Nicaragua, the “threat of the good example” delegation with Roy Bourgeois

Roy BourgeoisJoin Roy Bourgeois on a delegation to Nicaragua Aug. 27-Sept. 5, 2012! Co-sponsored by SOA Watch and Nicaragua Network, we invite you to join this important delegation jointly organized by the largest and the oldest US Latin America solidarity groups. SOA Watch Latin America Coordinator Lisa Sullivan and Nicaragua Network National Co-Coordinator Chuck Kaufman will lead the delegation.

In 2008, Roy Bougeois and Lisa met with President Daniel Ortega who said he would consider taking Nicaragua out of the School of the Americas. This delegation will follow up on that trip and will meet with high ranking government officials as well as social movement leaders and the grassroots base.

In 1986, Oxfam-UK called Nicaragua “the threat of a good example.” Since the Sandinistas returned to government in 2007, led by President Ortega, Nicaragua has undergone big changes. Extreme poverty has been cut in half, the small farm sector has been revitalized, electricity and potable water have been extended to hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans, education and health care are again free, labor rights are enforced, thousands of land titles have been granted, illiteracy has been eliminated, and fewer Nicaraguans are migrating because the economy is booming. These were all goals of the 1980s revolutionary government that were short-circuited by the US-backed contra war and the US-engineered electoral defeat of 1990.

And yet, persistent attacks against the Sandinista government continue from right-wing members of Congress and even in the progressive press. This delegation will provide an unsurpassed opportunity to judge for yourself whether the Nicaraguan government has a “preferential option for the poor.” We’ll meet with government supporters and critics and visit the real people in Managua and the countryside where anti-poverty programs are in place and the people of Nicaragua are recovering rights denied them by 17 years of US-supported neoliberal governments.

For an application or more information send an email to [email protected]. The cost is $1100.

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