I'm having trouble these days remembering whether this is 2001 or 1981 (or 1990). The new Bush Administration has come to look very much like the old Bush Administration -- and even more like that of Ronald Reagan.

• Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs, Elliott Abrams, has been appointed to the staff of the National Security Council, a position for which he does not need Senate confirmation. Abrams has the blood of more innocent children, women, and men on his hands than any Balkan war criminal. He has also grown rich in Central American business schemes since his departure from government.

• Otto Reich, who Bush is planning to nominate for Abrams' old job, was in charge of psychological operations under Reagan and Bush, a position from which he spread disinformation to the press and lies about those of us who opposed the Reagan/Bush wars and about our allies in Central America.

• John Negroponte, who as Ambassador to Honduras during the 80's helped run the contra war and covered up Honduran army atrocities, is Bush's shameful choice for Ambassador to the UN. There is a lot to indict Negroponte for, but what most outraged me was in 1988, after Nicaragua was devastated by Hurricane Joan, Negroponte was overheard to say, "We need to treat this as if it were a successful contra attack." This is a chillingly evil man.

What next? Is Bush going to dump Colin Powell and appoint Oliver North as Secretary of State?

The reason that I sometimes think this is 1990 is because Bush the Younger is intervening in the Nicaraguan presidential elections in the same manner that Bush the Elder did in 1990. The US seems to be taking seriously polls that show Daniel Ortega leading the lackluster Liberal and Conservative party nominees for president and even winning a first ballot victory.

In an effort to head off a Sandinista victory, US Ambassador Oliver Garza is employing tactics not seen in recent years. At the inauguration of a US-funded medical clinic, Garza slammed the Sandinistas and pointing to the clinic said, "There is more than simple diplomatic recognition involved here!" The Nicaraguan press interpreted this as a threat to cut off US aid in the event of a Sandinista victory, an impression Garza clearly intended.

Just in case any Nicaraguan should fail to understand where the United States government stands on the elections, a week later Garza made even more threatening remarks about "defending democracy" while surrounded by newly-arrived US troops. The US troops, which have been rotating into the country since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, are in Nicaragua allegedly for humanitarian projects. Just coincidentally, I'm sure, there are reports that some of those projects seem to be along the route of the planned "dry canal," the high speed freight railroad system that MULTINATIONAL <Belgian companies are actually in the lead on this one> companies want to build to supplement the Panama Canal. (Never mind that they are driving the Rama people off their ancestral land, splitting the Central America biological corridor in half, and opening the remaining rainforest to logging and settlement.)

On the positive side, the Nicaragua Network staff person in Nicaragua, Paul Baker-Hernandez, reports that many young people are saying, "So this is what US intervention looks like. It's not just something that used to happen." And they don't like it.

Barely a week after Garza's photo op with the soldiers, former US Ambassador to Nicaragua Lino Gutierrez, who is warming the seat at the State Department where Otto Reich will sit if he's confirmed, traveled to Nicaragua for his second trip to meet with all the political actors except the Sandinistas. The US aim is clearly to reconstruct the UNO coalition that defeated the FSLN in 1990.

All of this makes me so angry that it is difficult to even find the words to express my outrage. For more than a century, my country has killed Nicaragua's children, destroyed its economy, wiped out every social advance of the Sandinista Revolution, and raped the environment.

But, impotent anger doesn't stop the carnage -- only persistent opposition by you and me and our friends and neighbors will end it. That means old fashioned organizing such as letters to Congress and to the editor of our local newspapers, visits to elected representatives, demos, pickets, and civil disobedience. It also means taking advantage of new technology which allows us to communicate and mobilize much faster than we could in the 1980s.

If you are as mad as I am, one thing you can do is join the Nicaragua Network's "Yankee Go Home" listserve. If you have email, you can sign up by sending a message to <nicalist@afgj.org> In the subject line type exactly the following: subscribe yankeegohome. We will post to this listserve reports on new US interference in Nicaragua's elections, give you target phone numbers, faxes, and emails, so that every time one of our government officials opens his mouth to interfere in Nicaragua's democratic process you can vigorously object. The listserve will also give you a place to inform the rest of us about the results of any Congressional contacts you've made, letters published, people mobilized, etc.

Those of you who do not have email, can sign up for the Nicaragua Emergency Response Network, our human rights rapid action network. We will fax letters in your name to US and Nicaraguan government officials. Just check the box at the end of this letter to sign up and to get a sample copy of the Monitor.

I've included a sample letter in this mailing. Sign it and return it to us by July 10, or better yet write your own, and we will deliver them to Ambassador Garza.

The Nicaragua Network is also working with others to place a paid advertisement in the two principal Managua daily newspapers expressing our support for the right of the Nicaraguan people to freely elect their public officials and our determination to stop our government’s interference. The letter will be signed by religious and human rights organizations as well as prominent individuals. If your organization would like to see the ad and sign on or if you would like to contribute to placing the ad, please contact us.

If the only human resources we had to draw on were those of us who still care about Nicaragua, I would not be too hopeful about our ability to affect US government policy. But, It’s not just us folks. The corporate globalization opponents who discovered they were a movement during the Seattle WTO protest, continue to grow and to add to the understanding -- which you and I have known all along -- that all social and economic justice issues are interrelated.

And, on September 29 of this year we will be closing the circle by adding US militarism to the list of related issues through a gigantic March Against US Military and Economic Intervention in Latin America. Because, as Ambassador Garza so graphically demonstrated, it is the iron fist of US imperialism that provides the muscle to impose World Bank - IMF - WTO - NAFTA - FTAA corporate globalization on the rest of the world.

We will be closing the circle symbolically when we join forces with a domestic issues march (which Nicaragua Network is also endorsing) to encircle the White House after a day of rallying, education, and nonviolent action. The following day, September 30, we will join additional thousands of anti-corporate globalization activists to take the message that we support people-centered globalization to the opening day of the Fall meetings of the World Bank and IMF.

All of this is possible because you have continued to support a Central America solidarity movement that in March of this year united to create a Latin America solidarity movement. The conference, for which Nicaragua Network was a central organizer, showed the most unity of purpose, convergence of analysis, and determination to coordinate our organizing efforts, that I have seen in my decade and a half in the movement.

The weekend of September 29-30 and the several days before and after, will see the biggest nonviolent uprising of citizen outrage at US government policies since the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests of a generation ago.

This will be an historic weekend when in the tens of thousands we stand shoulder to shoulder and say, "Stop. You have gone too far in your selfish grasping for money and power. We are going to take this world back from you and you can either help, or move out of the way."

Will you help? We need financial resources. We need recruitment in your community. We need locally organized events for those who can't come to Washington. (There are also going to be simultaneous actions throughout Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.) We need you. Check the box at the end of this letter if you will help organize your community in whatever ways you are able.

And, as always, we need your continued financial support for the Nicaragua Network. Summer is always a slow income time for us, but unfortunately the bills don’t slow down. So, if you can give a donation now, we will have a less stressful summer.

See you in September.

In Solidarity,

Chuck Kaufman
National Co-Coordinator

Ambassador Oliver Garza
United States Embassy
Managua, Nicaragua
Fax: 011-505-266-9943

Dear Ambassador Garza:

As a United States citizen concerned with defending democracy in other countries in the world, I write to express my concern with your increasingly vocal involvement in the Nicaraguan presidential elections. It was extremely ironic and inappropriate that you held a press conference, surrounded by United States military personnel, in which you affirmed the US role of "defending democracy," while taking a partisan and interventionist stance in the Nicaraguan presidential elections. The Nicaraguan people have lived through decades of anti-democratic political, economic, and military intervention by the United States. Playing on their fears of repressive US military action upon the event of a Sandinista victory is brutally callous, considering the thousands of Nicaraguan lives lost at the hands of US soldiers and US-financed paramilitaries in the past century.

As a United States citizen, I denounce any anti-democratic, imperialistic representation of the United States to the Nicaraguan people. If you truly intend to "defend democracy" on my behalf, then you must not use intimidation to coerce the Nicaraguan people into supporting one political party over another. "Defending democracy" in a country where democracy has been obstructed by United States economic and military intervention means working to minimize external interference from the United States.

We sincerely hope that you will "defend democracy" in Nicaragua by withdrawing from your partisan, interventionist position and ensuring that the United States does not become an obstacle to the will of the Nicaraguan people. The Nicaraguan people should have the right to vote without fear of repercussion from the United States or any other foreign power. Should you continue to deviate from your self-stated mission of "defending democracy," I will contact my legislative representative to ask them to enforce a respect for Nicaragua’s democratic institutions and support for the democratic right of the Nicaraguan people to elect a government of their choice.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

Comments