Cuba–Nicaragua relations

Cuba and Nicaragua established diplomatic ties on 3 September 1905. Relations between the two countries were particularly positive during Nicaragua's initial Sandinista period and have been strong since the 2007 election of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

History

Cuba and Nicaragua established diplomatic relations on 3 September 1905.[1]

During the rule of the Somoza family dictatorship, Nicaragua was hostile to socialist Cuba.[2]: 154  Nonetheless, When Nicaragua's capital Managua was destroyed by an earthquake in 1972, Cuba supplied a disaster relief team to assist in recovery.[2]: 154 

In 1979, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua overthrew the Somoza family.[2]: 154  Relations between Cuba and Nicaragua countries were close during the revolutionary Sandinista period in Nicaragua.[3] After the success of the Sandinista revolution, Cuba provided health care workers to Nicaragua to establish clinics for the poor of Nicaragua and to establish training centers for Nicaraguan health care workers.[2]: 154  In September 1979, Fernando Cardenal traveled to Cuba to study the success of the Cuban literacy campaign.[4]: 74  Following the visit, Cardenal invited Cuban literacy experts to Nicaragua to provide Sandinista literacy campaign organizers with support and technical assistance.[4]: 74 

Over the course of the 1980s, Cuba provided approximately 90,000 tons of oil to Nicaragua per year.[5]: 58 

Cuba provided the Sandinistas with military advisors.[5]: 58  According to Fidel Castro, these advisors were primarily military instructors.[6]: 230 

To help Nicaragua establish rural schools, Cuba supplied primary school teachers to the country.[6]: 320  Cuban primary school teachers were the largest single group of aid workers provided by Cuba to Nicaragua during the 1980s, with their numbers peaking at 4,000 in 1984.[6]: 321  After the United States invasion of Grenada, Cuban concerns that the United States might also invade Nicaragua increased and Cuba removed its female primary school teachers from the country.[6]: 321 

Cuba provided further aid workers to Nicaragua after flooding in 1991, a 1992 volcanic eruption, and hurricanes in 1988 and 1998.[2]: 155–157 

Relations between the two countries deteriorated when the Sandinista government was voted out of office.[3]

Following the 2007 election of Daniel Ortega to the presidency in Nicaragua, relations between the two countries again became close.[3]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Nicaragua was among the fourteen countries to which Cuba sent medical teams as part of its medical internationalism.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Despedida Embajador de Cuba en Nicaragua - Red Comunica". redcomunica.csuca.org. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  2. ^ a b c d e Yaffe, Helen (2020). We Are Cuba!: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-24551-6.
  3. ^ a b c "Nicaragua's Ortega to upgrade Cuba relations". Reuters. 2007-08-09. Retrieved 2023-12-05.
  4. ^ a b Van Ommen, Eline (2023). Nicaragua Must Survive: Sandinista Revolutionary Diplomacy in the Global Cold War. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520390768.
  5. ^ a b Cederlöf, Gustav (2023). The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba. Critical environments: nature, science, and politics. Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-39313-4.
  6. ^ a b c d Gleijeses, Piero (2013). Visions of Freedom: Havana, Washington, Pretoria, and the Struggle for Southern Africa, 1976 - 1991. The New Cold War History series. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-4696-2832-5.
  7. ^ Petkova, Mariya. "Cuba has a history of sending medical teams to nations in crisis". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 2023-12-05.