Word: somozas
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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...
...Somoza is easily the most hated man in Nicaragua. In conversations in all parts of the country, held in near-whispers because there are thought to be "orejas." National Guard cars," everywhere, his name is pronounced bitingly, with vengeance. The corpulent dictator is said to own almost everything and to job what he does not own in December 1972 an earthquake leveled several square miles of downtown Managua, killing 10,000 people. Somoza is widely suspected of stealing some of the international aid that flowed into the country after the disaster. (Two years later, the wreckage has been cleared away...
...recent months the criticism of Somoza has become even more bitter. Nicaragua's chronic crisis has been exacerbated by rising food costs, seen by the people as an indication that Somoza is speculating in prices (certainly the shift in rural production from foodstuffs to the more profitable export crop of cotton has contributed to the hike, and Nicaragua's food prices are clearly higher than those in neighboring Central American countries.) Additionally, the housing shortage in Managua remains acute, and a two-month strike of construction workers has halted all rebuilding save that which takes place protected by armed guards...
...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...
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...