Posted on 06/08/2004 12:42:12 PM PDT by gedeon3
The reactions caused in Nicaragua by the death of the ex- President of the United States, Ronald W. Reagan, demonstrate in an unequivocal way, that the wounds of the pro-communist revolution and the civil war of the Eighties, are still open and still bleed.
In fact, as we have said in previous occasions, in spite of the well-meaning thing that is the expression of forgetting the past and to look only ahead, it is only a rhetorical phrase. The truth is that as long as the personal protagonists, active and passive, oppressors and victims, of those ill-fated events who were glorious and horrendous, according to the side in which every one was placed or fought, it is impossible to erase them of the individual and collective memory of the Nicaraguans. The crimes that were committed in both sides can have prescribed legally because the memory of the facts does not end with death, because they are enrolled in history, forever.
Now, seeing the death of ex- president Reagan, one has to remember that if had not been for his vision and by its energetic international policy of containment of Communism, in Nicaragua there would be at this point a communist State, the Nicaraguans would not have individual liberties, in the country would not be democracy and the great majority of the population would be put under the espionage of the CDS (block committees), the repression of the Mint (interior ministry) and the DGSE(similar to kgb), and the rigid rationing of basic products, while the communist nomenclature would have everything, like in Cuba.
Inclusively, the PRESS (name of the newspaper) would no longer exits, or in the best of case, it would be communist unionist or government spokesman, of the Sandinista Party or the Popular Sandinista Army (EPS).
Certainly, the strategy of Reagan prevented that Communism, mortal and sworn enemy of freedom, democracy and human rights would settle in Nicaragua and be expanded to other countries. He was convinced that Communism was nonviable as an economic and social system and that would not last forever, contrary to what leaders of the USSR and communists all over the world believed and wanted. But he (Reagan) was a great strategist, who also knew that no despotic regime falls by itself, however rotten it may be. It is necessary to help it fall.
For that reason, to cause the USSR to fall on its own weight, Reagan challenged it to a super expensive armament race - the "War of the Galaxies" (star wars) - that the Soviets could not resist and chose to want to reform Communism by means of the doctrine of Gorbachov: Perestroika (reconstruction) and Glasnost (transparency) Something impossible to obtain, because Communism is nonviable, and therefore, impossible to reform.
And just as ex- president Reagan did not think that it was necessary to defeat the Soviet Union militarily, he did not think that it was necessary to overthrow the pro-communist Sandinista regime by means of war(invasion). So Reagan never planned to invade Sandinista Nicaragua, he did not even think that the contras (freedom fighters) had to prevail militarily. The war of Nicaragua was handled like a "conflict of low or average intensity", because the intention was to force the Sandinistas to celebrate free elections, competitive and internationally supervised.
After Mijaíl Gorbachov rose to power in the broken Soviet Union, in 1985, Reagan decided with him that the conflict of Nicaragua had to be solved in a pacific and political way. And the 7 of August of 1987, the presidents of Central America approved the Agreements of Esquipulas II, in which Daniel Ortega committed himself to gamble the power with the opposition, something that the FSLN(Sandinistas) always had rejected since the democratic revolution prevailed and it turned aside towards totalitarianism.
That one would be the sentence of death of the Sandinista regime that in spite of the pressures and repressions against the democratic opposition, was defeated by most of the Nicaraguans in the elections that took place the 25 of February of 1990.
And thus it was that, from the 25 of April of that same year, it began in Nicaragua the transition to freedom and democracy , thanks to the struggle fight of all the democratic Nicaraguans, and to the decisive aid of the ex- President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
Actually, he was a very active player in the overthrow of Somoza and the installment of the Sandinistas, along with castro, lopez portillo (mejico), carazo odio(costa rica), omar torrijos(panama), Herrera (Venezuela). The sandinistas where about to start being wiped out by the Nicaraguan army, when carter stepped in and told Somoza that if he did not leave power he would invade Nicaragua; this is never mentioned anywhere. Carter cut off arms and ammo to Somoza, forced him to leave (using ambassador Pezzullo), and then turned his face with indifference while 5 thousand Nicaraguan soldiers were murdered. After most of them had turned themselves in to the Red Cross, the Red Cross turned them over to the Sandinistas
I agree 100%.
But on the other hand, you know the democrats like to uphold rules and laws, so they could not let them get away with it. (sarcasm).
We can never forget.
Few in North America know of the struggle of La Prensa just to publish under the Sandinistas. An excellent account of that and the struggle in the society-at-large is in the excellent 1985 book, "Breaking Faith - The Sandinista Revolution and its Impact on Freedom and Christian Faith in Nicaragua" by Humberto Belli.
Belli was an active Sandinista until 1975. He became a Christian, and the editorial page editor of La Prensa.
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