Protesters holding a banner that reads 'Black Lives Matter.’ Photo: AFGJ/File photo.
This June, The International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism found the United States guilty of human rights abuses, including unjustifiable warfare, against the people and the sovereign nation of Nicaragua. The People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism concluded that actions of the United States toward the Republic of Nicaragua, particularly U.S. attempts to institute illegal regime change in that nation, constitute severe and ongoing abuses of the human and civil rights of the Nicaraguan people, and unlawful, unprovoked incursions against a sovereign state.
Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), a U.S.-based human rights organization, echoes the call for an end to attacks on Nicaragua. AFGJ staff cited its Human Rights in the United States: 2022 Report overviewing the United States’ ongoing acts of oppression and genocide against its own citizens, in addition to its assaults on Nicaragua and other nations.
During the Tribunal, Dr. Alba Luz Ramos, President of the Supreme Court of Nicaragua, gave witness to the unjust acts of the United States, which include sanctions and embargoes, military attacks, and other acts intended to destabilize her nation. Dr. Ramos also discussed and condemned the U.S.-led attempted coup against the Nicaraguan government. The Tribunal also heard detailed testimony from other Nicaraguan citizens who testified to their imprisonment, torture, and maiming by coup forces.
Alliance for Global Justice joins the people of Nicaragua and its millions of supporters worldwide in demanding an immediate end to sanctions against Nicaragua by the United States. AFGJ and the people of Nicaragua appeal to the people of the world to condemn these actions, along with any other military or other attacks on Nicaragua.
The editor of AFGJ’s report, Natalia Burdyńska-Schuurman, remarks:
“Sanctions against Nicaragua were instituted in 1985 by the Reagan Administration and they constituted an act of economic war. Sanctions in the 1980s resulted in chronic shortages of basic necessities, hyperinflation and economic destabilization. They disproportionately affected the poorest and most vulnerable people – children, the elderly and the ill. Sanctions caused poverty and social unrest. Current sanctions have slowed development and posed challenges to the nation’s COVID-19 response and hurricane disaster relief.”
Our report refers to the well-documented and detailed descriptions of the United States’ historical and ongoing human rights abuses, including:
Extrajudicial executions and torture, unjust arrest and detainment in the United States
U.S. law enforcement personnel kill thousands of people yearly, most unarmed and disproportionately Black, Brown or Indigenous. The United States incarcerates the highest percentage of its people of any nation in the world. Thousands of people die in custody in U.S. jails and prisons yearly. The number and frequency of these extrajudicial executions by the U.S. government far exceed any claims of similar infractions by the Nicaraguan government. AFGJ’s report analyzes the unjust and racially-charged effects of the United States’ targeting, incarceration and execution of its citizens, which disproportionately affect Black, Brown and Indigenous people.
Political prisoners and repression
The United States frequently employs political imprisonment against any who resist the human rights violations taking place under its watch. In our report’s chapter on political targeting and repression, our analysis of political prisoners in the U.S. examines political imprisonment in the U.S., a massive new wave of political incarceration of anti-racist activists and the intersections of racism, classism and imperialism that lead to the incarceration of those who dare to demand equity, justice and an end to white supremacy.
Bad Faith UN Report on Nicaragua Whitewashes Violent US-Backed Coup
The United States currently homes around 120 political prisoners. 67% are people of color, and 95% are in jailed for anti-racist resistance, including at least 84 individuals incarcerated for their participation in the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2014 and 2020.
Assaults on democracy by the U.S. government, both within and outside the United States, are ubiquitous. Our report delineates the disenfranchisement of millions of U.S. citizens. The U.S. also exports its “security culture” and all of its methodologies and tactics of repression to other nations.
Burdyńska-Schuurman stated:
“There’s ample evidence that the United States is and since its inception has systematically violated fundamental human rights, as defined by the United Nations in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Actions by the United States that wreak punishment upon poor and struggling nations that seek only to better the lives of their citizens are heinous and indefensible. The United States would do well to address its own shortcomings and cease trying to bring about regime change in other nations through false accusations, military threats and the economic warfare of embargoes and sanctions.”
