Nicaragua

Territory in Central America, ruled since 1987 by the República de Nicaragua

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Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua (Spanish: República de Nicaragua), is the largest country in the Central American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the northwest, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Managua is the country's capital and largest city and is also the third-largest city in Central America, behind Tegucigalpa and Guatemala City. The multi-ethnic population of six million includes people of indigenous, European, African and Asian heritage. The main language is Spanish. Native tribes on the Mosquito Coast speak their own languages and English.

Geographical type: Territory

Latitude: 13° N — Longitude: 85° W

Area: 130,375 km²

ISO 3166-2 code: NI

Measures of Freedom

Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2021
2019: 6.24, Rank: 125, Personal Freedom: 5.67, Economic Freedom: 7.04

Level of Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of the World
2014: 7.39, Rank: 45

Nicaragua | Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2022
2016: Status: Partly Free, Aggregate Score: 54, Political Rights: 4, Civil Liberties: 3

In 2015, the dominance of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) continued to be a point of contention with the opposition, which has found itself increasingly marginalized in recent years. Tensions have increased ahead of the 2016 national elections, as opposition protesters demanded electoral reforms. Meanwhile, President Daniel Ortega still enjoyed high approval ratings, largely as a result of his handling of the economy and popular social programs.

Articles

Improve the CIA? Better to abolish it, by Chalmers Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Feb 2004
Lists countries where the CIA conducted subversive operations and recommends abolishing the agency.

Since the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, the CIA has engaged in similar disguised assaults on the governments of Guatemala (1954); the Congo (1960); Cuba (1961); Brazil (1964); Indonesia (1965); Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (1961-73); Greece (1967); Chile (1973); Afghanistan (1979 to the present); El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua (1980s); and Iraq (1991 to the present) -- to name only the most obvious cases.

Totalitarian Busybodies: The horrors of the Stasi's East Germany, by Glenn Garvin, Reason, Jan 2006
Review of Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder and After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life That Came Next by Jana Hensel

In ... revolutionary Nicaragua, the [government] created watch committees on every block ... called Committees for the Defense of Sandinismo ... They encouraged neighbors to engage in 'revolutionary vigilance'—that is, to rat out one another for anything ... that seemed suspicious or contrary to the regime's moral and political orthodoxies.

Related Topics: Cuba, Germany

Warring as Lying Throughout American History, by James Bovard, Freedom Daily, Feb 2008
Recounts how U.S. Presidents and their administrations since James Polk have been deceitful about wars and military engagements

During the 1980s, the U.S. State Department ran a propaganda campaign that placed numerous articles in the U.S. media praising the Nicaraguan Contras and attacking the Sandinista regime. As the Christian Science Monitor noted in 2002, the State Department "fed the Miami Herald a make-believe story that the Soviet Union had given chemical weapons to the Sandinistas. Another tale, which happened to emerge the night of President Ronald Reagan's reelection victory, held that Soviet MiG fighters were on their way to Nicaragua."

Videos

Pirates and Emperors - Schoolhouse Rock, 17 Sep 2006