Five years since a crackdown began, what's next for Nicaragua? | Inside Story 

I have family Nica born. Half live in Canada and the other half never left. As for MX, highest and fastest rising, rate of femicide in the world. Chile? LOL Pinochette? F'N Nazis! I have friends who lived through that one.

Guatemala now has a higher GDP than Nicaragua, but it is majority poor according to the World Bank. It's easy to get rich if you don't pay the help much, pay them in shares, or simply don't pay them at all and have them grow the cash crop and all the farm's food and make all the cloth.

@@RebeccaOre Yes, that is the way the region has been for centuries, except Costa Rica. Nicaragua used to be richer before the 1972 earthquake destroyed Managua and laid wait all the country's gains since the 1920s. SAD.

@@jvarela965 Costa Rica depends on cheap Nicaraguan labor to keep its tourist industry going. And isn't as stable or honest as the publicity about it. Nicaragua is safer.

please list the foreign investment that you say is pouring into the country. i cant see it.

the usa supported the rich land owners.. its no surprise that the people dont like this. the owners offered no opportunity for the people. ortaga is not the greatest, but he's better than the preceding dictators.

what goes around , comes around.. many fsln members are now land owners. co op agriculture is a good balance , between socialism and capitalism.

And boy do those Yankees hate losing dollars. They hate not being able to exploit people in Latin America.

I agree with Daniel. Hate the American bombs for profit culture, but love the liberty of freedom. I do what I want in Nicaragua, and don't feel oppressed.

He is an incredible POS. Al Jazeera should not have platformed him.

Christina Stop listening to the Mainstream media in the USA... The USA is the Biggest Terrorist country in the world....

because he isnt giving non-stop criticism?

He is spot on, the US is evil

​​@@miguelfonseca1104No. He is a spokesperson for Ortega because he lies plain and simple.

Bro i got robbed by some blacks folks here in the super power of the world in LA county ehat are you talking bout? Lmao

Gusano 🥱🪱🫵

I'm a expat gringo. In San Juan del sur. I go shopping and mall theater in Managua.. I've never had a problem.

Lier

Right on target. God bless!

Despite the Contras Ortega has done fine he is worth $50 million. I opposed the Contras but Ortega has become a dictator and has set up himself and his family for life while the people of his country are very poor. It is 2024 the Contras were gone in 1979 it is too long ago to use them as an excuse. If you want to know the truth about how things are in Nicaragua you need to interview the people from there on the US southern border trying to get into the US they are there every day and they will tell you the truth. Not Ben Norton or any other well-healed left winger living there.

That is a big lie, No other Dictator has been as bad and as evil as Ortega!

@@libertadnicafitzpatrick8143Sure, Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Charles Taylor, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, Amin, Pinochet, Somoza. Sure. You either know nothing about history or you are spreading propaganda. I'm guessing the latter.

Justice is that people learn to live with each other. My town is making progress along those lines. And the events in Waslala in 2018 are known here but not outside Nicaragua. People on all sides were afraid of looters coming in from away so the FSLN mayor got both dominant parties together. Both parties cooperated in barricading the town. The mayor was elected earlier because the Liberales had a corrupt mayor before him. The town dismantled their barricades when they heard of shooting elsewhere. Oh, by the way, Nicaragua was neck and neck with Honduras in 2018, perhaps pulling ahead. Mixed economies out perform the ideological pure ones. People leave because an hourly wage in the US is close to a daily wage here. The INSS situation was more complicated than "cutting social services," and the INSS reforms were passed with minor adjustments in favor of small businesses. A chunk of people resented losing their land in the 80s and haven't gone beyond that. It doesn't have the industrial natural resources -- no oil, no coal, no iron ore. Gold has more value than mere jewelry these days in terms of computer components, but Canadian firms own the concessions for most of the mining. Its glory days were agricultural, but economies based on hand labor agriculture tend to make some rich and a lot poor or move into subsistence economies that no nation state, capitalist, socialist, or hybrid wants the majority of its population to be in. A number of indigenous subsistence handcraft economies were destroyed because they couldn't pay land taxes -- no cash crop. This happened in Mexico and other countries in Latin America.

That is the truth, no government has legitimately worked towards building the country up, they all find a way to make a living in politics and just benefit their followers.

Socialism isn’t about not owning things. It’s about not letting a small group of people to own everything. Just take a look at the US and how large companies like Vanguard and Blackrock are buying up all the houses

It's not a socialist country -- it's a mixed economy. Also, the opposition names show up in the Wikileaks embassy dispatches from 2010.

@@RebeccaOre its always mixed, because theyre always hypocrites. thats the point.

@@swingingsteelActually they tried socialism in the 80s and were assaulted by US foreign policy until they gave it up voluntarily. Who does the US ever allow to set up a socialist government? My guess is that Ortega realized there was no way he could ever do what he thought possible in his youthful idealism and decided to take advantage of the power he could gain. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Fortunately, he has never been anything like Somoza, who just killed anyone who opposed him and had the full support of the US government and US corporations.

My neighbors are investing in their houses and businesses. Most reasons for leaving Nicaragua is hearing that the minimum wages are $15. MRS went way right-wing after they failed to get votes and the US had the cash.

It's a mix of free in wards, INSS (state health and retirement insurance), and private, which is relatively inexpensive because it's competing with free). If people can qualify for INSS, that's better than the free clinics and hospitals.

Socialism doesn't mean you can't own stuff.

I'm just a regular old American white guy. This is my 11th year of traveling to, and living in, Nicaragua. This beautiful country never ceases to amaze. In my community alone there are new Canadians, Americans and others moving in and building new houses every week. I don't want to bore you with the details, but the locals, the people, are happy, generous, safe and welcoming. Just this past weekend I rode my motorcycle almost 200 miles up to Esteli, the cigar capital of the world (not an exaggeration). The views of Momotombo Volcano were so beautiful it was emotional. Just south of Esteli I was stopped by the Policia National for a "traffic violation". I told the cop he was wrong, and I told him why. When he realized he couldn't play me, we had a good laugh, he gave me my license back, and waved me on. This is the beauty of Nicaragua. Nobody gives a crappe what you do, there is a freedom here that is hard to explain. I visited a cigar factory and the owner (originally Cuban) gifted me 100 free cigars. A guy that I had just met an hour before. This is what Nicaragua is really like. Don't believe everything you hear. My hotel room was $11.

@@Mr.DamianMya how much did you have to pay that police officer? And which police officer stopped you the ones that wear black and carries the guns or the ones that wear the blue I really don’t carry gun

@@girlmonkey I paid nothing. The guys were in black, seemed like the rifle across his chest was either old or fake.

Dont come here, all the information you guys get abroad is severely reduced, 2018 was a dark year and forced oppression that ofc the side with the most power and control over the police and military would hide at all cost. I guarantee you that the few people that actually came here and tried to get real information(you would have to defy the ongoing violent oppression) didn't make it out. Idk where that Ben man was living or making his investigation but it is almost as if he has never lived in a 3rd world country, i assure you theres still places here where a mother can have 12 kids and whoever makes it makes it. And many of them wont even get vaccinations, education or even a legal name. The only way you will be safe here is if you have money, and the president still lives in the civil war, i assure you that we who lived here since we were born know what kind of man he is. The people talking about Nicaragua may know about economics and numbers, they dont know what the goverment is capable of.

He's an independent journalist and if you had watched the whole video instead of trolling after the first 5 minutes you would have learned that he in fact lives in Nicaragua

Yes he lives in Nicaragua and he receives a salary from the ministry of foreign affairs, so yes, he is an employee of Ortega's, and thus a parasite of Nicaraguans who pays his salary off our taxes

@@agresiv0 That's an interesting claim, do you have evidenc?

Do you live in Nicaragua, Melchor?

@@agresiv0 No but why does it matter? You made a statement and I asked for evidence what's the problem here? As far as I know, Ben is an independent journalist, if you claim otherwise then show me the evidence or how else am I supposed to check if what you're saying is true or not?

me too

Please list ideas to help...they are needed...

Identity politics

Live here, get residency first, then after five years or so, apply for residency.

Marry a Nicaragua, do something for Nicaragua, or learn Spanish and live as a legal resident for five years and be willing to go through the application process which takes a while.

So how come l would have to get legal residency? I couldn't just cross the border from Costa Rica? My plan is to cross illegally and then ask for asylum so l can get free housing, utilities, free school for my children and a maid to help my wife. Isn't that how it works?

So Nicaragua needs to Align to Russia's and China's interest, so China can keep opening zona franca in Nicaragua for cheap labor, so China can import to Nicaragua and obliterate local businesses, you say to hate how the US interviene and impose to other countries but yet are so stupid that when China does the same thing you turn a blind eye, hypocrisy to the max

Shut up! You don’t know what really happens in my country

If you have lived in Nicaragua for the past 14 or so years as an ordinary nica, be it as a professional or a working man out on the streets trying to eke a living dissociated from the government, no political affiliation, no government post or job, than you would know for sure that everything those two guys have said are lies, plain and simple lies. Their political or ideological bias is so obvious. A true journalist and a human rights lawyer these two aren't. To imply that Ortega and his government are doing everything right for the nicaraguan people even with all the pressures from those opposing them and the good old bad US it only shows that they are either not living in Nicaragua, but Ben is in Nicaragua, or true believers of the Ortega fallacies, although I suspect is something more mundane than noble idealism. Everybody outside the government, which is the mayority, does not approve of Ortega. That 80% the lawyer claims Ortega had at the time of the insurrection, the coup as they love to call it, cannot be taken as factual when you take into consideration that all nicas working for the government and those working for the sandinista party, have to say exactly that. All those that can't sustain themselves or their families, or can't keep a job and get the houses or "social help" have to sign up with the sandinista party, wear the colors, wave the flag, march on their parades and demonstrations showing their love and support for the leader, voluntarily, riiiiight. Populism at its best. Most of these people have no interest in politics and ideologies. All they want is a job, those that aren't lazy, and those that love to coast through life sacrificing only their dignity, that they don't know of or simply don't care about. These two guys are worse. They have intelligence and means to be able to stand for the truth yet they argue for the deceit, the lies, the manipulation, coercion, reppresion, oppression, corruption and shameless behavior in order to have a slice of the pie. That same Catholic Church the lawyer labels as reactionary, is the same that told of Somozas crimes and gave support to the sandinistas. And now, seeing that we are back to the same, the church by doing what they did back then with Somoza, they are reactionary? Hahaha, funny guy. If you don't live in Nicaragua, come and inmerse yourself in our world. Come and be among our ordinary people, good people, rich, poor, and that hard to find middle class people, gain their trust and then they will open up to you and will tell you exactly how they feel about our lives under this government and the direction it has taken. Talk to the students, teachers, doctors and nurses away from the fear of being listened to and worst, betrayed and dennounced to the authorities, then youll see. I saw the thumbnail and almost didn't click on it because it is an Al Jazeera piece. But I thought let's see what the other side is saying. I was surprised that it wasn't a complete Ortega love fest, but still by presenting two guys that their jobs are to speak in behalf of the Ortega regime and one speaking for the facts, not a political party or government, and not pushing back with all the documented investigations regarding to what happened in 2018, the why, the how things went from a simple protest in support of the elderly and their pension, to a full fledged civic protest asking the government to step aside and give way to a new and better government. Us here in Nicaragua, feel as if we are right next to Clover watching in disbelief through the window into the house how the pigs and the humans arguing, dining and laughing were no longer disguishabke from each other. Ortega and those around him are what they opposed and fought against.

Coz they are a goood partner to have to help there aims and there are a lot of rich zionist. In the us

🤣🤣

Is funny how people with a different views are always "paid", you guys are so aligned that you think nobody has the right to think differently.. so ridiculous

The only people paid on this panel is Ben. He is paid by the Ortega/ Russian interest groups.

@@agresiv0 TinEye caught a lot of lies. I don't know anyone who couldn't leave, including a woman from a Contra Family.

@@RebeccaOre I was born, raised and live in Nicaragua my entire life but yet some retired gringos think they know the truth over actual Nicaraguans lol

Ben is just a parasite living off Nicaraguans taxes, like the country isn't poor enough to be paying gringos for propaganda

Based Ben

But Ortega is not Sandino.

Sandino is dead. He died a long time ago.

🐸🐸🐸

Thanks for giving the right information👏🏽

I am Nicaraguan and since the 80's the only group that has brought violence and misery into the country are the sandinistas, in the 90's when the got out of power and left a dead broke country they didn't let any government to govern in peace, they were getting funding from Lybia, Gaddafi was funding the sandinistas strikes and protests, sandinistas used to barricade wielding AK-47 and shooting at the police, Daniel Ortega is not a leader is a parasite, stop spreading false news, comment about your country and leave Nicaragua for Nicaraguans.

Yes blame America as always take responsibility for your own failures

CAP ASF. My girlfriends WHOLE family JUST fled Nicaragua. AND THEY ALL HATE THE PRESIDENT. THEY ALL SAY HES A EVIL PRESIDENT AND TAKES THE MONEY OF THE NICARAGUAN PEOPLE. AND THE NICARAGUAN PEOPLE WANT A COUNTRY LIKE THE USA.

This isn't even a purely socialist economy. It's mixed with some infrastructure nationalized and some small businesses helped with zero interest loans (I believe there's a .05% origination fee or something like that. The US doesn't like anyone not providing it with cheap labor or natural resources.

He's not

@@mibything7985 He's a very good politician, and has outwitted a number of people who thought he was a coward and not that smart.