Nicaragua

Nicaraguan Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes leads a mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral, as a suspension of diplomatic ties between Nicaragua and the Vatican has been proposed according to a Nicaragua’s foreign ministry statement, in Managua, Nicaragua March 12, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has ordered the closure of the Vatican Embassy in Managua and that of the Nicaraguan Embassy to the Vatican in Rome, a senior Vatican source said on Sunday.

Eric L. Olson 9-24-2018

Protestors in Managua, Nicaragua rallied on August 18, 2018 against President Ortega's imprisonment of hundreds of citizens in Nicaragua due a social-political crisis. Will Ulmos/Shutterstock.com 

TENS OF THOUSANDS of Americans took the Pledge of Resistance in the 1980s to oppose funding for a U.S.-backed militia formed to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Now that government, led by Daniel Ortega, is accused of gross human rights violations against student protesters. What happened?

After nearly 12 years in office this time around, Ortega and what remains of the Sandinista movement now cling to power through repression, threats, and intimidation. Many of those who fought alongside the Ortega brothers to free their country from the Somoza dictatorship and joined arms to defend the revolution from Ronald Reagan’s contras have left the Sandinista party out of disgust or were purged by an increasingly autocratic Daniel Ortega.

Sandinismo has given way to Ortegismo. Ortega is determined to hold on to power through authoritarian rule rather than governing in the spirit of Ernesto Cardenal and Father Miguel d’Escoto.

Despite Ortega’s defeat at the polls in 1990, he never lost his thirst for power and ran for president in each successive election until he won in 2006. He was adept at exploiting the weaknesses, greed, and corruption of his old adversaries and creating new alliances with them. First, he struck a deal with former President Arnoldo Alemán, who was serving a 20-year sentence for corruption. In exchange for Ortega’s promise to overturn his sentence, Alemán supported a package of electoral and legal reforms that allowed Ortega to win in 2006 with just 38 percent of the vote and allowed Ortega to take control of the National Assembly and eventually the Supreme Court and Supreme Electoral Council.

Ortega also struck a deal with Nicaragua’s private sector council that had bitterly opposed him in the 1980s and helped finance his electoral defeat in 1990. Ortega and the council fashioned a pact in which Ortega agreed not to intervene in the dealings of the private sector and they, in turn, would refrain from getting involved in his political agenda.

Eric Beech, Reuters 11-07-2017

A U.S. flag flutters over top of the skyline of New York (R) and Jersey City (L), as seen from Bayonne, New Jersey, August 6, 2011. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

 

The decision to end TPS for Nicaraguans is part of President Donald Trump's broader efforts to tighten restrictions on immigration. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from across Central America live and work in the United States, but some are protected from the threat of deportation under the TPS program.

Thousands from both Nicaragua and Honduras were given the special status in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America. In all, TPS protects more than 300,000 people from nine countries living in the United States.

the Web Editors 11-07-2017

Image via Michael Vadon / Flickr

Syria announced plans to sign the Paris climate accord on Nov. 7, according to The New York Times. With Nicaragua signing the Paris Agreement in October, it leaves the U.S. as the only country to oppose the accord. 

Image via RNS/Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi

These new cardinals include prelates from 11 dioceses and six countries that have never before had a cardinal, and from places far outside the traditional European orbit of ecclesiastical influence: Albania, for example, plus the Central African Republic, Lesotho, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea.

But the real surprise in these picks, as in past appointments, is that they came as a complete surprise to many of the new cardinals themselves, and to the pope’s closest collaborators.

Lee Porter 3-01-2006

Lee Porter's quilts capture the beauty of rural Nicaragua.

Protesters converged on Managua in February with brooms in hand to "

Protesters converged on Managua in February with brooms in hand to "sweep out" corrupt public officials. Organized by CEPAD, the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches, thousands marched to municipal offices and courts to present

William O'Brien 7-01-2001

One of the most urgent issues for faith communities during the 1980s was the contra war in Nicaragua.

Jim Rice 3-01-2000

Actually, even in Nicaragua, revolutionary fervor isn't what it used to be.

Marvin Rees 1-01-1999
Real disaster relief requires more then 'Good Samaritan' acts.
Jim Luken 12-01-1988

A Meditation on the Death of Carmen Mendieta

Jim Wallis 10-01-1987

The Iran-contra hearings have provided a summer-long opportunity for Reagan administration spokespersons to make their case for the contras on national television.

Jim Wallis 7-01-1987

Ben Linder is dead. The 27-year-old engineer from Portland, Oregon, built dams in rural Nicaragua and liked to dress up like a clown for the kids.

Dennis Marker 7-01-1987

As congressional hearings began in Washington to determine the "facts" in the Iran-contra scandal, the family of Ben Linder attended his funeral in Nicaragua.

Joyce Hollyday 3-01-1987

To look into the eyes of Gustavo Parajon is to see compassion and integrity.

Jim Wallis 2-01-1987

When I look into the eyes of Eugene Hasenfus, I see a man who is scared, helpless, and trapped. Eugene Hasenfus [was] the first American caught in the net, the first American who [fell] into the pit we dug in Nicaragua...[and he wasn't] the last.

Joyce Hollyday 10-01-1986

My experience at Norway Christian conference called "KORSVEI."

Joyce Hollyday 7-01-1986

The city was still blanketed in early-morning drowsiness. The sun, an orange glint on the eastern horizon, shone through broad-leafed trees. A stooped man in a gray uniform swept discarded candy wrappers and crushed soda cans into a container.

I imagined it was like the start of every other day on Capitol Hill, though I wasn't sure. I had never been there before at dawn.

Some of our small group had spent all night on the east steps of the Capitol. Others arrived at various hours throughout the night to take part in a round-the-clock vigil during the days preceding the second contra aid vote in the House of Representatives.

There was less attention than usual paid to a group of Christians praying for the people of Nicaragua and lifting up the names of the victims of the contra war. As the president had hoped, America's attention was focused elsewhere. It was April 15—the day after the U.S. air strike on Libya.

We were told that the attack was intended to put an end to terrorism. But even the president himself seemed not to believe his words. During the night huge dump trucks were parked across the entrance roads to the Capitol. The orange and white trucks dotted our view and stood as a last line of defense against potential retaliatory suicide-bombing missions on the Capitol by angry Libyans. As the usual flood of tour buses began to enter the Capitol plaza, German shepherds were guided out of police wagons bearing the K-9 insignia and set loose to sniff at luggage compartments for bombs.