There is much brilliance in your article in the Southern Cross Review about internationalist organizing by far-right movements around the world. I was very pleased with your article. (I am not an anthroposophist and heard about the article from a family member.)
However, my enjoyment in reading it was marred by finding that you group Daniel Ortega, recently re-elected as President of Nicaragua by 76% of the vote over several rival candidates—with Duterte, characterizing them both as "vulgar and vicious"!
The reporters who told you unpleasant "facts" about Nicaragua's recent and current leadership have swallowed whole the propaganda spewed by a small number of right wing oligarches and their minions. They have never gone to Nicaragua and interviewed all sides; they have not checked their sources to see which ones are U.S.-funded and which are not.
See the 55-page online report by the Nicaragua Network, "Dismissing the Truth: Why Amnesty International is Wrong About Nicaragua"—free download at
A subsequent report, "The Revolution Won't Be Stopped," is available at
Sadly, U.S. policy towards Nicaragua has been implacably negative, from the overthrow of Somoza and the contra war against Nicaragua, to today's constant propaganda infecting even the left in the U.S. It's unfathomable that such a small, poor country could ever constitute a danger to us! Yet U.S. official hostility continues apace. Because Nicaraguans prevented a U.S.-sponsored coup in 2018, and got rid of Somoza, an actual dictator, in 1979, and because they stated they are "socialist"—actually more like European social democrats, operating in the context of a market—our country declares they are an enemy.
I hope you will look into this foolishness, which hurts Nicaraguans through sanctions and continued enmity.
I was able to win some church sponsorship to visit Nicaragua with Oxfam in 1985 to explore how the '79 Revolution had improved nutrition and farmworkers' rights in Nicaragua. Since that two-week tour, I've kept up with Nicaragua's news and development from here. My son Tom Louie spent a couple of months in Nicaragua not long after my trip. His fluency in Spanish helped him to explore the country more freely than I had.
Sincerely,
Mary
Mary Dugan
New York
Tel. 646-489-3517