Nicaragua in 2007

Nicaragua is the largest Central American country. It is smaller in land mass than New York state with a population of 5,570,129 (World Factbook). A little less than one third of the population lives within the capital city of Managua.

Nicaragua shares borders with both Costa Rica and Honduras. It borders the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It has the largest body of fresh water in Central America, Lago de Nicaragua. Nicaragua has rainforests to the east, mountains with tropical dry forests in the north, and deforested, populated areas in the west.

The official language is Spanish, although both English and indigenous languages are used on the East Coast. The population is 73% Roman Catholic and 15% Evangelical Protestant (World Factbook).

Historically, Nicaragua began as a colony of Spain in the early 16th century. Before the Spanish came it had been home to several indigenous peoples. The Spanish sold hundreds of thousands of indigenous Nicaraguans into slavery in Peru's silver mines and into Panama and massacred thousands more. (L.A. Newson, Indian survival in Colonial Nicaragua, vol. 175). A population of approximately 2 million indigenous people was reduced to 8,000 in only 35 years under Spanish rule.

In 1821, independence was declared from Spain, and Nicaragua became its own country. Unfortunately, Nicaragua has continued to be abused by foreign powers: it has been under foreign control, dictators, and has continuously been used for the benefit of other countries. For example, in 1850, just 29 years after Nicaragua finally gained its independence from Spain, the U.S. and Great Britain signed a treaty that granted the two countries access to an inter-oceanic trade through Nicaragua without Nicaragua’s consent.

One of the main players on Nicaragua’s stage has been and continues to be the U.S. government: in 1854, U.S. forces burned and shelled a city in the north of Nicaragua. In 1855, William Walker, a U.S. citizen, came to Nicaragua. Funded mainly by the U.S. Southern States, he captured the capital of Granada, declared himself president, sought U.S. annexation as a state, and sanctioned slavery in Nicaragua. And that was just the beginning - through 31 administrations, the U.S government has been in and out of Nicaragua… militarily, economically, politically, and whenever possible exercising out-and-out control.

Occasionally the people balked, like they did in 1927, when Augusto César Sandino waged the first guerrilla war in the Americas in response to U.S. Marine intervention. After seven years he became Nicaragua’s martyr and hero when he went to negotiate a cease-fire with General Anastasio Somoza (a U.S. trained general) and was assassinated.

General Somoza then declared a coup and began a dictatorship which passed from father to son to brother. This cruel dictatorship lasted for 43 years. The Somozas had the support of the U.S. through eight administrations – three republican and five democratic – even though the Somozas were cruel and murdered their own people. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was even quoted as saying, “Somoza is an SOB, but he’s our SOB.”

In the 20^th century, U.S. marines invaded Nicaragua 14 times. The dictator began to lose the support of the upper class when on December 23, 1972, Managua’s worst earthquake hit. More than 5,000 people were killed, 20,000 injured and 250,000 dislocated, many eventually relocated to Ciudad Sandino. The disaster caused a huge response of international aid especially from the U.S., but the aid was then “pilfered by the Somozas” (BBC).

The Samoza rule ended in 1979, when the Sandinista guerillas won the revolutionary war and took power. In 1984 Nicaragua held its first free elections in the 20th century. The Sandinista party was elected to continue to govern.

In the last two years of the dictator Somoza’s rule and in the 1980s when an all-out war sponsored by the U.S. was waged against the revolutionary government, the U.S. funded the rebels, illegally mined a harbor, taught the rebels terror tactics, and destroyed the elected government’s infrastructure. Nicaragua lost approximately a quarter of its population while the rest were terrorized.

In 1990 a new party, UNO, was created by joining opposition parties to combat the Sandinista popularity. The U.S. government through its ambassador gave the people of Nicaragua a choice: vote for UNO or the war continues. UNO won the election and the war ended.

Since 1990 the country has slowly become privately owned due to IMF requirements, resulting in fewer and fewer public schools, as well as less health care and social security. Corruption has further weakened the already weak economy, and natural disasters deal devastating blows.

In 2006 Daniel Ortega was elected as President of Nicaragua with many promises to reverse the privatization process and to reverse the exploitation of the poor…to give hope to the poor. On January 10, 2007, he was inaugurated and began to fulfill some of those promises within his first 100 days in office (at the time of this writing). He has made public education free again; made public health care free (as the government is able to redirect funding); and lowered the Presidential, Vice Presidential, and cabinet level salaries tremendously.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere:

·        It is ranked 112th in the Human Development Index.

·        75% of its citizens live below the poverty line (United Nations Human Development Report 2002)

·        45.15% live in extreme poverty (Care International UK)

·        One in every three children in Nicaragua is malnourished while 9% are chronically malnourished (Pan-American Health Organization).

·        The national unemployment rate is around 54%, in addition to considerable underemployment.

·        According to the World Fact Book, economic activity is divided into 30.5% agriculture, 17.3% industry, and 52.2% services.

Nicaraguans struggle to feed their families, provide for their children, and to simply survive.

Many wonderful Nicaraguan and international governmental and non-governmental organizations work to help lift some of poverty's burdens. The CDCA is just one of many.

Nicanet – a U.S.-Nicaragua solidarity organization that sends out weekly news updates on Nicaragua

Envio – a Nicaraguan magazine with contributions from Nicaragua’s most astute political and economic analysts. Their website has back issues available online for free, dating back to 1981.

The United Nations Human Development Report 2006 called “Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis.” It contains vital statistics for the nations of the world, many of which are quoted in our website.

Wikipedia's page on Nicaragua -- Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Contains vital statistics about Nicaragua as well as history, politics, economics and culture.