AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to continue on the situation
in Nicaragua.
In a rare interview, the Nicaraguan president,
Daniel Ortega, recently rejected calls to
step down from power amidst mounting protests
and civil unrest.
This is President Ortega speaking on Fox News
on Monday.
PRESIDENT DANIEL ORTEGA: [translated] We were
elected by the voters.
So, there have been electoral periods, there
are term limits, and our electoral period
ends with the elections of 2021, when we will
have our next elections.
And then we’ll have to see who will be voted
in for the new administration.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s President Daniel
Ortega.
Nicaragua’s main business association has
been demanding Ortega hold early elections,
to which Ortega has responded Nicaragua “is
not private property.”
International human rights groups say over
300 people have died since their protests
erupted in April, anti-austerity protests,
and that the vast majority have been killed
by pro-government forces.
In June, we spoke with former Sandinista leader
Alejandro Bendaña, who served as the Nicaraguan
ambassador to the United Nations and secretary
general of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry
during Ortega’s rule, during the Sandinista
rule in Nicaragua, from 1979 to 1990.
This is what Bendaña had to say on Democracy
Now!
ALEJANDRO BENDAÑA: One has to remember key
historical facts.
The Sandinista revolution began in 1979 and
ended in 1990 with the electoral defeat of
Daniel Ortega.
But this has not spelled the end of Ortega,
because for 17 years he worked tenaciously
to get back into power.
But to do this, he got rid of his potential
competitors and many old Sandinista backers.
He embraced corporate capital in Nicaragua.
He adopted the most retrograded positions
of the church and entered into an alliance,
and reached an understanding with the U.S.,
so that he was able to barely win the presidency
in 2007.
But by that time, he himself is no longer
a Sandinista.
Yes, the trappings, the colors are still there,
but his entire government has been, in essence,
neoliberal.
Then it becomes authoritarian, repressive.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Alejandro Bendaña,
who served as President Ortega’s, Nicaragua’s
ambassador to the United Nations, as well
as secretary general of Nicaraguan Foreign
Ministry during the Sandinista rule first
time around, '79 to ’90.
Students are saying that, overwhelmingly,
it's the government that’s killed the people.
What are your thoughts, Noam?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, in 1990, it’s true that
the—first of all, there were plenty of problems
even in the '80s, but by the standards of
the region it stood out as almost a stellar
record—bad but by the standards of the region.
In 1990, the President Bush, first President
Bush, essentially informed the population
of Nicaragua that either you vote for our
candidate, or else the Contra war, the terrorist
war, continues, and harsh sanctions will strangle
the country.
And, indeed, at the point of a gun, the population
voted the Sandinistas out, and partially for
internal reasons.
There were many things they were doing they
shouldn't have.
Since then, it hasn’t been anywhere near
as bad as the other Central American countries,
the ones that are, more or less, overwhelmingly,
influenced by the U.S.
But there’s been a lot of corruption, a
lot of repression.
It’s autocratic, undoubtedly.
The opposition is nothing to write home about,
either, for the most part.
So, it’s by no means a pretty situation.
One would hope that negotiations could reduce
the tensions.
And my own view is that I think it would be
a good thing for Nicaragua if Ortega were
to call early elections and allow them to
be run without corruption and brutality.
But that doesn’t look as if it’s—it’s
hard to hard to see a simple way out at this
point.
It’s a very unfortunate situation.
We should bear in mind that in the early 1980s
the situation was extremely hopeful in Nicaragua.
Even the international institutions, like
the World Bank and others, were praising the
progressive steps being taken by the Sandinistas.
The country was full of hope, excitement,
literacy campaigns, dealing with poverty.
With the almost—U.S. intervention actually
began in the mid-19th century and had been
horrible all the way through, but they were
beginning to pull themselves out of it—until
the U.S. terrorist war began.
We should bear in mind that the United States
is the only country ever to have been condemned
by the International Court of Justice for
international terrorism—technically, unlawful
use of force—and ordered to pay substantial
reparations to Nicaragua for the attack that
it was carrying out.
Of course, the U.S. refused, refused the World
Court’s jurisdiction.
The World Court was condemned not only by
the government, but even by the press.
New York Times condemned it as a hostile forum
because it had ruled against the United States,
so of course you don’t have to pay any attention
to it.
The U.S. even vetoed a Security Council resolution
calling on states to observe international
law.
And then the Contra war went on, the sanctions
went on, the other forms of subversion continued,
and the hopes were pretty much smashed.
You could just see the changes in expectations
and attitudes.
And one result was internal corruption, repression,
and then it’s now imploding.
But again, it’s a very ugly and unfortunate
situation—nothing remotely comparable to
the countries that have been under the U.S.
thumb throughout the period.
But I think the point that—going back to
the immigration crisis, which is actually
a moral crisis in the United States, and comparably
in Europe, we should bear in mind that the
immigrants do not want to leave their countries.
They would be very happy to stay in their
own countries instead of coming here to unpleasant
and harsh situations.
They can’t, because we have ruined their
countries.
So, the first step in dealing with the immigration
crisis should be to help reconstruct and rebuild
what we have destroyed, so they won’t be
fleeing from the homes where they would like
to live.
Now, that’s certainly within the means of
a super-rich country like the United States
with incomparable advantages.
That’s step one in dealing with the immigration
crisis—again, a moral crisis, not an immigration
crisis.
Secondly, conditions should be established
so that legal—what’s called legal immigration—I
don’t like the term, but what’s technically
called that—would be facilitated, with decent
conditions, plenty of entry points, lawyers
provided pro bono with U.S. support for immigrants
so they could plead their cases, and decent
conditions for the applicants to survive—nothing
like putting them in camps and stealing their
children away from them—and facilitating
the kind of appeals for asylum that are granted
under international law.
That should be automatically assumed in a—certainly
in a rich country like ours.
That’s the second step.
We might also recognize that there are countries
that have somehow managed to deal with the
huge flood of immigrants, poor countries.
So, take Lebanon, poor country.
Probably 40 percent of the population are
refugees at this point, driven out from Israel
by the Israeli—several Israeli wars, '48,
’67, Syrian refugees, Iraqi refugees fleeing
from the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
It's a poor country, and there are plenty
of internal problems, but they’re somehow
surviving with 40 percent of the population
refugees.
The same is true of Jordan, another poor country.
Kenya, Africa, another poor country, has a
huge number of refugees.
Bangladesh has taken in huge numbers of refugees
fleeing from Burma.
But the rich countries of the world—the
United States, European Union—the ones who
have an overwhelming responsibility for the
circumstances from which the refugees are
fleeing, they can’t help with it.
They can’t deal with it.
Too much for us.
Go somewhere else.
Go to a poor country, but not go to the countries
of the perpetrators of the conditions from
which you’re fleeing.
