WASHINGTON - April 24 - The Nicaragua Network in its annual National Leadership Meeting strongly condemned US government intervention in Nicaragua's presidential election scheduled for November 5, 2006.

The Nicaragua Network, a US national network of 200 local sister city, solidarity, fair trade, and environmental justice groups held its annual meeting in Washington, DC, April 21-23. The delegates to the conference adopted a resolution condemning US intervention and initiating a campaign to expose and counter US government interference in Nicaragua's upcoming election.

"What the US government is doing in Nicaragua would be illegal if a foreign government tried to do it in the US," Rochester, NY area pediatrician and Nicaragua Network board member Arnold Matlin, MD said. The US Agency for International Development and the pseudo-independent National Endowment for Democracy are funding right-wing groups and political parties in an effort to determine the outcome of the election.

Board Chair Donna Leist from Cincinnati, OH said, "US Ambassador Paul Trivelli is the worst of a long line of meddling ambassadors to Nicaragua. He is a guest in that sovereign country. That doesn't give him the right to dictate to them."

Trivelli has been pressuring right-wing parties in Nicaragua to unify behind a single candidate to prevent the election of former Sandinista President Daniel Ortega or former Mayor of Managua Herty Lewites, who split off from the FSLN and is running as the candidate of the Sandinista Renovation Movement.

"The people of the US should be as outraged as the people of Nicaragua," National Co-Coordinator Chuck Kaufman stated. "How would US voters react if the Ambassador of Great Britain told us who we should vote for? I seem to remember that we fought a war to get out from under their thumb."

Kaufman will lead a Nicaragua Network election investigation delegation to Nicaragua June 17-24, 2006 to meet with the parties, groups receiving US funding, and those that aren't. The group will also attempt to meet with US diplomats and will conduct radio and television interviews urging the Nicaraguan people to choose their own president free of US government interference.

The Nicaragua Network has already called for the replacement of Ambassador Trivelli and has other actions US citizens can take listed on its web page www.nicanet.org.

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