That was clearly the western media’s approach. If one disregards that history, it’s easy, especially from afar, to take a libertarian position that the crackdown was unjustified. There was actually a crackdown in Nicaragua, but it was a defensible crackdown on persons receiving (and laundering) money from the U.S., a foreign power that has victimized Nicaragua for over a century.
“Nicaragua Arrests Seventh Presidential Contender in November 7 vote” ( Independent, 7/24/21).“Human Rights Groups Have Eyes on Growing Crackdown UN, Other Organizations Fear Upcoming Elections Won’t Be Fair and Free” ( Toronto Star, 6/27/21).“Nicaragua’s Democracy Hangs by Thread as Crackdown Deepens” ( N ew York Times, 6/6/21).In the case of Nicaragua, 55 headlines alleged an unjustifiable crackdown. In the case of Ecuador, not a single headline alleged any kind of crackdown on opposition to the government. (By “enemy,” I mean a government that poses no threat to the U.S., but still gets hit with crippling sanctions, or worse, that it endures as best it can.)Ī search of the Nexis news database for the word “crackdown” in articles about Ecuador and Nicaragua in newspapers in the U.S., Canada, and the UK for a five-month period before the election in each country reveals a significant contrast between reporting on Nicaragua and Ecuador.
Just by scanning headlines in Western media, as most readers do, it’s easy to tell which was a U.S. Ecuador’s elections took place in February, with the second round of its presidential election in April. Both Ecuador and Nicaragua elected a president and national assembly this year.