berman@ihuxm.UUCP (09/01/83)
>From the NEW YORK TIMES, August 28, 1983:
"Eduardo Rojas, a farm laborer in the [Nicaraguan]
village of Achuapa, stood under a wilting tropical
sun and shook his head with amazement as he pointed
to a school that had opened a few months previously.
'My children are going to school---can you imagine
it?' he said. 'They will get other ideas. They
will be able to choose a different life for
themselves---whatever they want. This is a total
change. Without the revolution, it would never
have happened.'
"Although only 35, Eduardo Rojas looked withered
and played out. His leathery face was deeply
lined, and many of his teeth were missing. All
his life, starting when he was 5 years old, he
had worked a small plot of land in the fertile
hills outside his village in the northern
province of Leon. Half the produce was sent to
an absentee landlord; Rojas, when he grew up,
had to keep himself, his wife and their five
children alive on what remained. That was how
his father and grandfather had lived. That is
how his children would live. Poverty, ignorance,
illness and back-breaking toil have been the
lot of hundred of thousands of Nicaraguan peasants.
"Now things are different. The Sandinistas took
the land outside Achuapa away from its owner last
year, compensating him with a plot in another
part of the country that was formerly owned
by the Somozas... In Achuapa ,Rojas told me a maternity clinic
had recently opened. There was even talk of
electricity being extended to outlying hovels
like his.
"The Sandinistas have given many downtrodden Nicaraguans
something as precious as it is rare for poor
people in Latin America: hope for the future."
Is this the enemy?
Andy Bermanlaura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (09/03/83)
Ah, but they didn't tell you what they did to villages of people who were loyal (and well treated, in some cases) to the Somozas. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
eich@uiuccsb.UUCP (09/05/83)
#R:ihuxm:-50600:uiuccsb:11000003:000:369 uiuccsb!eich Sep 4 06:31:00 1983 And if you can read that gallimaufry of chiliastic propaganda and sincerely wonder (necessarily having also heard just a few pips about Sandinista human rights practices, Sandinista military buildups, Meskito indians, etc.) if we aren't just the nasties once again (another Vietnam!), then all I can say is there's a sucker born every minute. The New York Times yet!
gary@rochester.UUCP (Gary Cottrell) (09/07/83)
>Ah, but they didn't tell you what they did to villages of people who >were loyal (and well treated, in some cases) to the Somozas. >laura creighton >utzoo!utcsstat!laura Well, I can tell you they didn't shoot them. There is no capital punishment in Nicaragua. They told the Nat'l Guard types they could either leave the country or go to prison. I'll bet they are sorry about that now, since the Guard has returned with our blessings.
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (09/08/83)
There are still a lot of people unaccounted for. And it is unreasonable to assume that all of them were killed by the Samozas 'by mistake', given their activities at the time... Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura