Word: managua
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...showcase of Sandinista popularity is Barrio Riguero (pop. 11,000), an eastern slum neighborhood of Managua that was the scene of serious street fighting against Somoza. Spray-painted revolutionary slogans adorn virtually every ramshackle wall. Pigs root through street trash, and mothers bathe squealing infants in concrete laundry sinks in cramped backyards. A notable change in the landscape, however, is a tiny, spotless health post in the district. In four modest examining rooms, crisply attired nurses provide basic diagnostic and preventive care for anyone who wants it, free of charge...
...caption reads. "The militias are from the people. The pueblo is ready for defense." In secondary schools, liberal disciplines in the Nicaraguan social sciences and humanities have been downgraded or replaced by courses on revolutionary history and Marxist economics and sociology. Even a natural science class at one of Managua's largest public schools includes a lesson on the alleged exploitation of the Third World by multinational corporations...
That newspaper's editors are forbidden to print anything negative about the Sandinistas either at home or abroad; criticism of Cuba, the Soviet Union or any other East bloc country; local stories about unclaimed bodies in the Managua morgue; reports on Nicaraguan unemployment; and news analysis that criticizes both the U.S. and the Soviet Union for their Central American policies. The very mention of censorship is forbidden...
Nicaraguan human rights observers tell a different story. According to the Managua-based Permanent Commission on Human Rights, private ownership in Nicaragua, as codified in Articles 27 and 31 of the Statute on the Rights and Guarantees of the Nicaraguan People, now means only the "right to the use of the land" and to "receive the fruits of some thing not belonging to oneself." The regime has also reneged on promises to respect "responsible" private ownership by passing new decrees allowing the confiscation of property with government-determined compensation for reasons of "public utility." Says a prosperous Nicaraguan cotton farmer...
...chaos that the Sandinista economic measures have spread is one reason for the shortages that have allowed sardonic Nicaraguans to dub Managua "the capital of queues." So far as the Sandinistas are concerned, the problem is simply being called "distribution," meaning a chronic short supply of operating buses and trucks in the country due to a lack of imported spare parts. The government blames that shortage on the U.S. for leading a campaign to cut off Nicaragua's international credit at a time when the country is staggering beneath an estimated $3 billion in foreign debt...