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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!daemon
- From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
- Subject: Nicaragua: Myth versus Reality (I)
- Message-ID: <1992Aug24.033937.19657@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Sender: news@mont.cs.missouri.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
- Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 03:39:37 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 79
-
-
- It has been brought to my attention that, faced with the unpleasant
- facts I recently posted using World Bank and other figures which
- demonstrate just how much of "Sandinista mismanagement" turns out to
- be billions of dollars of damage inflicted by our tax-dollars on a
- three million person country, and how much has to do with the
- U.S.-backed dictator Somoza having left the country with one of the
- world's highest per-capita debts (hence "one of the richest countries
- in the region" as described by Scherzer), the apologists for U.S.
- terror against Nicargua have changed the subject.
-
- Those who are tempted to believe in the sincerity of the apologists
- should note how quickly they return, as soon as those of us posting
- the relevant data step away, to the lies about the fairness of
- Nicaragua's 1984 election, human rights, and so on; further evidence
- of how genuine the "then why is ???"/"then show me ..??" inquiries are
- is suggested by the present reaction.
-
- The Sandinistas "were no different from the other dictators" of
- Nicaragua we learn from people who are well aware, from the post in
- question, if not earlier, that the U.S.-backed dictator Somoza was
- helped out of the country as the ninth richest man in the world, and
- (just prior to being forced to flee the country) whose family owned a
- quater of Nicaragua's land, "plus banks, ports, newspapers, airlines,
- a shipping fleet, and many industries" (Oxfam America, 1984) -- the
- Ortega brothers would no doubt be very surprised to discover their
- fortunes.
-
- Actually, there are great similarities between the former U.S.-backed
- line of Somoza dictatorships and Nicaragua under the Sandinistas; when
- the dictator Somoza was forced to flee the country, he bombed the
- schools, hospitals, factories, and housing" (no doubt helping make
- Nicaragua "one of the richest countries in the region") while the
- "proxy" army [as internal U.S. documents referred to them] of contra
- terrorists would blow up health clinics, schools, and so forth, the
- familiar pattern, in a strategy to destroy the very substantial
- achievements of the revolution which had Washington extremely nervous
- given "the threat of a good example" Nicaragua could provide to the
- impoverished citizens in neighboring countries enjoying the fruits of
- U.S.-style "democracy," by Nicaragua's use of it's resources for the
- benifit of its citizens' health, education, and general welfare, not
- the multinational corporations. The similarities between Nicaragua and
- the U.S. death-squad "demoracies" extend to the habbit of the contras
- of kidnapping, raping, torturing, and murdering literacy volunteers,
- health-care providers, members of farmer cooperatives, teachers, and
- so on; "there can be no doubt, on the basis of what we heard and saw,
- that a planned strategy of terrorism is being carried out by the
- contras along the Honduras border" as observed by the chairmen of
- Americas Watch and Helsinki Watch, after a personal visit to study the
- "great divergence between President Reagan's rhetoric and the
- conclusions of the [Americas Watch] report" on contra atrocities.
- [Orville Schell and Robert Bernstein, Wall St. Journal, April 23,
- 1985.]
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
-
- It is of course most ironic to hear that the Sanidinistas were "no
- different from" Somoza in light of the fact that the 45-year
- dictatorship of the Somoza family enjoyed the support of Washington,
- whose infamous National Guard Washington tried to preserve in favor of
- revolution in Nicaragua to prevent the Sandinista-led revolutionaries
- from coming to power, followed by the long and well-decomented
- creation, training, and funding of the "proxy army" to sow terror in
- Nicaragua along with economic sanctions desiged to make Nicaragua "cry
- uncle" [Reagan's fine words] to force Nicaragua back to the fine
- "regional standards" of the horror-chambers of Guatemala, El
- Salvador, and Honduras, not to mention the pleasing state of things in
- Nicaragua under the Somoza dictatorship -- for Washington.
-
- The most important disinformation to de-bunk, however, is precisely
- about the achievements of the revolutions, for it is here that we come
- to understand Washington's deep hatred and need to excise the "cancer"
- in Nicaragua. I will program a series on this matter as I bid a sad
- farewell to reading the gems of the UseNet apologists for a while, but
- one item brought to my attention deserves attention first.
-
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