Word: somozaism
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This is not to say that the picture was rosy in pre-revolutionary Nicaragua. Although there may have been a relatively more stable economy and a higher per-capita income, wealth was concentrated in the hands of the Somozistas and the ruling elite that backed Somoza's corrupt and repressive regime. But the ten years of Sandinista rule undeniably increased the overall poverty of the country. This was what Chamorro--in Washington this week to plead for more aid--has pledged to reverse. This is what she has failed...
Most important, Chamorro must free private businesses from the exorbitant taxes and arbitrary regulations begun under Somoza and extended under the Sandinistas. "Reform" will do little to alleviate Nicaragua's overall poverty if promised foreign aid reinforces the prerevolutionary maldistribution of wealth. If aid comes without a freer business climate, small firms and small farmers will suffer at the expense of a retrenchment of the upper class returning from exile...
...work of their deceased husbands. Aquino is the widow of Benigno Aquino Jr., Ferdinand Marcos' most bitter rival, who was assassinated in August 1983; Chamorro is the widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the newspaper publisher whose murder in 1978 led to the downfall of the brutal Anastasio Somoza regime. During her 1988 election campaign, Bhutto never ceased alluding to the legacy of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was executed in 1979 by the military government she was then fighting to succeed. She titled her autobiography Daughter of Destiny. Ousted in a constitutional coup in August, Bhutto may once again...
...wealthy cattle-ranching family, Violeta Barrios enjoyed a charmed girlhood that included private schooling in Texas. She plunged abruptly into the teeming currents of Latin politics in 1950 when she wed Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the crusading, ambitious publisher of the daily La Prensa. His opposition to Nicaragua's Somoza family dictatorship frequently landed him in jail. While raising their four children, Violeta also carried food to Pedro's cell and smuggled notes to his confederates...
...husband's assassination on a Managua street in 1978, widely pinned on Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ignited the popular outrage that a year later brought the Sandinistas to power. Exploiting Violeta's symbolic value as the widow of a martyr, the victorious rebels persuaded her to join a coalition junta. She accepted but soon fell out with Ortega and his fellow Marxists. Chamorro left the government in 1980 and became publisher of La Prensa. The job automatically made her the most prominent and vociferous enemy of the Sandinistas in the country...