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More Guardian Lies About Nicaragua

Nora McCurdy & Nan McCurdy
“" A protester poses with his homemade mortar during a protest against President Daniel Ortega’s government in Managua, Nicaragua May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas

Editors note: The Guardian has been on a campaign of lies about Nicaragua. They have taken sides and are not honest reporters but advocates for the coup. Even though the falsity of their reporting has been repeatedly pointed out, they continue on their disgraceful campaign of reporting false stories on Nicaragua.

The article below focused on the church being a sanctuary for protesters and makes outlandish claims about incarceration of protesters. In fact, church leaders were part of the violent failed coup. A clandestine recording, described in the article below, of a Catholic bishop shows him claiming credit for the failed coup. The leaked audio recording of a meeting Silvio Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Managua, is of a meeting held for the purpose of destabilizing the government of Nicaragua. The recordings show that Church leaders helped create the violent roadblocks, are plotting more violence and want Daniel Ortega executed. Báez, who has been unmasked as a principal conspirator in the violent coup attempt against the President Daniel Ortega’s government.

The Catholic Church has been denounced by Nicaraguans for their open complicity in the wave of violence that caused hundreds of deaths in Nicaragua. Members of the church have been denounced for their collaboration with the tortures and murders committed by the armed opposition “the Church was the center of torture,” says Madelein García, teleSUR correspondent in Nicaragua. n a video it is reported that Catholic Priest, Guillermo Barrios, helped torture Sandinista supporter, Sander Bonilla, in Leon.

The Guardian paints a false story about the role of the church in the violent coup.

– Kevin Zeese, editor, popularresistance.org

Image from Youtube“Interview with Man Tortured by Catholic Priest — Nicaragua”

Fabricated Guardian Stories Aid Violent Failed Coup In Nicaragua

“Cathedral protests highlight Ortega’s broken Alliance with Nicaragua’s church” an article in today’s Guardian by Toby Stirling has no true facts – this has become typical of The Guardian’s reporting on Nicaragua.

Even the pictures used are full of lies. The opposition put a number of crosses around the Managua Cathedral a few weeks ago supposedly representing people killed by the government. The names on the crosses in the picture are not opposition victims and moreover were not killed by the government: For example, Darwin Alexander Salcedo Vílchez was a Sandinista supporter who was killed in Esteli, when a caravan full of sandinistas heading to a pro-government march in Managua was attacked by an opposition group.

Gregorio Orozco was killed in the countryside in a murder unrelated to the political unrest; a report done by Nicaraguan researcher, Enrique Hendrix, shows how Sandinista deaths and others unrelated to the protests like Orozco’s are used to inflate the so-called Human Rights Organizations lists of government victims. fIn the last few weeks scores of Sandinista family members have gone to the Managua cathedral to remove crosses of loved ones that the opposition was using to try to shore up the numbers of dead that have been at the heart of their anti-government campaign.

Any remaining crosses have since been removed by the church itself because the priests at the Cathedral have had to tone down their political activity and ask the opposition parishioners to do the same.

Managua’s Auxiliary Bishop, Silvio Baez, a known leader of the opposition, was caught on tape at a meeting proudly boasting about the church’s role in the creation of the opposition Civic Alliance. He also talked about the possibility of bringing back the roadblocks – the places where Sandinistas were kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed – and not just a few – over a hundred people were seriously tortured, some of them killed. Bishop Baez was also taped saying how much he would like to see President Ortega put in front of a firing squad. The Guardian tries to make the hierarchy out to be heroes when there are multiple videos showing priests participating and directing torture of Sandinistas.

The audios of Bishop Baez, the veracity of which was confirmed by Cardenal Brenes, were made public the last week of October; since then thousands of people have demanded Baez be removed. The members of the Christian Base Community, Saint John Paul the Apostle in the September 14 neighborhood of Managua wrote a petition to the Vatican requesting that Bishop Baez be sent to a post outside Nicaragua and to date there are 491,576 signatures, including people’s identity card numbers. The 44 boxes of petitions were received by the Papal Nuncio who said he will get them to Rome. In Nicaragua today about 45 % of people are Catholic, so if you consider those 15 and older there might be 2 million Catholics. A fourth have signed the petition to remove the bishop.

According to The Guardian protesting has been outlawed. This is a complete fabrication by the Nicaraguan opposition. What’s more, not a single person has been arrested in Nicaragua for protesting. In Nicaragua the laws are similar to those in most US and European cities: you have to get a permit. That’s it. The Nicaraguan authorities had not been enforcing this law previously, presumably to avoid controversy. The fact is they haven’t had a protest since this change because none of the opposition leaders are willing to put their name on the permit request because if there is violence – which is usually the case – they will be held accountable.

The author also doubled his prisoner count to 550 when in reality the number of people who have been in prison related to violence since April 18 is half that. Most were arrested beginning mid-July and these are people accused or already sentenced for murder, torture, rape, arson and robbery. Not exactly political prisoners. And hundreds of people captured who were involved in coup violence but on a more minor scale have been released.

Nicaragua has been the victim of an attempted coup by the oligarchs, the Catholic church, US financed NGOs and the US and major media like The Guardian have helped them.

For more examples of inaccurate reporting from the Guardian on Nicaragua see:

Originally published on popularresistance.org

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Bufo
Bufo
Nov 18, 2018 1:37 PM

The Guardian lies continuously. It’s normal for them.

frank
frank
Nov 17, 2018 10:23 PM

The New Battle For Nicaragua (Documentary, 25 minutes, 06 Nov 2018)

Months of civil unrest in Nicaragua have left hundreds dead and wounded. The international media has chosen to put the blame squarely on President Daniel Ortega’s government.

Yet supporters of the Sandinista government have also been among those tortured and killed, and massive pro-Ortega demonstrations have largely been ignored by the press.

redfish traveled to Nicaragua to find out if the reality on the ground is as one-sided as it has been presented.

US-funded NGO that sank $4.1mn into Nicaragua protests says it’s ‘misleading’ to report about it

Lucia
Lucia
Nov 15, 2018 8:22 AM

Who are all this idiots giving their opinion about my country. People paid by Daniel’s government or just a bunch of ignorantes?.

This government has executed people, regular citizens. This goverment has totured, kidnapp and encarcerated its citizens just for protesting.

There are hundreds of videos, but some people are not really looking for the truth. This article speaks in behalf of the government, and not in behalf of Nicaraguans. Shame on the person who wrote it because is obviously been paid, and on all of you, because you are either been paid, or you are too lazy, or too blind to find out the truth.

I have never suppoorted any political party in my country because they are all corrupted, including the so call socialist government of Daniel Ortega, however this man has gone from corruption to genocide.

Is true the empire mentallity of some countries have caused a lot of damaged to too many countries, but this crisis is on Liberals for signing a pact with Daniel in order to save their corrupted leader, and on Daniel and Rosario who’s ambition and desire to be indefinitely in power has not limits.

Democracy died in Nicaragua when that pact was signed.Our constitution was violated.

bevin
bevin
Nov 14, 2018 1:33 PM

One lie leas to another. The current big lie in the Guardian is Katherine Viper’s claim that the paper has a million readers making voluntary contributions.
The obvious truth-to which these stories about Nicaragua attest- us that hundreds of millions of ordinary people, the taxpayers of the US and the UK included, are enrolled to support The Guardian provided that it advances the propaganda agenda of the Empire. Enormous amounts of public money are invested in consuming the last dregs of credibility of media such as the Beeb and The Grauniad.
If The Guardian really can muster a million lay contributors it ought to ve able to get them together in some sort of public forum to explain how they came to live imperialism so much that they feel compelled to save it from running out of money in the face of foreign state subsidies.

bevin
bevin
Nov 14, 2018 1:35 PM
Reply to  bevin

Typos………

Gwyn
Gwyn
Nov 14, 2018 10:35 AM

It must give the corporate whores masquerading as journalists at the Guardian such a thrill to feel part of the U.S. Empire. The self-importance they feel is too overwhelming for their weak little minds, so they dutifully churn out whatever dross they’re instructed to churn out.

Laughably, they still print their schtick about their editorial independence. They know that many people will believe their lofty words about ”fearless, independent journalism.” For those gullible souls, ”I read it in the Guardian” = ”It must be true.”

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Nov 14, 2018 10:29 PM
Reply to  Gwyn

The most nauseating feature of these presstitute vermin is their arrogant and hypocritical presumption that they represent the ‘Truth’, when they are simply the vilest liars imaginable. And hate and fear-mongers for the Evil global oligarchy.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Nov 14, 2018 10:19 AM

Its almost axiomatic to say that if you want balanced reporting on Latin America (or Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, etc) then there is almost no point in relying on sources that are controlled by western corporations.

Thank god for the alternative media – they tell us now what shame faced liberal journalists finally own up to after their own Empire serving drivel is shown up for the patent bullshit it so often is; be it here, at home (Skripals) Syria (White Helmets) Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Ukraine, etc, etc.

Of course the Guardian responds to this self evident reality with ever greater clevels of ensorship, or denialism – we are at war with Eastasia, we have always been at war with Eastasia.

labrebisgalloise
labrebisgalloise
Nov 14, 2018 8:51 AM

I think it’s entirely reasonable to assume that anything you read in the Guardian now is because the CIA want you to read it.

John
John
Nov 14, 2018 8:25 AM

Child abuse has always been their thing so a little murder and torture is no big deal. I was baptised Catholic and lived in the north of Ireland and every priest I met was kind and all that nice stuff but bishop hegarty if raphoe and Derry was one scary fucking man

John
John
Nov 14, 2018 8:21 AM

If at Anytime you want to find out if the grauniad is lying just look to see fun the comment section is shutdown. Or oy veyed as I call it! They do it on topics like Syria, Libya, nato, Russian hacking and Latin American countries in the CIA’s crosshairs

John
John
Nov 14, 2018 8:22 AM
Reply to  John

If not fun ffs I hate auto correct it’s always wrong

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 14, 2018 1:10 PM
Reply to  John

John, that1s right AutoCorrect is always wrong becapse yt takes out your word which is correct but mysspelled and replaces it with a word which is senseless but spelled right.

vexarb
vexarb
Nov 14, 2018 6:53 AM

[See Dante’s Inferno, the Lower Bolgia (Hell of Perverted Intelligence), for instances where “The Love of Money” corrupted Church officials. And now this from Forbes Fortunes]:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/06/26/the-vatican-bank-the-most-secret-bank-in-the-world/#28bd382e120b

“Italian prosecutors have now detained the former head of the Vatican’s bank after searching his home and former office for suspected criminal behavior. Catholics and followers of the Holy See will be disappointed to learn that the Vatican’s bank appears to be embroiled in yet another financial scandal. After a number of very embarrassing episodes in recent years, the Pope pledged to comply with international standards on illicit finance and clean up the bank’s image. The European Union has an important role to play in helping the Vatican mitigate risk and come into full compliance; the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), set up by the G-7 to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, has a responsibility as well.”

[But before jumping on your anti-Catholicism Crusade, pause to reflect on the authorship of this article (Avi is a Jewish Israeli name). The Man from Uncle is rushing in to divert attention from Uncle $cam’s sordid fingers around the neck of Nicaragua]:

“Avi Jorisch, a former U.S. Treasury Department official, is a Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC.”

summitflyer
summitflyer
Nov 14, 2018 3:27 PM
Reply to  vexarb

Nice catch vex .There is always some lizard in the mix ,isn’t there .

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
Nov 14, 2018 6:23 AM

The amount of blood on the hands of “Mother Church” must be incalculable by this point in history. God apparently does work in ways too “mysterious” for any humane and rational human beings to even begin to imagine. If our current occupant of the Vatican is truly the reformed former junta supporter he maintains that he is, he should be actively involved in excommunicating and sanctioning the Nicaraguan church leaders involved in this U.S. supported right-wing mayhem. If not, than the Church can add ongoing torture to its list of ongoing sexual crimes against children as reasons for the church to be held legally accountable by the United Nations under international & human rights law.

It goes without saying that the Western media who repeat the lies of State in such matters are accessories to torture and murder and should also be held legally accountable for their role in such criminal activities. It is amazing the capacity Western citizens have developed to somehow “not know” and “not understand” the existence of and nature of the ongoing carnage conducted by our governments in order to maintain Western hegemony.