Washington continues to interfere
in Nicaraguan elections

BY PASTOR VALLE-GARAY— Special for Granma International

TORONTO— Four months before the presidential elections, Nicaragua is a study in political pessimism. A ship adrift. Sin a pilot. Sin a rudder. Sin anything. Queen of Sin. In Spanish the word for sin is sin. In Nicaragua, national politics and Washington’s sinful interference have turned the word into an accursed, normal way of life.

One day sin water. Another day sin electricity. Weeks sin public transportation. Months sin hospitals and years sin education programs. Every day more than one million children kill time sin attending school. Many more sin eating. Thousands die sin medical attention. Nicaragua is heading toward chaos sin political leaders, sin religious leaders. Sin any compassion whatsoever. Trapped for centuries by the brutal interventionism of Washington and the avarice of the national oligarchy, the Central American nation of extraordinary natural resources and hardworking people has barely survived. The majority of the population seemed destined to jump from one economic precipice to another, often sin hope, until the triumph of the Sandinista revolution in July 1979.

It is a tribute to Nicaraguan tenacity that the nation remained afloat up until then. That it survives now sin a president is a miracle. For the last 12 years three liberal and conservative presidents have alternated power with White House approval. Violeta Chamorro Barrios, Arnoldo Alemán and Enrique Bolaños Geyer "dis-ruled" sin rhyme or reason. They dedicated themselves exclusively to denigrating the Sandinistas whose struggle and triumph against the criminal dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza brought democracy to Nicaragua, paving the way for three useless individuals successively occupying the presidency.

Restoring the Somoza dynasty style of government, the three incompetent rulers, intimately linked to Washington, dismantled the achievements of the Sandinista government and sunk the economy while, at the same time, audaciously blaming the colossal failure on the FSLN. Chamorro was elected, sin political experience, handpicked by Washington. Considering her the least offensive among a pleiad of satraps, the White House anointed her presidential candidate. Washington consolidated the opposition and organized and financed her campaign, denying a win for the Sandinista Party. Chamorro immediately returned the ‘favor’ to the White House by pardoning the United States a $17-billion debt granted to Nicaragua by the International Court of Justice for damages caused to that nation by the Contra war and Washington.

Alemán followed Chamorro. At the end of his mandate Alemán was sentenced to 20 years in prison for corruption, fraud, and money laundering. However—and here is another detail of the Nicaraguan sin— despite having stolen more than $100 million of public funds, Alemán is free. Under house arrest in his luxurious "El Chile" mansion likewise stolen from the nation that he left bankrupt. His freedom is the result of crooked pacts and the generosity of Bolaños, Alemán’s vice president throughout the privileged offender’s presidential crimes. Bolaños, backed by the White House, came to occupy the presidency after winning the last elections.

That trio governed sin any concern for the people’s misery. They received, sin fail, the servile support of the General Assembly, a shoddy bunch of idlers affiliated to former governors who spent months sin holding session, sin emitting laws and, sin the slightest scruples, awarded themselves large dollar salaries while 70% of the population were suffering from hunger, sickness and unemployment.

This time around, more than one dozen parties are competing for the presidency. Sin a platform, sin any idea of how to combat poverty, sin a conscience, sin any higher ambition than to remain forever in power. In the last 12 years, a whole series of ambassadors and "special delegations" from the White House, beginning with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, have traveled to Managua with the objective of preventing the FSLN from retaking the presidency.

Last week it was the turn of Tom Shannon, undersecretary of state for Latin America. He met with Bolaños and with Eduardo Montealegre, candidate of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance party and favored by Washington to occupy the presidency after the November elections.

According to Montealegre, "we are going to talk to him (Shannon) about democracy, Latin America, and how the United States can benefit from the county’s growth, and thus, as in the 80s, a line was drawn to prevent the spread of communism, today we are going to draw the line in Nicaragua so that the interventionism and expansionism of (Venezuelan President Hugo) Chávez does reach Central America."

Preeti Shah, the U.S. spokesperson in Managua, stated: "We are funding efforts to promote voter consensus and to ensure that all Nicaraguan citizens who wish to vote can exercise their constitutional right."

Just like that. Sin mincing words, sin the slightest shame, sin the most elemental sense of decency, they are blatantly manifesting U.S. interventionism and the candidate’s servile submission to the godfathers of the gringo mafia.

Shannon’s visit highlights Washington’s concern to ensure that another leftist government doesn’t reach power in Latin America. In Nicaragua the message has not gone unnoticed. The fight against imperialism and against the oppressor oligarchies has always required war sin mercy. Sandino knew it. Fidel knew it in Cuba, as did Che Guevara everywhere, Allende in Chile, and the Farabundo Martí Front in El Salvador. Chávez discovered it in Venezuela, and Evo Morales in Bolivia. And they triumphed.

Washington knows it. Hence its desperation to protect the hegemony that it once had over the hemisphere. This time they are mistaken. It is too late. The Nicaraguans know it. In November the disappearance, with or sin gringo intervention, of the accursed legacy of the sin and the servile national submission will be decided. Nicaragua is preparing to give the "Shannons" of the State Department a New Year’s message: "No more intervention, Yankee. Go home!" Sin fear. Sin any hesitation.