zoltan! You say -
>>Reagan is credited with saving Central America. By whom? Just the people who now live there in relative freedom. The people who endorsed Reagan's policy by voting the totalitarian Left out of power when all the Left thought for sure that they would win.<<
I will not say to you what my first instincts were, as it is not your fault that our press distorted the truth as they did. BUT - I was there, a journalist myself, in the winters of 90 and 91. I was in the convention center waiting as a member of the press corps when President Carter convinced Daniel to announce defeat after a large portion of the votes were in. We were stunned. Outside, people were crying.
So you say (and certainly with reason) why did the Nicaraguans vote for Violeta's coalition if they were so sad. Two words, piped on the otherwise-empty streets the next morning by young boys: "U.S. Dollars." It was firmly believed (and by Violeta Chamorro herself, who later turned AGAINST the U.S.) that the embargo would be lifted and U.S. aid would come if only the people voted as the U.S. wanted.
The streets were dead. People LITERALLY hid in their houses out of embarrassment. They had been put under the great boot once more and were forced (so they felt) to vote their pocketbooks.
The aid never came.
And the mothers still mourn the 65,000 boys who died fighting for democracy. Sure, they succeeded in running off the U.S.-backed dictator, Somoza, but they were bankrupt and have been ever since.
And no, Zoltan, we were NOT fighting the communists. Nicaragua HAS a communist party AND a socialist party. They are NOT the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas are, to be sure, leftist, but they are not and never were communists. They loved the U.S. and thought they were following in the footsteps of our founding fathers.
This blood is on Reagan's hands. I KNOW Sandinistas. They gave me protection from the terrorists (Contras) when I traveled to the mountains to see the sweeping changes Daniel had made in getting the water in the villages purified for the people. I know the mothers who lost their sons getting these freedoms for their country. And may Reagan someday rot in hell for what he did, all because the ignorance in our own country allowed him to call the terrorists "freedom fighters" and those fighting for independence the "communists."
"Relative freedom?" That brings a heavy pit to my stomach. I know a woman whose son was pulled out of the house and shot before her eyes by Somoza's National Guard because he had hidden a revolutionary. Then I saw what the Sandinistas had accomplished and attempted to accomplish. I saw the endorsements from Austria, Switzerland, the Scandanavian countries. I saw clinics built for the sick children. I saw them do everything they could do for the people Somoza and the U.S. had left destitute. Literacy climbed at a phenomenal rate, and infant mortality dropped greatly. But Somoza had taken the national treasury with him, and Reagan was determined to crush these people no matter what. They simply ran out of money.
I have the honor of having known Daniel and, to a very mild extent, Sergio. I've talked with Miguel d'Escoto, FATHER Miguel. And hundreds more. These are the most decent people I have ever in my life known.
Why go on? I could write a thousand pages, and people like you would still say, "But them thar commies took help from the reds."
Don't believe everything you hear, Zoltan.
Raven
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