From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: "Sandinista Mismanagement": care of Washington (I)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 04:58:36 GMT


    "So enormous was the devastation left as Somoza's final legacy
    that a World Bank Mission concluded in October 1981 that "per
    capita income levels of 1977 will not be attained, in the best of
    circumstances, until the late 1980s" and that "any untoward event
    could lead to a financial trauma." There were, of course,
    "untoward events," [...]

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[From _Decline of the Democratic Idea_ by Noam Chomksy, Z magazine]

Nicaragua also attempted to maintain its trade links with the
U.S. and the West, and succeeded in doing so through the
mid-1980s despite U.S. efforts.  But Washington naturally
preferred that they rely on the East bloc, to ensure maximal
inefficiency and to justify the attack on these "Soviet clients."
The U.S. also blocked aid from international development
organizations, and, after failing to displace the FSLN, sought to
destroy private business in Nicaragua to increase domestic
discontent and undermine the mixed economy (a major and predicted
effect of the Reagan embargo, and the reason why it was bitterly
opposed by the Nicaraguan opposition that the U.S. claimed to
support). {note: Walker, _Nicaragua: The Land of Sandino_
(Westview, 1986), 67f.; Michael Conroy, in Walker, ed., _op.
cit._; _La Prensa_ (Managua), April 20, 1988, and Stephen Kinzer,
"Anti-Sandinistas Say U.S. Should End Embargo," _NYT_, Jan. 12,
1989.}

So enormous was the devastation left as Somoza's final legacy
that a World Bank Mission concluded in October 1981 that "per
capita income levels of 1977 will not be attained, in the best of
circumstances, until the late 1980s" and that "any untoward event
could lead to a financial trauma." There were, of course,
"untoward events," but such facts do not trouble the ideologues
who deduce Sandinista responsibility for the subsequent economic
debacle from the doctrinal necessity of this conclusion.  A
standard rhetorical trick, pioneered by the Kissinger Commission,
is to "demonstrate" Sandinista economic mismanagement by
comparing living standards of 1977 to those of the eighties, thus
attributing the effects of the U.S.-backed Somoza terror to the
Marxist-Leninist totalitarians. {note: Conroy, _op. cit._}

[...]

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From Noam Chomsky's _Decline of the Democratic Ideal_
Z magazine, 1991.

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