Word: somoza
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Nicaragua has been torn by strife ever since Sandinista guerrillas overthrew the U.S. backed government of Anastasio Somoza three years ago. The United State, has tried to undermine the leftist government by providing covert aid to rebels fighting the Sandinistas...
Borge is a leader of the Sandinista movement which gained control of the Nicaraguan government in 1979 after deposing U.S. backed Anastasio Somoza. He first took part in guerilla activities in 1958, and spent nine months in prison, in 1977 and 1978. Since the revolution, Borge has played a major role in the Socialist government...
Were Cardenal a former Somoza follower, his arguments could easily be dismissed. But the counterre volutionary is part of a growing number of anti-Somoza Nicaraguans fighting the Sandinistas. And Cardenal argues that these "freedom fighters" deserve the backing, not the hostility or indifference, of the United States...
...Carter Administration is partly to blame for the current state of affairs, Cardenal believes. While Carter was instrumental in pressuring Somoza to step down, he did little to insure that moderates succeeded the dictator. A power-vacuum evolved, Cardenal claims, not unlike the one in 1917 Russia, and "the wrong people took the prize." What Cardenal cannot understand is Congress' reluctance to put pressure on the Sandinistas. "The United States did the right and noble thing getting rid of Somoza. Why all this hesitation about the Sandinistas? It is the same problem...
...Sandinista regime, counterrevolution is not necessary--yet. Overthrowing the Sandinistas must be seen as a policy of last resort, to be contemplated only after all other means of change have been attempted. For despite the authoritarian nature of the regime, it is a ten-fold improvement over Somoza and Co.: great strides have been made in education and literacy and torture is no longer a fact of life...