Word: somozaism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nicaragua is even more extreme than the general case, for here is a dynasty, the Somoza family, has dominated the country for over 40 years and cornered wealth and power to an extent considered extreme even by Latin American standards. The dynasty's founder. Anastasio Somoza Garcia, took power in 1933 with the help of United States Marines and held it until he was assassinated in 1956. Since then, his two sons have taken turns as president and commander of the National Guard. Nicaragua's euphemistically named combination army and secret police force, which the United States aids and helps...
...released by a Cuban news agency staffer in Buenos Aires. The verse, which describes President Nixon and Junta Leader Augusto Pinochet as "hyenas ravening/ Our history," is a hoax. Apparently Buenos Aires leftists "updated" a Neruda poem from the 1950s, changing the names of Latin American Dictators Trujillo, Somoza and Carias to Nixon, Frei (Allende's predecessor as president) and Pinochet...
Parochialism. The pre-Christmas quake has revived the old rivalries. To illustrate its contempt for the efficiency of Somoza's Managua-based administration, Granada sent out its own ham radio call for aid; sure enough, a few days later a plane from Houston landed at Las Mercedes loaded with food and medical supplies marked for transshipment to Granada. On a less parochial level, many Nicaraguans agree with Managua Architect Samuel Barreto that a new capital should be located elsewhere if only to "spread the life of the nation throughout the country...
...odds are that the new capital will be built-perhaps with wider streets and lower, quake-resistant buildings -on the rubble of the old. Survivors are already starting to return to their jobs; 70% of the Managua area's industry survived the quake. Somoza's dreams of a $1 billion reconstruction effort may not be farfetched; the first trickle of what promises to be a torrent of foreign aid began last week with a $12.5 million loan from the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank. Says Wendell Belew, Commercial Affairs attache in the U.S. embassy: "We might even...
Perhaps. But the operative fact now, as Nicaraguan Public Works Minister Cristobal Rugama describes it, is simply that "everyone here loves Managua, especially now that it is a shrine." That apparently goes for General Somoza too. "I'm not moving," he told me late one night. "I built my house according to specifications so that it would stand up in quakes. There's only one crack in my house. Why should I move...