Shares its address with the Marxist-Leninist front group, International ANSWER
Describing itself as "a U.S. national network of 200 local sister city, solidarity, fair trade, and environmental justice groups," the Nicaragua Network (NN) is a lobbying organization that shares its Washington, D.C. office with the Mexico Solidarity Network. Both groups share the same street address with International ANSWER. Professing its devotion to "social and economic justice for Nicaragua, Latin America and the world," NN is a member of ANSWER's steering committee, and is a project of the Alliance for Global Justice.
By its own account, the Nicaragua Network was established in 1979 "to support the popular struggle to overthrow the 45-year U.S.-supported Somoza family dictatorship [in Nicaragua], and ... to support the efforts of the [Marxist] Sandinista Revolution to provide a better life for the nation's people."
NN's ongoing campaigns include its effort to obtain debt cancellation for Nicaragua; its condemnation of both the World Food Program and USAID for using genetically-modified foods and seeds in their emergency-relief programs in Nicaragua; and its alliance with radical environmentalist groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to protect "the land rights" of Nicaragua's "indigenous peoples" against incursions by "invaders" in the agriculture, mining, and logging industries.
In an April 2002 anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC, Nicaragua Network members marched as part of an anti-Israel coalition organized by the group SUSTAIN. Also participating in the rally were members of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, the DC Green Party, the International Socialist Organization, and Queers for Racial and Economic Justice. Guest speakers took turns echoing the theme that as a result of America's war on terrorism, "democratic rights are being further eroded, hundreds of people have been 'disappeared' into jails and prisons, and corporate interests are shamelessly trying to use this [9/11] crisis to their advantage." The speakers exhorted attendees to "rise up" and condemn "racial profiling," the military's recruitment of "youth of color and working class youth," and the "secret imprisonment of immigrants" under newly enacted anti-terror measures. Among those to address the crowd were Al Sharpton, Michael Ratner, Daniel Berrigan, and Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The National Lawyers Guild and the DC Justice and Solidarity Collective provided legal representation for those who were arrested at the march.
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