U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

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U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

Postby tigre63 » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:00 am

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.nicanet.org/stop_US_intervention.php">www.nicanet.org/stop_US_intervention.php</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br> Stop U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections!:<br>Educate yourself and take action!<br><br>**************************<br><br>WIn November of 2006 Nicaraguans will go to the polls to vote for their president and deputies of the National Assembly. There has been and will be much activity on the part of the US government to assure that the Nicaraguan elections are “fair and democratic.” But what does that really mean?<br><br>As the US spokesperson in Nicaragua, US Ambassador Paul Trivelli has stated many times, the US “will establish cordial relationships with any administration that is elected democratically …that has a reasonable economic policy and is ready to cooperate with us.”<br><br>The present administration has made it clear that a government that is cooperating with the US will do the following: (1) support CAFTA and other free trade policies, (2) participate in all the US requests concerning the war on terrorism, (3) ensure that the Nicaraguan national police receive training that blurs the time-honored distinction between civilian policing and military action, and (4) not maintain friendly diplomatic relationships with either Cuba or Venezuela.<br><br>Ambassador Trivelli goes on to make it clear that the selection of the candidate for the PLC party cannot be former President Aleman, nor anyone he selects and that the election of the FSLN party candidate, Daniel Ortega, will not be accepted by the present US government. Mr. Ortega was the person vilified during the 1980’s when former president Reagan’s administration supported an overthrow of the democratically elected Ortega government. Thus for Nicaraguans the US statements about former president Ortega bring to mind the war and the effects of US intervention.<br><br>Think for a minute how the US people might react if the ambassador from Venezuela felt free to lobby for various candidates and President Chavez of Venezuela were to say consistently during the next up-coming election “If the republican candidate wins, you can be sure that we will cut off all oil to the US.” Not just Republicans would be angry at such interference in our national elections. That’s how Nicaraguans – no matter how they plan to vote – feel about the US government’s interference in the up-coming elections.<br><br>Another concrete way that the US government hopes to influence the Nicaraguan election is through funding a variety of Nicaraguan organizations for election-related projects. In the light of Ambassador Trivelli’s comments, this funding will unfairly influence Nicaragua’s choice of candidates. In the US, laws specifically prohibit financial support from a foreign government for a US candidate.<br><br>Does all of this ensure “fair and democratic” elections? Or does it merely ensure that the politics of the present US government will be supported? If people vote not their conscience but based on fear that the US disapproval of the elected candidate will lead to financial loses within the international financial institutions and potential US economic and military threats, is this democracy at work or is it intimidation?<br><br>While the US government talks of “election monitoring” there are many who believe that we in the US and in Nicaragua should be monitoring the US government’s involvement in the up-coming Nicaraguan elections. Furthermore, we demand that the US government stop interfering in ways that our government and citizens would find completely unacceptable if done to us.<br><br>Please join and<br>(1) Educate yourself about how the US is interfering in Nicaragua and in the elections of other countries. (Go to the following websites for more information: www.NicaNet.org and www.casabenlinder.org )<br>(2) Speak to family, friends, co-workers about the negative effects of this interference.<br>(3) Write a letter to your local paper that questions how US citizens might feel if the situation were reversed and whether this strengthens democracy worldwide or makes the world safer.<br>(4) Write your Senators and Congresspeople, Ambassador Trivelli and other elected officials (See below for a sample letter)<br>#########<br>Omitted the sample letter which can be seen at link at top of page.<br>Heres more on the Nicaraguan election:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/266/1/">upsidedownworld.org/main/...iew/266/1/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

Postby Sepka » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:22 am

Statements such as "If your country does X, our country will do Y" are the foundation of foreign policy, and always have been. Is it Nicaragua's expectation that the United States will pursue a friendly policy towards them whether or not they elect a hostile government? Like the Palestinians, the Nicaraguans can elect who they like. Like every nation on earth, the United States included, they need to be aware that their election choices have practical ramifications.<br><br>-Sepka the Space Weasel <p></p><i></i>
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Re: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

Postby Gouda » Tue Apr 25, 2006 4:01 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Gone Fishing. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Shark and the Sardines </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->was a little book penned by the man not unjustly dubbed “the father of Guatemalan Democracy,” Juan Jose Arevalo. Naturally, the book was penned in exile, as United Fruit and the CIA put a quick end to Guatemalan Democracy after the election of Arevalo’s successor, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1954. The Shark and the Sardines does not concern itself so much with events in Guatemala as with American imperial adventures in Nicaragua (a tale which is continued, with much greater documentation, in Holly Sklar’s <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Washington’s War on Nicaragua</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->). Arevalo’s book is an easy read, and its point is right on, that there can be no talk of treaties or of law generally between a shark (the USA) and sardines (the tiny republics of Latin America). This is true of contracts between giant corporations and real human beings as well. The idea of “equality” between giants and miniscules exists only in the rhetoric of giant-speak, and only when it pleases the giants to so speak. In this light, we might be sardonically grateful to the Bush Administration for being so blatant in their selachianism (sharkness).<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> - J. Blum, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Calumet Review</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, Volume Three, Number One, Winter 2006 <p></p><i></i>
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Re: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

Postby StarmanSkye » Tue Apr 25, 2006 2:35 pm

"Is it Nicaragua's expectation that the United States will pursue a friendly policy towards them whether or not they elect a hostile government?"<br><br>What a remarkably inept grasp of the issues and an astonishing misstatement of facts -- how can anyone REALLY think the US's heavy-handed interference in Nicaragua's elections is nothing but incentives to dissuade Nicaraguans from voting-in a regime 'hostile' to the US? 200 years of US influence and meddling in Nicaraguan politics has caused enormous suffering, entrenching a bureacratic elite noteable for its corruption, repression and non-responsiveness to its citizens' interests and well-being.<br><br>The only thing 'hostile' about an elected Nicaraguan government the US is opposed to would be the US's official response to a regime that attempts to work for the greatest good of its people -- to correct institutionalized inequities and not to maintain exploitive economic relations with special interests and to perpetuate the power of the priveleged ruling class. Like much of Central America where the US has fought proxy wars of neocolonial exploitation, resistance to land reform, free trade, participatory civil society and investments in public infrastructure have led to serious injustices and economic imbalances. This would be readily apparant to anyone sufficiently interested in truth to read an analysis that isn't weighted to US-centric spin. You sure have an odd notion of legitimate US interests and the meaning of sovereignty.<br><br>"Suppose that some power of unimaginable strength were to threaten to reduce the United States to the level of Ethiopia unless we voted for its candidates, demonstrating that the threat was real. Suppose that we refused, and the threat was then carried out, the country brought to its knees, the economy wrecked and millions killed. Suppose, finally, that the threat were repeated, loud and clear, at the time of the next scheduled elections. Under such conditions, only the most <br>extreme hypocrite would speak of a free election. Furthermore, it is likely that close to 100% of the population would succumb. Apart from the last sentence, I have just described U.S.-Nicaraguan <br>relations for the last decade." <br>--Noam Chomsky, The Boston Globe, March 4, 1990 <br><br>The nitty-gritty:<br>Talking Points from the Nicaragua Network <br><br>1. The US government has no right to interfere in Nicaragua's national elections (coming up in 2004 and 2005) as it did in 1984, 1990, 1996, and 2001. Neither Powell or US Ambassador Barbara Moore has any business trying to unite the anti-Sandinista forces and denying the Nicaraguan people their democratic choice of government. <br><br>2. The Sandinistas did not seize power in a coup, as Post writer Peter Slevin states; they took power in a social revolution that toppled the brutal 43-year old, US-backed Somoza dictatorship. <br><br>3. The Sandinista government established Nicaragua's first real democracy. They won the free and fair election of 1984 recognized by all the world with the exception of the United States. They handed over power in the first peaceful transition of government to another party in Nicaragua's history. <br><br>4. The Nicaraguan government when led by the Sandinistas was not a "communist-oriented, state-controlled environment," as Powell said. The three pillars of Sandinista democracy were: 1) A mixed economy, 2) non-alignment, and 3) political pluralism. <br><br>5. The reason Nicaragua had to "print money" in the 1980s was that Somoza had left the national treasury bare and the government was putting schools and clinics in every village and barrio in the nation while the richest country on the earth was conducting a proxy war against it. The <br>World Court found the US guilty of crimes against the peace in 1986 and ordered the payment of reparations estimated by different experts to run between US$12-17 billion in 1986 dollars. The first President Bush demanded withdrawal of the claim for reparations as a condition for aid to Nicaragua to be resumed in 1990. <br><br>6. Powell's self-described efforts to keep contra aid going despite Congressional aid cut-offs make him guilty of the crimes laid out in the World Court verdict and he shares responsibility for the 40,000 Nicaraguan casualties caused by the illegal US contra war. <br><br>The US continues to intervene and distort the elections in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, not to mention around the world. We cannot let outrageous distortions such as Powell made on the flight home from Nicaragua to stand <br>without challenge. <br>****<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.brianwillson.com/awolnicelection.html">www.brianwillson.com/awol...ction.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>A History:<br>How the U.S. Purchased the 1990 Nicaragua Elections <br>by S. Brian Willson <br>1990 <br><br>U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, under President Bush, eagerly testified at his Senate confirmation hearings in January 1989 that covert actions "would not be inappropriate," including provision of "covert support for a political party or candidate to influence the outcome of another's elections." (Los Angeles Times story published in San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 19, 1989). This policy, of course, is consistent with decades of U.S. tampering in various ways in the elections of other countries. Bush's CIA Director William Webster warned of increasing unrest and "coup plotting" in Latin American countries and declared that a bipartisan policy must be developed to <br>support covert action in the region (Los Angeles Times story published in San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 9, 1989). Perhaps Mr. Webster needed to be reminded just how popular bipartisan support for covert action is with the Republicans and Democrats, i.e., the Republocrats. <br><br>These statements set the tone well for President Bush's foreign policy. The same old policy of previous presidents: intervention in various forms violating the sovereignty of other nations. But the <br>level of funding for creating and sustaining the opposition parties in Nicaragua in preparation for its February 1990 elections perhaps exceeded all prior experiences of electoral intervention. The <br>bipartisan openness may also reveal a new confidence in tolerance for "non-lethal" covert and overt intervention. <br><br>Historically the CIA has been influencing numerous foreign elections, such as in Chile, Poland, El Salvador, and Indonesia, to promote regimes supporting U.S. economic or geopolitical interests. In fact the CIA in the past has spent one-third of its covert action budget on "election support" (Village Voice, Feb. 16, 1976, citing a leaked House Select Committee's report of government intelligence <br>activities). More recently, the U.S. created a newer mechanism for carrying out many of these political activities in other countries -- the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Created by Congress in 1983, the Endowment is a private, but publicly funded non-profit group to give grants to those organizations that promote "democracy" overseas. It claims to have already supported the "democratic process" in more than forty countries (New York Times, Sept. 13, 1989). It is run by a board composed of leading Democrats and Republicans. According to ex-contra leader Edgar Chomorro and ex-CIA analyst David MacMichael, both with the Nicaragua Election Monitoring project of the New York-based Institute for Media Analysis, Inc., "NED now carries out overtly the majority of the CIA 's formerly covert political activities." <br><br>The U.S., through the CIA and NED, orchestrated a process to consolidate a number of Nicaragua's opposition parties into a so-called unified effort, the United Nicaragua Opposition (UNO). In attempting to tabulate the total amount of money provided by the U.S. government between 1984-1990 to the "opposition" parties of Nicaragua, one must add up the known covert aid with the identifiable overt funds provided to both the CIA and the NED. If the truth were known, the <br>total might approach $50,000,000. Fifty million dollars in Nicaragua, a country of 3.5 million people as of the mid to late 1980s, is equivalent to $3,550,000,000 in the United States, a country in 1990 of nearly 250 million inhabitants. Over 3.5 billion dollars! During the 1988 U.S. presidential elections, Bush and Dukakis received $46.1 million each in federal campaign financing. When adding up all the campaign costs for the presidential race, 435 races for the House of Representatives, and for the 34 Senate campaigns, it is believed to be well under $500 million. The U.S. is pouring the equivalent of 7 times this amount into tiny Nicaragua. In effect, the U.S. is spending nearly $14 for every Nicaraguan citizen, and $28 for each registered voter. This is an incredible amount. If the total costs of all campaigns during the 1988 U.S. presidential year amounted to $500 million, that would equal $2 for every U.S. resident, or about $2.80 for each eligible voter. <br><br>CIA Funds <br>$13.0 Million -- 1984-1987 for covert political spending inside Nicaragua. Source: Edgar Chomorro, Institute for Media Analysis, Oct. 25, 1989 statement, "High Intensity Political Intervention Replaces <br>Low Intensity Conflict," citing Donald Gregg's now unclassified testimony to Iran-Contra investigators revealing that during Boland Amendment prohibitions, Congressional Intelligence Committees, nonetheless, secretly approved $13 million for such purposes. <br><br>$10-12 Million -- 1987-88 for a covert "political" account designated for Nicaragua opposition activity. Source: Chomorro, Oct. 25, 1989 statement (See above); and Holly Sklar, "Washington Wants To buy Nicaragua's Elections Again," Z Magazine, Dec. 1989. <br><br>$5.0 Million -- 1989 for Nicaragua opposition's "housekeeping costs." Source: Newsweek, Sept. 25 and Oct. 9, '89. <br><br>Total CIA Funds: $28-30 Million <br><br>NED Funds <br>$100,000 -- 1984 to PRODEMCA for La Prensa. La Prensa, a right-wing, pro-Contra daily newspaper, served as the Contras' mouthpiece throughout the U.S.-waged war against the Sandinista government. PRODEMCA was established by the NED in 1984 to primarily coordinate an anti-Sandinista campaign in the U.S. PRODEMCA is an acronym for "Citizens' Committee for the Democratic Forces in Central America." Source: The Central American Fact Book, Barry & Preusch, Grove Press, 1986. <br><br>$200, 000 -- 1984 to PRODEMCA for Nicaraguan Center for Democratic Studies. The Nicaraguan Center was created by the Nicaragua Democratic Coordinating Committee (Coordindrea or CDN), the reactionary coalition that boycotted the 1984 Nicaragua elections under pressure from the <br>U.S. in efforts to delegitimize the election results. The Center trains Nicaraguans "in the skills needed to sustain an independent democratic presence in Nicaraguan life." Source: The Central American Fact Book (see above). <br><br>$50,000 -- 1987-88 to US Information Agency (USIA) to finance speakers to address Nicaraguan groups. Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 5, 1988. <br><br>$1.0 Million -- 1987-88 for trade unions, political parties and other anti-Sandinista efforts. Included was $170,000 for La Prensa. Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 5, 1988. <br><br>$20 Million -- 1988-89 for the internal opposition in Nicaragua. Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 5, I988. <br><br>$3.5 Million -- 1989-90 for NED and/or UNO (National Opposition Union) directly for opposition activity in elections. Many sources citing Congressional appropriations. <br><br>$9.0 Million -- 1989-90 for NED and/or UNO for opposition activity in elections. Many sources citing Congressional appropriations. <br><br>Total NED Funds: $15,850,000 <br><br>The following may or may have been included in the above NED figures: $220,000 -- 1988 from Congress to NED, in turn through Delphi International (Washington, D.C.) to fund La Prensa. Delphi took over NED La Prensa grants in 1986. Delphi also administers NED grants for Nicaraguan broadcast media. Source: Edgar Chomorro, Institute for media Analysis, Oct. 25, 1989, statement, "High Intensity Political Intervention Replaces Low Intensity Conflict." <br><br>$397,000 -- 1988 from Congress to NED, in turn through Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI) to the AFL-CIO to aid non-Sandinista unions. FTUI was established in 1977 by the AFL/CIO to combat perceived left wing trade unions. Source: Chomorro, as above. <br><br>$290, 000 -- 1988 from Congress to NED, in turn through the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) for various indoctrination efforts. NDI is the U.S. Democratic Party's mechanism for receiving NED funds. Source: Chomorro, as above. <br><br>$174,000 -- 1988 from Congress to NED, in turn through the National Republican Institute for International Affairs (NRI) for various indoctrination efforts. NRI is the U.S. Republican Party's mechanism for receiving NED funds. Source: Chomorro, as above. <br><br>$1.5 Million -- Sept. 15, 1989, NED approved this amount for Nicaragua, separate from the $9 million which was scheduled to begin on October 1, 1989 . Source: New York Times, Sept. 29, 1989. <br><br>Total: $2,581,000 <br><br>The NED Grand Total is in the range of $15,850,000 to $18,431,000. <br><br>The CIA plus NED Grand Total is in the range of $43,850,000 to $48,431,000! ($43.85 million to $48.43 million). <br><br>There were 3.5 million Nicaraguan residents in 1990. About 1.75 million registered to vote. The infusion of unspeakable amounts of money, in Nicaraguan peasant terms, for the 1990 election, revealed the following in per capita terms: <br><br>A range of $12.53 to 13.84 for each of Nicaragua's 3.5 million citizens. <br>A range of $25.06 to $27.68 for each of Nicaragua's 1.75 million registered voters. <br><br>Again, a comparison with a U.S. equivalent is instructive to indicate how staggering these figures really are. The ClA plus NED grand total range for Nicaragua has the following U.S. equivalents (the U.S. has 71 times the population of Nicaragua): <br><br>$3,113,350,000 to $3,438,601,000 ($3.1 billion to $3.4 billion) In other words, if the U.S. law would allow funds from other governments to finance U.S. elections (which it definitely does not), <br>a country like the Soviet Union, for example, would have contributed $3.1 billion to $3.4 billion to either the Republicans or Democrats, or a third party, in an attempt to purchase an election whose party winners would reflect the interests of the Soviet Union. I wonder how many citizens, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, upon reflection, would accept the prudence of such policy. Nicaraguan's election laws were changed in 1989 to allow contributions from outside Nicaragua. This policy change was motivated primarily to preempt further U.S. accusations of unfairness in the Nicaraguan election campaign, hoping to remove all possible justifications for continuation of hostile U.S. intervention. It was thought that the U.S. could not cry foul if it had such opportunity to try to buy the election. The U.S. undoubtedly would not have accepted the legitimacy of Nicaragua's election results anyway, if the Sandinistas had won. The U.S. was determined to overthrow the Sandinista Nicaraguan government at all costs. <br><br>It is of further interest to briefly examine part of the UNO budget as it was earlier presented to Congress: $600,000 -- for 20,000 poll watchers <br><br>$140,000 -- for invitations to international observers <br><br>$50,000 -- for UNO "leaders" to travel abroad <br><br>$1.25 Million -- for salaries and benefits to UNO "leaders", including over $335,000 for paid vacations <br><br>$1.35 Million -- for purchase of Toyota jeeps, pickup trucks and buses, and Yamaha motorcycles. (Interestingly, U.S. taxpayers were purchasing Japanese vehicles because the U.S. trade embargo prevented import of U.S. automobiles. One U.S. Congressperson remarked that the <br>opposition could rent 2250 Japanese vehicles a month at $20/day.) <br><br>Total of Miscellaneous for UNO: $3,390,000 <br><br>[Source: Los Angeles Times, Oct. 17, 1989; and Edgar Chomorro statement, Oct. 25, 1989 (see above).] <br><br>Edgar Chomorro, a non-Sandinista Nicaraguan, believed that the decision of the Nicaraguan government to allow U.S. or other foreign monies into the election process was a serious mistake. He articulated four clear points: <br><br>It seriously distorts the integrity of the process. It tends to corrupt individuals and institutions. <br>It creates dependency upon foreign power centers. It is an essential violation of the principle of national sovereignty. The extraordinary U.S. intervention into Nicaragua's election process <br>was only one of three prongs in the U.S. strategy to overthrow the Sandinista led government. The second prong was economic strangulation through the economic embargo and associated U.S.-imposed trade and credit blockades that continued to force most Nicaraguans to suffer <br>significant misery. The U.S. hoped that, in the process, more and more of Nicaragua's citizens would "cry uncle." The third prong, of course, was the continued financial and military support of the Contras as a terrorist military force operating throughout the country. The terrorist campaigns continually caused widespread suffering and damage through ambushes, assassinations of various community leaders, kidnappings and disappearances of other important citizens, and attacks on cooperatives. The Contras intimidated peasants in many areas to either vote for UNO candidates or to abstain during the elections. They did this at gun point. The U.S. continued to fund their terror, even though the Central American Presidents had earlier agreed that, for there to be peace, the Contras were to have completed demobilization by December 5, 1989, two and a half months prior to the scheduled election. <br><br>During 1989, the Bush administration had stated its intention of "keeping the Sandinistas guessing" through secret intelligence operations (New York Times, June 11, 1989) aimed at influencing the election. New monies for the opposition parties were justified in order to "level the playing field" to boost the U.S.-created opposition forces' chance of ousting Sandinista President Daniel Ortega (Miami Herald, Oct. 18, 1989). President Bush had promised in November 1989 that the devastating trade embargo against Nicaragua would be immediately lifted if the U.S.-backed presidential candidate, Violette Chamorro, was elected by a majority of the Nicaraguan people <br>(Washington Post, Nov. 9, 1989). <br><br>The U.S. funding of the Contras in April 1989 to continue to preserve them as a fighting force until after the February 25, 1990 scheduled Nicaragua elections openly defied the Central American peace plan signed August 7, 1989 in Tela, Honduras. These accords required that Contra demobilization be completed by December 5, 1989. Robert Pear of The New York Times (in a story published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 3, 1989) summarized four actions by the U.S. <br>documenting this defiance: <br><br>Government statements that they wanted the Contras to remain intact as a fighting force until after the elections; Active distribution of cash to Contras inside Nicaragua at a rate of $150,000 to $200,000 per month; <br>Government statements that they were aware of movement of large numbers of armed Contras into Nicaragua; and Consciously ignored and allowed Contras to carry out hostile acts they hoped would provoke Ortega to do something "intemperate." I was personally travelling with a small delegation in Nicaragua during December 1989, beyond the mandated December 5 date for completion of Contra demobilization. Visiting nine of Nicaragua's fifteen departments, we documented numerous up-to-the-minute Contra terrorist activities. These included assassinations of FSLN leaders in a number of communities, destruction of a cooperative including the murders of several of its members, and an ambush of a public transport, killing or wounding over 20 civilians. Additionally, a number of the roads we desired to travel on were considered too dangerous due to roving bands of Contras. Furthermore, we learned that the U.S. was continuing regular reconnaissance overflights providing <br>Contras with photographic intelligence of positions of Nicaragua Army units and their transportation patterns. On January 1, 1990, just seven weeks before the elections, the Contras ambushed a vehicle in the Rosita mining region, killing two nuns, one a U.S. citizen, Sister Maureen Connelly from Wisconsin. <br><br>Thus the U.S. intentionally defied the Tela accords, keeping the Contras as a fighting force in violation of international law to remind the Nicaraguans what they would continue to face if the <br>Sandinistas won the elections on February 25. <br><br>Thus it was understandable, though tragic and disappointing, that the majority of voters chose the U.S. candidate in the elections. Ten years of an all-encompassing war that had included sustained economic deprivation as well as military terrorist attacks killing more than 30,000 mostly civilians had worn down the Nicaraguan people. There was a realization that as long as the Sandinistas remained in power, the U.S. embargo and Contra terrorism would never relent in their campaign <br>to overthrow them. President Bush had virtually told them this. Paul Reichler, a U.S. lawyer representing the Nicaragua government at the time, concluded that "Whatever revolutionary fervor the people once might have had was beaten out of them by the war and the impossibility of putting food in their children's stomachs" (L.A. Weekly, March 9-15, 1990). <br><br>Some critics of U.S. policy depressingly warned that this electoral coup d'etat in the context of a ten-year terrorist war, was a future "blueprint" for successful U.S. intervention in the Third world. The <br>Pentagon agreed, declaring, "It's going right into the textbooks" (Jacqueline Sharkey, "Anatomy of An Election: How U.S. Money Affected the Outcome in Nicaragua," Common Cause Magazine, May/June 1990) <br>______________ <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Nicaragua_KH.html">www.thirdworldtraveler.co...ua_KH.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br>Nicaragua 1981-1990 <br>Destabilization in slow motion excerpted from the book Killing Hope <br>by William Blum <br>***** <br>When the American military forces left Nicaragua for the last time, in 1933, they left behind a souvenir by which the Nicaraguan people could remember them: the National Guard, placed under the direction of one Anastasio Somoza ... Three years later, Somoza took over the presidency and with the indispensable help of the National Guard established a family dynasty which would rule over Nicaragua, much like a private estate, for the next 43 years. While the Guardsmen, consistently maintained by the United States, passed their time on martial law, rape, torture, murder of the opposition, and massacres of peasants, as well as less violent pursuits such as robbery, extortion, contraband, running brothels and other government functions, the Somoza clan laid claim to the lion's share of Nicaragua's land and businesses. When Anastasio Somoza II was overthrown by the Sandinistas in July 1979, he fled into exile leaving behind a country in which <br>two-thirds of the population earned less than $300 a year. Upon his arrival in Miami, Somoza admitted to being worth $100 million. A US intelligence report, however, placed it at $900 million. <br>It was fortunate for the new Nicaraguan leaders that they came to power while Jimmy Carter sat in the White House. It gave them a year and a half of relative breathing space to take the first steps in <br>their planned reconstruction of an impoverished society before the relentless hostility of the Reagan administration descended upon them; which is not to say that Carter welcomed the Sandinista victory. <br><br>In 1978, with Somoza nearing collapse, Carter authorized covert CIA support for the press and labor unions in Nicaragua in an attempt to create a "moderate" alternative to the Sandinistas. Towards the same end, American diplomats were conferring with non-leftist Nicaraguan opponents of Somoza. Washington's idea of "moderate", according to a group of prominent Nicaraguans who walked out on the discussions, was the inclusion of Somoza's political party in the future gvernment and "leaving practically intact the corrupt structure of the somocista apparatus", including the National Guard, albeit in some reorganized form. Indeed, at this same time, the head of the US Southern Command (Latin America), Lt. General Dennis McAuliffe, was telling Somoza that, although he had to abdicate, the United States had "no intention of permitting a settlement which would lead to the destruction of the National Guard". This was a notion remarkably insensitive to the deep loathing for the Guard felt by the great majority of the Nicaraguan people. <br>***** <br>After the Sandinistas took power, Carter authorized the CIA to provide financial and other support to their opponents. At the same time, Washington pressured the Sandinistas to include certain men in the new government. Although these tactics failed, the Carter administration did not refuse to give aid to Nicaragua. Ronald Reagan was later to point to this and ask: "Can anybody doubt the gnerosity and good faith of the American people?" What the president failed to explain <br>was: <br>a) Almost all of the aid had gone to non-governmental agencies and to the private sector, including the American Institute for Free Labor Development, the long-time CIA front. <br>b) The primary and expressed motivation for the aid was to strengthen the hands of the so-called moderate opposition and undercut the influence of socialist countries in Nicaragua . <br>c) All military aid was withheld despite repeated pleas from the Nicaraguan government about its need and right to such help-the defeated National Guardsmen and other Supporters of Somoza had not, after all, disappeared; they had regrouped as the "contras" and maintained primacy in the leadership of this force from then on. <br><br>In January 1981, Ronald Reagan took office under a Republican platform which asserted that it "deplores the Marxist Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua". The president moved quickly to cut off virtually all forms of assistance to the Sandinistas, the opening salvos of his war against their revolution. The American whale, yet again, felt threatened by a minnow in the Caribbean. <br>Among the many measures undertaken: Nicaragua was excluded from US government programs which promote American investment and trade; sugar imports from Nicaragua were slashed by 90 percent; and, without excessive subtlety but with notable success, Washington pressured the <br>International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, and the European Common Market to withhold loans to Nicaragua. The director of the IDB, Mr. Kevin O'Sullivan, later revealed that in 1983 the US had opposed a loan to aid Nicaraguan fishermen on the grounds that the country did not have adequate fuel for their boats. A week later, O'Sullivan pointed out, "saboteurs blew up a major Nicaraguan fuel depot in the port of Corinto", an act described by an American intelligence source as 'totally a CIA operation''. <br><br>Washington did, however, offer $5.1 million in aid to private organizations and to the Roman Catholic Church in Nicaragua. This offer was rejected by the government because, it said, "United States congressional hearings revealed that the [aid] agreements have political motivations, designed to promote resistance and destabilize the Revolutionary Government.'' As Nicaragua had already arrested members of several of the previous recipient organizations such as the Moravian Church and the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) for involvement in armed plots against the government. <br><br>The Reagan administration was not deterred. Cardinal Miguel Obando and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua received hundreds of thousands of dollars in covert aid, from the CIA until 1985, and then-after official US government aid was stopped by congressional oversight committees-from Oliver North's off-the-books operation in the White House basement. One end to which Obando reportedly put the money was "religious instruction" to "thwart the Marxist-Leninist policies of the Sandinistas''. <br><br>As part of a concerted effort to deprive the Nicaraguan economy of oil, several attacks on fuel depots were carried out. Contra/CIA operations emanating in Honduras also blew up oil pipelines, mined the waters of oil-unloading ports, and threatened to blow up any approaching oil tankers; at least seven foreign ships were damaged by the mines, including a Soviet tanker with five crewmen reported to be badly injured. Nicaragua's ports were under siege: mortar shelling from high-speed motor launches, aerial bombing and rocket and machine-gun attacks were designed to blockade Nicaragua's exports as well as to starve the country of imports by frightening away foreign shipping. In October 1983, Esso announced that its tankers would no longer carry crude oil to Nicaragua from Mexico, the country's leading supplier; at this point Nicaragua had a 10-day supply of oil. <br><br>Agriculture was another prime target. Raids by contras caused extensive damage to crops and demolished tobacco-drying barns, grain silos, irrigation projects, farm houses and machinery; roads, bridges and trucks were destroyed to prevent produce from being moved; numerous state farms and cooperatives were incapacitated and harvesting was prevented other farms still intact were abandoned because of the danger. <br><br>And in October 1982, the Standard Fruit Company announced that it was suspending all its banana operations in Nicaragua and the marketing of the fruit in the United States. The American multinational, after a century of enriching itself in the country, and in violation of a contract with the government which extended to 1985, left behind the uncertainty of employment for some 4,000 workers and approximately six million cases of bananas to harvest with neither transport nor <br>market.' <br><br>Nicaragua's fishing industry suffered not only from lack of fuel for its boats. The fishing fleet was decimated by mines and attacks, its trawlers idled for want of spare parts due to the US credit blockade. The country lost millions of dollars from reduced shrimp exports.' <br><br>It was an American war against Nicaragua. The contras had their own various motivations for wanting to topple the Sandinista government. They did not need to be instigated by the United States. But before the US military arrived in Honduras in the thousands and set up Fortress America, the contras were engaged almost exclusively in hit-and-run forays across the border, small-scale raids on Nicaraguan border patrols and farmers, attacks on patrol boats, and the like; <br>killing a few people here, burning a building down there,' there was no future for the contras in a war such as this against a much larger force. Then the American big guns began to arrive in 1982, along with the air power, the landing strips, the docks, the radar stations, the communications centers, built under the cover of repeated joint US-Honduran military exercises, while thousands of contras were training in Florida and California. <br><br>US and "Honduran" reconnaissance planes, usually piloted by Americans, began regular overflights into Nicaragua to photograph bombing and sabotage targets, track Sandinista military maneuvers and equipment, spot the planting of mines, eavesdrop on military communications and map the terrain. Electronic surveillance ships off the coast of Nicaragua partook in the bugging of a nation. Said a former CIA analyst: "Our intelligence from Nicaragua is so good ... we can hear the toilets flush in Managua." <br><br>Meanwhile, American pilots were flying diverse kinds of combat missions against Nicaraguan troops and carrying supplies to contras inside Nicaraguan territory. Several were shot down and killed.' Some flew in civilian clothes, after having been told that they would be disavowed by the Pentagon if captured. Some contras told American congressmen that they were ordered to claim responsibility for a bombing raid organized by the CIA and flown by Agency mercenaries. Honduran troops as well were trained by the US for bloody hit-and-run operations into Nicaragua ... and so it went ... as in El Salvador, the full extent of American involvement in the fighting will never be known. <br><br>The contras' brutality earned them a wide notoriety. They regularly destroyed health centers, schools, agricultural cooperatives, and community centers-symbols of the Sandinistas' social programs in rural areas. People caught in these assaults were often tortured and killed in the most gruesome ways. One example, reported by The Guardian of London, suffices. In the words of a survivor of a raid in Jinotega province, which borders on Honduras: "Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off, and their eyes poked out They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit." <br><br>Americas Watch, the human-rights organization, concluded that "the contras systematically engage in violent abuses ... so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war." <br><br>In November 1984, the Nicaraguan government announced that since 1981 the contras had assassinated 910 state officials and killed 8,000 civilians. The analogy is inescapable: if Nicaragua had been Israel, and the contras the PLO, the Sandinistas would have long before made a <br>lightning bombing raid on the bases in Honduras and wiped them out completely. The United States would have tacitly approved the action, the Soviet Union would have condemned it but done nothing, the rest of the world would have raised their eyebrows, and that would have been the end of it. <br><br>After many contra atrocity stories had been reported in the world press, it was disclosed in October 1984 that the CIA had prepared a manual of instruction for its clients which, amongst other things, <br>encouraged the use of violence against civilians. In the wake of the furor in Congress caused by the expose, the State Department was obliged to publicly condemn the contras' terrorist activities. <br>Congressional intelligence committees were informed by the CIA, by present and former contra leaders, and by other witnesses that the contras indeed "raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children" and that "groups of civilians, including women and children, were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded". These were the same rebels whom Ronald Reagan, with his strange mirror language, called "freedom fighters" and the "moral equal of our founding <br>fathers". (The rebels in El Salvador, in the president's studied opinion, were "murderers and terrorists".) <br><br>The CIA manual, entitled Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare, gave advice on such niceties as political assassination, blackmailing ordinary citizens, mob violence, kidnapping, and blowing up public buildings. Upon entering a town, it said, "establish a public tribunal" where the guerrillas can "shame, ridicule and humiliate" Sandinistas and their sympathizers by "shouting slogans and jeers". "If ... it should be necessary ... to fire on a citizen who was trying to leave the town," guerrillas should explain that "he was an enemy of the people" who would have alerted the Sandinistas who would then "carry out acts of reprisals such as rapes, pillage, destruction, captures, etc." <br>**** <br>In January 1983, the so-called Contadora group, composed of Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela, began to meet periodically in an attempt to still the troubled waters of Central America. Rejecting at the outset the idea that the conflicts of the region could or should be seen as part of an East-West confrontation, they conferred with all the nations involved, including the United States. The complex and lengthy discussions eventually gave birth to a 21-point treaty which dealt with the most contentious issues: civil war, foreign intervention, elections, and human rights. <br><br>Then, much to Washington's surprise, on 7 September 1984 Nicaragua announced its intention to sign the treaty. <br>***** <br>The American ambassador to Costa Rica likened Nicaragua under the Sandinistas to an "infected piece of meat" that attracts "insects." President Reagan called the country a "totalitarian dungeon", and insisted that the people of Nicaragua were more oppressed than blacks in South Africa. <br><br>Members of the Kissinger Commission on Central America indicated that Nicaragua under the Sandinistas was as bad or worse than Nicaragua under Somoza. Henry Kissinger believed it to be as bad as or worse than Nazi Germany. Reagan was in accord-he compared the plight of the <br>contras to Britain's stand against Germany in World War II. <br><br>"Central America," noted Wayne Smith, former head of the US Interests Section in Havana, "now exercises the same influence on American foreign policy as the full moon does on werewolves. <br><br>So all-consuming, so unrelenting, was the hatred, that Kissinger demanded that the American ambassador to Nicaragua be removed simply because he reported that the Sandinista government was "performing fairly well in such areas as education". And in the wake of the terrible devastation in Nicaragua wrought by Hurricane Joan in October 1988, the Reagan administration refused to send any aid nor to help private American organizations do so. <br><br>So eager was the State Department to turn the Sandinistas into international pariahs, that it told the world, without any evidence, that Nicaragua was exporting drugs, that it was anti Semitic, that it <br>was training Brazilian guerrillas. When the CIA was pressed about the alleged Sandinista drug connection, it backed down from the administration's claim. <br><br>Secretary of State Alexander Haig referred to a photograph of blazing corpses and declared it an example of the "atrocious genocidal actions that are being taken by the Nicaraguan Government" against the Miskito Indians. We then learned that the photo was from 1978, Somoza's time. <br>***** <br>By the time the war in Nicaragua began to slowly atrophy to a tentative conclusion during 1988-89, the Reagan administration's obsession with the Sandinistas had inspired both the official and <br>unofficial squads to embrace tactics such as the following in order to maintain a steady flow of financing, weaponry and other aid to the contras: dealings with other middle-eastern and Latin American terrorists, frequent drug smuggling in a variety of imaginative ways, money laundering, embezzlement of US government funds, perjury, obstruction of justice, burglary of the offices of American dissidents, covert propaganda to defeat domestic political foes, violation of the neutrality act, illegal shredding of government documents, plans to suspend the Constitution in the event of <br>widespread internal dissent against government policy ... and much more, as revealed in the phenomenon known as Iran/Contra ... all of it to support the band of rapists, torturers and killers known as the Contras. This then, was the level of charm reached by anti-communism after 70 <br>years of refinement. The imperial sensibility of America's leaders could be compared favorably with that of Britain circa 1925. But it worked. <br><br>On 25 February 1990, the Sandinistas were defeated in national elections by a coalition of political parties running under the name National Opposition Union (UNO). President George Bush called it "a victory for democracy"... Senator Robert Dole declared that "The final outcome is a vindication of the Reagan policies."... Elliott Abrams, former State Department official and Iran/Contra leading light, said "When history is written the contras will be folk heroes.'' The opposing analysis of the election was that ten years of all-encompassing war had worn the Nicaraguan people down. They were afraid that as long as the Sandinistas remained in power, the contras and the United States would never relent in their campaign to overthrow them. The people voted for peace. (As the people of the Dominican Republic had voted in 1966 for the US-supported candidate to forestall further American military intervention.) <br><br>"We can't take any more war. All we have had is war, war, war, war," said Samuel Reina, a driver for Jimmy Carter's election monitoring team in Juigalpa. In some families "one son has been drafted by the Sandinistas and another has joined the contras. The war has torn families apart.'' <br><br>The US invasion and bombing of Panama just two months earlier, with all its death and destruction, could only have intensified the commitment of hardcore Sandinistas to resist yanqui imperialismo, but it could not have failed to serve as a caution to the large bloc of undecided voters. <br><br>The Nicaraguans were also voting, they hoped, for some relief from the grinding poverty that five years of a full American economic embargo, as well as the war, had heaped upon their heads. Commented Paul Reichler, a US lawyer who represented the Nicaraguan government in Washington at the time: "Whatever revolutionary fervor the people once might have had was beaten out of them by the war and the impossibility of putting food in their children's stomachs.'' <br>.. For ten years the people of Nicaragua had shouted [the] slogan-"Here, no one gives up." But in February 1990, they did exactly that. (Just as the people of Chile had chanted "The people united will never be defeated", before succumbing to American power.) <br><br>The United States had more than war and embargo at its disposal to determine the winner of the election. The National Endowment for Democracy spent more than $11 million dollars, directly and <br>indirectly, on the election campaign in Nicaragua. This is comparable to a foreign government pouring more than $700 million dollars into an American election, and is in addition to several million dollars more allocated by Congress to "supporting the electoral infrastructure, and <br>the unknown number of millions the CIA passed around covertly. <br><br>As a result of a controversy in 1984-when NED funds were used to aid a Panamanian presidential candidate backed by Noriega and the CIA-Congress enacted a law prohibiting the use of NED funds "to finance the campaigns of candidates for public office." The ways to circumvent the letter and/or spirit of such a prohibition were not difficult to conceive. NED first allocated millions to help organize <br>UNO, building up the parties and organizations that formed and supported the coalition. Then a variety of other organizations-civic, labor, media, women's, etc.-run by UNO activists received grants for all kinds of "non partisan" and "pro-democracy" programs, for voter education, voter registration, job skills, and so on. Large grants made to UNO itself were specified for items such as office equipment and vehicles. (Rep. Silvio Conte of Massachusetts pointed out that the $1.3 million requested for vehicles would pay for renting 2,241 cars for a month at $20 per day.) UNO was the only political party to receive US aid, even though eight other opposition parties fielded candidates. Money received by UNO for any purpose of course freed up their own money for use in the campaign and helped all of their candidates. Moreover, the US continued to fund the contras, some of whom campaigned for UNO in rural area. <br><br>Afterwards, critics of the American policy in Nicaragua called it "a blueprint" for successful US intervention in the Third World. A Pentagon analyst agreed: "It's going right into the textbooks. <br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=starmanskye>StarmanSkye</A> at: 4/25/06 12:41 pm<br></i>
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Re: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

Postby Gouda » Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:13 pm

The Politics of Imperialism<br>Neoliberalism and Class Politics in Latin America<br>By James Petras<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/petras11132004.html">www.counterpunch.org/petras11132004.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>***<br><br>How United States Intervention Against Venezuela Works<br>Part 1 of 3: Summary, CIA Electoral Interventions, and Nicaragua as a Model for Venezuela <br>by Philip Agee <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1548">www.venezuelanalysis.com/...artno=1548</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>***<br><br>The Nature of CIA Intervention in Venezuela<br>Interview with Philip Agee<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://globalresearch.ca/articles/AGE503A.html">globalresearch.ca/articles/AGE503A.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections

Postby tigre63 » Tue Apr 25, 2006 4:16 pm

Why does the US government care so much about a government in Nicaragua that will capitulate to its demands?<br><br>Could it have something to do with the US corporations doing business there?<br><br>Heres just one horror story about corporate involvement in Nicaragua.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1992/42/42p18b.htm">www.greenleft.org.au/back...42p18b.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>US pollution sold to Nicaragua<br><br>By Jack Colhoun<br><br>The Olin Corporation shipped the last of 15 mercury cells from its closed chlor-alkali plant in Niagara Falls, N.Y., to the Electroquimica Pennwalt, S.A. (ELPESA) plant in Managua, Nicaragua, in early December. The closed facility was one of the plants that poured tons of toxic chemicals into the notorious Love Canal dump.<br><br>Olin moved its Niagara Falls operation from the closed facility -- which used an outdated, polluting mercury-cell electrolysis process to produce sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, or lye) and chlorine -- to a new plant nearby that uses less polluting technology.<br><br>The sale is part of a pattern, according to a recent Greenpeace report. Faced with growing public environmental awareness at home, US corporations are installing safer technology in domestic plants and selling their obsolete equipment to Third World countries.<br><br>“The history of the ELPESA plant is a casebook example of the hazards of the transfer of hazardous technology from the US to Latin America”, said the report, “Niagara to Nicaragua: The Transfer of Hazardous Technology to Latin America”.<br><br>“The import of old Olin mercury cells potentially represents another disgraceful chapter in the hideous contamination of Lake Managua, Nicaraguan workers and the surrounding community”, it concluded. “This sale should not be allowed to justify the continued operation of the ELPESA plant.”<br><br>The Nicaraguan government announced on September 30 that the plant would be closed. The plant, which manufactures about half of the sodium hydroxide and liquid chlorine sold in Central America, is a notorious polluter. Opened in 1968, it has dumped 40 tons of mercury into Lake Managua, turning it into one of the world's most polluted lakes. The venting of poisonous chlorine gas into the air has also caused respiratory problems among local residents.<br><br>Greenpeace warned in the report that ELPESA hopes the sale will lead President Violeta Chamorro's National Environmental Commission to reverse its decision to close the plant.<br><br>“Olin reports that the cells will be used for replacement parts at the ELPESA plant, and claims that this equipment will help ELPESA `upgrade' its plant. ELPESA is pointing to this purchase as justification for continued operations”, the report said. “In fact, the equipment is old. Moreover, the technology involved ... is inherently the most polluting method of caustic soda production, and ELPESA's toxic impact will continue to be severe despite the import of Olin's used equipment.”<br><br>In the mercury cell process, an electric current from two mercury electrodes is passed trough concentrated salt water. Sodium hydroxide collects at one electrode and chlorine at the other. Greenpeace asserts that other technologies, using trona, a sodium carbonate ore, can produce sodium hydroxide without using mercury and producing<br><br>The Environmental Movement of Nicaragua, joined by Greenpeace and the Nicaragua Network, is calling on ELPESA to return the mercury cells to Olin.<br><br>“The ELPESA mercury nightmare resulted from the [original 1968] licensing of the dirty mercury process from Olin, and the total disregard for environmental protection and worker health by [the US-based] Pennwalt and other ELPESA owners”, the Greenpeace report stated.<br><br>Pennwalt once owned 40% of ELPESA, but sold its share to Nicaraguan investors in the mid-'80s, according to a spokesperson for Atochem North America Inc. Atochem is a subsidiary of the French petrochemical giant Elf Aquitaine, which took over Pennwalt.<br><br>Chuck Kaufman of the Nicaragua Network called Olin's sale of toxic technology yet another form of deadly US intervention in Nicaragua.<br><br>“Soon after Chamorro took office, Nicaragua was flooded with offers to serve as a dumping ground for US toxic waste”, Kaufman recalled. “Now US companies are exporting equipment that is so polluting they aren't allowed to use it in this country.”<br>[From the US Guardian.] <p></p><i></i>
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