{news} Fw: USGP-INT Twenty Years After Iran-Contra, Washington¹sle In Nicaragua Still a Scandal

[Justine McCabe]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Julia Willebrand" <julia.willebrand at verizon.net>
To: <usgp-int at gp-us.org>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 4:38 PM
Subject: USGP-INT Twenty Years After Iran-Contra, Washington¹s Role In 
Nicaragua Still a Scandal



I hope Steve Herrick will keep us informed about post election results in
Nicaragua.



Twenty Years After Iran-Contra, Washington¹s Role In Nicaragua Still a
Scandal

By Mark Weisbrot
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This column was distributed to newspapers by McClatchy-Tribune Information
Services on Thursday, November 2, 2006. If anyone wants to reprint it,
please let me know.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Imagine Osama bin Laden visiting the United States ten or 15 years from now,
telling Americans who to vote for if they want to avoid getting hurt. It
would never happen, but in Nicaragua something very similar is happening in
the run-up to their election on November 5.

Former US Lt. Col. Oliver North, who helped organize and raise funds for a
terrorist organization that decimated Nicaragua in the 1980s, returned to
that country¹s ground zero in late October to warn the citizens there
against re-electing Daniel Ortega.

Ortega first came to power in a 1979 revolution led by the Sandinistas,
which overthrew the brutal Washington-backed dictatorship of Anastasio
Somoza. The Somoza family had ruled the country since US Marines invaded and
occupied Nicaragua from 1927-1933.

But the US Central Intelligence Agency soon brought guns and money to the
enforcers of the toppled dictatorship, Somoza¹s hated National Guard. Before
long these re-named ³contras² were killing health care workers, teachers,
and elected officials ­ the CIA actually prepared a manual which advocated
the assassination of the latter. The contras preferred attacking these ³soft
targets² rather than the national armed forces. In that sense they were very
much a terrorist organization; they also used torture and rape as political
weapons.

These atrocities brought the contras universal condemnation from humans
rights groups such as Amnesty International and Americas Watch. The
Sandinistas took the United States to the World Court for its terrorist
actions few years earlier, for the taking of American hostages. The court 
ruled in
favor of Nicaragua, ordering reparations estimated at $17 billion.

The heinous nature of these crimes and the direct involvement of the Reagan
Administration disgusted millions of Americans, even more so after Ortega
was democratically elected in 1984. Led by activists in the religious
community, some hundreds of thousands of US citizens organized against US
funding for the contras and convinced Congress to cut it off. That¹s where
Ollie North came in: on behalf of the Reagan Administration, he illegally
sold arms to Iran and used the proceeds to fund the contras. This became the
infamous ³Iran-Contra² scandal of twenty years ago.

North was convicted of various felonies for his Iran-Contra crimes, but
never served time because his conviction was overturned due to a
technicality on appeal. In 1990 the Sandinistas were voted out of office by
a public weary of war, with President George H.W. Bush making it clear that
the violence would continue if the Sandinistas were re-elected.

Nicaragua¹s economy never recovered from the war and the US embargo. Today
it is the second poorest country in the hemisphere, with a per capita income
less than it was in 1960.

Now Washington is trying to capitalize on its past terrorism, combined with
present threats, to achieve the same result as in 1990. US Commerce
Secretary Carlos Gutierrez warned that ³relations with our country have been
limited and damaged when the Sandinistas have been in power² and Republican
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher warned of another economic embargo and the
cutoff of vital remittances that Nicaraguans here send home to their
families. The US Ambassador to Nicaragua Paul Trivelli has also breached
protocol by openly warning that the United States would ³reevaluate
relations² with Nicaragua if Ortega, who has first place in the polls with
35 percent, wins.

U.S. officials¹ intervention has gone so far as to prompt a public rebuke
from the Organization of American States, who asked them to stay out of the
election. Meanwhile, millions of US taxpayer dollars are funding ³democracy
promotion² activities in Nicaragua, which have previously been used to
influence elections there. And TV commercials show footage of corpses from
the 1980¹s war, a warning of what might happen if Nicaraguans vote the
³wrong² way.

Ortega has since lost many of his former allies, who denounced him for
making a ³pact² with the corrupt former president Arnoldo Aleman and
undermining democracy. A reform Sandinista group has entered the race and
its presidential candidate Edmundo Jarquin is polling at about 14 percent.

But whatever the electoral result in Nicaragua, Washington¹s intervention in
this election remains ­ as it was in the 1980s ­ an international disgrace
for the United States.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research,
in Washington, DC.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite
400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net

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