Nicaragua November 16, 2018
The Guardian Pushes More Lies on Nicaragua, Covering Up For Putschist
Priests
The Guardian continues its relentless campaign of demonization against
Nicaraguas elected government with a falsehood-filled cover-up for the
Catholic church leaders under fire for leading a violent coup.
By Nan McCurdy, Nora McCurdy and Kevin Zeese
A note from Kevin Zeese of Popular Resistance: The Guardian has been on a
campaign of lies about Nicaragua. They have taken sides and are not honest
reporters but advocates for the coup. Even though the falsity of their
reporting has been repeatedly pointed out, they continue on their
disgraceful campaign of reporting false stories on Nicaragua.
The article below focused on the church being a sanctuary for protesters and
makes outlandish claims about incarceration of protesters. In fact, church
leaders were part of the violent failed coup. A clandestine recording,
described in the article below, of a Catholic bishop shows him claiming
credit for the failed coup. The leaked audio recording of a meeting Silvio
Báez, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Managua, is of a meeting held
for the purpose of destabilizing the government of Nicaragua. The recordings
show that Church leaders helped create the violent roadblocks, are plotting
more violence and want Daniel Ortega executed. Báez, who has been unmasked
as a principal conspirator in the violent coup attempt against the President
Daniel Ortegas government.
The Catholic Church has been denounced by Nicaraguans for their open
complicity in the wave of violence that caused hundreds of deaths in
Nicaragua. Members of the church have been denounced for their collaboration
with the tortures and murders committed by the armed opposition the Church
was the center of torture, says Madelein García, teleSUR correspondent in
Nicaragua. In a video it is reported that Catholic Priest, Guillermo
Barrios, helped torture Sandinista supporter, Sander Bonilla, in Leon.
The Guardian paints a false story about the role of the church in the
violent coup.
For more examples of inaccurate reporting from the Guardian on Nicaragua
see:
Why Didnt the Guardians Carl David Goette-Luciak Say Something About The
Torture He Witnessed?
The Guardian Criticized For Misrepresenting Truth In Nicaragua
Longtime Friend Of Deported Guardian Reporter Speaks Out On Their Work
Inhabiting The Role Of A Foreign Agent Of Imperialism
Above: Image from You Tube Interview with Man Tortured by Catholic Priest
Nicaragua
Fabricated Guardian Stories Aid Violent Failed Coup In Nicaragua
Cathedral protests highlight Ortegas broken Alliance with Nicaraguas
church, an article published in the Guardian by Toby Stirling, contains no
true facts. This has become typical of The Guardians invariably pro-regime
change reporting on Nicaragua.
Even the pictures used are full of lies. The opposition put a number of
crosses around the Managua Cathedral a few weeks ago supposedly representing
people killed by the government. The names on the crosses in the picture are
not opposition victims and moreover were not killed by the government.
For example, Darwin Alexander Salcedo Vílchez was a Sandinista supporter who
was killed in Esteli, when a caravan full of Sandinistas heading to a
pro-government march in Managua was attacked by an opposition group.
Gregorio Orozco was killed in the countryside in a murder unrelated to the
political unrest; a report done by Nicaraguan researcher, Enrique Hendrix,
shows how Sandinista deaths and others unrelated to the protests like
Orozcos are used to inflate the so-called Human Rights Organizations lists
of government victims. fIn the last few weeks scores of Sandinista family
members have gone to the Managua cathedral to remove crosses of loved ones
that the opposition was using to try to shore up the numbers of dead that
have been at the heart of their anti-government campaign.
Any remaining crosses have since been removed by the church itself because
the priests at the Cathedral have had to tone down their political activity
and ask the opposition parishioners to do the same.
Managuas Auxiliary Bishop, Silvio Baez, a known leader of the opposition,
was caught on tape at a meeting proudly boasting about the churchs role in
the creation of the opposition Civic Alliance. He also talked about the
possibility of bringing back the roadblocks the places where Sandinistas
were kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed and not just a few over a
hundred people were seriously tortured, some of them killed. Bishop Baez was
also taped saying how much he would like to see President Ortega put in
front of a firing squad. The Guardian tries to make the church hierarchy out
to be heroes when there are multiple videos showing priests participating
and directing torture of Sandinistas.
The audios of Bishop Baez, the veracity of which was confirmed by Cardenal
Brenes, were made public the last week of October; since then thousands of
people have demanded Baez be removed. The members of the Christian Base
Community, Saint John Paul the Apostle in the September 14 neighborhood of
Managua wrote a petition to the Vatican requesting that Bishop Baez be sent
to a post outside Nicaragua and to date there are 491,576 signatures,
including peoples identity card numbers. The 44 boxes of petitions were
received by the Papal Nuncio who said he will get them to Rome. In Nicaragua
today about 45 % of people are Catholic, so if you consider those 15 and
older there might be 2 million Catholics. A fourth have signed the petition
to remove the bishop.
According to The Guardian, protesting has been outlawed. This is a complete
fabrication by the Nicaraguan opposition. In fact, not a single person has
been arrested in Nicaragua for the mere act of protesting. In Nicaragua, the
laws are similar to those in most US and European cities: you have to get a
permit. Thats it. The Nicaraguan authorities had not been enforcing this
law previously, presumably to avoid controversy. And the fact is, the
opposition hasnt had a protest since this change because none of the
opposition leaders are willing to put their name on the permit request. Now,
if there is violence which is usually the case they will be held
accountable.
The Guardians Stirling also doubled his prisoner count to 550 when in
reality the number of people who have been in prison related to violence
since April 18 is half that. Most were arrested beginning in mid-July; these
are people accused or already sentenced for murder, torture, rape, arson and
robbery not exactly political prisoners. Meanwhile, hundreds of people who
were involved in coup violence but on a more minor scale have been released.
Nicaragua has been the victim of an attempted coup orchestrated by
oligarchs, the Catholic church, US financed NGOs and the US. Throughout the
violence, The Guardian functioned as a PR megaphone for the opposition. And
now that the coups architects are being exposed, the liberal
interventionist paper has gone into cover-up mode.
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