Recently, a leaked document from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) revealed a detailed plan for the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government. For those who have a history and a familiarity with Latin America, this is alarming but not surprising. We have recently seen similar schemes for intervention and regime change in Venezuela. It is part of a long history full of U.S. interventions in Latin America to overthrow governments-Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, and on and on. The history of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua is especially long and violent, going back at least to the 1860s. U.S. direct military intervention supported the rise of the Somoza dictatorship in 1934. Every U.S. Administration from Franklin Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter supported that brutal dictatorship. A popular Sandinista-led revolution overthrew it in 1979. By 1980, the Reagan Administration was beginning to support a proxy army to overthrow the popular revolutionary government and “restore democracy” to Nicaragua. The Contra War (1981-1990) was the result, costing 30,000 Nicaraguan lives and leaving thousands of Nicaraguans with permanent disabilities.

Intervention is always sold to the U.S. public as the need to “restore democracy” to Nicaragua. I have spent much time in Nicaragua over the past forty years, including two years during the Contra War. At that time, Reagan was complaining about all the freedoms the revolutionary Sandinista government had (allegedly) taken away, even as I was witnessing Nicaraguans freely exercising all of those freedoms. I was most recently in Nicaragua in September of last year. I know how widely the reality there differs from the story we are fed by our government and our mainstream media. An essential part of intervention consists of spreading “information” that is totally fabricated or lacks context.

The below article is about Nicaragua and US ongoing attempts at “regime change.” The author, Steve Sefton, is British and has lived in Nicaragua for many years. I met him last September when I was in Nicaragua. He and his wife run a vocational training school for young Nicaraguans that is simple technology, low budget, and impressive.