From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.culture.latin-america,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Nicaragua: Myth versus Reality (I)
Date: 24 Aug 92 03:43:48 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB


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.]

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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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Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.guns