Nicaragua: the home of poetry and spectacular geography or the home of war and dangerous crime? How is it that the simple word Nicaragua conjures up visions of violence and suffering for the foreigner before a visit and memories of beautiful culture and nature on the airplane ride home? Why does Nicaragua suffer such a negative image? Is it justified? While guiding visitors to Nicaragua over the last 8 years, customers have related to me that before departure from their home country, at least 95% of the ones from North America, and more than 70% from Europe were shown serious concern by family and/or friends about safety issues for a visit to Nicaragua. The polar opposite of Nicaragua in the international traveler’s mindset is our southern neighbor Costa Rica. According to a recent independent study, of all North American travelers who were interested in visiting Central America, 91% of them said that Costa Rica was the place they would “really like to go to” or “like to go to”. Of the same travelers when asked to describe Nicaragua, 47% said “unstable” and another 20% said “dangerous”, while only 13% said “friendly”.

Nicaragua is poor. 40 years ago Nicaragua’s wealth was greater than Taiwan and 25 years ago it was superior to Costa Rica. However, societal freedom and strong economies have not traditionally been great dance partners in Latin America. In the 20th century Nicaragua lived 45 years of a Somoza family dictatorship in Nicaragua that was very good for international business and trade and very bad for liberty and democracy. In the end freedom triumphed with the popular overthrow of Somoza, thanks to the revolution of 1978-79 lead by the FSLN and fought by a diverse cross-section of Nicaraguan society. The cost was high on both a human and economical level.

Despite the war being won by broad-based coalition, after the victory, another dictatorship, the FSLN (or Sandinistas) quickly consolidated power and personal freedoms suffered once again. When the reality set in that real democracy was not achieved by the popular victory against Somoza, some of the heroes of the revolution returned to the mountains to fight once again, this time against the new Sandinista Government. Three years later, when the US began to finance the rebels and installed ex-Somoza National Guard leaders to direct them, they became know as the “Contras”, their border insurgency as the “Contra War”. Unlike the revolution against Somoza, the anti-Sandinista guerilla war was fought in limited areas of the country, but the world-wide controversy that surrounded its funding buried Nicaragua’s international reputation in infamy.

Meanwhile the lethal combination of a US economic embargo, Sandinista economic policies and spending to combat the Contras, destroyed Nicaragua’s economy. A peace pact was finally signed and in 1990 the Sandinistas lost in general elections, and they democratically handed over power to Violeta Chamorro. Many of the former rebels from both sides of the 1980’s conflict fence became wealthy and/or successful businessmen. Economic interests of the Sandinista leaders and aggressive disarmament policy gradually solidified peace in Nicaragua, which was fully in place by the end of 1995. Poverty, however, remained well entrenched.

For comparison, UNICEF’s 2001 gross national income per capita figures are revealing. They list the USA at $34,870 per capita as the world’s second highest standard. Costa Rica is one of the wealthier countries per capita in Latin America at US$3,950, while Nicaragua rates a measly US$420 per capita. World statistics generally list Nicaragua as the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere behind Haiti. Much of the problem revolves around Nicaragua’s external debt. Foreign debt stands at US$6.5 billion, a mere pittance for many countries, but a giant ball and chain for Nicaragua, who’s annual GDP is only US$2 billion. In 2004 Nicaragua appears very close to being pardoned of 75% of this external debt by the IMF, which would relieve Nicaragua of its unenviable current status as proportionally the most indebted country on the planet.

One could rightfully imagine that a decade of war and the resulting poverty would create a miserable population, desperate and depressed, turning to crime, with waves of social unrest triggering subsequent government repression. If only Nicaragua was not the country where “lead floats and cork sinks” as the popular saying goes, this might be true. However in Nicaragua things are not as the world would likely expect or imagine them to be.

One quick measure of any populace’s happiness is suicide rates. Surely such an impoverished and war-weary people might be inclined to pull the plug, throw in the towel. Suicide rates according to the World Heath Organization in Nicaragua are 6.9 per 100,000. However, wealthy southern neighbor Costa Rica’s rate is higher, at 11.8 per 100,000. Both pale in comparison with the really wealthy countries like the USA at 21.7, Australia at 26.3 or France at 35.5, not to mention Switzerland at 36.5 or Japan at 50.6 per 100,000.

So money does not necessarily buy happiness, but it should keep crime down. Crime statistics are a shaky business, the more efficiently a country reports their crimes the further they slide down in the safety rankings, but it does prove useful as a reference point. According to Interpol in 2001, crime rate per 100,000 was 9,927 for England, 7,736 for Germany, 4,161 for the USA and 1,750 for Nicaragua. Could Nicaragua be home to less than half the crime in England or Germany?

Murder rates are a popular measure for a country’s level of violent crime and are more reliable than most, as murders rarely go unreported. The world’s homicide rate is currently estimated at 8.86 per 100,000. Latin America is quite a bit rougher, with an average of 22.9 murders per 100,000 in the region. Most neighbor countries of Nicaragua in Central America are on the upper end of the world’s scale, exactly where the world might expect Nicaragua would be located. Countries like El Salvador at 117 per 100,000, Guatemala at 45 per 100,000 and Honduras at 41 per 100,000. In North America, the US murder rate is 7.1 per 100,000, yet its famously violent cities weigh in at 14.8 per 100,000 for Los Angeles, 21.9 for Chicago, 31.7 for Atlanta, with Washington, D.C. at 41.8 and New Orleans at 43.3. Little Costa Rica, the “oasis of peace”, is at 7.2, the same as the US and significantly safer than most other Central American republics. What about Nicaragua? Nicaragua suffers only 3.4 per 100,000, making it the least violent country in Central America and one of the safest in all the hemisphere.

Could it be that Nicaragua is safe because it is actually a police state that has come down hard on the population, locked everyone up? Incarceration rates suggest otherwise. The USA leads the world in prison inmates with a staggering 682 per 100,000 in jail. Canada has 123 per 100,000, Scotland 119 and Germany 96, while Nicaragua has only 57 per 100,000 imprisoned. How about on a regional level: comparing Nicaragua vs. Central America in total inmates? Honduras has 9,816 inmates under key, El Salvador 9,378, Guatemala 7,834, Costa Rica 5,542 and Nicaragua at 3,913. Perhaps it is Nicaragua’s police? Do they have menacing, heavily armed forces that guard the country with intimidating 24 hour patrols? Police officers per thousand statistics rate Italy at 5.3 police per thousand, Spain at 4.7, Germany at 4.4, El Salvador at 2.6, Costa Rica with 2.5 and Nicaragua with 1.2 police per thousand. What those numbers don’t show is that Nicaragua’s small police force is also largely unarmed. In fact more than half of Nicaraguan police do not carry firearms at all.

Today Nicaragua has the smallest military in Central America at 14,000 men. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Nicaragua’s military is shrinking at a rate that puts it as number 129 out of 132 countries in world rankings for military growth with a minus -75% growth rate. This compared with Mexico whose armed forces are growing at a rate +49%, or the extreme of Colombia at +130%. In fact Nicaragua ranks behind peaceful Holland in soldiers per 1,000 people.

In a regional armed forces spending comparison published in the 2002 CIA factbook, Mexico spends US$4 billion on military annually, while Central American neighbors Guatemala and Costa Rica spend US$120 million and US$69 million per year respectively. In contrast, Nicaragua spends only US$26 million annual.

This endless barrage of statistics, percentages and numbers gets very tiresome and they do nothing to demonstrate the Nicaraguan people’s interminable sense of humor, warmth and hospitality. Nor do the statistics highlight Nicaragua’s love for poetry or their amazing, daily reinvention of the Spanish language. The percentages do little to reveal Nicaragua’s unique cultures of dance, music, and great food. These are all qualities that carry no numerical value. If in Nicaragua the probable seems impossible and the impossible extremely likely, it is thanks to her unique people. No writer can do them proper justice with a long list of numbers. Some qualities can only be felt, experienced first hand. Only a visit to Nicaragua can provide that pleasure.