(Analysis) — Proponents of Western capitalism tend to talk a lot about “development.” If one reads the publications of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, or writings of economists like Milton Friedman and Jeffrey Sachs, one gets the impression that Western corporations are helping impoverished countries by doing business with them.

The reality of the conditions in Central America should be a stark refutation of these claims. Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama have been financial partners of the United States for hundreds of years. Wall Street banks and corporations have almost a free hand in these countries. The result has been not only persistent poverty, but increasing violence from narcotics traffickers. For many in Central America and Mexico, the unregulated reign of US corporations has made life has made life almost unlivable, and they have been forced to flee to the USA. Each day, corpses are discovered along the US border. The bodies belong to those who have died in the process of trying to enter the country after fleeing their homeland. The corpses belong almost exclusively to those living under pro-Wall Street, free market regimes.

While most of Central America is in dire poverty, one country has recently experienced a huge amount of growth. Its standard of living is rising, and the country is stabilizing. A recent article from the Wall Street Journal describes how poverty has been dramatically reduced in the past decade.

Unlike it neighbors, Nicaragua is not led by a pro-Western, market-oriented regime. Rather, it is led by the Sandinistas. President Daniel Ortega, a self-described Marxist revolutionary, has been leading the country since 2006. While other countries in the “Bolivarian Bloc” of leftist Latin American states are suffering due to US economic sabotage and the dramatic oil price drop, Nicaragua’s economy continues to grow.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, between 2005-2014, poverty in Nicaragua has decreased by 30%. Meanwhile, the GDP has risen by 36% between 2007 and 2016. The trend in Nicaragua’s economy stands in stark contrast to the rest of the region.

China & Nicaragua: A Long March to Independence

One of the biggest factors in Nicaragua’s continued growth is its business relationship with the People’s Republic of China. Currently, China is involved in a $40 billion construction project to build an alternative water route, countering the Panama Canal. The project is part of Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” policy. In the western hemisphere, Nicaragua can be described as the most important juncture in China’s New Silk Road.

Prior to 1949, China was commonly called the “sick man of Asia.” In the 1970s, Nicaragua could accurately be described as the “sick man” of Central America. The country was led by a US backed dictator, Anastasio Somoza. When the country was afflicted by a horrendous earthquake in 1972, the world watched as the corrupt, US-aligned regime confiscated the relief aid and prevented the injured and displaced from receiving assistance.

In 1979 the Sandinista National Liberation Front took power in a sudden, dramatic uprising. Much like Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front were never Soviet stooges. The official Soviet-recognized Communist Party of Nicaragua had actually opposed the Sandinista revolt. The Sandinistas were inspired by Marxism, but they had developed their own ideology and tactics based on the unique conditions of their country. In addition to Marxism-Leninism, the Sandinistas also embraced Christianity, and had many Roman Catholic priests among their ranks. The Sandinistas were outspoken environmentalists, and sought to preserve the country’s rainforests and natural resources, which Western companies had rapidly been squandering.

Like Mao Zedong’s Eighth Route Army, even though the Sandinistas had their own ideas and refused cowtow to Moscow’s every order, the Soviet Union still provided them with huge amounts of support and aid in their early years. The Communist-led Island of Cuba was also very supportive of Nicaragua’s revolution.

Just as Mao Zedong’s revolution included huge efforts to improve the lives of the peasants, Daniel Ortega and his comrades focused on providing assistance to their own rural population. Doctors from Cuba staffed free healthcare clinics built with Soviet money. The Sandinista government launched a literacy campaign and taught millions of impoverished Nicaraguans how to read and write.

Just as in China, the United States supported the dictator Chiang Kai Chek in working against the popular revolution, in Nicaragua the United States funded and trained violent terrorists and extremists known as the “contras” to work toward retaking Nicaragua from the Sandinistas.

Relentless Attacks from Washington

The atrocities of the US-backed Contra warriors were extreme. They slaughtered entire villages and executed priests and nuns. At the “School of the Americas” in Georgia, the US military trained their Central American allies in the art of torture, assassination, and terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed during the 1980s. Even after the US congress outlawed aid to the human rights violating anti-government fighters, the Reagan administration continued to fund their campaign of violence. Ronald Reagan and Oliver North’s illegal selling of missiles to Iran, in order to secretly fund anti-government fighters in Nicaragua was known as the “Iran Contra Affair.” Approximately 50,000 people died in the prolonged civil war that followed Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution, in a country whose population is only slightly higher than 6 million.