Anti-Nicaraguan congresspeople demand "return to Constitutional rule" in Nicaragua

[eridani]

http://afgj.org/?p=1836

Contact your representatives! Send your Senators and Representative the article below responding to allegations of fraud in Nicaragua’s Nov. 6 presidential election. Include your own note saying you will not tolerate a return to the policies of the 1980s when the US made economic, political and proxy war on Nicaragua, the hemisphere’s second poorest country. Find your Senators and Representative.

In coordinated actions on December 1, right-wing members of the Senate and House pushed the Obama administration to take strong action against Nicaragua where voters recently returned President Daniel Ortega to office with over 62% of the vote. Throughout the 1980s US policy was focused on denying Nicaraguans the right to self-determination and sovereignty. We must not let history repeat itself.

On Dec. 1 anti-Cuban Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced a resolution condemning the so-called “assault on democracy in Nicaragua” represented by Ortega’s re-election. The resolution also urges the Obama Administration to “take immediate measures to encourage the restoration of constitutional rule.” What do they want Obama to do, mine the harbor at Corinto like Reagan did in 1984 prompting the World Court to rule the action illegal and order reparations that have never been paid?

At the same time, far-right Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Relations, held a hearing entitled “Democracy Held Hostage in Nicaragua: Part I.” We cannot allow the further militarization of US policy toward Latin America, and Nicaragua in particular. Nicaragua, during the past five years of constitutional Sandinista governance, has seen tens of thousands of families rise out of abject poverty and hundreds of thousands receive free health care and education. Peasants can again feed their families and workers can form unions without being fired.

Nicaragua has once again become “the threat of a good example” as Oxfam UK called it in the 1980s during the Sandinista Revolution. We must not allow the gains of the Revolution to be reversed to the advantage of transnational corporations and wealthy individuals. Send the authoritative response to claims of electoral fraud to your elected representatives with a personal note that you will not tolerate their support for a hostile US policy toward Nicaragua. Find your Senators and Representative.

[Peace Patriot]

1. I await a hearing called, "Democracy Held Hostage by the Miami Mafia: Part 1,371."

"...far-right Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Relations, held a hearing entitled 'Democracy Held Hostage in Nicaragua: Part I.'”

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...although the Miami Mafia is only part of the problem. It would be inexhaustibly gratifying to see them investigated but, for that to happen, we first have to, a) get rid of the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines run by far rightwing-connected ES&S/Diebold that keeps these scumbags in Congress, and b) defund Pentagon/MIC war planners.

The Miami Mafia are the running dogs of the Pentagon, and the Pentagon has created a "circle the wagons" area--Central America/the Caribbean--where U.S. "free trade for the rich" will be enforced by U.S. bully military power, in reaction to the massive leftist movement in South America which has elected leftist governments all over the map and is organizing Latin American political/economic integration on principles of LatAm sovereignty, independence and social justice. That is what the Honduran rightwing military coup was all about--the U.S. "circling the wagons" against social justice and a "level playing field" for corporate interests and investors. (U.S. corps have never wanted a "level playing field.") One of the first things that the coup government did was to withdraw Honduras from ALBA (alternative trade group started by Venezuela and Cuba, that includes Nicaragua, Ecuador and many small Central American/Caribbean countries). Now the Pentagon is expanding its footprint in Honduras with more military bases including a U.S. naval base for coordination with the U.S. 4th Fleet (mothballed since WW II, reconstituted by the Bush Junta).

The coup in Honduras was designed by the Bush Junta, sprung on Obama six months into his administration--after he'd said that he wanted a policy of "peace, respect and cooperation" in Latin America--and Obama/Clinton did not oppose it but rather arranged for a fraudulent U.S.-run election to confirm rightwing control. First term Senator Jim DeMint (SC-Diebold) ran the blackmail operation in the U.S. Senate, on behalf of the Miami Mafia and the Pentagon, by holding up all of Obama's diplomatic appointments in Latin America, to force Obama/Clinton to come up with a plan that would leave the rightwing in control in Honduras (which they did).

Trade union leaders and other advocates of the poor are still being murdered by the rightwing's death squads in Honduras. That is a U.S. "free trade for the rich" policy: find excuses (such as the U.S. 'war on drugs" in Colombia) to decapitate the labor movement.

Honduras is the traditional U.S. footstool for U.S. aggression against Honduras' neighbors. It was the mustering point for rightwing death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the Reagan Horrors. And that is what Honduras is today, as a result of the coup: a footstool once again.

One very interesting hint of U.S. School of the Americas-trained Honduran military views can be found in the Zelaya government-in-exile report on the coup, which quotes one of the coup generals as follows: Their coup was "intended to prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States." "Communism," in this general's mind = universal free medical care, universal free education, good wages and benefits, land reform, real elections and government "of, by and for" the people which is not afraid to tax the rich and to strongly regulate corporations in the public interest. Venezuela is NOT a communist country. It has a mixed socialist/capitalist economy which has performed the astonishing feat of turning Venezuela into "THE most equal country" in Latin America," on income distribution (according the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean). And THAT is what this rightwing general, the Mafia Mafia, Wall Street and the 1% THINK of social justice--that it is "communist." And how they think of Honduras is as the stalwart UNFAIR country from which they can launch their ATTACK ON FAIRNESS in the Central American/Caribbean region.

The noises from the Miama Mafia clearly point to outright war. They were talking about it before the ES&S/Diebold Congress was even seated (Dec. 2010), specifically mentioning Nicaragua. They had GOTTEN Honduras by coup (in '09). Nicaragua has a better-organized leftist movement and its democracy is hanging on. (Honduras' leftist--i.e., majorityist--movement was just forming when the Honduran coup was sprung, around the issue of constitutional reform, with the labor unions strongly favoring reform and having convinced President Zelaya to support it. They put up amazing and courageous resistance to the coup but could not reverse it without the U.S./Obama-Clinton on their side).

What this means, from our point of view (the people of the U.S.) is that (as we have seen on other issues) Obama is quite weak before the far rightwing in alliance with the Pentagon and Transglobal Corporate interests. If they want a war, they will have it and Obama can't stop it--and we don't even know if he wants to, in this case. (There are mixed signals. He certainly wants U.S. transglobal corporate hegemony in LatAm and doesn't seem to be against the Pentagon expanding its "Southern Command" in LatAm wherever it can gain a foothold but there are some indications that he, Clinton and Panetta don't support the fascist right in Colombia.) The far right here in alliance with the war profiteers and the corporates now control our election machinery and can oust Obama at will. That is really the heart of the problem. We CANNOT elect a strong leftist leader here and all those in office can easily--EASILY!--be removed.

I tend to think that Oil War II: Latin America will be attempted. The warmongers have been spending trillions of our tax dollars preparing for it, including an extremely intense propaganda campaign of long standing. Overthrowing Nicaragua's democracy is just the next step. The main target is Venezuela, which forms part of the southern rim of the Pentagon's "circle the wagons" region, and possesses the largest oil reserves on earth (twice Saudi Arabia's, according to the USGS). I don't know if this will be delayed to Bush Junta II, post-Obama. It could be one of the things that Obama has to agree to, to stay in office.