folly: church processions banned in nicaragua, the latest crackdown by president daniel ortega. opposed by the u.s. and accused of human right abuses, ortega has also moved closer to china and russia. so what's next for nicaragua? this is "inside story." ♪ folly: hello and welcome to the program. i'm folly bah thibault.

daniel ortega is one of latin america's great political survivors. the leftist guerrilla leader who seized power after toppling a right wing u.s.-backed regime in 1979, accepted defeat in elections in 1990, but he was voted back as president in 2006, and has been in the top job since after three further elections. during this time he's been accused of increased repression and has been ostracized by the u.s. and its western allies. demonstrations, which began five years ago, marked the start of the crackdown on dissent. victoria gatenby has the background. [protestors chanting] reporter: when president daniel ortega 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 intensified into a movement against ortega and his government. [gunfire] [shouting] reporter: in the months that followed, ortega ordered a crackdown targeting human rights groups, journalists and activists.

[screaming] at least 300 nicaraguans were killed and tens of thousands were forced into exile. [shouting] ortega faced widespread international condemnation. the u.n. said there was evidence of extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detentions. the u.s. placed new sanctions on nicaragua. washington in the past backed an d armed the contras in neighboring honduras who sought and failed to overthrow ortega. today, the u.s. says he's a dictator. recently, ortega formed closer ties with russia and china. he's called for the expulsion of taiwan as an observer of the central american integration system, and wants russia to join the bloc. >> that military junkie base called taiwan or taipei. that yankee military base must be withdrawn, expelled from the central american integration system. reporter: in nicaragua tension , between the catholic church

and ortega remains. ortega accuses priests of backing the 2018 protests. >> i can tell you that faith is the last thing we catholics are going to lose here in nicaragua. it's the last thing. if we carry it with us, we will be able to do anything. reporter: ortega's sandinistas socialist movement was supported by many on the left worldwide when it seized power from the u.s.-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 gatenby for "inside story." folly: danielle ortega is now in the 17th year of his second stint as nicaragua's leader. this is his fourth consecutive term as president since 2007. despite leading an unpopular end. ortega came to power as a commander in the sandinista guerrilla movement, which overthrew nicaragua's

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. he has been president ever since. he has consolidated his control, using force to silence dissent , while elevating his wife and loyalists to high positions. poverty, natural disasters, and the pandemic led 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. ♪ folly: well, 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., we are joined by astrid montealegre, who's supervising attorney for the nicaraguan american human rights alliance. and dan kovalik, a human rights lawyer and author of "nicaragua, a history of u.s. intervention

and resistance." he's 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 that there is a lot of disinformation on nicaragua. can you start off by telling us the reality of the situation in the country today? what is happening? guest: absolutely. we have to understand what is going on in nicaragua today in the historical context of latin america. for 200 years, this is the anniversary of the so-called monroe doctrine, in which the united states has treated latin america as its proverbial backyard or joe biden recently said, front yard. but shows this very arrogant mentality in which, unfortunately washington has not tolerated many independent governments in the region, especially left-wing governments. cuba has been under sanctions, under 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 mentioned some of that history, including the u.s. support for the contras, these right-wing violent guerrillas that tried to overthrow the government in the 1980s. and right now nicaragua is suffering under unilateral sanctions imposed by the u.s. in violation of international law. so this brings us to 2018. 2018 was a violent coup attempt , and there have been many coup attempts and coups across latin america. in fact, the coup in 2019 in bolivia against the indigenous left-wing president evo morales which was also backed by the trump administration which very similar to what was attempted here in nicaragua in 2018. unfortunately, there were hundreds of deaths. it's very tragic, but those were deaths on both sides. so when we talk about the deaths in 2018, we are also talking about sandanista activists and police officers who were killed. in the case of a very famous

police officer named gabriel vado ruiz, there's a park. -- a park here named after him. he was kidnapped and tortured, and his body was set on fire by these right-wing insurgents in the coup attempt in 2018. unfortunately, we never hear the names of those victims. it's portrayed as a one-sided crackdown on protests when in reality there were protests there, but there were also. violent forces who are trying to overthrow the government. folly: 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 that the international community is not seeing and is ignoring, perhaps? guest: when we talk about the economy in nicaragua, we have to always consider that, at least according to nominal gdp, this is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere after haiti. yet despite that, the social services of the sandinista government are pretty incredible. i'm originally from the united states. i've lived here for several

years. in the united states, there is no free universal healthcare and education. here, despite the lack of resources education is written , into the constitution created since the sandinistas came back, that education is a right, a guaranteed right, higher education as well as all levels of healthcare. i have friends whose parents had cancer. and they got cancer treatment for free. whereas in the united states, which is a very wealthy country, the most common cause of bankruptcy is medical bills. in addition, there are also significant social services. right now the sandinista government is spending large amounts of money with support from its allies to build 10s of thousands of public housing units to give housing to poor and working people. so compare to the rest of the region in central america, nicaragua is also the safest country in the region. folly: but at the same time -- sorry to interrupt you ben.

,you paint a picture of what looks like a thriving nicaragua when you talk about social services, that does not explain why there are so many nicaraguans leading the country. i think 180,000 crossed into the united states in the first eleven months of just last year. i will come back to that industry moment and ask you why people, if things are not as bad as the western world is painting them, why are they leaving. but i want to bring dan and astrid into the conversation. i want to ask you about a point ben made about 2018 in the protests, he said that was an attempted coup. and this is what ortega has claimed as well, an attempted coup by by foreign backers. is there any credibility to those claims? dan: well, absolutely. the opposition was very vocal about what they wanted. when daniel ortega very quickly

announced a piece of dialogue to end the crisis, you had leaders of the opposition, including the catholic church, calling for daniel ortega to immediately step down. and by the way, this is a president, daniel ortega, who a few months before had an 80% approval rate. and they are calling for him to step down. they were very clear that that's what they wanted. and as ben noted, you had at least 22 police officers when the -- folly: they, their position with the support of the united states? guest: yes. there was this interesting magazine, "global reports," i don't think was what it was called, that said the u.s. helped incite the insurrection in 2018.

the u.s. gave billions of dollars to these opposition groups and supported this violent coup against the government. it should be noted by the way, i'm a practicing roman catholic, ok, but the catholic church in nicaragua is incredibly reactionary. they were part of the coup. there were cachets of arms found in various churches. various priests oversaw torture in the churches. i met one man who lost his arm after being tortured in the charge that he attended. so, this is not about repressing the church or repressing civil institutions. this is about a coup attempt that was violent, that killed -- the statistic i saw was something like 220 people died during the insurrection, and it was about 50-50 on both sides. 22 police officers. and that created billions of dollars in property destruction, and yes, damaged the economy. 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. folly: astrid, let me bring you into 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. talk to us about their experiences, what they tell you is driving them to leave the country. guest: thank you very much for the opportunity. i would like to mention that, despite the allegations that there has been some sort of coup from the right, i must point out that many of the political prisoners that were recently released by the ortega regime were in fact members of the left-leaning ideological political party mrs, which is not by any stretch of the imagination, right or

right-leaning. for the second instance, in terms of services that are available in nicaragua and the respect for the rule of law, yes, public education is a social service as well as healthcare, but i would like to venture into the quality of both. i have lived in nicaragua, i have raised my children in nicaragua and i understand the limited, very limited quality both in social and educational. services available from the government. and also, i would like to point out that the sanctions are not unilateral, they are not only directed towards the government, they are actually directed towards specific people who have been accused by witnesses and victims in international tribunals, for violations of human rates, 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. i myself have encountered people on a daily basis, so i would like to know what is the justification that the "legitimate government of nicaragua" provides for having its own people held captive. folly: ben, i saw that you were disagreeing with what astrid was saying, what is the justification the government is giving for arresting all these people? guest: there are several points that were very misleading. first of all, the so-called mrs party, previously known as the movement for the renovation of sandinismo, 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 opposed anti-imperialism, and they immediately formed an alliance with the right wing in nicaragua, including the oligarch eduardo montealegre. 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. what you compare it to its neighbors -- you can't compare nicaragua to the united states, which is a country that became rich through wars and slavery and ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples. guest: you can't compare them to haiti. -- guest: absolutely. nicaraguan social services are significantly better than a country like haiti or honduras. i mean, it's a preposterous comparison. folly: what is driving people to leave then, is it fear of the ortega government, or is it the economic situation of the country that's forcing people to leave?

guest: i have started 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 el salvador. something changed very recently, about a year ago, and that was that, 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 biden administration claimed that they were fleeing communism. guest: they have increased exponentially since 2018. these numbers have not gone up from last year. i'm sorry, ben, that is clearly just untrue. these numbers have gone up since 2018 and the humanitarian parole was in direct response to those numbers. folly: ok, dan -- guest: there was a slight increase after 2018, because there were people who were fleeing because, again, there was violence and instability fueled by the united states and other countries and a violent

%-p, the number of immigrants has significantly increased. guest: -- reporters. [inaudible] folly: dan, please join us in this conversation. there is a lot of back-and-forth between ben and astrid. you are human rights watch your. what has changed since 2018? guest: several things. as ben mentioned, of course, people were upset about the violence and instability over the summer. but also, the economy was greatly hurt by the insurrection, which of course targeted the economy. the opposition set up these barricades around the country, thousands were set up that

undermined the economy, prevented commerce, even international commerce. there were truckers going from the honduras to costa rica, that we are stuck in nicaragua. it was intended to hurt the economy. it did. and then the u.s. piled on with sanctions. so of course, the economy -- guest: the barricades were intended to protect the people who were hiding -- guest: can i say something? can i say something? folly: go ahead, dan. you will get to respond, astrid. go ahead, dan. guest: they were intended to hurt the economy. they have. and this is a very typical tactic of blaming the victim. the u.s. imposes sanctions to hurt the economy. it hurts the economy. and then the u.s. says, oh, 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.s. and has ranked nicaragua the seventh-highest country in terms of gender equality on earth. seventh. the and the uk are not even in the top 10, which is an

incredible -- the u.s. and the u.k. are not even in the top 10, which is an incredible achievement. ben mentioned that nicaragua has historically been the second-poorest country in latin america. in fact it is now the third-forest. honduras is now the second-poorest after the u.s.-backed coup in 2009. the u.s. is happy to overthrow governments and install dictatorships like it did in honduras in 2009 i'd like it helped do in peru this year. those countries are not isolated. folly: theyfolly: say the picture is not as bleak as the u.s. and its western allies paint it to be and there have been some achievements under ortega. what do you say to that? guest: i say that if that were the case, we would not be on this show, talking about the hundreds of thousands of nicaraguan exiles who have fled not just to the u.s., but

europe, costa rica, and the rest of the road. also, i would say that the economy is no reason to turn a blind eye to human rates. you should know that. where we are today is because of what the world has done in response to world war ii. there is no reason we should turn a blind eye to human rights violations in the name of an economy. and yes, nicaraguan people may very well be happy. that does not mean they are not being abused by a government that is meant to protect them. folly: i want to broad or not the conversation and bring you into it, dan. we are seeing nicaragua increasingly turning to china and russia, lots of agreements with the chinese and the russians. what can ortega get out of those relationships? guest: first of all, i think it is fair to say that nicaragua was forced to turn to china and russia, because of u.s. economic sanctions, right? which have cutoff

international financing from nicaragua, which, by the way, it was using for social programs. the imf and world bank uploaded the sandinista government's use of funds for those purposes. when you're financing is cut off, when you have trouble getting the u.s. dollar because of sanctions, you will have to turn to other countries. that is exactly what daniel ortega has done. he is hoping that now he will get real development help from china and russia. and again, may be able to wean nicaragua off the u.s. dollar, which the u.s. uses to dominate other countries like nicaragua. this is happening around the world. the u.s. has one-third of the world's population under sanctions. the u.s. is able to do that through dollar dominance, through so-called "dollar

diplomacy," which goes back to president taft. so countries like nicaragua have no choice but to seek trading partners outside the u.s. sphere of influence. but of course, when they do it, the u.s. blames them for doing it. again, this is classic. this is what happened during the contra war, where nicaragua was forced to turn to the soviet union for help, than the u.s. blamed them for turning to the soviet union. folly: astrid, your 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 the u.s.? is this going to help nicaraguan anyway? guest: speaking in terms of economics, of course. it makes total sense that nicaragua would reach out and diversify in terms of making it economy sustainable. every country should do that. we should not rely on every

single -- we should rely on every partner. that is just basic economics. however, allowing any country to have sovereignty within your territory and 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 u.s., now that is something else. when we are talking about if russia or china were to have sovereign territory within nicaragua, they are within missile range of the united states. folly: ben? guest: wait, can i say something to that? i have not heard any question about them giving territory to russia or china. if they wanted a military alliance with those countries, they are free to do that. folly: they want a military alliance. guest: let me finish. the u.s. has military bases

throughout latin america, numerous. why does the u.s. get the right to do that and a country like china or russia or any other country cannot have a military base if they want to? [crosstalk] guest: wait. astrid, a country is allowed to do that. i am sorry, i know you like the monroe doctrine obviously, since you are saying they cannot partner with other countries aside from the u.s. but that is not how sovereignty works. sovereignty means you can partner with whoever you want and they are allowed to partner even militarily with you. folly: ben -- ok. guest: sovereign or not, the question was whether it was in the interest of the united states, and what this imply for the united states. guest: no, she said -- -- folly: ok. ladies and gentlemen, please. let's try and keep things a bit

more calmer. ben, let me ask you about the relationship between russia and china, astrid says if it helps the economy, why not? but nicaragua needs to be careful about these so-called strategic relationships. what are your thoughts about this. guest: first of all, i want to stress that there has been no indication whatsoever that nicaragua has even for a second considered giving some of its territory to any foreign country. i should point out that actually the united states has occupied nicaragua -- the u.s. has militarily occupied nicaragua on three different occasions. this is complete progression. in terms of china and russia, the relationship is a no-brainer. here is an example. this week, the head of china's international development agency visited nicaragua and inaugurated a public housing community in which china is helping nicaragua build 12,000

public housing units for poor and working nicaraguans. the united states has the usaid, the u.s. agency for international development which in the 1980's was used to send weapons to the contras on so-called, military and eight flights -- that was reported by the new york times -- since then the usaid has given its so-called development funding to exclusively right-wing opposition organizations, against the government. for nicaragua, it is a no-brainer. china, through its belt and road initiative, is building infrastructure in many countries in the global south, including public housing units for poor people, and nicaragua and china are building enter oceanic canals to challenge the monopoly of the panama canal. that will bring a huge rise in economic growth to china and more international commerce. that is 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 the idea that nicaragua will give up its territory is absurd, considering that there is no indication of that whatsoever. furthermore in honduras, nicaragua's northern neighbor, the largest u.s. military america's is in honduras, that geithner airbase. folly: ortega's supporters have said all along that he is standing up to bullying from the west and he is good for nicaragua. what would you respond to that? and where next for your country? guest: i would respond that if that is the case and that that they required support for the current government of nicaragua, then i would ask for an explanation as to why opposition leader's were incarcerated prior to the last elections in 2017. why nicaraguans have been

stripped of their nationality and exiled to the united states. and i also would ask when and where are the proofs and evidence of this coup that allegedly took place in 2018, that justified the gross violation of human rates. when will those be presented to the world? folly: we will leave it there. thank you all very much for an interesting and heated discussion, it was very good to hear from all of you on this, dan kovalik, ben norton, astrid montealegre. thank you very much once again for joining us. and thank you, as well, for watching. you can always watch this program again anytime by visiting our website at aljazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page, that's facebook.com/aj inside story. you can, of course, also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is @ajinsidestory. from me, folly bah thibault and the whole team here in doha, thanks for watching. bye for now. ♪

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