Dear Nica Times:
Your article on the MCC in Nicaragua (“MCC Helps Put Farms Back to Work,” NT, May 22) misses the mark entirely and draws into question your veracity, sincerity and journalistic independence.
The U.S. has never wished to recognize free and fair elections in Nicaragua, including the 1984 elections, which FSLN candidates Daniel Ortega and Sergio Ramírez won freely and fairly according to international observers.
Yet to punish Nicaraguans for not voting the American way, the Reagan-Bush regime financed, armed and directed a genocidal, illegal terrorist war against Nicaragua, including the mining of harbors, the claymore mining of mountain roads, the destruction of rural housing projects done by European nations such as France and Switzerland, the destruction of new schools and health clinics in regions that had never seen schools nor health-care under the dynastic Somoza regimes, and even the brutal torture and murder of teachers and health-care workers.
This is not “emotional baggage,” as the inexperienced Rodney Bent claims in your article. This is historical fact. It was a profound injustice that incurred an enormous war debt due to the suffering people of Nicaragua who lost so much to criminal U.S. aggression.
Now, because the heroic Nicaraguan people again refused to vote the way Washington wanted, the U.S. punished Nicaragua by cutting off the pay-offs for their votes, administered by the Chamorro family.
Anyone who cannot see the significance of the funds passing through a Chamorro knows nothing of Nicaragua. It is not surprising now to find another Chamorro to channel bribes for Washington’s purposes and to act as salesman of the Washington line, including the paternalistic, colonialist imagery noted in your quotes.
Your article presents only that Washington, D.C. line and not the truth. You seek to deceive yet you cannot deceive the people carrying “emotional baggage” cast upon us like a cross by the evil Reagan Empire.
You cannot buy the Nicaraguan vote, anymore than the Palestinian vote.
Charles Scanlon
Columbus, New Mexico, USA
