rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (06/26/91)
/** reg.nicaragua: 127.0 **/
** Topic: STOP BAD NICA PRESS! **
** Written 11:10 am Jun 21, 1991 by nicanet in cdp:reg.nicaragua **
This letter to the editor was put up on Peacenet by the
Nicaragua Network Education Fund as a model for the
benefit of activists who want to fight the disinformation
campaign which the US press is already waging regarding the
unrest in Nicaragua over the UNO-proposed repeals of land rights
laws.
Dear Editor:
It's distressing to note in recent AP stories about the
attempt to rollback land reform in Nicaragua that the US press is
again allowing itself to be an insrument of White House
propaganda.
To read the inflammatory stories printed in US papers, one
would think that the Sandinista party was threatening war in
order to retain ill-gotten personal gains from their time in
power.
What is really happening is that tens of thousands of poor
Nicaraguans of whatever party are taking to the streets non-
violently to protect the lands and homes they gained through
their hardwon revolution. Well over a million Nicaraguans would
be affected by the current move in the Nicaraguan Assembly, led
by US-backed Alfredo Cesar, to overturn laws 85 and 86. As
passed in March, 1990, these laws would require the Housing Bank
and municipalities to grant titles to the 200,000 families
granted homes and farmland since the Revolution. Instead,
particularly in Managua and surrounding suburbs, UNO mayors have
harassed people in poor barrios, demanding payment and threatening
eviction. This explains why people spontaneously surrounded
municipal buildings.
In picturing Daniel Ortega as threatening war, the AP story
distorts the true situation. What he was saying merely
reiterated what President Chamorro has said, namely that
attempting to overturn these laws protecting land reform was
creating a highly volatile situation. Don't forget that the
Nicaraguans lost more than 50,000 of their sons and daughters in
the insurrection which overthrew the cruel Somoza dictatorship
which the US had installed 45 years earlier.
After losing another 50,000 in the US-sponsored contra war
and suffering a crippling US embargo, Nicaraguans in February,
1990, voted for the US-backed candidate as their only chance for
peace at last. With its candidate in power, one would think the
US would stop interfering in Nicaraguan affairs. However, this
has not been the case by any means. Although the Sandinistas
have tried to cooperate with the UNO government to which
they turned the country over following the election, the US State
Department and CIA have continued their meddling, seeking to
dismantle the gains of the Revolution and to destroy the
Sandinista Party.
Without US interference the various parties in Nicaragua
would, I firmly believe, settle their differences peacefully.
They were, in fact, doing just that in an agreement reached by
UNO and Sandinista delegates last Monday to preserve Laws 85 and
86 but review certain land takeovers as to whether they had
indeed been justified. That night, Assemblyman Cesar, the US
friend known in Nicaragua as "Seven Daggers" for his record of
evil behavior, threw a monkey-wrench in the negotiations,
insisting on repeal instead of compromises.
Instead of parroting the US Embassy line with inflammatory
stories about the Sandinistas, the press would serve the public
better by exposing the continued US interference in the affairs
of a sovereign state with which we are at peace.
Sincerely,
Cecile Meyer, Coordinator
DeKalb Interfaith Network for Peace & Justice
** End of text from cdp:reg.nicaragua **