Councillor SAM WHEELER says there’s a tangible shift in mood on the left in the city whose mayor has recently become PM — but there’s no room for complacency
“MOST of the clashes now are of extreme right-wing hordes attacking Sandinistas, but if we Sandinistas are attacked and defend ourselves, this is presented as paramilitaries attacking peaceful demonstrators; if we get ourselves killed, they add our names to their list of peaceful martyrs killed as a result of the massacres perpetrated by the government … that is the formula [of media narrative] they use,” Carlos Fonseca Teran, FSLN leader, July 7 2018, Managua.
The above quote sums up the simplistic take of the world corporate media on the rather complex crisis that since April 18 2018 has engulfed Nicaragua in a wave of extreme right-wing violence.
The corporate media, as it did before with the foreign-generated wave of violence in Venezuela between January and July 2017, blame all the violence and the victims of that violence exclusively on the Nicaraguan government.
Claims that Nicaragua has abolished elections followed a headline that stripped Daniel Ortega’s remarks of their historical and political context. The full speech tells a different story, says BECCA RENK FOSTER
ENRIQUE SANTIAGO ROMERO says the Colombian far-right’s election victory is deeply suspect — and the United States has its fingerprints all over it
With Petro, Colombia has been making huge strides towards peace — but is all that at risk with the elections next year? MARK ROWE reports back after joining a delegation to the Latin American country
The global left must be unwavering in it is support for Venezuela as Washington increases its aggression, and clear-eyed about the West’s cynical motives for targeting it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE



