Washington Post Pens Outlandish Piece on Nicaragua
Editorial: Nicaragua's Creeping Coup
Monday, October 3, 2005
Washington Post (they're so left wing it's scary)
MANY PEOPLE outside Latin America probably assume Daniel Ortega's political career ended 15 years ago when his ruinous attempt to install a Marxist dictatorship in Nicaragua ended with an election he decisively lost. (Umm, spot the contradiction in line 1? How can a dictatorship lose and election? And for folks who forgot, it was Ortega who ENDED a particularly bloody 40-year dictatorship of Samoza with the overwhelmings support of the people, only to have the US created Contra's extend a savage war for 8 more years. Ortega's party established and won subsequent elections fair and square)...
Thanks to the weakness of the country's new democratic institutions, Mr. Ortega is close to regaining power and to broadening the Latin alliance of undemocratic states now composed by Cuba and Venezuela. (Now the Post is calling Venezuela undemocratic, with more elections and public ratifications in a shorter period of time than in the nation's history - and probably Latin America's as well)....
The left-right alliance (between Ortega and (rightist) Liberal Party head Mr. Aleman)has used its majority in the National Assembly to rewrite the constitution and stack the Supreme Court. (It is true that constitutional amendments have been passed that shift the balance of power from an almost imperial presidency to the legislature. It is also true that many people in Nicaragua, especially on the Left, do not support the Ortega-Aleman pact. Those who do support the legislative changes comprise 86 of 94 members of the National Assembly. A good argument can be made that these ammendments end the "winner take all" approach under the previos system. What is clear is that these are issues of self-determination and no one's business outside Nicaragua.)
The Sandinistas will have plenty of money to spend, thanks to Hugo Chavez. Mr. Ortega recently announced that he had arranged with Venezuela's self-styled "Bolivarian revolutionary" for a supply of subsidized oil." (Total lie. Venezuela is providing below market gasoline to Nicaragua, just as it is doing to the US communities affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and most regional countries. The subsidized gasoline in Nicaragua is being allocated exclusively to the bus and taxi cooperatives which serve the greater part of the population unable to afford a private car. Neither Daniel Ortega nor the FSLN controls the distribution of that gasoline.)
Read the whole dispicable piece here.
Read the truth about Nicaragua here.
posted by leftside at
10:34 AM
4 Comments:
Great article. Was this an editorial? Who is calling Chavez undemocratic, David Dreier? Rick Santorum? President Bush.
I will post this on my blog sometime.
Thanks for this entertaining and intellectual exercise, to go through the quoted MSM article, a polished 'cover story' analise it and then refute it, line-by-line. One can catch the professional wordsmiths, how they execute their deceptions or lies for the order of their paymaster. It reminds me, how the spider weaves his net. There are anchorlies holding the entire construction together and little lies, or nearly invisible slipped or false assumptions to fill the gaps.
The sandinistas looted the government shortly before they were ousted and so did Aleman. Thieves and vagabonds...
You'll support any thief just because he's socialist?
From RaceandHistory.com
There was hope in 1990 that the FSLN would be able to maintain itself as a true opposition party, would be able to rule from below as a Party of the people. These hopes were dashed by the greed and power trips that splintered the party. The maquila system in the free trade zones was put in place, the market was penetrated by cheap goods from the US, and small farmers were put out of business and forced to leave their land. During the 1990's, Nicaragua's land, resources and people were for sale and many of the leaders of the FSLN took their piece of the action.
In 1996, the plunder accelerated with the election of Arnoldo Aleman, who won the Presidency over the FSLN candidate, once again Daniel Ortega. By this time, there was severe disillusion in Nicaragua about the leadership of Ortega. In 1998, Daniel was accused of having committed years of sexual abuse and harassment by his step-daughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez. He denied the allegations, and did not allow a full hearing or investigation of the charges. The FSLN became divided over those who supported (believed) Zoilamerica and those who supported Daniel at any cost. Ortega stood firm, stonewalled, and turned to Aleman for support. They fashioned a "pact" which provided both Aleman and Daniel with constitutional immunity against any criminal charges, and allowed the Aleman project of corruption to continue. After Aleman left office in 2001, his immunity from prosecution was stripped from him, and he was tried and convicted on multiple charges of corrupt practises. It was revealed that he stole over a $100 million while in office. (http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/2005/0705.html)
I encourage folks to read the rest of the article. Unfortunately, even socialists are human and subject to corruption! But some will defend them to the death no matter what crimes they commit.
I have found some reports of state-owned land and cars being "looted" by Party faithful after the 1990 election loss, but it appears rather insignificant compared to the wholesale rampages the Samoza mercenaries and national guard orchestrated before they left power (after 60 years of US support for the Samoza familia). Thousands of children and teenagers killed in the streets indiscriminately. Even the Miami Herald could not deny it, as they and every other Westerner was robbed blind in the last days of Samoza. Your piece here refers to maquilas, which were put in place by the right-wingers to encourage investment. When no foreign money came in, things were bought up by powerful individuals, some connected to the Sandanistas, most by the right however.
The loss of the Nicaraguan revolution is the fault of the US, not Ortega. From reagan's first day he decided to ignore his expert's advice and wage war rather than try to coax the Sandanistas into moderate policies. And guess what the intervention was based on "charges that later turned out to be severely distorted," according to the National Security Archive (http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/niessayx.htm).
It was this war with the US funded and controlled Contras that made ecnomic progress impossible, though many social advances were made. Later, sabotage against important government facilities (oil, port, communications, etc.), a stiff embargo and US pressure vs. other countries had an even more devastating effect. But the time the election came in 1990 (where the US spent more per voter than they do in the US) and Bush claimed (4 days prior to the election) that a Sandanista win would mean a continuation of war, the pre election polls reversed dramatically and the revolution was voted out because of understandable war fear and fatigue.
Aleman is corrupt and many leftists disagree with any kind of pact with him, even if it will lead to FLSN victory again. I don't know enough to judge political tactics. We will see how it all ends up.
But the US' recent threat to withold billions of just recently promised debt relief and aid, seems not too distant from previous US threats of war. And it should not make any of us proud to interfere in the internal Constitutional affairs of another democrtic country, 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and supposed Communist threat.
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