Word: somozaism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...President's position swung full circle since he backed the deadweight Shah in the showdown in Iran a few months ago. In an act of rare decisiveness, Carter made it clear to President Anastasio Somoza that despite his appeals, the only aid he could hope for from the U.S. was as a refuge...
That empire grew from a modest beginning. When he seized power in 1933, Tacho's father, Anastasio Somoza García, had only a near bankrupt coffee farm to his name. Little by little, he added to his holdings. If he saw a plantation he admired, for example, Somoza García made its owner an offer he dared not refuse, usually about half the property's real value. Often as not, the owner presented the land as a gift. By the time of his assassination in 1956, Somoza García was worth about $150 million...
...profit. Moving into the banking field with ownership of the Banco de Centroamerica, he heavily mortgaged his properties in Nicaragua in order to make available large amounts of cash. These funds were then shuttled through a network of interlocking companies in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Through such maneuvering, Somoza acquired his mansion in Miami Beach, which is officially owned by a company based in the Virgin Islands, two posh condominiums in Coconut Grove for his estranged American-born wife Hope, and a luxurious apartment for his girlfriend Dinorah Sampson. Besides this choice real estate, Somoza's enterprises include...
...Somoza's greed eventually cost him the support of Nicaragua's business elite. After the 1972 earthquake that leveled Managua and killed 10,000 of its residents, Somoza began moving into areas that the dynasty had previously left untapped. He set up a company that held a monopoly on supplying paving stones for miles of new roads in the capital. Moreover, Tacho and his cronies made killings by selling land to the government that was used for new developments to replace the residential areas that the quake had destroyed...
...Somoza talked of saving Nicaragua from Communism; in fact, he was plundering the country for his own benefit. Among the companies that he controlled was a Mercedes-Benz dealership that sold garbage trucks to Managua's sanitation department. Another firm collected the revenues from the city's parking meters. Such risk-free opportunities, of course, are no longer available to Somoza. But between the assets that he and his mistress brought with them into exile, there could be enough to rebuild his empire all over again, albeit on a lesser scale...