Word: sandinistas
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Nicaragua's youth has become the focus of an increasingly tense struggle between zealots in the ruling Sandinista movement and those less eager to support the Marxist-led revolution. The trouble has been building since the government announced that all men between the ages of 17 and 22 would be required to register for armed service. Those who refused ran the risk of being imprisoned for up to two years, while anyone who employed an unregistered man was liable to heavy fines. Nonetheless, only 100,000 people, half of those eligible, signed...
...large part, it thus fell to the 25,000-strong "Sandinista Youth" to improve the statistics. Searching restaurants, pouncing on moviegoers and stopping public buses, they assaulted recalcitrant males, verbally and sometimes physically, to boost registration. Meanwhile, pro-Sandinista professors threatened unregistered students with expulsion from school. Said a nervous student: "If I disagreed with them [the Sandinista Youth], I would be lynched. If not lynched, I would be denounced as a counterrevolutionary...
...Catholic Church, to which 90% of Nicaraguans belong. The church has refused to endorse enforced participation in an army that, it feels, is indistinguishable from the ruling party. It has spearheaded a campaign for conscientious objection, maintaining that no Nicaraguan should be punished for withholding his support from the Sandinistas. In response, Sandinista-run mobs have vandalized twelve churches, canceled processions and occasionally forced the postponement of Masses. Eight young Catholics, accused of organizing antidraft protests, were arrested by authorities at gunpoint; two priests were deported on the same charge...
...meeting between the governing junta and the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, Ortega declared with satisfaction that "the church would never side with any invaders." But it does not follow that the church, and the reluctant draftees it supports, will necessarily side with the government. At the Fonseca memorial, Sandinista National Directorate Member Victor Manuel Tirado-López issued an ominous warning. "Anyone who acts like a counterrevolutionary," he thundered, "will be dealt with accordingly. Even if he wears a clergyman's habit...
...DOES HE? The story unfolds with Price and a radio broadcaster, the beautiful Claire Stryder (Cassidy), off in search of Raphael, the charismatic Sandinista leader (who is fictionalized for the film to personality the spirit of the opposition). It becomes increasingly clear that things aren't so simple as Price thought--that just through the execution of his job (or the non-execution of it) Price will have an effect on the outcome of the struggle. Not to give too much away, but what if those pictures Price was taking casually one day in a Sandinista stronghold got into...