Word: somoza
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...BEEN MORE THAN 130 years since Cornelius Vanderbilt purchased exclusive right of way across the narrow strip of land that separates Atlantic and Pacific in Nicaragua. It has been 46 years since General Anastasio Somoza Garcia took control of the Nicaraguan National Guard from the United States Marines and promptly ordered the murder of nationalist hero Augusto Sandino. And it has been several months now since the front pages of America's newspapers sported gory tales of the thousands of civilian deaths that the same National Guard caused in the wake of the massive but unsuccessful popular uprising that racked...
...victims range from the scores of young men who have been picked up by the Guard only to turn up lifeless on some roadside the next morning, to the five children who tried two weeks ago to stage a hunger strike in support of the opposition to General Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the President and dictator, to the guy from Cedar Rapids who taught at the American school in Managua and was killed last weekend...
THIS EXODUS is part of a much wider American flight from the country, one that reflects, after 45 years of unwavering support for the corrupt Somoza family dynasty, the ambivalence which now characterizes Washington's attitude towards the aging general and his oppressive policies...
...late 1976, Somoza's image in this country had so deteriorated that he hired the New York public relations firm of Norman, Lawrence, Patterson, and Farrell, Inc. to shore it up. And although the State Department cited the Nicaraguan government for several human rights violations in the early days of President Carter's May 1977 crusade, 12 million dollars in economic aid in 1977 and 1978 were nevertheless added to a total of more than $300 million that Nicaragua has received from the U.S. government since the second World War. The reason was that some of Somoza's powerful friends...
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, the National Guard's quelling of September's revolt cost 5,000 lives (Somoza claims it took 1,000). Leading the Guard's raid of resistance center Leon was Somoza's 27-year-old son, Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero '73, who many claim is being groomed to replace his father at the head of the Guard and the country. "Tachito," as he is called, was promoted last month to Lieutenant Colonel after reportedly ordering the shooting of Red Cross ambulance drivers who had helped the opposition...