There’s a shift in the winds. Increasingly pressure is being applied in democratic nations to uphold the decisions of the people, most recently in Honduras where president Zelaya was overthrown by the military earlier this week. With pressure from the Latin left governments global organizations are working together to reinstate the president. Everyone from the United Nations, to the Organization of American States, to the World Bank are moving together at a rapid rate.
Here in Nicaragua, the opinions are running high in coffee country.
“Sure all our governments have corruption, but Honduras and Nicaragua are the examples of what this looks like”, says a local farmer. “It’s coke, it’s arms, it’s people, it’s the mafia running these countries.”
“It’s throughout all the police and military,” shouts another. “As soon as the president started cracking down on the corruption, they tried to kill him.”
Northern coffee country is Sandinista territory. These men are proud members of Fairtrade coffee cooperatives which they see as a way of continuing the tradition started in 1979 during the revolution.
“Obama is a president who is black and the son of an immigrant who rose from practically nothing,” says the eldest farmer. “Imagine if after the election the wealthy white people in power chased him out of the country for trying to hold them accountable for their corruption. That’s what happened in Honduras.”
But the world response to this is immense. Aside from the international governmental organizations, human rights groups against violence and in support of free speach and journalism are pouring into the country. The world is watching carefully.
“The same thing happened here (in Nicaragua),” continues the old farmer. “But the world just stood by. Nothing happened. No one cared.”
Democracy is not a spectator sport. Liberty requires vigilance. At times from the international community, but also at the national and local levels.
A group of mayors in Nicaragua have issued an open letter to president Daniel Ortega pleading for him to examine the corruption in his own country with the same fervor his is using to criticize the coup d’etat in Honduras. Both are gross violations of the basic principals of democracy, and both ought to warrant the same attention. Yet they do not.
It is easy to critique the problems in another nation, to see the faults in the democratic system of others. Yet, one needs only to pick up a local paper to see it exists in our town halls, in our state senates, and in our national government. Let us stay vigilant and protect the rights and freedoms of each other by holding our own political representatives responsible. More than that though, we need to hold ourselves accountable for our own behaviors and consumptions and their global impacts.
- Tim
