djs@nbires.UUCP (Diana Spalding) (10/24/85)
[ note to Tom Hill - sorry to answer this publicly but you didn't send a path to reach you, and mail to our vaxes often comes with the headers munged and therefore unusable for finding a path to the sender. ] > Well Diana, you are wrong. Duarte is a moderate but is unable to control > the rightwing terrorist groups. Nic. is no more united than dust on the > wind. If it were why would Ortega have to suspend all his people's rights? > Can you answer me that? Separating your emotions from the facts is > difficult at times but I am sure you can do it if you try. You might also > read the newspaper and stay informed. The net is a terrible place to > get one's opinion. > > Tom Hill Well Mr. Hill, if Duarte is a moderate, then he is totally incapable of controlling the actions of the military, and therefore is not very effective in ending the violence against his people, now is he? Nicaragua is no more united than dust on the wind??? That is quite untrue. Most people in Nicaragua have never lived nearly as well as they are living now. They are a very proud and determined people, and are not going to give in to a super power (either U.S. or Soviet) all the basic human rights they have gained, because now that they see how good things can be, there's no going back. Of course there isn't total agreement amongst all Nicaraguan people on all issues, far from it, but on one level the people really *are* united. In addition, the disagreements both inside and outside the Sandinista government are discussed openly and appear in the newspapers as well. It's true that the newspapers are submitted to a committee, and some things are censored, but come on, this country is at war with the largest super power on earth. If the Soviets invaded the U.S. would we let them print whatever they wanted and distribute it freely? Hell no, we would seize their printing presses first and foremost (which incidently the CIA just did to a radical group in Puerto Rico, and there's not even a war going on there). In addition, anything that is censored from La Prensa (the right wing paper in Nicaragua) is posted on a bulletin board by the road for anyone to come read if they so desire. Please keep in mind that there is a *war* going on against the people of Nicaragua, and things cannot be as wonderful as those who really care about the lives of the people would want them to be. Even so, most of the people are living *much* better now than they did under Somoza. I do read the papers Mr Hill. I would suspect that that's the *only* place you get *your* information from, and that you believe everything you read. That would explain your attitude. The truth is that the American press is often full of twisted facts and out and out lies, and just omission of important events and facts. If you really want to know what's going on you ought to at a very minimum read some European papers, which are more objective, and talk to people in/from the areas that you profess to know about. Because you obviously don't know Mr. Hill. Before you start saying things like Nicaragua is not the least bit united, why don't you just take a trip down there and see for yourself. Walk around by yourself, talk to the people, see how they really feel about the Sandinista government and what's going on in their country. I did this, Mr. Hill, and I discovered an enormous amount of support for what the Sandinista government is doing for the people. But then maybe you'd rather stay in your cozy home and sit back to listen to the state department line, and believe our country is always doing right? I would say it is you who needs to do the reading. And I certainly don't get my opinions from the net! If I did I'd be wanting to nuke everybody at this point. I'd be convinced that peace was a communist plot! Diana Spalding {allegra, ucbvax, hao}!nbires!djs
ekrell@ucla-cs.UUCP (10/27/85)
In article <531@nbires.UUCP> djs@nbires.UUCP (Diana Spalding) writes: > >It's true that the newspapers are submitted to a committee, and >some things are censored, but come on, this country is at war with the >largest super power on earth. "some things" are censored??. It's more like 40 to 50% of the newspaper every day. >In addition, anything that is censored from La >Prensa (the right wing paper in Nicaragua) is posted on a bulletin board >by the road for anyone to come read if they so desire. La Prensa IS NOT a right wing newspaper. The Chamorro family who owns the paper were antisomozas and took a leading place in demanding from Somoza to step down. La Prensa, just like many other nicaraguans, found that the Sandinistas were betraying their own principled of having free elections and a democracy. La Prensa is now the only opposition media in Nicaragua. Also, posting the newspaper articles on a bulletin board doesn't do much good to inform the people. Just how many nicaraguans do you think read that bulletin booard everyday?. The press censorship in Nicaragua, as well as all other missing civil liberties have little or nothing to do with them having a war against the contras. This is a must of all totalitarian governments. They just can not afford their people being freely informed. It happens in all dictatorships, left and right wing. The government wants the people to hear what they want them to hear, nothing less, nothing more. -- Eduardo Krell UCLA Computer Science Department ekrell@ucla-locus.arpa ..!{sdcrdcf,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!ekrell
pollack@uicsl.UUCP (10/29/85)
How many times will this discussion of censorship of "La Prensa" go on? After the revolution it became a member of the "Inter-America Press Association", the same front organization which took over "El Mercurio" in Chile and started character assassination and psychological warfare against the Allende Government in preparation for the coup. The IAPA also took over "the Daily Gleaner" in Jamaica when the US wanted Manley out. It operates about the same way as Rupert Murdock: take over a conservative paper (NY Post, Chicago Sun-Times) and change format to a Tabloid with Glaring and Alarming Headlines, and show pictures of your enemies juxtaposed to pictures of mutilated bodies from unrelated stories. For good measure, throw in sightings of the Virgin Mary. (Who does Murdock work for anyhow? Mr. Black? :)) There WAS a Chomorro who was killed by Somoza; his nephew is just a figurehead, promoted to the board of the IAPA. Is Psychological Warfare warfare? If so, then the Sandinista's show remarkable constraint in not blowing up the newspaper and in even using precious foreign exchange to buy it pulp! The state of emergency in Nicaragua is a state of emergency, not Marshal Law. The civil rights suspended do not even exist in the Philipines, Chile, Guatamala, South Africa, or El Salvador. Nor do they exist in our great country for "enemies of National Security," like Puerto Rican nationalists. Jordan Pollack Next time Im in NY, I think Ill buy a few pairs of glasses and see if I make some Headlines!
charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips) (10/31/85)
Diana Spalding writes: >Most people in Nicaragua have never lived nearly as well as they are >living now. . . . . most of the people are living *much* better now >than they did under Somoza. Does 'most people' include Meskite Indians and Moravian Christians? >If you really want to know what's going on >you ought to at a very minimum read some European papers, which are more >objective, and talk to people in/from the areas that you profess to >know about. Publications from human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the human rights subcommittees of the Senate and House are also enlightening. charli
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (10/31/85)
In article <7280@ucla-cs.ARPA> ekrell@ucla-cs.UUCP (Eduardo Krell) writes: >La Prensa IS NOT a right wing newspaper. The Chamorro family who owns >the paper were antisomozas and took a leading place in demanding from >Somoza to step down. La Prensa, just like many other nicaraguans, found >that the Sandinistas were betraying their own principled of having free >elections and a democracy. La Prensa is now the only opposition media >in Nicaragua. This defense of La Prensa is disingenuous to say the least. La Prensa is not run by the Chamorro family, it's run by Pedro Joaquim Chamorro, the right-wing son in the family. Another brother abandoned La Prensa in protest, taking with him most of the staff, and founded Barricada, a Sandinista outlet. The "Chamorro family" has heroes and snakes; the question is which Chamorro is running which paper? Let's remember that the "objectivity" and commitment of journals to fact differs substantially from nation to nation. In some countries, the major journals try to beat each other to the center in the name of "objectivity". In others, the major journals take a determined stance in one direction or other, which marks their whole political output. During the Hearst period, US papers were just like Nicaraguan papers today; all took political stances that determined their reporting angles. Only since the stabilization of American social institutions under "national priorities" and "national security" accomplished during the New Deal and WWII have US papers strove to occupy the center and thereby influence federal institutions. Before federal institutions like the New Deal programs and DOD had legitimacy and consensual support of the US population, censorship was a very common practice here. Pacifists were imprisoned, WWII reporting was under complete censorship, etc.. Only after we had won the war and everyone saw their interest in supporting a large interventionist national state and a bipartisan foreign policy built on foreign aid and military power did the US state have enough confidence to add "freedom of the press" to the laws currently in force. > Eduardo Krell UCLA Computer Science Department > ekrell@ucla-locus.arpa ..!{sdcrdcf,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!ekrell The problem with lazy applying ideas of "democracy" and "freedom" to other nations like Nicaragua is that these ideas when enunciated here carry so much connotation from US history and experience, and so much forgetting and erasing of US history to suit the current ideal, that applying them to other nations without great care amounts to assuming that those nations have had a history similar to the US with similar lessons learned and the same "good" morality developed. It's typical of the US point of view, which is basically religious and prefers rewriting to reading history, that it imposes its moral models on everyone else without even asking if everyone else agrees with the moral model in the first place. Why ask if the moral model is right, right? That's democracy US-style. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (11/04/85)
In article <347@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes: >In article <7280@ucla-cs.ARPA> ekrell@ucla-cs.UUCP (Eduardo Krell) writes: >>La Prensa IS NOT a right wing newspaper. The Chamorro family who owns >>the paper were antisomozas and took a leading place in demanding from >>Somoza to step down. La Prensa, just like many other nicaraguans, found >>that the Sandinistas were betraying their own principled of having free >>elections and a democracy. La Prensa is now the only opposition media >>in Nicaragua. > >This defense of La Prensa is disingenuous to say the least. Agreed, the fact that La Prensa is run by a member of the Chamorro family proves nothing. But, while I have no direct evidence (do you?), I doubt very much that La Prensa is a right wing newspaper. It is certainly the most right wing of Nicaragua's newspapers, but the entire right wing of Nicaraguan politics has been eliminated or forced underground. I believe that there were truely right wing newspapers, which were forced out of business by the Sandinistas. >Before federal institutions like the New Deal programs and DOD had >legitimacy and consensual support of the US population, censorship >was a very common practice here. Pacifists were imprisoned, WWII >reporting was under complete censorship, etc.. > >Only after we had won the war and everyone saw their interest in >supporting a large interventionist national state and a bipartisan >foreign policy built on foreign aid and military power did the US >state have enough confidence to add "freedom of the press" to the >laws currently in force. Give me a break. Newspaper censorship in this country took place only during declared wars. The rest of the time, we've had freedom of the press. >The problem with lazy applying ideas of "democracy" and "freedom" to other >nations like Nicaragua is that these ideas when enunciated here carry >so much connotation from US history and experience, and so much >forgetting and erasing of US history to suit the current ideal, >that applying them to other nations without great care amounts to >assuming that those nations have had a history similar to the US >with similar lessons learned and the same "good" morality developed. The question is not so much how free the country the is, but which way it is going. It is hardly a valid criticism of the U.S. to say that it has gotten more free with time. Unfortunately, after a promising start after the ouster of the Samozaists, Nicaragua now seems to be going the other way. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108
orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER) (11/04/85)
> Diana Spalding writes: > >Most people in Nicaragua have never lived nearly as well as they are > >living now. . . . . most of the people are living *much* better now > >than they did under Somoza. > > Publications from human rights organizations such as Amnesty > International and the human rights subcommittees of the Senate and > House are also enlightening. > > charli If you are going to cite Amnesty International then you should point out their actual findings: which were that there were human rights violations in terms of disappearances in 1981 in Nicaragua but those have declined to almost nothing. That even during the worst periods of human rights violations in Nicaragua they never equalled the toll of the right-wing death squads. That during the last year the major violator of human rights in Nicaragua were the contras supported by the U.S. who have killed, raped and assaulted thousands of Nicaraguans. tim sevener whuxn!orb
myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster) (11/05/85)
> > Agreed, the fact that La Prensa is run by a member of the Chamorro family > proves nothing. But, while I have no direct evidence (do you?), I doubt > very much that La Prensa is a right wing newspaper. It is certainly > the most right wing of Nicaragua's newspapers, but the entire right > wing of Nicaraguan politics has been eliminated or forced underground. > Bullshit. The Coordinadora coalition of parties is still quite active, and has even met during the state of emergency. They've hardly been forced underground. Some of the right, like Arturo Cruz, is actively supporting the contras, hoping that US backing will move them to power in Nicaragua if the contra/US alliance wins the war following a US intervention (my view on their motives). Arturo Cruz is currently the leader of one of the `left' factions of UNO (United Nicaraguan Opposition, the new contra political front organization). He would have been the candidate for the Coordinadora coalition if those parties had registered in the elections. > > Give me a break. Newspaper censorship in this country took place only > during declared wars. The rest of the time, we've had freedom of the > press. > > Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka > Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108 What the hell do you think is going on in Nicaragua today, a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey? (')"#$'&("#$"(')#$&%! -- Jeff Myers The views above may or may not University of Wisconsin-Madison reflect the views of any other Madison Academic Computing Center person or group at UW-Madison. ARPA: uwmacc!myers@rsch.wisc.edu UUCP: ..!{harvard,ucbvax,allegra,topaz,akgua,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!myers BitNet: MYERS at WISCMACC
gil@cornell.UUCP (Gil Neiger) (11/06/85)
In article <766@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes: >... the entire right wing of Nicaraguan politics has been eliminated or >forced underground. I believe that there were truely (sic) right wing >newspapers, which were forced out of business by the Sandinistas. Most of the right wing of Nicaraguan politics left the country in 1979. It was not forced out, but it realized that the society in which it had come to thrive no longer existed. Remember that much of the Nicaraguan right was the National Guard. The only major papers in the country before the revolution were La Prensa and Las Novedades, a Somoza paper. I don't think the Sandinistas forced the latter out of business, but that it left with Somoza. Can you cite any other papers that have been "forced out of business"? >Newspaper censorship in this country took place only during declared wars. >The rest of the time, we've had freedom of the press. (sic) The United States is the one that is fighting an undeclared war against Nicaragua. The Nicaraguans and their government recognize they are at war, regardless of whether or not it is declared. The contras are not a nation on which Nicaragua can declare war. >The question is not so much how free the country the is, but which way >it is going. It is hardly a valid criticism of the U.S. to say that it >has gotten more free with time. Unfortunately, after a promising start >after the ouster of the Samozaists (sic), Nicaragua now seems to be going the >other way. It is true that civil liberties are now abridged in Nicaragua as they were not two months ago. Nevertheless, Nicaraguan society remains more open than most in Central America. When searching for the cause of the abridgement of civil liberties in Nicaragua, we must look both at the government there and at our own. The U.S. administration is responsible for the situation in Nicaragua to which the Sandinistas are reacting. -- Gil Neiger Computer Science Department Cornell University Ithaca NY 14853 {uw-beaver,ihnp4,decvax,vax135}!cornell!gil (UUCP) gil@Cornell.ARPA (ARPAnet) ; gil@CRNLCS (BITNET)
gil@cornell.UUCP (Gil Neiger) (11/07/85)
In article <766@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes (in reference to the press in Nicaragua): >The question is not so much how free the country is, but which way >it is going. It is hardly a valid criticism of the U.S. to say that it >has gotten more free with time. Unfortunately, after a promising start >after the ouster of the Somozans, Nicaragua now seems to be going >the other way. One must be careful when saying things like this, because "which way it is going" can be a very subjective judgement. For years our administration has certified that the human rights situation in Guatemala and El Salvador has been improving. Nevertheless, to live in either of these countries, despite their support by the Reagan administration, is a nightmare compared to life in Nicaragua. The genocide of Mayan Indians in Guatemala continues to this day, and rivals what the Nazis did to the Jews. Although the activities of death squads in El Salvador may have abated a little, they still operate, the "flying death squads" (as some call the Salvadoran Air Force) are conducting an air war over the countryside that is on a par with what was done in Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War. Of course it is unfortunate that the Sandinistas have abridged civil liberties. But this should not necessarily condemn them. A few years back they declared a similar state of emergency, gave a time limit for it (as they did this time), and lifted it at that deadline. They did so well in time to run what international observers declared to be one of the freest elections ever held in Central America (the rhetoric of the Reagan administration and the U.S. media notwithstanding). To determine "what way" the Sandinistas and Nicaragua are going, we should give them on opportunity to act freely. See if they lift the state of emergency at their self-imposed deadline. But more importantly, the U.S. should stop its war against them to really give the Sandinistas a chance to "show their true colors," during a time a peace, not during a life-and-death war, when any government might act differently than it would like. -- Gil Neiger Computer Science Department Cornell University Ithaca NY 14853 {uw-beaver,ihnp4,decvax,vax135}!cornell!gil (UUCP) gil@Cornell.ARPA (ARPAnet) ; gil@CRNLCS (BITNET)