Former Sandinista Leads in Presidential Poll

[bemildred]

Nicaraguan left-wing Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega has a 15-point lead over his nearest rival going into November's presidential election, a poll by Zogby International shows.

The survey showed 34% support for Ortega, a Cold War foe of the U.S. and former guerrilla who became Nicaragua's president after a 1979 revolution. His closest rival, right-winger Eduardo Montealegre, had 19%.

LA Times

[stepnw1f]

1. Looks Like the Right WIng is Losing Globally

GOOD! (nt)

[MannyGoldstein]

2. The Spirit of Joe Strummer At His Side

Oh! Mama, Mama look there!
Your children are playing in that street again
Don't you know what happened down there?
A youth of fourteen got shot down there
The Kokane guns of Jamdown Town
The killing clowns, the blood money men
Are shooting those Washington bullets again

As every cell in Chile will tell
The cries of the tortured men
Remember Allende, and the days before,
Before the army came
Please remember Victor Jara,
In the Santiago Stadium,
Es verdad - those Washington Bullets again

And in the Bay of Pigs in 1961,
Havana fought the playboy in the Cuban sun,
For Castro is a colour,
Is a redder than red,
Those Washington bullets want Castro dead
For Castro is the colour...
...That will earn you a spray of lead

Sandinista!

For the very first time ever,
When they had a revolution in Nicaragua,
There was no interference from America
Human rights in America

Well the people fought the leader,
And up he flew...
With no Washington bullets what else could he do?
Sandinista!

'N' if you can find a Afghan rebel
That the Moscow bullets missed
Ask him what he thinks of voting Communist...
...Ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet,
How many monks did the Chinese get?
In a war-torn swamp stop any mercenary,
'N' check the British bullets in his armoury
Que?
Sandinista!

[Kolesar]

5. I thought that Ortega was finished off for good by the US

34% is hardly grand, though. There must be a long list of candidates. By that article, Daniel Ortega only needs to poll 35% & a 10% lead to take over.

I remember taping that album so I could listen to it with headphones in my dorm room back in '81. There were a few grand songs on it.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. I Have The Exact Same Memories

I also listened to the album on headphones in my dorm room in '81! Great stuff.

I've been listening again lately, on my MP3 player, wishing Joe et al were still around.

[PATRICK]

11. Destruction of US foreign policy

In this instance a good thing. Obviously preoccupied they feel a simple warning to that nation is sufficient, Why, I don't know. The real legwork that should have been done by now disaffected and reassigned diplomats and agents was to prop up some unity candidate on the right. Now that is too late and what are they left with? The old cheat and smear machine? But for whose benefit?

I expect just out of distracted pique and frustration with their failures in Venezuela and other SA nations they might opt for the bullet, but they surely can't have much confidence in that either. Iraq may have been the best thing to have happened to Latin America to move the meddlers of the last half century to the killing dunes of Mideast oil wells. In their zeal for the new Terror War they have lost the bogyman of the Cold War that started them off. No one is afraid of commies at the border anymore and no one is benefiting more from our idiot fundies going after other idiot fundies than smart socialists.

[Kolesar]

12. So, the Bush Doctrine killed the Monroe Doctrine

It certainly seems that the American warring apparatus is at the limits of what it can perform simultaneously.

My observation is that China is becoming the economic power that South America responds to because China has started buying the raw materials they need from there.

China is smart in that they sell product to America and use us as a cash cow, but they do buy from other countries because they are using their purchases as political leverage. China bought silence of countries that would otherwise have been critics of their nasty human rights abuses.

[Yupster]

13. He really helped himself

in the last election a few years ago. He came in a strong second and his campaign was an apology tour for the excesses of his former regime. He especially went to the Miskito Indian areas and apologized to them for the repressions.

He lost the election, but I think he gained a lot of respect in doing it.

I think he deserves another chance.

I don't know how the stuff with his daughter worked itself out though. Anyne know if that's settled?

[nealmhughes]

16. I wore my Sandinista teeshirt from the concert until it wore out.

Still one of my fave Clash songs, along with English Civil War and Lose this Skin and Charlie Don't Surf.

[Vidar]

3. So good to see Reagan's old foe out front again. Viva Ortega..

[ronnykmarshall]

10. I remember when he lost the election to Violeta Chamarro

he was gracious in defeat as she was in victory.



Made me think :wtf: was all the fuss about all those years?

[Zorra]

4. Uh-oh, it's time to send in John "The Butcher" Negroponte again.

Published on Friday, February 18, 2005 by the Associated Press
Negroponte Draws Criticism South of Border
by Lisa J. Adams
snip----
The effort to oust Daniel Ortega's Moscow-leaning Sandinista regime produced a huge scandal in the United States when it was learned the United States secretly sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund the Contra operation.
snip----
Negroponte assisted the U.S.-backed Contra rebels in their attempt to overthrow Nicaragua's left-wing Sandinista government. In the process, activists claim, he ignored human rights abuses by the rebels and their Honduran hosts.
snip----
However, a 1993 Honduran government human rights report said 184 suspected leftists had disappeared in government custody, many of them at the hands of a U.S. trained Honduran army battalion.

"It was obvious that he knew what was happening," said Leo Valladeres, a law professor in Honduras who wrote the report. "They used outlaw methods to kill ... and it is absolutely impossible to believe that a diplomatic mission such as that of the United States was unaware of the situation faced by Honduras and Central America."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0218-10.htm

Maybe he'll enlist good ol' Ollie North and order the CIA to bring back some tons of that good Colombian blow to sell to our kids and use the profits to fund the illegal mission like they did the last time.

[Kolesar]

6. What do you think of that story of selling crack in L.A. to fund Contras?

It did not get much press. I have a vague notion that the story was quite alive in the American black community.

[Zorra]

8. Wouldn't doubt it, but here's some interesting stuff.

The Contras, Cocaine,
and Covert Operations

An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb's series, "The Dark Alliance," has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered.

This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm

[Greeby]

9. First rule of coup d'etat

Make sure the guy you're trying to overthrow can't come back. Seems Poppy is as much a fuckup as Junior :eyes:

[Say_What]

14. FTs: US warns Nicaraguans not to back Ortega

Who the f*ck is Tio Sam to warn anyone? I detest this shit about "warning" citizens of sovereign nations. :mad:

<clips>

The US ambassador to Nicaragua has issued a vigorous warning to this small Central American country's electors against supporting Daniel Ortega, the veteran leftwing Sandinista leader and the frontrunner in November's presidential election.

In a frank interview with the FT, Paul Trivelli said Mr Ortega was "undemocratic" and would roll back much of the advances made in recent years. And, underlining the concern felt in Washington about the regional influence of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, the ambassador said he had no doubt that Venezuela was playing an important role in the election.

"It's one thing to be truly democratic. It's another thing to do what the Sandinistas really have done, which is to distort and manipulate democracy for partisan and personal benefit," Mr Trivelli said. "The fact that has been in charge of the Sandinista movement for 25 years or more gives you a clue about his democratic tendencies."

The ambassador said that an Ortega victory – while vague on many issues, the 60-year-old former rebel leader has talked of increasing the role of the state and renegotiating Cafta, the trade agreement between the US and Central America – would force Washington to "re-evaluate" relations.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14840215/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Info about the USSA in Nicaragua

1909--Liberal President José Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua proposes that American mining and banana companies pay taxes; he has also appropriated church lands and legalized divorce, done business with European firms, and executed two Americans for participating in a rebellion. Forced to resign through U.S. pressure. The new president, Adolfo Díaz, is the former treasurer of an American mining company.

1910--U.S. Marines occupy Nicaragua to help support the Díaz regime.

1912--Nicaragua occupied again by the U.S., to shore up the inept Díaz government. An election is called to resolve the crisis: there are 4000 eligible voters, and one candidate, Díaz. The U.S. maintains troops and advisors in the country until 1925.

1926--Marines, out of Nicaragua for less than a year, occupy the country again, to settle a volatile political situation. Secretary of State Kellogg describes a "Nicaraguan-Mexican-Soviet" conspiracy to inspire a "Mexican-Bolshevist hegemony" within striking distance of the Canal.
"That intervention is not now, never was, and never will be a set policy of the United States is one of the most important facts President-elect Hoover has made clear." --NYT, 1928

1929--U.S. establishes a military academy in Nicaragua to train a National Guard as the country's army. Similar forces are trained in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"There is no room for any outside influence other than ours in this region. We could not tolerate such a thing without incurring grave risks... Until now Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not recognize and support fall. Nicaragua has become a test case. It is difficult to see how we can afford to be defeated." --Undersecretary of State Robert Olds

... 1980--U.S., seeking a stable base for its actions in El Salvador and Nicaragua, tells the Honduran military to clean up its act and hold elections. The U.S. starts pouring in $100 million of aid a year and basing the contras on Honduran territory.
Death squads are also active in Honduras, and the contras tend to act as a state within a state.

1981--The CIA steps in to organize the contras in Nicaragua, who started the previous year as a group of 60 ex-National Guardsmen; by 1985 there are about 12,000 of them. 46 of the 48 top military leaders are ex-Guardsmen. The U.S. also sets up an economic embargo of Nicaragua and pressures the IMF and the World Bank to limit or halt loans to Nicaragua.

more.... http://www.zompist.com/latam.html

[yellowcanine]

15. Another smackdown of Bush and the neocons. The contras were the

bastard spawn of the neocons, particularly Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Elliot Abrams, along with the foot soldiers John Poindexter and Oliver North.

[Lindacooks]

17. 'Sandanista'! 'Gesundheit'!

from Bloom County ...

[Jack Rabbit]

18. So, after threatening the people of Nicaragua, the Bushies will be dissed

Take that, John Negroponte.