From: v134p7ut@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Alysia S Christiani)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: "Totalitarianism" in Nicaragua
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:55:00 GMT
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: University at Buffalo
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In article <1992Sep25.084323.18887@mont.cs.missouri.edu>, harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator) writes...
>"Totalitarianism" in Nicaragua
> 
>"Under the totalitarian Sandinistas, foreigners were permitted to
>forge a political coalition based upon the terrorist force they
>created to attack the country and to pour millions of dollars into
>supporting it.  Foreigners engaged in what the World Court condemned
>as "the unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua were nevertheless
>allowed to fund a major newspaper that called for the overthrow of the
>government and openly identified with the terrorist forces pursuing
>these ends, proxies of the foreign power funding the journal.
> 
>Under these totalitarians, such foreigners as Jeane Kirkpatrick and
>U.S.  Congressmen were permitted to enter the country to present
>public speeches and news conferences calling for the overthrow of the
>government by violence and supporting the foreign-run terrorist
>forces. "Human Rights" investigators accompanied by contra lobbyists
>posing as "experts" were permitted free access, along with journalists
>who were scarcely more than agents of the foreign power attacking the
>country.  Nothing remotely resembling this record can be found in
>Western democracies; in the United States, Israel, England, and other
>democracies, such freedoms would be inconceivable, even under far less
>threat, as the historical record demonstrates with utter clarity.
> 
>From:          ===================================
>               T h e   D e c l i n e   o f   t h e
>                 D e m o c r a t i c   I d e a l
>               ===================================
>                By Noam Chomsky, Z magazine, 3/90
> 
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>Email: harelb@math.cornell.edu for more about Z magazine.
> 
> 
>A proximate excerpt:
> 
>AP reporter Candice Hughes filed an interesting report from
>Bluefields on the Atlantic Coast, where "Anti-communism runs
>deep, a legacy of the region's ties to the Yankees who mined its
>gold, cut its lumber, fished its waters, and to the missionary
>fervor of the Moravians and the Capuchin priests who educated its
>children"; a well-known center of opposition to the Sandinistas
>with close ties of travel and trade with the United States, so
>much so that "anti-Cuban riots erupted when the government
>announced plans to send in more teachers" in 1980.
> 
>A Cuban medical brigade has been working in Bluefields, "15 idealistic
>envoys of a revolution becoming isolated and stale," along with a
>construction brigade that is building 5,000 homes to replace those
>destroyed in Hurricane Joan (which devastated the region, eliciting
>aid from Cuba and U.S. citizens who are non-Americans by _Times_
>standards, but few others).  The Cubans are living in a complex they
>built that will become a university when they leave.  They stayed home
>after the elections, and "Bluefields got a taste of life without the
>Cubans," as "things fell apart" at the hospital and construction
>stopped.
> 
>"After two days, community leaders went to the Cubans and persuaded
>them to return to work, reassuring them they were not only safe, but
>desperately needed.  The experience converted all but the most fervent
>anti-communists in Bluefields," the Nicaraguan doctor who directs the
>local hospital said: "People changed colors like chameleons." Hughes
>reports that "today, many Bluefilenos dread the Cubans' departure,"
>which "would strip Nicaragua's isolated South Atlantic coast" of its
>major medical services and "would shatter the vision" of the "sturdy
>new homes replacing shacks flattened by Hurricane Joan." {note: AP,
>March 18, 1990.}
> 
>Yet another Nicaraguan reaction is described by _Times_ reporter
>Larry Rohter, in a typically bitter and scornful condemnation of
>the "internationalists," who carry out such despicable activities
>as fixing bicycles and distributing grain "to child care centers
>and maternity clinics," and who intend to continue "serving the
>vast majority of workers and peasants whose needs have not
>diminished," an activist in the Casa Benjamin Linder says.
>Rohter quotes Vice President-elect Virgilio Godoy, who says that
>the new government will keep a close eye on these intruders: "we
>are not going to permit any foreigner to interfere in our
>domestic political problems." {note: Rohter, _NYT_, March 13,
>1990.}
> 
>[...]
> 
>But now, at last, totalitarianism is yielding to freedom, so
>Nicaragua will no longer tolerate "interference" from foreigners
>who have the wrong ideas about how to contribute to reform and
>development, foreigners who are not working for the violent
>overthrow of the government but rather are supporting the only
>mass-based political force in the country.
> 
>In short, freedom in Nicaragua is over, so, naturally, "Americans
>are United in Joy." Again we see exactly what is meant by
>"freedom" and "democracy" in the elite political culture.
> 
>[One of the sections of _The Decline of the Democratic Ideal_ is
>called "United In Joy" based on a New York Times headline about the
>1990 election's outcome --HB]
>
> 
>            =============================================
>            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
> 
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