Word: nicaragua
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...revolution in Nicaragua was settled by negotiations in 1979 in which the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas, who had driven Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle into exile, agreed to share power with the moderates. But from the beginning the pluralism failed. The government and, crucially, the army were dominated by the Sandinistas. Moderates were forced out of office, or quit in frustration. Says a ranking military analyst: "Only the Sandinistas came out on top. If I had the least hope that a negotiated settlement would produce a tolerable government [in El Salvador], I'd want to help them...
...factions demand a complete purge of the current military leadership because of its ties to the old ruling oligarchy and the savage right-wing "death squads" that still roam the country. Whatever group takes charge of the country's firepower-as the Sandinistas did from the outset in Nicaragua-will be able to impose its will on the rest of the country...
...HAVE to get out the facts we have so that people at least will agree on what's happening down there," a State Department spokesman explained in the middle of last week's Administration media extravaganza on the Communist threat in our own backyard: Nicaragua and El Salvador. Once the naive electorate is enlightened, "then we can worry about getting them [that's us] to accept the policy [presumably U.S. intervention]," the official added...
Nineteen-year-old Orlando Jose Tardencillas proudly confirmed that he had voluntarily joined rebel troops in El Salvador after fighting to overthrow the Somoza regime in his native Nicaragua. He denied, however, ever having been to Cuba or Ethiopia and said that he had been coerced into that lie by U.S. officials after his capture by Salvadoran National Guardsmen last year. Describing brutal torture in a Salvadoran government jail, he said that U.S. Embassy representatives offered him a simple choice: "They gave me an option. They said I could come here or face certain death. All my previous statements about...
...death threat cannot possibly be classified under "Thoughtful Argumentation" in the State Department hand-book. Even if the young man had recited his lines on cue, would that have proved he was telling the truth or that the Salvadoran civil war can be attributed to Communist infiltration via Nicaragua...