Meet Toward Freedom’s Summer 2022 Claudia Jones Editorial Intern

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s opinion and was first published in Black Agenda Report.

Correction: A previous version of this article erroneously connected Lausan Collective to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). A member of Lausan Collective had served as a fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, an organization that has collaborated with the NED.

In the last few months, the left media outlets from various camps, in their sincere attempts to demonstrate solidarity and spotlight conflict in the Horn of Africa and internal developments in Ethiopia, got it wrong. They have been uncritically centering active ideological players on two opposing camps. The significant focus on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacks on Eritrea, its invasion of Afar and the Amhara region, and its existence as a willing proxy actor of Washington was correct. They got it wrong, however, in their uncritical framing of neoliberal Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed. They have chosen to over-amplify the Abiy camp’s reactionary narrative on the long ideological internal struggle concerning the path forward for Ethiopia and the Horn.

In 1915, Lenin gracefully asserted:

“We demand freedom of self-determination, i.e., independence, i.e., freedom of secession for the oppressed nations, not because we have dreamt of splitting up the country economically, or of the ideal of small states, but, on the contrary, because we want large states and the closer unity and even fusion of nations, only on a truly democratic, truly internationalist basis, which is inconceivable without the freedom to secede.”

It is in the same framework that the principled Ethiopian and Eritrean revolutionaries during the 1960 and 70s warmly embraced this materialist line on the National Question. One of the most noted and often quoted Ethiopian Marxist is Wallelign Mekonnen. Mekonnen, who is of Amhara background, is famous for this 1969 article, “On the Question of Nationalities in Ethiopia.” This article is very relevant for today, and offers an effective ideological compass to navigate around the war of narratives taking shape, particularly on social media. Mekonnen specifies the basis of the Ethiopian settler state and its class foundation, which operated to benefit the Abyssinian ruling class in  both Amhara and Tigray regions. The oppressed nations were not Amhara or those in the Tigray region, but the other non-Abyssinian nations in the south, who were conquered, colonized, and their names erased for the creation of Ethiopia. Mekonnen writes:

“To anybody who has got a nodding acquaintance with Marxism, culture is nothing more than the superstructure of an economic basis. So cultural domination always presupposes economic subjugation. A clear example of economic subjugation would be the Amhara and to a certain extent Tigray Neftegna system in the South and the Amhara Tigray Coalition in the urban areas. The usual pseudo-refutation of this analysis is the reference to the large Amhara and Tigray masses wallowing in poverty in the countryside.”

Following Mekonnen, I argue that the left must cautiously navigate around the two opposing ideological battlegrounds that have co-opted the language and performativity of “anti-imperialism” or “decolonization.” This language works to impede wider radical investigation of the Horn of Africa and its various contradictions.

As Lenin and the elder Eritrean and Ethiopian revolutionaries from the 1960 and 1970s advocated a dialectical understanding of the National Question, so must the left as they seek to understand Ethiopia and the Horn. What is the national question of Ethiopia? Voices from the revolutionary Ethiopian student movement of the 1960s and 1970s echoed much of V. I. Lenin’s point on the National Question that nation-states should be based on “voluntary ties, never compulsory ties.” Lenin insisted upon the “right of every nation to political self-determination,” which includes the right to secession. Following Lenin, Tilahun Takele (pseudonym name for a member of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP)), argued:

“How could Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, of all people support the right of nations to secession when they were, on the other hand, the most committed advocates of the unity and integration of the world proletariat? The answer is simple. Briefly, it is precisely because they wanted to promote the genuine, equality and fraternal unity of the proletariat of all nations, the general unity of the oppressed toiling masses of all nations.”

What are examples of the two opposing voices on The National Question that are attempting to get leftist legitimacy and credibility online? The first example uses the facade of decolonial positioning to cover for the attempted imperialist intervention against Ethiopia and also absolve TPLF of its violent aims to continue the settler-colonial legacy of Abyssinian king Yohaness of Tigray. The second one gives cover to neoliberal Abiy’s vision, a vision that aims to continue the settler-colonial legacy of Abyssinian king Menelik of Amhara without addressing the grievances of the oppressed nationalities.

We can see an example of the first camp in a popular event that occurred on December 8, 2021. Haymarket hosted a webinar called, “What’s Happening in Ethiopia,” with panelists Ayantu Tibeso and J. Khadijah Abdurahman, and facilitated by an anti-China Hong Kong “leftist,” Promise Li, who is a member of Lausan Collective.

Haymarket attracts pro-TPLF academics, such as Andom Ghebreghiorgis, with similar pro-Amnesty International politics and NED connections. One of the panelists referenced Wallelign Mekonnen by aiming to manipulate the “Nations and Nationalities” discussion toward vilifying the Amharas and the Eritrean state, while simultaneously giving cover to the Washington-backed TPLF as the vanguard of the oppressed nationalities. In other words, the discussion was intellectually dishonest, both in its inability to acknowledge Ethiopia as a settler state that has primarily benefited the Amhara and Tigray ruling classes, and in its echoing the U.S. State Department propaganda that is running interference for the TPLF while demonizing the Eritrean state.

An example of the second ideological camp can be seen at an event that occurred on September 11, 2021. The People’s Forum NYC hosted a webinar on “Imperialism, Ethiopia & Conflict in the Horn of Africa,” with panelists Simon Tesfamariam and Elias Amare, who are part of the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) camp and co-leading the #NoMore social media campaign. Simon and Elias echoed the usual Abyssinian pejorative slur of “Ethnic Federalism” and discredited the Nations and Nationalities argument by attributing it to “tribalism,” and saying that “tribalism is a problem throughout Africa.” The term “ethnic federalism” is not one of facts to the current Ethiopian constitution as there is no ethnic federalism but mult-national federalism in name, which has not been implemented during the last 28 years under the TPLF regime and now under Abiy as well. They also ridiculed the radical assertion around Nations and Nationalities, equating anyone that supports that line with being a “tribalist.” In the same vein, Tesfamariam attempted to discredit the voices who put critical anti-colonial framing on the formation of Ethiopia, which challenges the mythological narrative of a 3,000-year-old independent Christian African state. Further, on his Twitter account, Tesfamariam deployed Abyssinian slurs “ethnofascist” and “tribalists” to de-legitimize the historical grievances of the oppressed nationalities.

Why are Eritreans like Simon Tesfamariam and Elias Amare, who support the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), so keen on dismissing the real struggles of oppressed nationalities in Ethiopia, a position that is in contradiction to the spirit of the Eritrean revolution? Under the direction of Isaias Afwerki, the PFDJ has taken a line of concentrating on the primary contradictions, which is imperialism and the management of the region via proxy actors like TPLF. In fact, for the past 18 years, the Eritrean state had been the home of oppressed nationalities’ liberation fronts (OLF, ONLF, etc) struggling against the Washington-backed TPLF regime. However, after the 2018 peace deal, and after the re-igniting of war in the region in 2020 by the TPLF, the rhetoric in support of the oppressed nationalities has been abandoned.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with #NoMore

“We have the Marxist-Leninist weapon of criticism and self-criticism. We can get rid of a bad style and keep the good.” -Mao Zedong

How did the #NoMore form online and what is the social, political and class structure behind it? The #NoMore campaign is an online diaspora projection or formalization involving the PFDJ in Eritrea and the Amhara region, plus Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa, in political alliance against the TPLF. The sporadic social media campaign came at a time during the violent occupation of the Amhara region as TPLF was making gains militarily and attempting to advance to Addis Ababa. The Twitter accounts that support the campaign are led by the three dominant ethnic and political bases in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, represented by Hermela Aregawi (Tigraya), Simon Tesfamariam (Tigrinya) and Nebiyu Asfaw (Amhara). The #NoMore campaigns and protests have attracted very large crowds in the United States. But the large crowd is primarily Amhara because this is the main group that forms the Ethiopian diaspora in North America. The Amhara population also numbers 20 million in Ethiopia, and are the second largest group after the Oromos, who number over 40 million people.

Despite the claim to represent all of Ethiopia, the Oromos and other historically marginalized groups are hardly part of the social media campaign. The same can be said with all of the Eritreans and Somalis. Both the Amhara and Tigrayans, due to their dominant grip of Ethiopia over the century, enjoy the settler-colonial privilege with scholarships, visas and aid to live in the diaspora. This is the reason why they are the dominant voices of what we call “Ethiopia”—online and offline.

The good aspect of the #NoMore campaign is that it is significant to witness Eritreans and Ethiopians engaging each other and sharing a common struggle. That itself is historic. That the campaign focused on the crimes of the TPLF on Eritrea, Amhara and Afar region is the best thing about it. What is problematic is the shifty co-option of “anti-imperialist” rhetoric. While the leaders of the #NoMore campaign are vehemently critical of Washington’s foreign policy, if at least temporarily, their opposition seem to only demand that the leaders Isaias Afwerki and Abiy Ahmed have a seat at the table—presumably with the imperialists. They should be calling, instead, for the destruction of the table.

The bad aspect of the #NoMore campaign is its deployment of reactionary rhetoric and symbolism: The foregrounding of the imperial Abyssinia flag, the exaltation of feudal Abyssinian monarchs, the romanticization of the “Battle of Adwa” and the pushing of the propaganda that “Ethiopia is 3,000-year-old independent state.” This social media campaign has alienated the Oromos and other marginalized communities.

The ugly is that the National Question—the goal of decolonizing the settler-state of Ethiopia, and the overall need for a wider class struggle of the masses in the Horn of Africa—has taken a back seat in the #NoMore campaign. In fact, the articulated electoral strategy of “Vote Republican” should demonstrate that this is not a sincere anti-imperialist campaign.

How Can the Left Get It Right?

It is important for Western leftists to focus on imperialism and not take a hardline position on the internal politics of Ethiopia by not being sensitive to all the contradictions. The PFDJ is able to recognize the primary contradiction being the imperialist lackey, TPLF, in Ethiopia, but fails to recognize the other internal contradictions (the National Question). This is where the TPLF has a lifeline. For the PFDJ to not acknowledge the secondary contradiction is also to not have the correct analysis on the ways that the Abyssinian ruling class exploits these contradictions to further their settler-colonial agenda. These secondary contradictions are weaponized to exacerbate the primary contradiction. We see, for example, how the TPLF is using the plight of the oppressed nationalities to mask their settler-colonial ambitions. PFDJ representatives dismiss the oppressed nationalities as just “tribalists” and “ethnofascists,” a move that alienates the historically oppressed nationalities.

Failure to actively engage the contradictions of the National Question also gives legitimacy to Abiy, who, in addition to espousing more neoliberal policies than TPLF, has denied the historical grievances of Oromos and others in Ethiopia.

The left should oppose imperialism, but without ignoring the Ethiopian National Question. Tigray was never a part of the oppressed nationalities, but benefited from the fruits of settler colonialism. Tigray region’s political struggle with the Amhara region dates back to the period of Ethiopia’s creation in the late 1800s. The ideological struggle in the present is over who is to be the face of the Ethiopian settler-colonial state.

The left or anti-colonial forces in the past also got it wrong when they gave solidarity to slave-owning Menelik with the “Battle of Adwa,” legitimizing the conquest of the oppressed nationalities; to Selassie during the fascist Italian invasion of Ethiopia by helping to restore his feudal rule; to the pseudo-Marxist Derg regime, which hijacked the revolutionary momentum in Ethiopia; and to Meles Zenawi under the banner of state developmentalism.

The modern left must not make the same historical mistake in not being sensitive to the decolonial question of Ethiopia.

The left must heed to words of the Eritrean and Ethiopian revolutionaries of the 1960s and ’70s. One noted Ethiopian voice from that time is Tilahun Takele, who stated: “We believe that the recognition and support of the right of secession by revolutionary Ethiopians, especially those from the dominant nations, will foster trust and fraternity among the various nationalities.”

Filmon Zerai is an independent blogger who provides leftist commentary on the Horn of Africa. His views have appeared on CapeTalk, Sputnik International, BBC and other outlets. Zerai also is the founder and producer of the Horn of Africa Leftists podcast.

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis.

Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of universal poverty. As much as 97 percent of the population is at risk of sinking below the poverty line unless a comprehensive response to the country’s multiple crises is launched, according to a September 9 report the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released.

In his video message to the 21st Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that was held on September 17, Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres addressed the group: 

“You come together at a pivotal time. Troubling developments in Afghanistan are causing profound political, economic, security and humanitarian challenges. The situation is rapidly evolving and unpredictable. But it is clear that the Afghan people want extreme poverty to be eradicated, jobs to become available, health and education services to be restored, and their lives and basic rights and freedoms to be protected. They want their country free of insecurity and terror.”

 

Two Factors for Economic Crisis

Guterres’ words carry enormous significance. The UNDP report, which analyzed four potential scenarios of escalating intensity and isolation, indicates that real GDP could contract by as much as 13.2 percent, leading to a nearly 25 percent increase in the poverty rate.

Two factors have caused Afghanistan’s economic freefall. First, even before the escalation of conflicts, a highly dysfunctional neoliberal kleptocracy—with limited writ over a narco state, dependent on foreign aid and rentier economics for its survival—was pillaging the country with the help of the United States and its European accomplices. The result: Cruelty and callousness became the mode of governance. COVID-19 devastated Afghan society: The coronavirus is believed to have infected millions, with the impact helping drive an increase in the poverty level from 38 percent in 2011 to an estimated 47 percent in 2020. At the beginning of 2021, as many as 14 million people could not obtain sufficient food, meaning more than one-third of the population of roughly 38 million was going hungry. Food insecurity is a result of constant droughts. Afghanistan is highly vulnerable to climate change, having witnessed a mean rise in temperature of 1.8° Celsius (or 35° Fahrenheit) since the middle of the 20th century, compared to a global average of 0.82° C (33.4° F). Droughts are likely to become an annual occurrence by 2030. A severe drought caused more internal displacement between 2017 and 2018 than the conflict itself. The country now is suffering from another prolonged dry period.

The second factor that caused Afghanistan’s economic freefall is, since the Taliban takeover, the imperialist bloc led by the United States has forced Afghanistan into economic isolation. The World Bank has halted funding for new projects, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suspended payments to Afghanistan and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has frozen the assets of Afghanistan’s central bank, which are held in the United States. Thus, Afghanistan has been faced with the absence of liquidity (cash), spiraling prices of food and medicine, currency depreciation, unemployment, and the collapse of services and construction. No money is available for public finance and administrative operations—that means no prospect of salaries for government workers. Eighty percent of Afghanistan’s last approved annual budget of $5.5 billion was funded by external aid.

 

Regional Shifts

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi—after concluding his three-day visit to Afghanistan on September 15—commented: “The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan remains desperate… if public services and the economy collapse, we will see even greater suffering, instability, and displacement both within and outside the country… The international community must therefore engage with Afghanistan—and quickly—in order to prevent a much bigger humanitarian crisis that will have not only regional, but global implications.” 

The SCO countries have heeded Grandi’s advice. Instead of implementing measures that punish the Taliban in ways that exclude Afghanistan and adversely impact the country’s citizens, the organization is trying to actively promote a smooth transition in Kabul. In the latest SCO gathering in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Central Asian countries—which had previously accepted their roles as mere doormats for U.S. ambitions in Afghanistan—voiced concerns about the bellicose attitude of Western countries toward Kabul. 

“Considering the humanitarian situation, we propose looking into the possibility of lifting the freeze on Afghanistan’s accounts in foreign banks,” Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev remarked. 

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, too, reiterated these viewpoints, adding “the entire burden of negative impacts” following the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan “will be placed on Afghanistan’s neighboring countries.”

Central Asian countries’ implied criticism of U.S. foreign policy is important. From the 2000s onward, the U.S. stance toward Central Asia was an extension of its war in Afghanistan. The region became a base for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a conduit for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) supply routes. Economic agendas were relegated to the back burner. A half-hearted attempt was made to create a regional energy market in Central Asia, Afghanistan and South Asia. With the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) as a starting point, the New Silk Road (NSR) was supposed to facilitate trade and transport corridors, ease customs and border procedures, and promote economic links.

However, these grandiose ideas were all for naught. Apart from profiteering from the ISAF bonanza and fleecing Afghanistan and its donors, Central Asian countries gained nothing substantial from U.S. initiatives. These benefits also came to an end with the decrease in the tempo of the Afghan war—beginning from the NATO drawdown in 2014 and ending with the U.S. exit in 2021. Failed regional cooperation, widespread corruption and disproportionate enrichment of elite insiders serve as relics of Western involvement in Central Asia.

 

China’s Role with Afghanistan

Growing disillusionment with the U.S. strategy on Afghanistan has pushed China—an SCO heavyweight—to the forefront of global diplomacy. For China, Afghanistan is not a passive unit in a geopolitical struggle against its rivals; it is a bridge between Eurasia and South Asia, and between East Asia and West Asia. It lies between two of the main Belt and Road corridors—the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the south and the China-Central Asia-Western Asia Economic Corridor to the north. Thus, Sino-Afghan ties are built on tangible geo-economic connections, not on opportunistic geo-political aims.

On September 8, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced $31 million in aid for Afghanistan, saying the funds were a “necessary step” to restore order and “end anarchy.” A week later, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing the United States had no legitimate reasons to freeze Afghanistan’s assets. Asked about the Taliban’s demand that the United States should unfreeze Afghanistan’s assets, Zhao said: “I think that the [Taliban’] spokesperson is right.” He went on to say, “These assets belong to the Afghan people. They [United States] should respond to the legitimate requests of the Afghan people and stop the wrong practice of sanctions and stop making obstacles for Afghanistan’s peace and reconstruction.”

In his speech to the SCO Summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping provided the regional context to his country’s evolving Afghan plan: 

“We SCO member states need to step up coordination, make full use of platforms such as the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group and facilitate a smooth transition in Afghanistan. We need to encourage Afghanistan to put in place a broad-based and inclusive political framework, adopt prudent and moderate domestic and foreign policies, resolutely fight all forms of terrorism, live in amity with its neighbors and truly embark on a path of peace, stability and development.”

In a meeting convened on September 16, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed the following to his contemporaries in Russia, Iran and Pakistan: 1) the United States should be urged to provide economic and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan; 2) the Taliban regime should be encouraged to make a clean break with terrorist forces; 3) concerted efforts should be made to moderate Afghanistan’s domestic and foreign policies and promote the basic rights of ethnic minorities, women and children; 4) pathways should be opened for the regional economic integration and development of Afghanistan; and 5) the spillovers of security risks should be systematically prevented. These five suggestions are sensible and should be supported by the international community to ensure stability in Afghanistan.

Yanis Iqbal is an independent researcher and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India, and can be contacted at [email protected].

This is the second in a series of articles on Nicaragua’s November 7 elections. The first article can be found here.

The Republic of Nicaragua announced on November 19 its intention to pull out of the Organization of American States (OAS), in the latest in a series of events that have transpired in the small country’s struggle with the United States and its allies.

Earlier in the week, U.S. President Joe Biden issued a proclamation that prevents certain Nicaraguan officials—including President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo—from entering the United States because they allegedly prevented a “free and fair” election.

The suspension of travel comes amid an escalation of aggression against the Central American country that the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN for short) has governed for the past 15 years.

Aside from the travel ban, the United States slapped sanctions November 15 on Nicaraguan officials. The Organization of American States (OAS) also voted on November 12 to approve a resolution that condemned Nicaragua’s elections as not “free and fair” and called for “further action.”

“We are not concerned about the illegal measures the U.S. imposes against government officials or against Sandinistas,” said Nicaraguan Minister Advisor for Foreign Affairs Michael Campbell after Nicaragua’s National Assembly denounced the travel ban.

However, many myths continue to circulate in the corporate media about Nicaragua’s elections. This reporter was in Nicaragua to cover the elections and reported in a November 14 article on ordinary people’s opinions of the government. Toward Freedom believes it is necessary to report answers to commonly misreported beliefs.

Did the Ortega Government Ban Opposition Parties?

The following parties were registered to run in the November 7 elections:

1. Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (Constitutionalist Liberal Party or PLC)
2. Alianza FSLN (Alliance of Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or Sandinista National Liberation Front Alliance, which is made up of nine parties)
3. Camino Cristiano Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Christian Way or CCN)
4. Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance or ALN)
5. Alianza por la República (Alliance for the Republic or APRE)
6. Partido Liberal Independiente (Independent Liberal Party or PLI)

Here's a look at Nicaragua's electoral ballot. #EleccionesSoberanas2021 pic.twitter.com/rdguFhRtkJ

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) November 7, 2021

The Caribbean Coast has two autonomous regions. Indigenous peoples run the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region while Afro-descended people control the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region. Unlike voters in the rest of the country, people in these regions could choose a seventh party when voting for regional candidates. That party was called the Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka (YATAMA).

Parties were allowed to campaign from August 21 to November 3, but rallies were prohibited because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Why Is Daniel Ortega So Popular?

This year’s election can only be viewed in the context of the 2018 coup attempt that has the United States’ fingerprints all over it because of heavy U.S. funding to groups that carried out violence that killed more than 300 Nicaraguans, many of whom were Sandinistas. Nicaraguans say they continue to feel emotionally impacted by the events of that year. Nicaraguan farmers were devastated by the “tranques” or barricades coupmongers built on roads that blocked trade, as reported in a November 14 article. Below is a video of one college student, who recounted her experience and decried the United States’ role.

Hear from college student Daniela as she recounts her experience during the violent US backed coup attempt that rocked Nicaragua in 2018.

This is the death & destruction the US would like to see more of in Latin America, all in the name of "democracy." pic.twitter.com/gtG5HEXVm9

— Ari Gutman (@GariGurman) November 16, 2021

Government officials explained the economic impact of the 2018 coup attempt at a summit for international election companions and accredited press held the day before the elections. Nicaragua’s Central Bank President Ovidio Reyes said the country has experienced negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth since 2018. “Just as we were getting out of that cycle, the pandemic struck,” he said, adding two recent hurricanes on the Caribbean coast also impacted trade. However, this year, the country started to see the economy turn around. Much of that officials credit to the country’s policy of increased public health initiatives in lieu of a nationwide lockdown, which they say would have hurt the small country. “If we don’t work, we don’t eat,” said Laureano Ortega, who promotes Nicaragua to foreign investors, repeating the words of his father, President Daniel Ortega. And so came door-to-door visits to provide information, as well as a campaign involving mask wearing, handwashing and social distancing. As a result, Nicaragua has what appears to be the lowest amount of COVID-19-related deaths in the Western Hemisphere.

Why Are Nicaraguan Opposition Leaders in Jail?

In 2020, Nicaragua’s National Assembly passed Law 1055 or the “Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination for Peace”. Under this law, it is a crime to seek foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs, request military intervention, organize acts of terrorism and destabilization, promote coercive economic, commercial and financial measures against the country and its institutions, or request and welcome sanctions against Nicaragua’s state apparatus and its citizens.

Nicaragua also has a law called article 90, chapter IV, that governs the financing of electoral campaigns, according to government documents.

Article 91 also prohibits foreign donations to elections.

Article 92 lays out the punishment for breaking electoral finance laws. Consequences can include candidates paying a fine, being eliminated from running for elected or party positions, and being barred from serving in a public office from two to six years.

The Ortega government had offered amnesty in 2019 to opposition members who had helped organize the 2018 coup attempt. However, opposition leaders this year have faced arrest and jail time because they violated the above laws. The corporate media has used the terms “pre-candidates” and “presidential hopefuls” to describe these people.

Many countries around the world, including the United States, prohibit accepting money from foreign governments, foreign private institutions or individuals who are based abroad.

Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) governs elections and is considered the fourth branch of the country’s government. The same cannot be said in the United States, for example. The CSE is comprised of members from each of the 19 political parties that can register to run a candidate in the elections.

Weren’t Opposition Parties Barred from Participating?

After 100 percent of votes were counted, the FSLN prevailed with more than 75 percent. The second-place party, Partido Liberal Constitutionalista (PLC), received 14 percent, while other parties picked up only single-digit percentages. All opposition parties are anti-Sandinista.

#EleccionesSoberanas2021🇳🇮| Tercer Informe con 100% de Juntas escrutadas y computadas Elección: Presidente/a Vicepresidente/a🗳

🏫𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒔 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔 13,459
☑️𝑱𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒔 𝑬𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒂𝒅𝒂𝒔 100%
👫🏻P𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑖ó𝑛 𝑐𝑖𝑢𝑑𝑎𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑎 65.26% pic.twitter.com/I2LZjbTYxv

— Consejo Supremo Electoral de Nicaragua 🇳🇮 (@cse_nicaragua) November 10, 2021

In the run-up to Election Day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced the “sham of an election.” In doing so, he reinforced the foundation for increased U.S. aggression on the small country, about the size of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

However, this reporter and close to 70 other journalists reporting on the elections found a calm and organized voting process at stations we visited across the country. Some of the protocols involved included:

• Voters must display special identification created just for voting purposes to voting station workers
• Voters names can be found in a computer database and on paper
• One voter per station (which was usually the size of a classroom)
• Handwashing, hand sanitizer and masks were provided
• Ballots indicate parties along with the photos of each of the presidential candidates
• Ballots are inserted into a box after voting
• All ballots are counted at voting centers, not transported to another site as has been seen in the United States, which has resulted in missing ballots being found on streets and claims of fraud
• Members of each political party participating in the elections were in the voting centers to monitor vote counting

How Do the Opposition Relate to the Ortega Government?

Below is a video (courtesy of Friends of Latin America) that shows two opposition-party monitors—one from the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) and the other from the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC)—explaining that they both oppose what they deem “intolerance” among a certain section of the Nicaraguan opposition that supported the violence of the 2018 attempted coup. They also condemned U.S. sanctions, which they said would affect all Nicaraguans, regardless of political affiliation.

In the following video by Ramiro Sebastián Fúnez, a former Contra militant leader explains why she allied with the Sandinistas and the Ortega government.

Were Foreign Journalists and International Observers Allowed In Nicaragua?

This reporter, as well as 66 other journalists, were accredited as press prior to the elections. Not a single journalist on the ground reported seeing or hearing of their colleagues being banned from entering. A few election companions had trouble entering Nicaragua if they did not provide a negative COVID-19 test result on a printed document that contained both the seal from the testing facility as well as a doctor’s signature.

Meanwhile, no journalists from corporate media outlets were on the ground. Yet, outlets like the New York Times went on to claim the elections were dubious in nature. One Times reporter, Natalie Kitroeff, was met with facts from journalists on the ground while she tweeted from Mexico City that the elections were rigged.

Absurd fake news from US gov't mouthpiece NY Times: Unlike this propagandist I'm actually in Nicaragua, reporting on the elections

I went to 4 different voting stations; they were all full, with a totally calm, transparent process

There are 7 options on the ballot, 6 opposition https://t.co/nI5euvrrEF pic.twitter.com/yiKuFzPNBN

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 7, 2021

Aside from 67 journalists, 165 international “accompañantes electoral,” or election companions, were allowed to participate. The journalists and election companions traveled from 27 countries. Some flew from as far away as Russia and China, while 70 election companions traveled from the United States.

Despite corporate media’s claims of being denied access to Nicaragua, this reporter only knows of one journalist who was denied access. But the Nicaraguan government wasn’t involved. Steve Sweeney, international editor at the Morning Star, a socialist newspaper in the United Kingdom, tweeted he had been detained in Mexico en route to cover the Nicaragua elections. Over three days, he was denied food and medical access as a diabetic, as he describes in the tweet below.

Coverage of my detention in Mexico where I was held in conditions some are describing as torture, having food withheld for three days.

The situation could have ended up much worse, as I am diabetic, and was also declined access to medical support. https://t.co/6uqwqgYsQQ pic.twitter.com/i6xGsEKRqP

— Steve Sweeney (@SweeneySteve) November 9, 2021

Meanwhile, the corporate media has not raised their voices to decry the conditions under which Wikileaks Publisher Julian Assange and independent journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal have been held, both of whom the United Nations has reported are being tortured in prison.

Only one European Parliament member attended. Mick Wallace represents Ireland in the parliament and opposed the European Union cooperating with the United States to engage in a hybrid war against Nicaragua. He can be seen expressing opposition in the video below that he tweeted on November 11.

Recent statements from MEP's + #EU Officials on the #Nicaragua Elections have no basis in reality, are an affront to the people of Nicaragua + #UN Charter's principle of non-interference – Only crime is that they've pushed back against #US Imperialism to help their own people… pic.twitter.com/0mBaH796dB

— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) November 11, 2021

A “hybrid war” is a term historian Vijay Prashad uses to describe the documented U.S. policy of wearing down a country’s defenses through “unconventional” tactics such as economic sanctions, funding proxy groups and NGOs, and distributing misinformation.

Nicaragua decided not to use the term “election observers” because of how OAS and EU election observers in the past had used their role to legitimize meddling in the country’s affairs, according to Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry representatives. Because of that history, as well as the OAS’ documented role in helping create the 2019 coup in Bolivia, Nicaragua did not allow the OAS to send election companions.

Were Nicaraguans Prevented From Voting?

Despite mainstream media claiming people were sometimes violently kept from voting, journalists on the ground in cities as diverse as Bilwi in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region, Bluefields in the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region and in the Pacific northwestern city of Chinandega found a free, fair and transparent process in which Nicaraguans voted. Voters in Bilwi told The Convo Couch, a U.S.-based media outlet, that the government’s response after two hurricanes last year hit the Caribbean coast solidified support for the FSLN.

The Foreign’s Ministry’s Campbell told journalists 10 departments (Estelí, Chinandega, León, Rivas, Chontales, Matagalpa, Masaya, Granada, Carazo and Managua) and two autonomous regions contained 63 voting centers and 791 voting stations.

Everywhere foreign journalists and election companions visited contained a peaceful and orderly voting process. Voters expressed gratitude and pride in their country’s elections, which took a year to plan, according to government officials.

Many journalists recorded election workers supporting elderly and disabled people to vote, many times carrying them to voting stations.

Question! Would you go through this much effort if you believed your vote didn't count? #Nicaragua #EleccionesSoberanas2021#UnidosEnVictorias#TrabajoPazProsperidad#YaVote pic.twitter.com/DOBwkNpziO

— Ahmed Kaballo (@AhmedKaballo) November 7, 2021

Below are videos journalists on the ground developed to show how voting looked in different Nicaraguan cities.

 

Voting in Bilwi

 

Voting in Bluefields

 

Voting in Chinandega

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom. She spent a week traveling through Nicaragua as part of a delegation organized by the Associación de Trabajadores del Campo (Rural Workers’ Association, or the ATC for short), an independent farm workers’ organization.