From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: The Crimes of Nicaragua: Using Resources to benefit the Majority
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 09:54:55 GMT

The Crimes of Nicaragua: Using Resources to benefit the Majority

...not U.S. corporations and investors as under Somoza's dictatorship,
as other the U.S.-backed "democracies" which starve their populations
and slaughter students, cooperative members, human rights workers,
unionists, church workers, etc, with government sponsored "death
squads"... 

---

"Achievements in health care have also been great. 80,000 volunteers
were trained in preventative medicine. One result was a 50% drop in
malaria. The incidence of measles, a prime killer  of children in
Somoza's day, decreased from 3,784 in 1981 to 219 in 1982. Effective
use of oral rehydration techniques has led to a dramatic decline in
deaths from diarrhea. The percentage of the national budget spent on
health has increased 600%"

[...]

The Sandinista's commitment to political empowerment of the poor has
brought them into conflict with some of the country's large
landowners and businessmen. As Peter Marchetti, a Jesuit
sociologist, explained, "The Sandinistas are saying to the economic
elite, `We'll protect your private property, but you can no longer
translate wealth into political power. The great majority of our
people are very poor. This is a government that is going to respect
their needs.' And some members of the small, wealthy sector don't
like that."


From Oxfam America, _Facts for Action_ [September, 1983];
"Nicaragua: Development Under Fire"

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   "Fifty years of lies, fifty years of injustice, fifty
   years of frustration. This is a history of people starving
   to death, living in misery. For fifty years the same
   people had all the power, all the money, all the jobs, all
   the education, all the opportunities.  Those who did not
   have anything tried to take it away from those who had
   everything. But there were no democratic systems available
   to them, so they have radicalized themselves, have
   resorted to violence.  And of course this second group,
   the rich, do not want to give up anything, so they are
   fighting."

--Former president Jose Napoleon Duarte, in a 1980 interview, when
asked about the origins of the conflict in El Salvador; Raymond
Bonner, the interviewer, was surprised by Duarte's sympathetic
explanation for the revolution, and added:

 "But what struck me more...was what he [Duarte] had not said.  He had
 said nothing about Castro or Cuba. He had not mentioned the
 Sandinistas or Nicaragua.  There was no talk of the cold war and the
 Soviet Union. (Duarte was to raise those themes later, when they
 reflected the views of the Reagan administration in Washington) What
 Duarte was saying was that the revolution had been caused and fueled
 by the conditions in El Salvador"

[see New York Times Magazine, Feb.  22, 1981; see also Bonner's book
_Weakness and Deceit:U.S. Policy and El Salvador_ (New York:Times
Books, 1984), page 24] [[source and reference from: "What Are We
Afraid Of?" by John Lamperti; look up in the file "groups"]]

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[Use GET command with FMLN BACKGRND for a copy of the file from which
this later quote is excerpted. Use GET with OXFAM84 NICXARAG for the
Oxfam Report]
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            =============================================
            T h e   " N i c a r a g u a   L i b r a r y "
            =============================================

*
* =========
* Nicaragua
* =========
*
  WHO-WERE CONTRAS    Contras' origins; make-up; practices - documented
  FSLN     H-RIGHTS  Documented HRs comparison w/Somoza,Guat,ES,others
  FSLN     MISKITOS  Sandinista treatment of Miskitos;Charges & Realit
  FSLN     NICAJEWS  Debunks charges of Sandinista 'Anti-Semitism'
*
  OXFAM84  NICARAG   Oxfam America's 1984 report on Nicaragua, in full
  FSLN     ACHIEVE   Documented: achievements of the Nica. revolution
*
  NICA-84  ELECTION  Documented: Fair under Sandinistas; US subversion
  FAIRNESS NICA-USA  Flwup:`Is Nicaragua More Democratic than the US?'
  NICRAGUA ELECTION  Study in US subversion of '90 Nicaraguan election

NOTE:

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