US Pushes Nicaragua to Nix Rockets

[Joanne98]

US Pushes Nicaragua to Nix Rockets

Managua, Feb 20 (Prensa Latina) The US government keeps pushing for the destruction of the SAM-7 portable rockets in the hands of the Nicaraguan army, alleging there is no external threat justifying their preservation.

The new US pressures for Nicaragua to eliminate the ground-to-air Soviet arsenal were this time uttered by Florida s Democrat Senator William Nelson, who is touring the region.

For Nelson, neither Costa Rica nor Honduras represent a military threat to Nicaragua, with which Washington also wants to have "good relations," he said.

The US legislator made no direct reference to the rocket issue with Nicaraguan authorities, but made statements to local press.

The Nicaraguan army currently has 1,000 SAM-7 rockets, after former President Enrique Bolanos gave in to US pressures and ordered the destruction of about one thousand.

Current President Sandinista Daniel Ortega, however, refuses to get rid of the missiles, which he considers defensive weapons and a matter of dignity and national sovereignty.

sus dig nm mf

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={E9AC55C6-3191-469B-921F-15D7318B05A7}&language=EN

[endarkenment]

1. "which he considers defensive weapons"

That would be because they are defensive weapons.

Who could imagine the a large aggressive nation in the region that could possibly take military action against its smaller neighbors? I can't think of one country that would behave like that.

[Joanne98]

3. lol

[arcos]

6. Those weapons would be useless against a US invasion...

Which I'm sure is not going to happen during Bush's watch, since he is reaaaaally concerned with Iran right now.

[Judi Lynn]

8. So it's still so easy for him to finance and train more death squads, like the

Haitian death squads used to overthrow Aristide AGAIN.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the pattern which has been used so many, MANY times already.

What's sad is the right-wing monsters think they pull it off with such finesse, when there's no more powerful nation to keep them in check. Well, people DO see it, and there will be an accounting for this kind of desperate sin against humanity, no matter HOW many spinners they employ to attempt to dupe the dim-witted.

[carla]

11. Pres. Ortega

has already had experience with the foreign policy of the US government. He is wisely choosing to maintain his defensive missile capacity.
Nelson is right on at least one count however, Costa Rica is not a threat to any country in the region, as they are one of the only countries in the world without an army. Oscar Arias is currently pushing 2 initiatives to end military spending and the arms trade. I find his work commendable and urge other DU'ers to consider urging the US gov't. to support such ideas, especially considering the state of "bushworld".
PS, JudiLynn, you are one of my heroines as a result of your extensive knowledge about Cuba and Latin America in general. It is an honor to post on any thread you post to. Keep up the good work!:hi:

[EFerrari]

12. Welcome to DU, carla

:)

[Judi Lynn]

15. Hi, carla. Thanks for your remarks on Oscar Arias. We need so much to find out far more

about him, and about Costa Rica, as well, and we are still wandering in the dark about what has really been happening south of our border. Our own media truly never tells us anything unless there's a useful propaganda tale someone has concocted to foist off upon us.

It's a cynical use of our own press to dupe and delude the same people who buy the papers, magazines, and pay for cable tv.

So glad to see you here. Thank you. :hi: :hi: :hi:

[Canuckistanian]

31. I think all Central and South American nations should have missiles

Considering how US-backed aircraft have SCREWED the various peoples of CA and SA.

Daniel Ortega is a wise man.


And welcome to DU!
:toast:
:hi:

(my standard greeting)

[arcos]

33. As a Central American, I totally differ...

And I'd say 97% of my country differs too. We don't want no stinking missiles, we don't need a military, it has only brought pain and hunger to Latin Americans.

[carla]

35. Buen dicho!

Central America is not the backyard of the USA and the people of the region should be freed from continual proxy warfare and meddling by those from "El Norte". Warfare is a tool of foreign policy for only the strongest nations. We should work to end this awful cycle of bloodletting as it leads inexorably to more death and paranoia between nations. If Pres. Ortega had not experienced US interference in Nicaraguan affairs, he would have no reason to want such defensive missiles.

[arcos]

39. Thanks for your post carla...

The situation is vastly different now, though. Ortega is not the evil child-eating communist of the 80s, but he has embraced a lot of the agenda he used to criticize. US interference is always present, everywhere in Latin America... but I really don't think the US will try to interfere by either invading or aiding people who oppose the government since Ortega is not really their enemy anymore. Hell, Ortega's Vicepresident is a former contra!

[Judi Lynn]

37. I've started paying attention to Costa Rica since I started reading your posts, arcos.

Not knowing one thing about Costa Rica, I looked around the internet, and discovered you have a far, far different relationship to the U.S. government from the other countries in Latin America.

I started reading about this over a year ago. I just took a quick run to grab any article to use as an example, and found this one which seems very typical of the things I've been seeing, all of them similar, I must say. Of course you're invited to point out its errors:

World Policy Journal (vol 3 no 2), Spring 1986, 301-315
Costa Rica:
Democratic Model in Jeopardy
by Andrew Reding

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From its inception as an independent state in 1838, Costa Rica has stood out from its neighbors. Though originally the poorest of the five Central American provinces of the Captaincy-General of Guatemala, it has evolved into the country with the highest, and best distributed, standard of living in the region. What is most remarkable is that this has occurred without the discovery of valuable natural resources, such as the oil windfall that has transformed many Persian Gulf economies. In fact, Costa Rica remains a country of very limited means—with a per capita income of $1,730 in 1983—yet its population enjoys a life expectancy comparable to that in the United States, access to higher education equal to that in France or Norway, and the benefits of one of the world’s most long-standing and genuinely representative democracies.

How has Costa Rica achieved this distinction in one of the world’s poorest and most conflict-ridden regions? The key to Costa Rica’s success is the high priority its leaders have historically given to social and economic development. Primary education was made free and compulsory as early as 1869, and capital punishment was banned in 1882. In addition, the relative weakness of its armed forces has contributed to the strength of Costa Rica’s democratic processes. Except for two brief interludes, Costa Rica has been governed by an elected president and national legislature since 1889. Labor unions emerged during the economic crisis of the 1930s, and the Communist party, which organized them, was allowed to seek and obtain representation in the legislature. That representation played a crucial role in the passage of New Deal-style social legislation in the 1940s. By 1949, the government felt secure enough from domestic rebellion to abolish its small standing army, leaving only a modest police force.

The contrast with El Salvador is particularly striking. There, impoverished peasants and communists were barred from political participation during the 1930s. When they rebelled, at least 30,000 were slaughtered by the troops of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, foreboding the grisly work of today’s death squads. The result of such policies has been a regime in a permanent state of civil war—a regime that, even with massive U.S. military assistance, spent 12 percent of its 1982 budget on its armed forces, while spending only 7 percent on the health of its people. Costa Rica, on the other hand, spent 33 percent on health and only 3 percent on armed forces.1 With its resources thus dissipated in carnage, El Salvador has become the second poorest country in the hemisphere, after Haiti.

A parallel can be drawn between Costa Rican economic development and the familiar story of the Japanese and German economic recoveries following the devastation of World War II. Barred by the victors from investing in military reconstruction, Japan and Germany channeled their investment toward economic objectives, thereby attaining a comparative advantage over their conquerors. Though lacking the formidable economic and organizational resources of these advanced industrial states, Costa Rica has nonetheless managed to carry out a similar “miracle” in Central America by favoring investment in human development over investment in human repression.

For the past six years, however, the current U.S. administration has been collaborating with segments of the Costa Rican upper classes in trying to undermine the four main pillars of Costa Rica’s social peace: the social democratic welfare state created by the National Liberation party (PLN) between 1948 and 1978; the right of workers to organize in unions of their own choosing; the representation of leftists in the national legislature; and the absence of armed forces. In pursuing this course, Washington’s objectives seem to be twofold: first, to reshape Costa Rica in the image of Ronald Reagan’s United States by slashing social spending in favor of new military spending and by giving carte blanche to domestic and foreign private enterprise; and second, to obtain Costa Rican cooperation in more firmly encircling Nicaragua with a strengthened southern front.

These are not easy objectives to achieve in Costa Rica, a country with a long history of self-government and a relatively well-educated population. Yet the Reagan administration’s greatest strength lies in its ability to exploit Costa Rica’s greatest weakness: its mass media. The press is the one institution that was left virtually untouched in the social transformations of the past half-century, and has remained the preserve of the Costa Rica upper classes. It was their newspaper, La Información, whose agitation led to the military dictatorship of 1917-19 after President González Flores tried to establish an income tax. A popular movement eventually restored democratic rule, burning down La Información in the process. But the families that had owned it regrouped to found La Nacíon, the newspaper that has dominated the country’s press ever since. The other two major papers, La República and La Prensa Libre, have a similar ownership pattern, as do most of the major radio stations and all the commercial television stations. The government, on the other hand, has only one television channel, and—in order to preserve its relations with some of the country’s major businessmen—deliberately avoids offering a news program that would compete with those offered by commercial television. The result is that a class of people who have for the most part not accepted the social-democratic reforms of the past half-century have a virtual monopoly on the provision of news.
(snip/...)

http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/nicaragua/1986-spring-WPJ-CostaRica.html

[arcos]

40. This is pretty accurate, but take into account that is from 20 years ago...

We do have a different relationship with the US, and our overall history is fairly different from most Latin American countries.
Your article describes very accurately the situation that we had during the 80s, but a lot of things have changed. Some things still survive out of the welfare state that we used to have, but most of these policies and programs have lacked in funding, planning and political will from the last few governments. Things have changed ideologically too.... for example, when this article was written PLN still represented the middle class, farmers, small business owners and defended state intervention in the economy and state run companies. They were a real socialdemocratic party. All of that changed during the 90s, when right winger PUSC and former center-left PLN started getting more and more similar, basically pushing carbon copy neoliberal policies.

This is a good example, from the article you posted:

Calderón, a godson of former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García, is a right-winger who attended Ronald Reagan’s renomination at the 1984 Republican National Convention. During the course of the campaign, he argued against neutrality, for a rupture of diplomatic relations with Nicaragua, for improving Costa Rica’s defense capabilities, and for close ties with the Reagan administration. At one point he went so far as to say that if war broke out between Nicaragua and Honduras, he would send Civil Guard units to fight alongside the Hondurans.

Calderón’s bellicose posturing received an early boost from a border incident that was typically fanned into hysteria by the media. In March 1985, two Costa Rican border guards were killed at Las Crucitas in the aftermath of an attack by Costa Rican-based contras against Sandinista troops over the border. An Organization of American States commission was unable to affix responsibility in view of the complicated circumstances, and recommended bilateral talks to preclude further problems. But the media presented the incident as an indication of Sandinista intentions to invade Costa Rica, provoking a mob attack on the Nicaraguan embassy in San José and the withdrawal of the Costa Rican ambassador from Managua.

Each election we have a media supported candidate, who has been the right winger in most, if not all of the cases. While Calderón and his party (PUSC) were heavily supported by La Nación against dovish Oscar Arias in 1986, for the 2006 elections the one who got La Nación's support was Arias, and this time it had nothing to do with either war or peace, but dismantling the welfare state, approving CAFTA and privatizing state run companies and services.

The social democratic welfare state created by the National Liberation Party is being dismantled by that same National Liberation Party. The same Oscar Arias that went to the US Congress to criticize Ronald Reagan's contra plans, is the same Oscar Arias who is now blindly following Bush's "free trade" policies and who is frequently criticizing Hugo Chávez without any provocation whatsoever.

[Judi Lynn]

42. It's confusing, you can be sure, to outsiders, to see such variation in attitude from someone like

Oscar Arias, as his name surely has carried a lot of signifcance for a long time. I have heard it mentioned that some odd signals were coming from this Nobel Peace Prize winner a few years back.

Thank you for taking the time to look over the article and comment. Very helpful. I'll be looking more closely for information that "feels" more recent in the future.

I did hear, several years ago, that Costa Rica had been amenable to U.S. overtures, and as a result, the U.S. had made an effort to try to make Costa Rica appear as THE example of what good can happen when a country cooperates with the U.S. government and U.S. objectives, and I got the feeling they were saying a lot of financial investment, etc., had been poured into the country from companies here.



You've given us another country to keep in mind, to watch, now.

[arcos]

47. Yes, a lot of investment has poured in...

But Costa Rica had the highest standard of living in the area even before all the money came in. What has happened, is that the wealth gap has increased, and consequently the middle class has started to split, most going down and a few going up. Economic statistics are much better in general, but the extreme poverty level (20% of the population) has not decreased one bit in the last 15 years.


Although I don't agree that Costa Rica has polarized in a leftward shift, but it is just a realignment after PLN and PUSC became one and the same (and firmly on the right side of center), this article gives a pretty good overview of the internal politics in the last few years.
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_printable&report_id=459&language_id=1

Also, this one is longer, but contains a more detailed account of how, why and when things started to change politically.
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:I-vKKSHf5fIJ:www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/costa_rica.pdf&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=cr&client=firefox-a

[Canuckistanian]

44. You're right, it's not an answer

What these countries need is LESS weapons, not more.

I just get angry at high tech aircraft used to terrorize innocent civilians.

[arcos]

32. I see your point Judy...

But what's the use of anti-air missiles against death squads?

[Judi Lynn]

38. I've made a point of not having any anti-air missiles, but I have a feeling

Latin American leaders of countries which have been troubled by murderous interference by the U.S. have their own reasons for their actions or they wouldn't take them.

I couldn't possibly claim I know what their information, or their motivation is. Sorry.

[arcos]

41. Latin American leaders also have a long history of making up conflicts...

That has been the case in Central America for decades... most recently in 1998, the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan governments (both right wing at the time, and not surprisingly deeply corrupt) basically made up an international incident (which was, and still is pretty pointless, about navigation on the San Juan River in the border) to distract the people from both countries from their problems. Both governments were hugely unpopular at the time, and during the conflict and after a few heated nationalistic speeches, their popularity rose. It is a proven technique down here... there was never a chance of an armed conflict, but there were quite a few strong diplomatic exchanges.

[Judi Lynn]

43. Interesting. Both "wingers," too, you say. Hmmmmm.

Sure hope the ordinary people everywhere start waking from their comas after all this time, and maybe it would make it a little harder for these clowns to pull this stuff off, finally thinking intelligent people everywhere were watching them closely.

Indifference, or blind acceptance makes their jobs all too easy.

[arcos]

45. Yes, both wingers...

But a lot of left of center parties have engaged in much of the same type of practices, and even worse, a lot of supposedly left wing parties have governed way to the right once they have won elections... this was the case when PLN's José María Figueres was elected in 1994 here in CR, he campaigned and won the election as a socialdemocrat but he lead the most neoliberal government in history up to that time.

[Judi Lynn]

46. That's sad. They succumbed to their addiction to power offered to them

by the wealthy elite. Unfortunately, it appears real jerks do show up everywhere. You hate to see it, however, when insincere people show up in the jobs which have the potential to help the down-trodden, the abused, the helpless citizens.

Hope there is justice, eventually, which will finally overtake even the slimiest politicians. I'm ready to see that happen.

I presume this is the guy, standing behind the woman.

[arcos]

48. Yes, that's him...

He has been accused of receiving bribes from Alcatel, and although he has not been formally charged, he has several years of living in Europe and hasn't come to the country to give any explanations, even to Congress that called him.

[endarkenment]

14. Not exactly useless.

Which is why the hideous Rice woman is demanding they be removed. Sure they won't protect against a full assault, but they raise the stakes in a proxy war, a very likely scenario. Nicaragua, like all nations, has the right to defend itself as it sees fit.

[arcos]

34. Very likely scenario?

Got any proof?

[carla]

36. Respectfully,

history offers enough proof. Those who ignore history are often subject to its repeated mistakes and consequences. Proof and prudence are different, but my bet lies with prudence first, and proof only when evidence is required.










Peace trumps war, always.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TomClash]

9. And has absolutely never done so in the history of the Republic

Not in Guatemala in '54, the DR in '65, Cuba in '61, Chile in '73, Grenada in '83, Panama in '89 or any other time. Never.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Good for Ortega. Nelson is cowed by his Cuban "exile" constituents,

the powerful ones being reactionary right-wingers, and tight with the _Bushes.

Orgega should decline Nelson's orders, since he is there doing to bidding of the _Bush administration, at the behest and pressure from his Cuban voters.

_Bush's Defense Department was able to apply enough pressure to Bolivian military officers just before the inauguration of Evo Morales to get them to destroy some missiles Bolivia had, using the threat of loss of financial aid to them as the lever, which really angered the next President of Bolivia.

They all should ignore even Democrats, once they have learned those Democrats are in the service of right-wing, power-mad monsters who intend to contol the Western Hemisphere.

[BayCityProgressive]

4. Fuck Nelson

the Dems foreign policy is almost as evil as the GOP. No threat!?!?!?!?!:rofl:
yeah except that time we destroyed their country. Oh or when we bombed Panama, or when we invaded Cuba, or when we ATTACKED Grenada or Haiti, or the Coup in Venezuela....I mean..where's the threat!?:sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

7. Certainly no threat when we finance and train death squads and send them

all over the place to slaughter everyone who doesn't look like a right-wing pawn, wiping out entire villages over the course of a day or two, as the survivors flee to hide as far away and as invisibly as possible.

It doesn't take an interpreter to look at all the photos of massacred men, women, and children to weep inwardly for the damage done by our right-wing idiot pResidents like Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and _Bush, and their puppets in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Can't believe ANYONE thinks it's a good idea to try to lie to Americans about what they've been doing with American taxpayers' funding to Latin Americans over the decades.

The truth is getting out every damned day now, and many people don't like what they are learning. Sane, good people wouldn't be able to stand it.

Don't blame Latin Americans one goddamned bit for feeling the need for a show of resistance. What has happened to them is beyond criminal.

[arcos]

5. They should nix them...

Not because the US pushes them to do it, but because weapons are not necessary in Latin America and have only helped to worsen poverty and social inequity.

[tom_paine]

10. Don't give up your weapons to Bushler. He will just turn around and attack

when you are disarmed, like the true coward he is.

If Bushler is asking for something, the prudent course for any nation and it's people, including America, is to do the opposite.

I never dreamed a day would come when it would be just that simple. But there it is: It is just that simple.

[Judi Lynn]

16. He never mastered the concept of good sportsmanship, did he?

Old habits, in his case, are insurmountable.

[Amonester]

21. bu$che could just "master" the words used in sports

only the dirty words, that is...

like "scr*W him" and like "in the a**" 'n all that jazz.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Isn't that odd? It's going to be really hard for the Republicans to gather up a collection

of any of his extemporaneous remarks to put in a book sometime, and all his speeches, as we know, were cranked out by others.

His only REAL statements are so strange.

[tom_paine]

26. "His only REAL statements are so strange"

Yes, almost as if a psychotic megalomaniac with zero empathy was making them.

[EFerrari]

13. Nicaragua Pushes US to Nix Death Squads. And so does Guatemala,

El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Haiti . . . .

[IndianaGreen]

18. Bill Clinton kept the torture and assassination school at Ft. Benning open

and he thought we were foolish enough to think that changing the name of SOA to a longer acronym meant that the primary mission of the school was changed.

[EFerrari]

20. There's plenty of blame to go around.

:(

[IndianaGreen]

17. Sure there is a threat to Nicaragua: USA

As long as America is under the control of neocon or neolib imperialists, the entire world is at risk of American aggression.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Absolutely! There are so many different ways Bush can intimidate small, poor countries.

It has always been to the U.S. advantage to be able to keep them broken, and helpless. Easy to control. Can play the corruptible ones against the ones which struggle for independence, can use paramilitaries in one country to devastate a government somewhere else, you name it. I hope we've seen it all, but you can't put it past dirty pResidents to devise ever new, unexpected ways of devastating and terrorizing an unsuspecting small country.

[Judi Lynn]

24. Nicaraguan vice president says foreign investments signal confidence

Nicaraguan vice president says foreign investments signal confidence
The Associated Press
Published: February 18, 2007

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: Nicaragua's vice president said Sunday that recent investment promises from three large international financial groups demonstrate confidence in the impoverished Central American nation.

Leftist President Daniel Ortega, whose Sandinista Front party seized properties and alienated much of the business community during his 1979-1990 administration, returned to the presidency in January pledging to be more moderate and fully respect property rights.

The government said Sunday that Britain-based banking group HSBC Holdings PLC, Citigroup Inc. and a unit of General Electric Co. have offered or made large investments in Nicaragua's banking sector, but did not provide figures.
(snip)

Separately, the La Prensa newspaper reported Sunday that a U.S. firm exploring for oil under a concessionary contract found signs of petroleum near the city of San Bartolo, about 60 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital of Managua.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/18/america/LA-GEN-Nicaragua-Foreign-Investment.php

[Judi Lynn]

25. Now for something completely different, how about some bottom-feeding from the Miami Herald?

This has to be one for the books: they're going after Ortega's wife, and so early in the game, too! It's one slur-fest from beginning to end:

Posted on Wed, Feb. 21, 2007email thisprint this
NICARAGUA
Some call Ortega's wife power-hungryNicaragua's first lady is considered by many to be the power behind the presidency.
BY TIM ROGERS
Special to The Miami Herald

MANAGUA - A month after President Daniel Ortega took office, his Sandinista government has come under attack for creating powerful parallel governing institutions that could undermine Nicaragua's fragile democracy.

But it's not Ortega, an erstwhile Cold War nemesis of the United States, who's taking the heat. It's his wife, Rosario Murillo, an eccentric poet who some critics say may some day seek the presidency for herself.

Murillo, 55, who managed her husband's electoral campaign, now heads the Council on Communication and Citizenry, the most powerful of several new presidential advisory councils created almost immediately after Ortega took office on Jan. 10.
(snip)

During that time, Murillo married a member of the Sandinista guerrilla underground and had her first daughter, Zoilamérica Narváez.

After her first husband died, she joined Ortega in the late 1970s, when he was living clandestinely in Costa Rica. Narváez has publicly alleged that it was there, a year before the Sandinistas toppled the Somozas in 1979, that Ortega started to sexually abuse her at the age of 11. Both Murillo and Ortega have denied the allegations.
(snip)

At that time, Murillo and Ortega were not officially married, and the role of first lady did not exist in revolutionary Nicaragua. The two married in a Catholic Church ceremony in 2005. They have seven children together.

Today, some critics speculate that Murillo's apparent leverage over Ortega may stem from years of being a ''silent accomplice'' to her daughter's alleged abuse.
(snip)

Blandón, however, insists that Murillo is positioning herself to become a Nicaraguan version of Argentina's famed Evita Perón, and may be considering a run for the presidency in 2011 despite her lack of public appeal and the lingering cloud of the Zoilamérica case.

'There won' be any 'Don't Cry for Me, Nicaragua,' because I don't think anyone would cry for her,'' Blandón said.
(snip/)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/16744693.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, if Ortega can hold his own against the U.S. right-wing illegally funded Contras, maybe he can survive snotty lies and insults from the Miami Herald, too!

[EFerrari]

28. The Miami Herald

"We'll Print Anything!"

[james101]

27. Good, Rockets burn up the oil we want them to give us.

[gorbal]

29. I agree

They need to protect themselves as much as any other heavily armed nation.

Funny that our greatest export is weapons and and here we are criticizing another country for defending itself

[ohio2007]

30. Why does Democrat Senator William Nelson of Florida want to nix the missiles ?

SAM 7 missiles ? Just who is in the district he represents that would bend his ear enough for him to go vocal that it is a threat?
Just how portable are these missiles ?