Word: nicaragua
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Parallels can also be drawn between the KGB and Nicaragua's General Directorate of State Security (DGSE), which keeps effective tabs on the population. Armed with emergency powers that enable security police to detain virtually anyone for any length of time without charges, the DGSE is intimidating, although it is less repressive than the security apparatus in some other Latin American countries. "It is the primary instrument utilized to consolidate the revolution," says a Western diplomat. "Its objective is to identify and neutralize counterrevolutionaries and prevent and neutralize the development of an internal front...
Despite the Sandinistas' promise to permit political pluralism, Nicaragua's opposition parties have found it difficult to communicate their messages to the public. Last month, for example, six parties issued a document proposing a cease-fire, an end to the state of emergency and a new schedule for elections. The proposal was censored from La Prensa, the country's only nongovernment newspaper, which regularly has stories excised by Interior Ministry watchdogs...
...moment, that role is claimed by Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, the popular leader of Nicaragua's Roman Catholic Church. The Sandinistas have tried to muffle Obando and his followers. Church bashing has become a favorite sport of the two official newspapers, and both Radio Catolica and the Catholic printing press have been shut down in recent months. Priests have been hauled in for interrogation and offered the option either to leave the country or to sign up with the army. Last January, after the Cardinal delivered a letter to the United Nations charging the Sandinistas with attempting to "neutralize...
...even more pressing hardship is the military draft. Since Nicaragua imposed its first ever draft two years ago, tens of thousands of young men have been called into service. To evade the draft, many have fled the country. Last October the government added a military-reserve draft that enrolls men between the ages of 25 and 40. Many of these men have families, and they fear that they will be called into active combat. "When they give you a uniform and a pair of boots," says Walter Caracas, 27, a graphics designer in the government craft department, "you know...
...however, the contras prove that they are a force that can seriously threaten the Sandinistas, attitudes may shift. "At cockfights in Nicaragua, most people won't make a bet until one cock is already bleeding and close to losing the fight," says a Western diplomat. "Nicaraguans want to be on the safe side with the winner. In this war, the people will join in only when the final outcome is absolutely clear to everybody." In the meantime, most will endure, sacrifice and fence-sit as best they...