[This analysis prepared by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs]Last April, the Nicaragua Network, a Washington-based solidarity group, “condemned” the intervention of U.S. Ambassador Paul Trivelli in Nicaragua’s election process. Arnold Matlin, of Nicanet’s board of directors, asserted that “what the U.S. government is doing in Nicaragua would be illegal if a foreign government tried to do it in the U.S.” The April 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations supports Matlin’s assertion, providing that representatives or diplomats “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that state” to which they may be assigned. But regardless of international law, the U.S. has rarely felt constrained over intervening in the internal affairs of many countries, and for 150 years Nicaragua has borne the brunt of more interventions than almost any other country in this hemisphere. However, it is far from being alone.