In Managua, Ben Norton interviews Nicaragua’s representative to the UN’s International Court of Justice, Carlos Argüello Gómez, who speaks about his country’s case against the US over its terrorist Contra war, the 2018 coup attempt, and why sanctions are an illegal form of warfare on civilians.

BEN NORTON

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Transcript

CARLOS ARGUELLO GOMEZ: I don’t know why many people in the United States have to see concretely something. Sanctions, although you don’t see them on a wall or in a room, they cause as much death as a war.

It’s like declaring a state of siege in medieval times against a city or whatever, just blocking it up. These type of sanctions, you can stop all medicine, you can stop gas, you can stop everything from going into a country with these sanctions.

Even during siege times there were laws regulating what you could do. Now you can squeeze a country and destroy the country without any limits. At least that’s what the United States thinks it can do.

So the only mechanism of defense is multilateralism.

BEN NORTON: For years, the United States has been targeting the small Central American nation of Nicaragua for regime change.

A violent US-backed coup attempt in 2018 was only the latest in a series of aggressive actions aimed at overthrowing its leftist Sandinista government.

Nicaragua is also one of dozens of countries suffering under unilateral US sanctions, which are illegal under international law, and which have taken a serious toll on the country’s economy.

In the capital Managua, I sat down for an interview with Carlos Argüello, Nicaragua’s representative at the United Nation’s International Court of Justice.

He spoke about his country’s attempts to hold Washington accountable for its aggression against his country, and the importance of multilateral institutions in giving a voice on the international stage to small nations like Nicaragua.

CARLOS ARGUELLO GOMEZ: It’s not perhaps very well known that the country that has had the most cases in the international court is the United States, 23 cases the last time. And the second country is Nicaragua, 15 cases. After that comes the UK, France, and then lower down. So Nicaragua, for our small country, has been very active at the multilateral level in the International Court of Justice.

But I think the multilateralism is alive. Of course a great power like the United States is doing a lot of damage. But there are many other countries that believe in multilateralism, keeping the spirit alive. So the mechanisms are there. The United Nations is active.

Of course without the assistance of the United States, it’s always a big problem. The United States is one of the biggest financial backers of these institutions, so what’s going to happen is other nations will have to take up the slack.

But Nicaragua believes in international law. In fact we have done so for many years. As I said, we have the most cases in the international court. But obviously with the United States — The experience we had, not with Mr. Trump; it was in the 1980s with President Reagan, he simply ignored the court. The court gave its judgment; the United States paid no attention to it. We went to the Security Council, I’m talking about the 1980s; the United States vetoed any decision. Although it was an interested party, yet the veto progressed.

So the United States has always been blocking international institutions when they don’t favor its perceived interests. So this is not a new point. Perhaps now it’s being talked about more openly in the United States, but my experience has been that the United States has always acted, has respected law when they perceived it was in their interest.

For example, in the ’80s, my first experience of this was, Nicaragua had an extradition treaty with the United States dating back to 1907. And when we toppled the Somoza dictatorship, we invoked the treaty and we went to the State Department; we did everything that they told us we had to do. And then came the election of Mr. Reagan in November 1980, and that was the end of it. Period. The treaty was not valid; I mean it was invoked, and then they revoked it. Period. So it was valid up to the point when the United States thought it was in their interest.

We went to International Court of Justice in the ’80s. There was a treaty, an agreement that the United States had accepted the jurisdiction of the court. The statute of the international court is part of the charter of the United Nations, so it’s as important, as valid as any article of the charter of the United Nations. And simply the United States ignored it.

So this has happened in the past. And now at present, what’s happening is that they are making it more obvious. They are not even trying to hide the intent. But naturally, I think for the world, and certainly for the smaller countries, international law, international organizations, are the only way to survive in this world. So in Nicaragua we are wholeheartedly interested in maintaining the multilateralism and the institutions that exist up to this moment, and bolstering them as much as possible.

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After US terrorist war and sanctions, Nicaragua fights for justice at international court