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From: gil@cornell.UUCP (Gil Neiger)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: El Salvador, Nicaragua
Message-ID: <463@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 10:36:50 EST
Article-I.D.: cornell.463
Posted: Wed Nov  6 10:36:50 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 16:30:41 EST
References: <531@nbires.UUCP> <7280@ucla-cs.ARPA> <347@ubvax.UUCP> <766@mmintl.UUCP>
Reply-To: gil@cornell.UUCP (Gil Neiger)
Distribution: net
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 44

In article <766@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>... the entire right wing of Nicaraguan politics has been eliminated or
>forced underground.  I believe that there were truely (sic) right wing
>newspapers, which were forced out of business by the Sandinistas.

Most of the right wing of Nicaraguan politics left the country in 1979.
It was not forced out, but it realized that the society in which it had
come to thrive no longer existed.  Remember that much of the Nicaraguan
right was the National Guard.  The only major papers in the country before
the revolution were La Prensa and Las Novedades, a Somoza paper.  I
don't think the Sandinistas forced the latter out of business, but that
it left with Somoza.  Can you cite any other papers that have been
"forced out of business"? 

>Newspaper censorship in this country took place only during declared wars.
>The rest of the time, we've had freedom of the press.  (sic)

The United States is the one that is fighting an undeclared war against
Nicaragua.  The Nicaraguans and their government recognize they are at
war, regardless of whether or not it is declared.  The contras are not
a nation on which Nicaragua can declare war.

>The question is not so much how free the country the is, but which way
>it is going.  It is hardly a valid criticism of the U.S. to say that it
>has gotten more free with time.  Unfortunately, after a promising start
>after the ouster of the Samozaists (sic), Nicaragua now seems to be going the
>other way.

It is true that civil liberties are now abridged in Nicaragua as they were
not two months ago.  Nevertheless, Nicaraguan society remains more open than
most in Central America.  When searching for the cause of the abridgement of
civil liberties in Nicaragua, we must look both at the government there and
at our own.  The U.S. administration is responsible for the situation in
Nicaragua to which the Sandinistas are reacting.


-- 
        Gil Neiger 
        Computer Science Department 
        Cornell University 
        Ithaca NY  14853 

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