Dear Colleagues,

Thanks for your support and generosity over the past months. Following the closure of our sister organisation NSC in August, NSCAG is now the only UK-Nicaragua Solidarity organisation combining the best features of NSC and NSCAG and we really need your help to ensure our future sustainability.

This is what we have achieved over the past six months:

• completed the complex process of closing down NSC as a charity

• set up a new NSCAG website – www.nscag.org.uk

• published a briefing on US sanctions circulated as a print version and online

• circulated monthly newsletters with information on what’s happening in Nicaragua from the perspective of our trade union partner organisations and UK – Nicaragua solidarity activities

• participated in trade union conferences and spoken at  regional and branch trade union meetings

Nicaragua increasingly finds itself in the crosscurrents of a polarised world and is constantly demonised by a hostile mainstream press who have long since abandoned any pretext of objectivity.

In this context US attempts to overthrow the elected Sandinista government and install one to its liking continue with ever greater intensity. The latest and potentially the most dangerous is the cynically entitled Restoring Sovereignty and Human Rights Act which has nothing to do with either.

If approved by the US Senate and House it would have a devastating effect on Nicaragua’s economy through undermining trade and preventing access to international loans, with serious consequences for those still living in poverty in Nicaragua.

Nicaragua’s ‘sins’ that the US currently finds so threatening, are fighting poverty through well-integrated social development programmes and now solidarity with Palestine, supporting South Africa and bringing its own case against Germany arming Israel to the International Court of Justice.

Our goal is to convey this message to a wider audience but to do this we need your help.

Membership will be at the heart of NSCAG going forward. We have previously relied on generous trade union funding to support our work, and we are now also open to individual members – over 150 have so far transferred their membership from NSC to NSCAG.

We now urgently need additional funding to carry out an expanded programme of work and activities.

With these resources we could strengthen our solidarity with Nicaragua through campaigning against US aggression and in defence of Nicaragua’s sovereignty, right to self-determination and right to live in peace.

At the same time, we will continue championing Nicaragua’s commitment to reducing poverty and its effects. We also need to continue our work in support of and solidarity work with Nicaragua’s trade union movement.

Direct person to person contact is the most powerful way of communicating the realities of Nicaragua. £3000 would allow us to invite a representative from one of our partner organisations to come to the UK to meet people from around the country.

For nearly 46 years, we have stood with the Nicaraguan people in advancing their Revolution.

Please help us to continue in solidarity and strength.

In solidarity,

Louise Richards, director, NSCAG