History

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• History
• 1912 -1933 U.S. Marines in Nicaragua
• Somoza family comes to power supported by U.S.
• Revolution 1979

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• The Autonomist Army of Central America declares
  abolished the farcical Monroe Doctrine and by the
  same declaration annuls the right that said
  doctrine pretends to have to enmesh itself
  cowardly in the political life, domestic and
  foreign, of the Indo-hispanic republics. We do
  not protest against the magnitude of the
  intervention, but simply against intervention.
  The United States has gotten into the affairs of
  Nicaragua for many years. We cannot rely on their
  promise that someday they will leave from here.
• Augusto César Sandino

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• The war to oust Somoza had killed as many as
  50,000 people hundreds of thousands more were
  homeless or refugees in neighboring countries,
  and many areas were in ruins. Widespread war
  damage had devastated the economy, which was also
  burdened by a massive foreign debt of about 1.6
  billion.

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• Sandinista dominated government committed to
• create a mixture of private businesses and
  socialist-style, state-controlled enterprises.
  Most land and businesses remained in private
  hands, except for those taken from the Somozas.
• respect human rights, and to pursue a non-aligned
  foreign policy, following neither the United
  States nor the Soviet Union
• rebuild the economy, create a new political
  structure, and improve social conditions,
  especially for Nicaraguas poorest citizens.
• provide free access to education and health care

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• The defense policy of the United States is
  based on a simple premise We do not start wars.
  We will never be the aggressor. We maintain our
  strength in order to deter and defend against
  aggression, to preserve freedom and peace. We
  help our friends defend themselves.
• Central America is a region of great
  importance to the United States. And it is so
  close ..It's at our doorstep, and it's become
  the stage for a bold attempt by the Soviet Union,
  Cuba, and Nicaragua to install communism by force
  throughout the hemisphere. When half of our
  shipping tonnage and imported oil passes through
  Caribbean shipping lanes, and nearly half of all
  our foreign trade passes through the Panama Canal
  and Caribbean waters, America's economy and
  well-being are at stake.
• Right now in El Salvador, Cuban-supported
  aggression has forced more than 400,00 men,
  women, and children to flee their homes. And in
  all of Central America, more than 800,000 have
  fled -- many, if not most, living in unbelievable
  hardship. Concerns about the prospect of hundreds
  of thousands of refugees fleeing Communist
  oppression to seek entry into our country are
  well-founded.
• Ronald Reagan 1984

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• Whos behind all this?

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• In its March 1986 report, Americas Watch (late
  became Human Right Watch) denounces the Reagan
  Administration for smearing those reporting
  contra abuses rather than seriously investigating
  the abuses and acknowledging those that have
  taken place. By its behavior, the report
  concluded, "the administration has enhanced the
  likelihood that further abuses will take place
  and enhanced its own responsibility for them." It
  added, "such a concerted campaign to use human
  rights in justifying military action is without
  precedent in US-Latin American relations, and its
  effect is an unprecedented debasement of the
  human rights cause.
• Excerpted from The Politics of Human Rights
  Reporting on Nicaragua,
• Revista Envio, June 1986

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• The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of
  America
• International Court of Justice 1986
• The court found in its legal verdict that the US
  was "in breach of its obligations under customary
  international law not to use force against
  another State", "not to intervene in its
  affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not
  to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in
  breach of its obligations under Article XIX of
  the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation
  between the Parties signed at Managua on 21
  January 1956.
• The court had 16 final decisions which it voted
  upon. In Statement 9, the court stated that the
  U.S. encouraged human rights violations by the
  Contras by the manual entitled Psychological
  Operations in Guerrilla Warfare.
• The court found that the United States of America
  is under an obligation to make reparation to the
  Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to
  Nicaragua.
• Damages awarded Nicaragua - 17 billion. US
  government reacted to this, after the verdict, by
  withdrawing its earlier declaration accepting the
  Court's compulsory jurisdiction

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• Anti-US Intervention Movement
• Pledge of Resistance
• CISPES
• Sanctuary Movement
• Witness for Peace
• Sister Cities
• Nicaragua Network
• Religious Task Force on Central America
• Veterans for Peace
• Sojourners
• NACLA
• Quest for Peace

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Movement goals Prevent U.S. invasion of
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala. Stop
military aid. Support social justice and local
development.
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• Activities
• Public education
• Nonviolence training
• Citizen lobbying
• Delegations/
• accompaniment in C.A.
• Direct action
• Media activism
• Sanctuary
• Material aid
• Human rights monitoring

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• This weekend, in our tradition of nonviolence
• we will gather together in a manner that reflects
  the world we choose to create.
• we will promote an alternative to domination
  systems by acting with love, respect, mutuality,
  compassion, and acceptance for the
  interdependence of all life.
• we will struggle for a world free from violence
  and we will use actions, words and symbols
  consistent with this struggle.
• we will not use or instigate violence against any
  person.
• we will act with respect for the people and
  property of the local community.
• we will promote the safety of ourselves and
  others through our actions and interactions.
• SOA Watch

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• The New Haven/León Sister City Project is a
  progressive, binational, grassroots organization
  that fosters a partnership between the
  communities of Greater New Haven, Connecticut and
  León, Nicaragua. Our mission is to promote social
  justice.
• We work to form fair and respectful relationships
  between the people of our two cities. Through
  delegations and other exchanges, we strive to
  understand and celebrate our respective cultures.
  
• In León, we engage in sustainable economic,
  human, and community development projects. In New
  Haven, we educate our neighbors about Nicaragua
  and about local and global effects of policies of
  the U.S. government and international economic
  institutions.
• Founded in 1984.

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• NHLSCP Goals
• Support local development in Nicaragua.
• Send delegations and volunteers to learn about
  poverty and injustice.
• Organize people in US to work for social justice/
  structural change.

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• NHLSCP Delegation/Internship Goals
• Learn reality in Nicaragua and hopefully begin to
  see world from their perspective
• Critique US government actions/motives
• Understand economic and political forces
  creating/maintaining poverty
• Stay involved (social justice focus a priority)

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• Why are there different stories?
• Why isnt the media covering the violence?
• Why is the US government doing this?

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• Furthermore, we have about 50 of the world's
  wealth but only 6.3 of its population. This
  disparity is particularly great as between
  ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this
  situation, we cannot fail to be the object of
  envy and resentment..we will have to dispense
  with all sentimentality and day-dreaming and our
  attention will have to be concentrated everywhere
  on our immediate national objectives. We need not
  deceive ourselves that we can afford today the
  luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
• George F. Kennan - 1948 Truman Doctrine

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• US Corporate Investment and Profit
• 1950-1965 (in billions of dollars)
• Investment Profit
• Europe 8.1 5.5 67
• Latin Amer. 3.8 11.2 294
• Africa 5.2 14.3 275
• Source US Department of Commerce

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• Benefits of weak or friendly governments
• Cheap labor
• Limited regulations
• Cheap natural resources
• Access to markets
• Privatization
• Open Investment/lending

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• "I spent 33 years and four months in active
  military service and during that period I spent
  most of my time as a high class muscle man for
  Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In
  short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for
  capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially
  Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.
  I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
  the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
  in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen
  Central American republics for the benefit of
  Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the
  International Banking House of Brown Brothers in
  1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican
  Republic for the American sugar interests in
  1916. I helped make Honduras right for the
  American fruit companies in 1903. In China in
  1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on
  its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might
  have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he
  could do was to operate his racket in three
  districts. I operated on three continents.
• Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

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• US Interventions in Latin America 1950 to
  Present
• Guatemala, 1953-1990s A CIA-organized coup
  overthrew the democratically-elected and
  progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz,
  initiating 40 years of death-squads, torture,
  disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable
  cruelty, totaling well over 100,000 victims.
• Brazil, 1961-64 President Joao Goulart was
  guilty of the usual crimes He took an
  independent stand in foreign policy, resuming
  relations with socialist countries and opposing
  sanctions against Cuba his administration passed
  a law limiting the amount of profits
  multinationals could transmit outside the
  country a subsidiary of ITT was nationalized he
  promoted economic and social reforms. In 1964, he
  was overthrown in a military coup which had deep,
  covert American involvement.
• Dominican Republic, 1963-66 In February 1963,
  Juan Bosch took office as the first
  democratically elected president of the Dominican
  Republic since 1924 Bosch was true to his
  beliefs. He called for land reform, low-rent
  housing, modest nationalization of business, and
  foreign investment provided it was not
  excessively exploitative of the country. In
  September, the military boots marched. Bosch was
  out. The United States did nothing. Nineteen
  months later, a revolt broke out which promised
  to put the exiled Bosch back into power. The
  United States sent 23,000 troops to help crush
  it.

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• US Interventions in Latin America 1950 to
  Present Continued.
• Cuba, 1959 to present Fidel Castro came to
  power at the beginning of 1959, removing dictator
  Fulgencio Batista. A U.S. National Security
  Council meeting of March 10, 1959 included on its
  agenda the feasibility of bringing "another
  government to power in Cuba." There followed 40
  years of terrorist attacks, bombings, full-scale
  military invasion, sanctions, embargoes,
  isolation, assassinations...
• Chile, 1964-73 Salvador Allende was elected
  president in 1970 who program included
  nationalization of large-scale industries
  (notably copper, mining and banking) government
  administration of the health care system,
  educational system a program of free milk for
  children in the schools and shanty towns of
  Chile and an expansion of the land seizure and
  redistribution. The CIA and the rest of the
  American foreign policy machine left no stone
  unturned in their attempt to destabilize the
  Allende government over three years, paying
  particular attention to building up military
  hostility. Finally, in September 1973, the
  military and Augusto Pinochet -overthrew the
  government, Allende dying in the process.

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• US Interventions in Latin America 1950 to
  Present Continued.
• Grenada, 1979-84 What would drive the most
  powerful nation in the world to invade a country
  of 110,000? Maurice Bishop and his followers had
  taken power in a 1979 coup, and though their
  actual policies were not as revolutionary as
  Castro's, Washington was again driven by its fear
  of "another Cuba," particularly when public
  appearances by the Grenadian leaders in other
  countries of the region met with great
  enthusiasm. The American invasion in October
  1983 met minimal resistance, although the U.S.
  suffered 135 killed or wounded there were also
  some 400 Grenadian casualties, and 84 Cubans,
  mainly construction workers.
• Panama, 1989 Washington's bombers struck in
  December 1989, a large tenement barrio in Panama
  City wiped out, 15,000 people left homeless. The
  Us came to arrest President Manuel Noriega on
  drug charges. Counting several days of ground
  fighting against Panamanian forces, 500-something
  dead was the official body count, what the U.S.
  and the new U.S.-installed Panamanian government
  admitted to other sources, with no less
  evidence, insisted that thousands had died
  3,000-something wounded. Twenty-three Americans
  dead, 324 wounded.
• .

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• US Interventions in Latin America 1950 to
  Present Continued.
• El Salvador, 1980-92 El Salvador's dissidents
  tried to work within the system. But with U.S.
  support, the government made that impossible,
  using repeated electoral fraud and murdering
  hundreds of protesters and strikers. In 1980, the
  dissidents took to the gun, and civil war.
  Officially, the U.S. military presence in El
  Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. In
  actuality, military and CIA personnel played a
  more active role on a
• deaths and the U.S. Treasury depleted by six
  billion dollars. Meaningful social change has
  been largely thwarted. A handful of the wealthy
  still own the country, the poor remain as ever,
  and dissidents still had to fear right-wing death
  squads
• Haiti, 1987-94 The U.S. supported the Duvalier
  family dictatorship for 30 years, then opposed
  the reformist priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
  Meanwhile, the CIA was working intimately with
  death squads, torturers, and drug traffickers.
  With this as background, the Clinton White House
  found itself in the awkward position of having to
  pretend-because of all their rhetoric about
  "democracy"-that they supported Aristide's return
  to power in Haiti after he had been ousted in a
  1991 military coup. After delaying his return for
  more than two years, Washington finally had its
  military restore Aristide to office, but only
  after obliging the priest to guarantee that he
  would not help the poor at the expense of the
  rich, and that he would stick closely to
  free-market economics. This meant that Haiti
  would continue to be the assembly plant of the
  Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving
  literally starvation wages.

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• US Interventions in Latin America 1950 to
  Present Continued.
• 2004 Haiti For more than two-and-a-half years
  prior to the 2004 coup that ousted democratically
  elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
  paramilitary rebels led by former Haitian police
  chief Guy Philippe had attacked Haiti from bases
  in the Dominican Republic. They killed civilians
  and government officials, targeted police
  stations, Haitis largest dam and even the
  presidential palace, all sparking further
  violence. Government aid embargoes by both the
  Clinton and Bush administrations further stripped
  bare the foreign aiddependent Haitian state.
  Opposition-aligned political parties and
  anti-government civil society organizations
  received tens of millions of dollars in training
  and support funds during that time from U.S. aid
  agencies. On the night of the coup, US military
  took Aristide from his home in Port Au Prince
  against his will and flew him to the Central
  African Republic.

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