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• Author: Héctor M. Cruz-Feliciano
• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211041066

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211041066

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 241, Vol. 48 No. 6, November 2021, 34–36

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211041066

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

34

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by

Héctor M. Cruz-Feliciano

In roughly two weeks’ time, between the day I submitted my essay for com-

ments and the writing of these lines (mid-June 2021), Ortega and Murillo esca-

lated their persecution of political adversaries to levels unprecedented in a

pre-electoral context. As of late June 2021, 11 high-profile opponents have been

detained, including 3 Sandinista dissenters, a former COSEP president, and 4

presidential precandidates. In addition, as noted by Martinez, “all opposition

leaders have either police presence outside their homes (and are followed) or

are under house arrest, and political opposition meetings are regularly broken

up by police throughout the country.” As Wade suggests, under these circum-

stances any hope of last-minute arrangements that could lead to a fair electoral

contest in November 2021 appears to be virtually gone.

The commentaries by Kovalik and Ellner are the most critical of my argu-

ments. In his defense of the FSLN government, Kovalik rightly points out that

the Sandinistas “have done much to address the needs of [their] people.” Albeit

an important part of the equation, the conditions for achieving material well-

being are insufficient for people to attain their full potential. They need to

believe that they can shape their futures, and any regime that stands in the way

of that aspiration cannot be termed progressive. Ellner calls for the substantia-

tion of several claims, including that NED and USAID funding to Nicaragua is

comparable to and often significantly less than elsewhere in the region, and

questions the basis for arguing the limited effects of U.S. sanctions. Regarding

the funding, between 2016 and 2019 Nicaragua and Guatemala both received

NED grants of roughly US$4 million, while in 2019 (the year that Ellner refer-

ences) Nicaragua received US$27.4 million from USAID, significantly less

than Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador, which received between US$146.3

million and US$204.6 million. As for the limited impact of the sanctions, suf-

fice it to say that both the IMF and the World Bank approved multimillion-

dollar loans to Nicaragua (in 2020 and 2021, respectively) even as the NICA

Act specifically called for blocking aid coming from the international financial

institutions.1

The latter is a clear example of what I called Washington’s two-tiered

approach to Ortega-Murillo, which at times may seem forceful but turns out

to be ambiguous in the implementation phase. Here there is some complexity

in the foreign-policy-making apparatus, which, as Ellner suggests, is not a

“monolithic group.” Rather, as Gordon puts it, “the U.S. right continues to see

in the Ortega-Murillo government of 2021 the revolutionary fervor of 1979.”

For better or for worse, the same is true of many on the U.S. left, leading

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