
The real Nicaragua: A march in solidarity with Venezuela and with Palestine in December 2025. Photo: Jairo Cajina/El 19/file photo.

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The real Nicaragua: A march in solidarity with Venezuela and with Palestine in December 2025. Photo: Jairo Cajina/El 19/file photo.
By John Perry – Mar 24, 2026
United Nations âexpertsâ on Nicaragua, working to sanitize the effects of a failed U.S.-inspired coup attempt, have not visited the country since the violence occurred eight years ago.
Yet, for them, Nicaragua is âa giant prisonâ in which the Sandinista government âhas effectively taken its own population hostage.â
According to lawyer Jan-Michael Simon, the German leader of the group who is not known to have ever visited Nicaragua, its government is doing âexactly what the Nazi regime did.â

Two aspects of its work reveal its function as part of the U.S. propaganda machine. One is that the group ignores detailed evidence presented to it that does not comply with Washingtonâs narrative on Nicaragua; in fact, it accepts evidence only from so-called âhuman rightsâ groups opposed to the Sandinista government.
The second is that it feeds its material to Nicaraguaâs opposition media, to which Simon readily gives interviews. Their role is to give rolling coverage to the reports andâif possibleâattract the attention of corporate media, such as The New York Times.
But these âhuman rightsâ groups and opposition media are far from independent. They all receive considerable U.S. funding.
Giving evidence in February to the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, the president of the National Endowment for Democracy, Damon Wilson, said that funding such âpartnersâ who oppose the Nicaraguan government was the NEDâs âthird largest programâ in the hemisphere after Venezuela and Cuba. The NED is a CIA cutout that uses federal funding to promote U.S. interests globally, especially when this involves inciting regime change.
Wilson was reluctant to name the âextraordinarily courageous folksâ from Nicaragua he met in a recent visit to Costa Rica. But he did refer to one NED partner by name, the so-called Rural Workersâ Movement. Was he aware that this group organized fatal attacks on police stations in rural Nicaragua in 2018 (documented in detailed witness statements)? Did he know that its attacks resulted in multiple deaths and injuries, kidnappings and firearm thefts, and terrorized local populations? Apparently not, because Wilson said that the NED supports groups that âunderstand the importance of non-violent, peaceful resistance.â

The role of the current UN group of âexpertsâ is to firmly establish the narrative that the Sandinista government is to blame, without exception, for the hundreds of deaths and injuries that resulted from the coup attempt.
In their latest report, the âexpertsâ take this one step further: They make the bizarre claim that hundreds of violent opposition attacks were, in reality, âfalse-flagâ incidents. âActs of vandalism against FSLN [Sandinista] militantsâ properties and private businesses, such as stoning, looting and arson,â they allege, were actually carried out by âpro-government armed groupsâ paid for from state funds.
This would be laughable had these incidents not been extremely serious, that in many cases surviving victims were able to identify their attackers, and that the coup leaders and their followers openly bragged about the attacks and posted videos of them (mostly since deleted) on social media.

Nicaraguans assaulted by opposition thugs or whose houses were burned down  (many known to me personally) would be appalled that the UN has published such obvious lies.
The new report also claims that âpublic fundsâ were diverted from social projects in order to suppress the 2018 violence, as if this is an act of malfeasance on the governmentâs part. Yet, of course, three months of violent attacks on police, government workers and public buildings, including setting fire to schools and health centers, carried an enormous cost.
The government asked for, and was refused, an IMF loan to help pay for losses of more than $1 billion. They were told that, if they applied formally, the request would be vetoed by the U.S. government.
Naturally, once the coup attempt ended, the Sandinista government sought to ensure that any new acts of terrorism, whether instigated inside Nicaragua or abroad, are identified and, if possible, halted. Such a response would be expected in any civilized country. However, for the âexpertâ group, this has morphed into a âtransnational surveillance and intelligence networkâ which carries out assassinations abroad.
Their argument centers on the case of Roberto Samcam, who led one of the most violent opposition groups in 2018 and fled to Costa Rica to avoid arrest. He was murdered in June 2025 but, despite extensive efforts by opposition groups to blame the Sandinista government for his killing, the authorities have since arrested five Costa Ricans.
âWorthy Children of Heroes and Martyrsâ: How Nicaragua Cultivates Peace
In February, the Costa Rican authorities announced that âall individuals linked to Samcamâs murder have been apprehendedâ; none was Nicaraguan nor apparently linked to Nicaragua. There were implications, however, that the homicide was drug-related.
Of course, since the day of the killing, opponents of Nicaraguaâs government have been claiming that it ordered the assassination. Speaking to opposition outlet Confidencial, Jan-Michael Simon simply announced that this was the case, despite having no proof. So did Damon Wilson in his February testimony to a sub-committee of the House Committee on Appropriations.
A final example of the extreme partiality of these âexpertsâ is their take on Nicaraguans who have left the country. They quote figures showing that more than 300,000 Nicaraguans have sought asylum in Costa Rica. But they fail to note that Costa Rican authorities regularly claim that most of these applications are from Nicaraguans who simply want to regularize their status in the country: only one in ten has so far been approved.
The âexpertsâ also ignore the extreme fluidity of traffic across the border, with around 900 Nicaraguans crossing daily in both directions, according to another UN body. If they are escaping the âsurveillance, threats, harassment and physical violenceâ they allegedly experience in Costa Rica at the hands of Nicaraguaâs âundercover officials,â it seems extraordinary that so many return to the âgiant prisonâ created by the Sandinista government.
The narrative of Sandinista ârepressionâ (a characterization used 42 times in a 26-page report) suits Washingtonâs tightening of the screws on Nicaragua. The âexpertsâ call for additional âtargeted sanctions,â disregarding their illegitimacy in international law and that the UN itself rejects their unilateral imposition.
Former UN independent adviser Alfred de Zayas observed that the âhuman rights industryâ is in dire condition. As the group of âexpertsâ continues to demonstrate, the main purpose of the âindustryâ is manufacturing consent for regime change. Its agenda is Washingtonâsânot one that resonates with most Nicaraguans, who simply want the stability recovered after the 2018 coup attempt to be maintained.
A poll in February showed thatâacross the whole of Latin Americaâtheir country has the third most popular government. It gives the lie to the monstrous portrayal of Nicaragua offered by the UNâs so-called âexperts.â

John Perry is a writer based in Masaya, Nicaragua whose work has appeared in the Nation, the London Review of Books, and many other publications.