Poster for Orinoco Tribune's interview with Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition activists Barbara Larcom and Jill Clark-Gollub. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.
Caracas (OrinocoTribune.com)—For Barbara Larcom and Jill Clark-Gollub, increased US economic warfare waged against Nicaragua will only translate into a worsening of the already delicate migration problem in the US and affect supply chains in Central American and Caribbean countries that trade with Nicaragua. The two activists from the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition were interviewed by Orinoco Tribune last Wednesday, March 6.
Barbara Larcom is the current chair of the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, an international alliance of organizations and individuals that support Nicaragua’s sovereignty. She also coordinates Casa Baltimore/Limay, a friendship project linking Baltimore, Maryland, with San Juan de Limay, Nicaragua. Rita Jill Clark-Gollub is active with the Maryland-based solidarity group Friends of Latin America and serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition. She organizes study tours to Nicaragua and has published articles on Nicaraguan issues in independent news outlets.
When questioned about the current political and economic developments in Nicaragua, the activists explained that Sandinismo has promoted people’s participation in every aspect of social life, improving people’s lives in areas including human rights, healthcare, and gender equality, among others, and leading to an increase in infrastructure projects for citizens.
They explained that the smear campaign launched against Nicaragua and Sandinismo has drawn people into a defensive position, constantly responding to US accusations while losing sight of the vast number of achievements that the Sandinista Revolution can claim, from fighting poverty to reducing child mortality and malnutrition. “Part of this smear campaign is to prevent, to suppress, the good news coming out of these countries and make us just devote our time to refuting them,” said Jill Clark-Gollub.
They explained that in the first 15 years after the Sandinista Front came back into office in 2007, maternal mortality went down from 99 to 33 per 100,000 births. Additionally, Sandinismo has improved education and healthcare; thus, the violence rate is very low by Central American standards. The homicide rate in the US is about the same as Nicaragua, around seven per 100,000 inhabitants, they added.
The activists remarked on the particularities of the Sandinista Revolution that came to life supported by a strong cooperative movement along with the support of significant religious organizations, many of them connected to liberation theology. They explained that the revolution also gave autonomy to the Caribbean region of Nicaragua, which is home to a significant Afro-Nicaraguan and Indigenous population that regained control of their ancestral lands.
On the criticism from “armchair communists” about the lack of Marxism in the Nicaraguan Sandinista Revolution and Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, Clark-Gollub explained that it is “a reflection of the fact that both revolutions are very much rooted in their own reality and the people, that it is not dogmatic formula that is driving what is happening. Rather, there is a social movement.”
On gender equality, Barbara Larcom explained that in Nicaragua, by law, there is a 50/50 rule for any elections for public. “All the countries in the world are ranked as to their level of gender equity, and Nicaragua continues to be ranked very high. I think it was ranked fifth one year recently and, more recently, seventh in the world,” said Barbara Larcom.
On the economic performance of Nicaragua, Barbara Larcom explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicaragua’s strategy was to avoid shutting down the economy while providing proactive healthcare attention for the entirety of its population. As a result of this strategy, the economy of the country was not heavily affected. Unemployment currently is at 4%, and inflation is very low. They added that Nicaragua reported positive statistics during the pandemic, in terms of overall COVID-19 deaths.
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Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition work
Jill Clark-Gollub explained that Casa Benjamin Linder does amazing work organizing delegations to Nicaragua and courses about women’s rights and the autonomous regions. Barbara Larcom explained that the coalition operates in the United States and in Nicaragua, Mexico, Bolivia, and the UK. Webinars are also part of their recent work, and they are working to provide resources for people around the world about Nicaragua.
Barbara Larcom explained that they are revamping their website and that they distribute a weekly newsletter through which people can learn more about the reality in Nicaragua from a perspective that is different from the mainstream media narrative. Through its strategic partnership with the Alliance for Global Justice, the coalition publishes NicaNotes, a weekly update with information about Nicaragua. They invited individuals to contact them via email if interested in participating in webinars, delegations, and initiatives.
Barbara Larcom explained that the threat of new illegal US sanctions motivated them to launch a campaign to put pressure on US Congresspersons to oppose this strategy. They are inviting all concerned US citizens to join the campaign with their Congresspersons to prevent new illegal sanctions that will deepen the already complex US migration issues and affect the food supply that many Central American and Caribbean countries count on from Nicaragua. The coalition joined forces with the Americas Without Sanctions initiative to push harder on that front.
How to respond to smear campaigns
Barbara Larcom explained that a recent US report about alleged violations of human rights in Nicaragua is one of the fronts they are working on while pushing United Nations organizations to properly report on the issue. They are working to protest this inaccuracy and bias and created an URL for people to join the initiative with an statement explaining why the report is inaccurate. The statement has already been signed by the UN’s former rapporteur Alfred De Zayas.
The Nicaraguan initiative within the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to charge Germany, the UK, and Canada for supporting the Israeli genocide against the defenseless Palestinian population in Gaza while defunding UNRWA was also highlighted. Jill Clark-Gollub explained that Nicaragua has a history of proactive actions in the ICJ and that it possesses skilled experts in the court, including Nicaragua’s Ambassador to the ICJ, Carlos Arguello.
The Palestinian issue was discussed, as people all over the world are realizing which countries truly respect human rights. On that front, the Global South, including Nicaragua, South Africa, Venezuela, and other nations, has played an important role by speaking up against the ongoing Zionist genocide in international forums, a trend that is expected to increase in coming years.
Special for Orinoco Tribune by staff
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