 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America. This is CodePink's weekly webinar of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. We air every Wednesday at 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern on CodePink's YouTube channel. Today we have the great honor and privilege of talking with Francisco Campbell. He's the Nicaragua ambassador to the United States, and he is talking with us today from the embassy here in DC. So welcome, Mr. Ambassador. I'm so pleased you accepted our invitation to speak today, particularly on the heels of the 25th birthday of Augusto Sandino. 125th birthday. Yesterday. That's correct. Or Tuesday. I should say we're recording on Tuesday. We're going to air on Wednesday. So Tuesday, yes. So really perfect timing to be in conversation with you. Before I start our conversation, I'd like to tell you as well as our audience that a number of solidarity groups have partnered with us today to broadcast this webinar. Alliance for Global Justice, friends of the ATC Nicaragua, friends of Latin America here in Washington DC, and the Chicago Albus Solidarity Committee. So thank you to all four of those organizations. And then, of course, a huge personal thank you to Jerry Condon, former president of Veterans for Peace for introducing the two of us and encouraging you to accept the invitation to speak with us today. So thank you, Jerry. Also, just to remind, just as we said, the 18th was the 125th birthday of Augusto Sandino, and we'll talk this afternoon about the importance of his legacy to Nicaragua. I'd like to kind of outline our conversation for the audience and let the audience know that you can email me. We're recording this webinar on Tuesday the 19th, and we will broadcast to all of you on Wednesday from CodePink's YouTube channel. And so there will not be a live chat, but if you have questions, comments, you can email me at Terry, T-E-R-I at CodePink.org, and we will attempt to judiciously respond to questions you may have regarding issues brought up today in today's conversation. So first of all, let's have the ambassador tell a little bit about his personal history. I think all of you will find his personal story very compelling and very inspirational, particularly for us activists. And then we'd like to talk about how he has lived through the Sandinista Revolution, how he personally has benefited from the revolution, as well as the entire nation, different forms of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua over the last 100-plus years. And then let's also talk about how the government or how the revolution and its philosophy of governing has allowed Nicaragua to respond to COVID-19. So welcome, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you. So let's start with your personal history, because you have such a wonderful inspiring story to share with all of us. Well, I am from the Caribbean, close to Nicaragua. That's a part of the country where you find indigenous people, people of African descent. And as I said, I was born there, I grew up there. Then I came to the U.S. in 1967 to study. After I finished my education, I returned to Nicaragua and became involved after a while in the revolutionary struggle. When the revolution came to power in 1979, I began to work on the Caribbean, close to the country, which was very exciting for me because it was and gave me an opportunity to take to the region my education, my abilities, my experiences. And we were able to, in effect, begin to set the groundwork for a real genuine integration of the Caribbean into the political life of Nicaragua as a whole. In 1982, I was assigned to work at the Nicaragua Embassy here in Washington and I worked primarily with solidarity groups as well as with the U.S. Congress. I was a political affairs officer at the embassy at the time, which was a very important moment because we had the Reagan administration counter-revolutionary war trying to overthrow the Sandinista revolution. And I believe that the American people solidarity movement played a very important role in stopping the more aggressive expression of the Reagan hostility towards the Sandinista popular revolution. What a lot of people don't remember and I think it's important to point it out is that in 1986, Nicaragua took the United States to the International Court of Justice and charged the United States with promoting terrorism against the Nicaraguan people. The Nicaraguan International Court of Justice found the United States guilty and demanded that the United States pay Nicaragua restitution for all the damage done in trying to overthrow the Nicaragua government. The destruction of court facilities, oil storage tanks, the killing of innocent Nicaraguans and the world court found that the United States was guilty of state-sponsored terrorism and ordered the United States to pay Nicaragua 17 billion dollars in compensation, restitution. The United States has so far failed to comply with the ruling of the court and on the contrary now is undertaken to impose economic sanctions against the Nicaragua government trying to once again destroy what the revolution has been able to build better opportunities for education for the Nicaraguan people, better health care, trying to promote policies that would eliminate poverty in the country and in effect trying to destroy the participatory democracy that we are trying to build in Nicaragua that incorporates indigenous people, people of African descent, women, campesinos, all those sectors of the Nicaragua society that were excluded and marginalized in the past are now participating actively in the building of a Nicaragua model that responds to the hopes, the dreams and aspiration of the of the Nicaraguan people. That is what the U.S. sanctions are designed to do to try to destroy what we have accomplished through great sacrifice and commitment of the Nicaraguan people. You know, we're seeing this across the hemisphere, across the globe, there's basically this financial starting and I would argue here in the United States as well and Washington D.C. where you and I both live is a real microcosm of those populations that are really disadvantaged and not on par participating in what is becoming a more and more privatized economy and you see this system of using sanctions as this form of warfare as really basically financially starving the Nicaraguan government and others of being able to provide a public or state infrastructure and institutions for all people and it is it is really important for U.S. citizens to understand this as a form of hybrid warfare, just find this financial starvation. It's not hybrid warfare, it is warfare because it destroys, it seeks to create instability, it seeks to demoralize and it has one purpose in mind, trying to overthrow governments that refuse to bend to the dictates of neocolonialist ambition. In the United States there are sectors that refuse to recognize that our countries have a right to develop a system, a model that responds to the hopes and aspirations of our people, a right to make the right decisions for ourselves and that in order to be able to do that we need to have a model in place that is specifically designed to overcome the difficulties, the many problems that we have in our society that are a result of colonialism and neocolonialism, problem of poverty, the problem of not having access to education, the problem of not having access to adequate healthcare, the poverty that afflicts our countries, those are the things that needs to be eradicated and we are trying to accomplish that and have made very important by establishing a model that we refer to as participatory democracy that ensures that sectors of the society previously excluded and marginalized are now effective and active participants in the construction of a new Nicaragua, a Nicaragua that responds to the hopes and aspirations of the majority poor and we are making very, very important progress. When President Ortega came back to power in 2007, he immediately began a policy of national reconciliation and unity, the purpose being bringing together the various sectors of the Nicaraguan society all committed to one overriding goal and that goal was to fight against poverty. That has always been the priority of the Sandinista revolution. It has been a policy of President Daniel Ortega and we have made important progress. However, sectors in the United States and in Europe are trying to undo those important accomplishments and of course the Nicaraguan people will always, will always stand up to those kinds of pressure, will always be willing to fight against any attempt to deny us the right to build a Nicaragua that responds to the needs of the Nicaraguan people and so that is what this struggle is all about. When they talk about sanctions, they are basically saying we want to demoralize, we want to destroy, we want to destabilize and the sole purpose is to destroy the good things that we have accomplished. I have always said that when they look at the gains and the important progress that Nicaragua has made over the years, they see us as a bad example. We, they see us as bad examples of other countries in other parts of the region might want to emulate. But the truth of the matter is we Nicaragua is committed to working towards the building of a just society, a society that really ensures that all sectors are able to participate. We want to get out of poverty through economic, through economic growth with social inclusion. That for us is the way to overcome poverty and we were making tremendous strides ahead. In fact, for almost from 2007 to 2004 to 2018, we were registering 5% annual GDP growth. It was some of the best, it was some of the largest growth in the hemisphere. That's correct. We were moving along in a very impressive way. And those sectors that cannot accept that a small country can in fact begin to move ahead in terms of bringing real benefit to its people, they felt threatened by these big successes and they decided to try to overthrow the government in a failed coup in 2018. They are talking about human rights in Nicaragua. In fact, all the Nicaraguan people did was to defeat the attempt by these sectors to overthrow a duly elected government that was working and bringing great benefits to the people. I think this is, gosh, you've mentioned a number of things I'd like us to expand on a bit. I think this is one of the principal things the U.S. government or that steady state that we seem to have regardless of how we vote, particularly since 1980. And a lot of U.S. citizens of all political stripes do not understand, with countries such as Nicaragua, and I would also argue Cuba and Venezuela, that these gains that the governments have achieved for all people except those that minority extraordinarily wealthy right-wing business class, that can't be undone. People have received education, have received access to health care, have grown economically and are fully engaged citizens. And that is something that many in the U.S. do not understand. And that's evolution, opening in society just and within people themselves just simply cannot be undone, those achievements. And that I would argue that is in large part why the why the attempted coup of April 18 failed. Just a complete misunderstanding of the ground, the people on the ground living in Nicaragua. You know, when we started our conversation, you mentioned you are from the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. And so can we talk a little bit about that? I have done work with the Garifuna community in Honduras and I'm familiar with the Mesquitu population in Nicaragua and indigenous people and then these communities that are have a really unique historical legacy as part of, how would you explain like the Garifuna part of this slave trade, but escaped or formed their own communities after fleeing a sinking ship, I believe. Yes, is that the or is that more myth than it is? There is some truth to that. The Nicaragua Caribbean coast, as I said earlier, has a very interesting history. In fact, the Nicaragua is the only country in Central America that was colonized by two powers. Spain colonized the Pacific side of the country and Great Britain colonized the Caribbean side. In fact, the Caribbean did not become a part of Nicaragua until 1894, that some almost 70 years after Nicaragua, the Pacific side of the country, had received its independence from Spain. And that is why there is this difference in a way in the history of both regions of the country. On the Caribbean side, you have six ethnic groups. You have the Creoles, English-speaking Creoles. I am in the Nicaraguan context, I am a Creole. Then you have the the Miskitos, that's an indigenous group, probably the largest indigenous group in Nicaragua. Then you have the Sumo Mayagna, which is another indigenous group that is unique to Nicaragua. You will not find Mayagnas anywhere else in the world. And then you have the Ramas, another indigenous group. And then you have the Miskitos, and finally the Garifonas. On the Caribbean, because of Nicaragua, you have people who speak English, you have people who speak Spanish, you have people who speak Miskitu, you have people who speak Sumo Mayagna. The Garifonas, they lost their language. And when the revolution came to power in 1979, one of the items on our agenda was to encourage the recovery of the Garifonas language. And in fact, we brought down Garifonas from Belize and from Honduras, who came down to Nicaragua and participated in the literacy campaign that took place in the 1980s and 1981. And so we have a rich, multi-ethnic, multicultural society on the Nicaragua Caribbean coast, in which the rights of indigenous peoples and people of Afro-descendants are fully respected, including the return, recognition of their rights to communal property. This is a very- Wow, that's significant. This is a very important development because under the Nicaragua legislation, those indigenous communities and Afro-descendant communities have received titles to their communal property. The total amount of land that was turned over to indigenous people and Afro-descendant people on the Nicaragua Caribbean coast is greater than the size of the Republic of El Salvador. That gives you an idea as to how much we have accomplished. Moreover, there are regional autonomous governments that are functioning on the Nicaragua Caribbean coast. You have the regional autonomous council in the north and you have the regional autonomous council in the south. These councils, they have the responsibility to ensure that the development of the natural resources of the region benefit the peoples of the region. They have the mandate to promote education and preservation of the culture of the indigenous people and Afro-descendant people of the region. We are putting together a comprehensive approach. In fact, we have even built universities that are committed to the strengthening of the autonomy process in the region. That goes through the strengthening of identity and ensuring that people benefit from the proper use of the natural resources in the region to benefit the people of the region. Nicaragua is building and in fact Nicaragua is the first country in the Americas that recognizes the multi-ethnic, multicultural makeup of its society and has undertaken to ensure effective participation of women as well as indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in all levels of government. We are building a model that inevitably other countries in Latin America will want to emulate. We have had great successes. We are moving ahead and that again is a threat. The sanctions are designed to destroy. They want to deny the peoples of the region, deny the Afro-descendant people, deny the indigenous people, deny women and deny the poor the right to build a society that responds to their needs and aspirations. I want to share just a personal antidote with you. I think you might enjoy it, but this is the multi-ethnic Caribbean coast of Nicaragua is profoundly beautiful, physically the nature and the geology is profoundly beautiful as well as the people. The ethnic mix is profoundly beautiful and inspiring and really something for people to really, I would encourage to visit and honor that what's been created there and the attempt to preserve that mix of cultures and history. You were talking about how the Sandinista government has improved public infrastructure and institutions and my last visit to Nicaragua was summer of 2016 and I was visiting a friend in Matigalpa in Dario actually and we were on our, I was staying just outside of Managua and I had gone out for a long weekend to visit and her then husband and on the way back the truck got a flat tire on that highway running between Matigalpa and Managua and we sat there for a few minutes and a gentleman that owned and ran a yantaria down the street came along and just offered to you know take the tire off the car ran it back to his shop and repaired it and brought it back and fixed it. I had a chance to take a photograph of his generosity and how the hospitality that was just so evident among your fellow citizens and I posted it was a photo taken from the rear of the truck looking at the gentleman repairing the tire for us and the road and I posted it on Facebook and immediately started hearing from friends of mine who I have done uh some solidarity work within Honduras they could not what they weren't commenting on our flat tire and these two women who got stuck on the road they were commenting on the condition of the road in the photograph they could not believe and I share this with the audience the just how modern and beautifully the roads are particularly compared to the U.S. backed government and completely privatized economy of Honduras they were beautiful roadways and I would also share with our viewers that those roads are in rural communities as well at least the principal road running through town along with the primary primary school and and a health clinic look Nicaragua over the last several years have built what is recognized as the best roads in Latin America in fact we have accomplished an aspiration that for many years was out there and never achieved and that is to build a road that links the Caribbean to the Pacific of the country and not only one road the first one that is now completed went from Managua to Bluefields on the Caribbean side of the country the other road is going from Rama to Pearl Lagoon and there is there's work going on right now to build a highway that will link the Pacific side of the country to build way in Puerto Cabezas those those have been historic aspiration of the people of Nicaragua as a whole but especially the people of the Caribbean side of the country and now it's not one road it is there are three roads that are being built the implications of that are extraordinary it opens up to production areas of the country that previously were intact and so these strategic initiatives that are coming to fruition set the foundation for Nicaragua to really really develop remember I said our strategy is promote economic growth with social inclusion and that means that means allowing the people to participate directly in the building of a society that responds to their most cherished needs and aspirations and so we are moving along very well and again those are the accomplishments that the sanctions are designed to try to destroy exactly yeah exactly so let me ask you so we've touched on education as well I have to say with the roads I mean they really it was fascinating to see the the reactions with that face but everybody recognized so clearly how beautifully paved the roads are we've also touched on infrastructure you know regarding education and can you tell us a little bit about the development of education my understanding is that it very closely resembles the literacy project in Cuba specifically the the project developed in 1961 by the Cubans and what is is is this the same or similar structure and getting education out of you know certain parts of municipalities but out into into rural communities as well you will remember that Nicaragua carried out the literacy campaign in 1980 that was one of the one of the priority of the of the Sandinista revolution back in in all of the writings about the the revolution going all the way back to Sandino they always emphasize the importance of educating the people and in the literacy campaign carried out in 1980 young people went out and into the communities and lived and lived with the people teaching teaching the people to read and write this was a tremendous accomplishment in the 1980 and was recognized by the by the by UNESCO as one of the most important achievements in Latin America when the Sandinistas lost the lost the election in 1990 and the neoliberal group came into power and were in power for 16 years one of the things that they did was to privatize education all of a sudden public schools were no longer a a free of charge and so when president Ortega came back to power in the election of 2006 one of the priority immediately implemented was to restore free education throughout throughout the country and our strategy is to make education relevant that addresses the reality in which people people actually live that is key to bringing about a comprehensive educational experience and we have made great stride again recovering what the 16 years of neoliberal policy had destroyed but along with education we also and we established free medical care and attention and we established a model and approaches especially in the healthcare sector that emphasizes a preventive medicine and that brings me to how we have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic one of the first thing that Nicaragua did upon learning that the world health organization had decreed a pandemic the current coronavirus pandemic one of the first thing that we did was to activate our public family community healthcare model now that is very important it's very important because it involves the people of the community in in the in preventive measures to ensure they are able to deal with with with with the disasters that includes a possible a pandemic upon learning that the WHO had alerted the family community healthcare model as I said was immediately activated and they emphasize a implementation of all the protocols that international and national protocols dealing with with with with healthcare issues they emphasize visiting the families in their homes more than four million homes were visited creating greater consciousness about the need to to wash hands to use social distancing to to also detect suspicious cases monitoring use of masks and so on and so forth what is the purpose behind that the purpose is behind that is to prevent to ensure appropriate monitoring contact tracing and so on and so forth also you have a second step when you have a suspicious cases they are they have the possibility of being remitted to a mobile health clinics that are complimenting the 19 hospitals that we have established throughout the country to take to care for a possible COVID-19 cases these are some of the measures Nicaragua has taken internally also we have taken steps to to ensure that all of the all of the port of entries are duly equipped and manned in order to with with the necessary equipment and material to be able to detect possible suspicious cases of people entering the country and we have done very well with that the third thing that we did was to was to enter into agreements with governments with the government that barred the Nicaragua Costa Rica in the south and Nicaragua and Honduras in the north these steps were taken to protect the people and attend to people entering into the country so as to detect possible cases through temperature monitoring and so on and also steps were taken to ensure that there would not be any illegal entries into the into the into the country whenever anyone was was detected and trying to enter into the country there would be a there would be a remitted to the appropriate authorities for the necessary for the necessary monitoring as to the possibility that they might be but they might be affected in some way by the by the virus and third and thirdly we entered into I believe what are very very good cooperation agreement with Cuba at the outset Taiwan South Korea and just yesterday we had a very very fruitful exchange of our best practices and experiences with India so Nicaragua is is implementing its it's a community family healthcare model we believe that it is dealing with effectively with the with the the pandemic like other countries we have we have had our share of cases and we we know that we are going to be dealing with the with this this pandemic for for some time but our model is a model that really is deeply rooted in the the the idea of public participation participatory democracy people taking it on themselves to work together in in in our fashion that ensures that we are able to take on the difficult challenges that might that might come our way it was natural for us when this pandemic was announced it was natural for for Nicaragua not to respond with alarm rather while we did was what we would do in the event of any kind of disaster we train dearly for to deal with disasters we carry out vaccination campaign all over the country every year and vaccine vaccination against malaria against dengue against zika you name it public healthcare program is designed to deal with challenges such as COVID-19 without alarm but with systematic attention it's a really comprehensive organized response and it also says a lot about the population and how they feel about their government and how they feel about each other as a whole in in saving one as in saving all it's a communal it's a communal response which is something we do not see here in the states and we could have a whole nether conversation about government institutions u.s culture and all of that but you know there's two things you mentioned regarding COVID-19 contact tracing and temperature reading here in the states we've expanded testing and so the number of cases discovered has gone up and i would argue you know someone who is asymptomatic test positive as does someone who is you know in the hospital perhaps dying that person tests positive as well and there's no quantitative difference between the test results and there's no and there's no contact tracing here in the u.s so it's confusing to a lot of us here to understand what the testing is being used for when there's no understanding where it's possibly spreading or where it's possibly come from and the temperature reading is kind of a no-bringer when you see that in many countries that and you know at the airports you see people returning from columbia to venezuela at the border having temperature readings it just seems very basic and logical and and relatively inexpensive to do preventative measures such as that and so we don't see any of that here so i will um when you're a poor country like us you have to you have to emphasize a preventive measure it is for us it's a no-brainer yeah it's also cost effective i mean if you want to talk about it in capitalist terms such as the united states it's it's it's more cost effective to prevent the illnesses that's correct that's that's yeah and we we have had good results by with this approach and we have no reason not to feel confident that it will it will um will it will be uh successful interestingly enough you know when as soon as uh as a vaccine is found you know who in nicaragua are going to be out there with these vaccine the nicaraguan doctors the nicaraguan nurses and the nicaragua health workers in those brigades that are always out there every year vaccinating against as i said a dengue malera do name it they are going to be out there also applying a vaccine when it when it is discovered in the meantime we continue with the all the preventive measures encouraging washing up hands use of glove social distancing and so on and so forth so listening to this fantastic proactive approach to this pandemic i wonder if you can comment a bit on this article yesterday two days ago in the washington post really um that was about what we're what's now being labeled in the united states as these express burials is there can you give us a little insight as to what that article is really about perhaps well i i know what the article is about it's a way of trying to discredit the the the good things that we that we have been doing but the truth of the matter is um when someone given the the reality of a uh of COVID-19 part of the preventive measures is to provide for the burial of of of individuals to avoid a large grouping of people and also to avoid possible propagation i've seen that i've seen that being done here in the united states in other parts of in other parts of the world at some places with with greater amounts than than you would see in in nicaragua but it's part of the it's part of the strategy of dealing with them part of the strategy of dealing with the the effects of COVID-19 it's a containment it's a containment practice yes and i post the the washington post in its article and they try to give it some kind of a some kind of a mysterious uh uh uh connotation when in fact uh they they don't they ought to know that these are part of the of the strategy of being implemented by the government to to deal with the to avoid propagation of of the COVID-19 pandemic well you know we do we do hear that that's how the chinese government in many cases handled containment and we're also starting to hear how perhaps new york city is managing containment and so um yeah we'll have we'll have to see what more comes from our own country and how we're but thank you for sharing that with us you know i promised you no more than an hour and we're approaching um 55 minutes to two is there anything that um you would like to add today today's conversation that we've not touched on but not really but um i what i would say is that in uh in dealing with the um with the the COVID-19 pandemic international solidarity is of fundamental importance countries need to uh to work together in in dealing with this uh come this uh this pandemic that knows no does not respect national boundaries or uh ideologies it is imperative that that we work together that we uh see for best practices and that um we understand that each country might have to apply its own strategy and that strategy in order to be successful has to be based on the reality of of the of the country you cannot dictate from outside how uh a country is to be able to um uh address this um this this this major threat in micaragua we are applying our participatory democracy strategy that means that the people participate directly in the defense of their their lives in the defense of their of their uh rights to to build um a society that is uh responsive to their to their needs and and uh uh aspiration and most important sectors that continue to try to undermine and deny countries the right of sovereignty and the rights of self-determination should really set aside these destructive uh uh policies and allow each country to deal with this pandemic in such a way that it helps to build rather than than than than destroyed and i come back to what i said at the outset sanctions sanctions are designed to destroy sanctions are designed to destabilize sanctions are designed to demoralize sanctions are designed to deny uh peoples in smaller countries especially the right to self-determination a few weeks ago or maybe two weeks ago i participated in a in a in a seminar that was called sanctions killings and oh yes you were one of our panelists it was a week ago saturday i guess and you were a very very good way of describing and you have people who want to give you all kinds of sophisticated interpretation about sanctions and the purpose of sanction but the bottom line is sanctions are this are designed to destroy sanctions are destroyed are designed to kill sanctions are designed to inflict pain and suffering sanctions are immoral they are a form of aggression that are contrary to international law they are contrary to the charter of the united nations and they are contrary contrary to the to the principle of peaceful coexistence that should exist uh that should exist between uh between countries so i want to call on all of the the solidarity groups in the united states and abroad to join forces to put an end to these illegal sanctions as i said earlier as well in the nineteen in nineteen in the 1980s the united states government imposed all kinds of sanctions against nicaragua trying to destroy the sandinista destroy the sandinista revolution and those those those actions included a promotion of terrorism state sponsored terrorism against nicaragua and the world court in 1986 ruled in favor of nicaragua when it condemned the united states for state sponsored terrorism in nicaragua that is a fact you have people who might not want to recognize it but it is a fact you check the the the website of the international court of justice in june 1986 and you will find the ruling of the court that the united states was guilty of state state sponsored terrorism against nicaragua if i'm not mistaken the only country that has been declared that has been condemned for state sponsored terrorism the only country in the world is fascinating isn't it when you look at you know what the government here says about other countries and most recently you know well consistently iran and and cuba and now venezuela too it's uh yeah it's it's a it's it's fascinating and it's so um it's frustrating to a lot of us here in the states but it's why it's so important for us to be able to talk with people such as you and i so value appreciate um you're giving us this hour for this conversation it's been extraordinarily um educational and beneficial and i hope that we can do it again i look forward and once again i thank you for your your solidarity i thank you for your support and we will continue to talk i look forward to it okay so everyone i just want to again let you know we have spent the hour talking with francisco cambal he's the nicaragua ambassador to the united states we've been in conversation with him today from the embassy in washington dc um please be sure to watch our what the f is going on in latin america weekly webinar series every nine a.m uh every wednesday nine a.m pacific 12 p.m eastern and also should let all of you know we do uh air code pink radio on thursday's 11 a.m 11 a.m eastern and that's on w pf w washington dc simo patin on w ba i in york city so mr ambassador maybe you can join us on the air one of these days as well so on the radio so everyone thank you so much and really an honor and a pleasure mr ambassador to have um this hour long conversation with you thank you very much thank you so much bye bye