Nicaragua in 2011

Nicaragua is the largest Central American country. It is smaller in land mass than New York state with a population of 5,891,199^xiv. 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 58.5% Roman Catholic and 21.6% Evangelical Protestant^xv.

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.^xiii  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 32 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 repressive 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”.^xvi

The Somoza 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 1980s 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.

After 1990 Nicaragua's state owned companies became privately owned due to IMF and World Bank 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 dealt 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 within his first 100 days in office he declared public education free again; made public health care free; and lowered the Presidential, Vice Presidential, and cabinet level salaries tremendously.

Since taking office, the Ortega government has been roundly critized from many sectors, and politically the nation is divided. The government's poverty-reduction programs, however, have made inroads, and their successes have caught the attention of the country. According to polls, only 4 in 10 people approve of the overall performance of the Ortega government but 2.1% thought that the quality and access to education had improved and 51% said that health services were better in the nation's hospitals and health centers.ⁱ Meanwhile, leaders of the traditionally conservative business community have expressed frustration with Ortega's opposition for not providing a better alternative, admitting that the Sandinista Party has captured what people need and want and has provided free education and health care "while previous governments, stupidly, had charged fees for these services." One leader summed up the feeling in the country by noting that some of the services might be bad but "the poorest citizens in this country are thankful for them."ⁱⁱ

Since Ortega took office, the rates of extreme poverty have diminished significantly: those living in extreme poverty have decreased from 35.7% of the population in 2005 to 28.5% in 2009, a decrease of 7.2%.ⁱⁱⁱ The situation in Nicaragua for the poorest people has indeed improved:

• In August 2009, Nicaragua was officially declared to be a literate nation, which indicates less than 5% illiteracy nationwide. This is down from 35% illiteracy when Ortega took office in 2007, and is the lowest level in Nicaraguan history.^iv
• 100,000 additional children attend school now^v
• More kids are staying in school: in the 2008 school year, 94% of students who began the year finished it, the highest figure in Nicaraguan history^vi
• The Ministry of Education is feeding one million students one hot meal a day, and has set up more than 1,400 school gardens^vii
• The government program Project Love has rescued 12,000 at-risk children and integrated them into the school system^viii
• Over 2,000 youth have stopped participating in delinquent groups and many thousands have received preventative attention through a government program aimed at reintegrating and training at-risk youth instead of using repressive policing and judicial strategies^ix
• Use of the public hospitals and health centers grew by 40% in 2008 over 2007 and in 2007 it grew 50% over the previous year^x
• Nicaragua is now recognized as the safest country in Central America and the World Bank lists it as the best country in Central America in which to invest^xi

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

·        It is ranked 115th in the Human Development Index.

·        80% of its citizens live below the poverty line - under $2 a day^xvii

·        One in three Nicaraguan children are chronically malnourished while 9% are severely malnourished.^xviii

·        The national under and unemployment rate is around 54%.

·        According to the World Fact Book, economic activity is divided into 28% agriculture, 19% industry, and 53% 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 2009 called “Going Beyond Income”. 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.