Nicaragua

Nicaragua_shows Latin America the road to national reformation

By: Lorenzo Dee Belveal

As a long-time Latin America-watcher, it never occurred to this reporter that Nicaragua would be the nation to choose the path of reformation and lead the way to national respectability for the rest of the corruption-ridden "banana republics".

This reporter's Nicaraguan exposures go back to the 1970's, when Anastasio Somoza et familia were the de-facto dictators of the hapless 'republica', stealing what they could manage to carry - and collecting tribute on the balance of the nation's natural and commercial resources.

Without devolving into specifics concerning the Somoza rape and pillage of Nicaragua's population and national wealth, suffice it to say that the iron-fisted strong-man and his henchmen roamed the country, taking what they wanted. They were lavishly assisted in these activities by a collaborating administration and a totally subservient judiciary. These functional appurtenances sufficed to provide a patina of due-process to what would have otherwise been widely seen for what it was: the unblinking looting of a sovereign state, under the hypocritical trappings of consensual government.

It was into this morass of disgraceful exploitation and administrative corruption that the Sandinistra forces exploded, storming the Presidential Palace and driving the Somozas into exile - since departure was seen as preferable to summary execution.

The nominal leader of the Sandinistas was a flinty-eyed reformer by the
name of Eden Pastora. A clue to his personality is contained in the fact that he
could have taken the monicker of Presidente, Generalissimo, or any other designation that suited his fancy. This because he was the head-man in every respect. But he modestly chose to be known as "Commandante Cero". He never missed an opportunity to minimize his own role in the revolution that his forces precipitated, and to describe his crusade as a "movement of the people". His energy and his faith in the cause were above question. He was willing to die for the liberation of Nicaragua - and he proved it on a hundred occasions.

The Sandinistas prevailed against the combined Somoza resistance and a
carpet-bagging "Contra" force, organized and financed by the United States of America. The U. S. intervention was later shown to have been an illegal -
unconstitutional - adventure that had its origins in the Ronald Reagan White House. The caper was replete with cloak-and-dagger intrigues, illicit arms trades, subornation and collaboration that involved the highest levels of several governments - and in spite of all of this, the Sandinistas still prevailed!

Never underestimate the power of a vision!

Elections and supposedly popular government replaced Nicaragua's old
Somoza dictatorship. Considering that his work was finished, and with no
interest in standing for election, himself, Eden Pastora, "Commandante Cero" sought refuge in a neighboring country and the Nicaraguan Palacio Presidencial was occupied by people named Ortega, Chamorra - and more recently, Arnoldo Aleman.

The kind of civil outrages and blatant corruption that had surely triggered the Sandinista revolution initially, soon began to sully the images of the "gobierno popular". Thievery and illicit privileges became the sorry reality of the fledgling "democracy" that had replaced the Somoza regime. But the seeds of rectitude were slumbering under the blanket of federal abuse and they would, in their time, not be denied.

Arnoldo Aleman was elected Nicaraguan President in 1997. His Vice-President was one Enrique Bolanos. During the five Aleman years, 1997 to 2002, it is widely said that the usual patterns of corruption and personal privilege were given full sway. During this period in office, it is reliably alleged, Presidente Aleman stole in excess of one-hundred-million U. S. dollars, for the private enrichment of himself and his political collaborators. Some highly placed sources have put the total figure at multiples of that amount.

The former Vice-President, Enrique Bolanos, stood for and was elected
Nicaraguan President to succeed Aleman. When Bolanos took office in
January, 2002, he promised the voters a thorough-going anti-corruption
campaign against thieving politicians, among whom Arnoldo Aleman stood
at the top of his "hit-list".

Like Honduras, the Nicaraguan Constitution confers legal immunity on its
principal political functionaries. So President Bolanos went to the chamber of deputies and got them to pass a bill removing Aleman's immunity from prosecution. Then he got a court order confining Aleman to house arrest, pending his being brought to trial.

At the Bolanos instigation, the Nicaraguan Attorney General has charged
ex-president Aleman with illegally diverting and 'laundering' one-hundred-million dollars, later transferred to his private accounts for personal enrichment and a variety of other illicit activities. In addition to ex-president Aleman, thirteen (13) Aleman family members and former administration officials are also under related criminal charges, awaiting trial.

In a recent speech to the nation, President Bolanos said, ''I have been true to my people in combating corruption and instilling a new cultural ethic of government. The National Assembly has also been true to Nicaragua today in this fight against corruption.''

As stated previously, this reporter would never have guessed that Nicaragua would be the Latin nation to turn over its "new leaf" and take the road to respectability. There are several other Latin states that I considered much better candidates for reformation. Honduras quickly comes to mind.

I had high hopes that Rafael Leonardo Callejas would prove to be the man to lead Honduras out of its morass of corruption and penury. He was well
educated, capable and extremely popular. He seemed to have the tools for
political miracle-working. Instead, he gave Honduras an administration that no less an authority than U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms labeled, "the most corrupt government in Honduras history".

My next candidate for savior of Honduras was Carlos Flores Facusse. He
comes from a distinguished family. Graduated from a good stateside school. Operates a newspaper, among other family businesses, and presumably has enough money that he doesn't need to steal. As it turned out, his venture into
Honduras politics appears to have been a pure adventure. He failed to gain motivation from even the historic tragedy that arrived in the form of "Hurricane Mitch". Presidente Flores appeared to enjoy the rounds of international socializing his office entailed, but he just couldn't get interested in the day-to-day activitiess of governance. He was non-functional. He allowed things to happen all around him without his personal involvement - either positively or negatively. He was an 'observer'.

So when and from whence will a real "man on a white horse" arrive to duplicate for Honduras, the kind of unlikely socio-political miracle that Enrique Bolanos is putting together in Nicaragua? The case can be convincingly made that Honduras has more of the physical resources to underpin such a break with its disgraceful past than Nicaragua has. Certainly the Honduras people are no less intelligent and no less motivated than their Nicaraguan neighbors. Surely it is not for lack of desperate need or national incentive.

Hondurans strive for a better life. Anyone who needs proof of this, should
consider the hundreds of thousands of desperate, poverty-stricken Hondurans who have quite literally taken their lives in their hands and made the long and hazardous trek northward, to become illegal entrants into the United States - in a desperate search for a living; for themselves and their endlessly deprived families. Many - too many of them have died in the effort.

And all the while these life-and-death dramas are being played out, faithless political jackals back home are brazenly looting the nation of its resources and potentials, with not a perceptible thought for either the basic immorality of their depredations or the fate of the hapless millions that their unfeeling banditry and incompetence is victimizing.

How much longer will this shameful charade continue to be played out by
so-called "public servants", with living suffering people as the hapless pawns on the national gameboard?

Surely there is someone, somewhere, among the millions who claim Honduras as their motherland, who has both the moral acuity and the intelligence to see a way out of the social and economic wilderness into which decades - no, centuries - of political abuse, fiscal irresponsibility and administrative chicanery has placed it. How long must Honduras wait for its deliverer who, like Enrique Bolanos in Nicaragua, will stand up and say "enough is enough". And then do something to rectify it.

It won't take a saint or a superman. But it will require a man of courage, vision and mission. Old habits die hard, and Honduras has lots of old, bad habits to shed on its way to a new national life. In the meantime it waits and prays for its deliverer.

As Job put it, "How long, Oh Lord, how long?"

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