked you, if you have thoughts about this, nicaragua and china, signing a series of strategic agreements, trade programs and so on. how much of a concern is this to, to the us? and is this going to help nicaragua anyway? think legally speaking, in terms of the economics, of course, it makes total sense that nicaragua would reach out and diversify in terms of

making its economy sustainable. any country and every country should do that and shouldn't rely on any other single sol partner. that's to say city economics, however, allowing another country to have sovereignty within your territory in giving them access to specific territories that might give them an upper hand in terms of security measures or defense measures when talking to the us. now that's something else when we're talking about, if russia or china were to have sovereign territory within nicaragua, they're within missile range of the united states. ben, what, what, what can i say something to that? first of all, there's no, i haven't heard any question that they're going to give territory to russian china . and if they want a military alliance for those countries,

they are free that they want a military alliance soon. you know what i was asked to let me finish? do you asked has military bases throughout latin america as new or a spaces throughout latin america? why does the us get the right to do that? and a country can invite a china or russia or any other country to have a military base if they want to write it. not that i'm saying i was going to happen nicaragua, and i want to late. the point is yes, you are shooting not wait. astrid, that a country is allowed to do that. i'm sorry, i know you liked the monroe doctrine, obviously because since you're saying they can't partner with other countries out, you know, aside from the u. s. but that's not how sovereignty work function sir. sovereignty means you can partner with whoever you want, and they're allowed a partner even militarily abundant. asking about the chronicle. like when i was sovereign erna, the question was whether it was in the interest of the united states and what this

implied for the united. nobody said in the, in the other ones are not ok. no one terrorists in the navy, united generally, not listeners. let's, let's try and keep things a bit more calmer. ben, let me come to you and ask you about the relationship with china and russia. i asked her, it says yes if it helps. nicaragua is economy. why not? but nicaragua needs to be careful about this. these are strategic has a relationship so called strategic relationships. so what, what it, what is your thought about this? well, 1st of all, i just want to stress it, there has been absolutely no indication whatsoever that nicaragua has even for a 2nd, considered giving some of its territory to any foreign country. i should point out that actually the united states has militarily occupied nicaragua, the u. s has militarily occupied nicaragua on 3 different occasions. so, i mean, this is complete projection, but in terms of china and russia, the relationship is a no brainer. here's an example this week right now,

over speaking the head of china's international development agency visit in nicaragua and inaugurated a public housing community in which china is helping nicaragua, build 12000 public housing units for poor and working nicaraguans. the united states has a u. s. a i d, the u. s. agency for international development, which in the 1980s was used to send weapons to the contras on so called humanitarian aid flights that was reported by the new york times. and since then, usa id has given it so called development funding to exclusively right wing opposition organizations against the government. so for, for nicaragua, it's a no brainer. china, through it's built in rhode initiative, which nicaragua is now part of is building infrastructure in many countries in the global south, including public housing units for poor people. and nicaragua and china are building an inter oceanic canal to challenge the monopoly of the panama canal. and that's going to bring a huge rise in economic growth to china and more international commer. so that's

why it makes perfect sense for nicaragua to work with china. and then of course, their governments are both led by socialist parties. so there are ideological similarities. but i mean, the idea that nicaragua is going to give up its territory is absurd, considering that there is no indication of that whatsoever. and furthermore, in honduras, nicaragua, northern neighbor, the largest u. s. military base in the americas is in honduras, the sort of con, no air base. okay astrid, i'll give you the last where i don't take a support as has said all along that he's been standing up to bullying from the west and that he, he actually is a good thing for, for any crime by so what would you, you know, respond to that and where next for, for your country. but that is, that is the case and there is in fact the required support for the current government, nicaragua. then i would ask for an explanation as to why opposition leaders

were incarcerated prior to the last elections in 2017 why nicaraguans been stripped of their nationality and exile to the united states. and i also would ask women where there are the proofs and evidence of this coo that allegedly took place in 2018 just by the gross violation of human rights. when are those gonna be presented to the world? ok, we'll leave it there. thank you all. so much for a very interesting and heated discussion. it was very good to hear all 3 of you on this done, cova lake bend norton astro mantell. a great, thank you very much once again for joining us and thank you as well for watching. you can always watch this program again any time by visiting our website at al jazeera dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash ha inside story. you can of course,

also join the conversation on twitter handle. is that a j inside story from me for you back to one, the whole team here in doha. thanks watching bye for now. ah, ah. this is an enormous emergency for literally billions of the world's population earth rise explores how different fades across the globe are rallying communities. we are actually focus caretaker's here in a mission to rebuild our broken relationship with the planet. if we can mobilize

that huge proportion of the world's population and we got leverage ducts, the sco believing in change on al jazeera, unprompted, and uninterrupted discussions from our london broadcast center on al jazeera. ah i'm sammy's a dan endow with a look at the headlines here. now just there are now a w h chose has 270 people have been killed. molten took off, 1000 injured and sedans fighting as doctors struggled to treat the injured, the sudanese dog, the syndicate says $39.00 hospitals in and around. call to have been forced to close. it's warning the number is likely to rise. some clinics have been bombed,

while others have closed due to a lack of supplies. and this was the left arm and had them sip decided with the escalation of violence and security tensions the dope.