Annotations for Countries: Nicaragua

There've been several strong reactions to US Secretary of State Rogers recent visit to Latin America that were ignored in the US press, but received ample coverage in Latin America. This report from Chile Hoy the Santiago weekly, is typical. 

The old rhetoric of the good neighbor no longer serves to suppress Latin American insubordination to aggressive US policies, leaving a trail of popular protest in Caracas and Bogota, prearranged tribute in Managua, and cold official receptions in Mexico City and Lima, Secretary of State, William Rogers arrived May 19th at his first breathing spot, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, in his impossible goodwill mission to Latin America.

Rogers seeks to soften the growing Latin American reaction to the imperialist policies of his country, expressed clearly in recent international events and to make the road that President Nixon will soon follow, less rocky. Since the Secretary of State can obviously offer no real solutions to the antagonism between his country and Latin America, he has embellished his tour, characterized as a diplomatic diversion by an American news agency, with gross rhetoric. That from Chile Hoy.

Chile Hoy carries a report by a North American correspondent who recently visited Nicaragua to see firsthand the aftermath of December's earthquake. His account of the corruption and misuse of the millions of dollars worth of goods donated from all over the hemisphere is harrowing. He was witness to the fact that the disaster relief destined for the victims of the earthquake never reached them. It was redirected instead to fill the bellies and line the pockets of Nicaragua's strong men, Tachito Samoza and his National Guard. 

The accounts tell of exclusive beaches and elegant residential neighborhoods lined with canvas tents from the United States, Canada, and Germany, while victims of the earthquake still homeless, huddle under trees are improvised cardboard lintos. It tells us stores operating out of private homes where the merchandise comes from cartons labeled, "Care. US Aid", "From the people of the Dominican Republic to the Nicaraguan People" and so on.

Canned goods, clothing, electric lanterns, water purifiers, tools, even blood transfusion units in Samsonite cases are for sale in such shops. The article notes that the transfusion units are generally valued only for the case which they come in. Other stores operate out of the residences of many members of the National Guard. These cell items sacked from the most elegant monogan doors after the guard had cordoned off a 400 block area. Anastasio Somoza III, son of the present dictator and grandson of Anastasio I, who was given control of the country by the US Marines in 1933, was in charge of this cleanup operation.

The article portrays US Ambassador Shelton as Samoza's personal counselor and most unwavering ally. As a close friend and former employee of Howard Hughes and the staunch Nixon man, Shelton has a lot to offer Samoza. For instance, the $2 million check he brought to Nicaragua from Washington after the quake has now made its way through a shady land deal to Tachito Samoza's personal bank account. This from the Santiago Weekly, Chile Hoy 

Tri-Continental News Service in New York reported this week on the expanding market in human blood, which Tri-Continental calls the ultimate commodity. The shortage of blood plasma in this country has provided some enterprising US businesses with a profitable new commodity and has created a new source of misery for the poorest people in America. Donations of blood in the United States cover only about 60% of the annual need. The deficit, about two and a half million pints, comes from people who sell their blood in order to survive. The going rate in urban slums and poor southern states of the United States is from five to $15 a pint, which the companies then sell to hospitals for up to $35. 

Now, United States companies have found an even cheaper source of this strategic raw material. They have set up blood banks in half a dozen Latin American capitals, where unemployment rates of up to 50% assure a virtually unlimited supply of people willing to open up their veins for these merchants. The plentiful supply of blood has driven the price down, and prices are from $2 to $3 a pint are common. 

The blood exporting countries include Haiti, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Columbia, and Brazil. A recent survey carried out by the Department of Experimental Surgery at the Autonomous University of Mexico estimated that the export of blood from Mexico alone was a $10 million annual business. Latin American blood is sent to West Germany and Israel in addition to the United States. 

Tri-Continental claims that many of the people who sell their blood are undernourished and anemic, and yet they will come in week after week to make their sale. The companies, which are not licensed or controlled by medical authorities, are not concerned with the loss of iron, which often results in the slow death of the chronic blood donor. 

Tri-Continental suggests that the reason why such practices persist is government corruption. When defense minister Luckner Cambronne was dismissed from his post in Haiti in November 1972, it was learned that he had been a partner in Hemo Caribbean, a US controlled blood company that also has branches in the Dominican Republic. Similar financial connections have been revealed between Carlos Arana Osorio, president of Guatemala, and the Sedesa company, which exports blood from that country, and in the case of the Samosas family's holdings in blood exporting companies in Nicaragua. This report from New York's Tri-Continental News Service.

Meanwhile, in Caracas at the 10th Annual Conference of the Inter-American Army, Peru accused the United States of accusing Latin American armed forces to serve its own purposes. At the same conference, the Brazilian representation represented the opposite thesis regarding the position to modify the Reciprocal Support Treaty. They stated that, "Our enemy continues to be the international communist movement." This proclamation by the Brazilian generals was interpreted by observers to be a denunciation of the Peruvian project. 

Also, meeting in Caracas was the Confederation of Latin American Workers who claimed militarism is in the service of exploitation. They cited the military governments of Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Nicaragua as examples. The workers stated that militarism in Latin America has institutionalized dependence and alienation. That report from Excélsior. 

According to Marcha of Montevideo, Uruguay, many Latin American officials are dismayed at the Nixon administration's choices for ambassadors to Mexico and Argentina. Two of the most critical posts in Latin America, both men, Joseph Jova appointed ambassador to Mexico and Robert Hill appointed to Argentina have been criticized for their close connections with the CIA, the Pentagon and the United Fruit Company. 

Hill, a close friend of President Nixon recently chose to resign from his post as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs rather than comply with a Senate order to sell his extensive defense industry stock holdings 

According to Marcha, Hill's political career began in the State Department in 1945 when he was assigned to US Army headquarters in New Delhi, India. His job actually served as a cover for an intelligence assignment for the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA. Throughout the rest of his career, he continued to work closely with the US intelligence community, including the CIA. Marcha describes his biography as a satirical left-wing caricature of a Yankee imperialist. A former vice president of WR Grace and a former director of the United Fruit Company, Hill personally helped organize the overthrow of the Nationalist Arbenz's Government, which threatened United Fruit's investments in Guatemala.

As Marcha details, "Ambassador Hill is particularly criticized for his participation in the CIA instigated overthrow of President Arbenz in 1954." The history of that coup centers to a large extent on the United Fruit Company. Arbenz and his predecessor worked hard to change the inequalities in Guatemala's social structure. Free speech and free press were established. Unions were reorganized and legalized. Educational reforms were enacted.

One of the most wide-sweeping and inflammatory changes was the Agrarian Land Reform Program, which struck directly at the interest of the United Fruit Company. The program called for the expropriation and redistribution of uncultivated lands above a basic acreage, while exempting intensively-cultivated lands. Compensation was made in accord with the declared tax value of the land. The appropriated lands were then distributed to propertyless peasants. 

Immediately afterwards, the McCarthyite storm burst over Guatemala. Arbenz was accused of being a communist agent and as such was thought to be a danger to the power of America and the security of the Panama Canal. The plan to overthrow Arbenz was concocted by the CIA. A Guatemalan colonel, Castillo Armas, was found to head up a rebel force in Honduras, in Nicaragua, and was supplied with United States arms. Marcha says that at the time of the coup, Hill was ambassador in Costa Rica and formed a part of the team that coordinated the coup. In 1960, he was rewarded by being elected to the board of directors of United Fruit. 

Hill has long enjoyed close relations with President Nixon, and in 1972 he returned from Madrid, Spain where he was serving as ambassador to work on the campaign for Nixon's reelection. Joseph Jova, the appointee as ambassador to Mexico, also shares with Hill a spurious background. The Mexican paper El Dia accused Jova of deep involvement in a successful 1964 CIA campaign to prevent the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Jova was deputy chief of the United States Embassy in Santiago, Chile at the time. This report on the new United States ambassadors to Mexico and Argentina has been compiled from Marcha of Montevideo Uruguay and Mexico City's Excelsior.

In a recent article entitled "Central America: Made Martyr by The Big Fruit Company", La Opinión, an Argentine newspaper reports on the US-based Standard Fruit Company. Standard Fruit unilaterally suspended its import of bananas from Honduras in reprisal for an agreement Honduras made establishing an export tax on bananas of $1 per case. According to Standard Fruit, the agreement will bring Honduras unemployment and cause a drop in wages, as well as affect banana production in all of Latin America's other banana-producing nations. The decision, reports La Opinión, was made public by Standard Fruit following an interview which several of the corporation's highest officials had with Honduran President López Arellano. 

Officials spokesmen have stated that Honduras remained firm in defense of its recent agreements, reached collectively with Panama, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Colombia. Standard Fruit alleged in a press statement that the rise in the export price of bananas will diminish North American banana consumption, thus making it necessary to adjust the supply in order to compensate for the new situation.

Standard Fruit announced its intention to take such action at a recent meeting of Latin American banana producers held in Honduras. During the meeting, a Standard Fruit official warned all of the various representatives that it would suspend all banana shipments out of Honduras if the $1 tax was agreed upon. The threat, which would hurt, especially Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras, was ignored by all of the representatives present. 

Following the meeting, a Costa Rican newspaper, Latin, reported on the reaction to Standard Fruits actions by Costa Rican President José Figueres. Figueres labeled Standard Fruit's operations colonialist. The Costa Rican President also said that Standard Fruit was the only foreign fruit company which had refused to pay the $1 export charge. Addressing his country in a national television broadcast, Figueres stated, "It is a typically colonialist attitude and has caused us great difficulty. However, we will not alter our approach and we'll do what must be done." 

Standard Fruit's hardline policy, reports La Opinión, is due to two chief factors. Standard Fruit fears that competitors will move in and capture its market when its prices rise. The company also fears that the banana producers, if not dealt with firmly, will pursue with greater interest their recent tendency towards trade with Socialist nations. 

This report on the banana trade in Central America was taken from the Argentine daily, La Opinión, and the Costa Rican paper, Latin. 

Excélsior of Mexico City reports that the Nicaraguan government has instituted censorship over the entire news media in that country. The action was taken in order to silence news reports of the strikes which are plaguing the country. The main strike in Nicaragua involves the country's hospital workers who have been out now for 42 days. Construction workers in Managua have also walked out in a show of solidarity with the hospital workers. 

The censorship decree reflected the government's concern with the strike. It stated that censorship was imposed because the strikers and agitators are using all of the media, spoken, written in television, to promote new strikes and subversive activities. They have abused the freedom of speech that existed in Nicaragua, according to the government. The censorship order came from Nicaragua's ruling triumvirate, which has governed the country since the president stepped down in 1972. The decree is based on the suspension of constitutional guarantees ordered in 1972 after the earthquake in Managua. 

So far, there have been no censors sent to television or radio stations, although the national director of information stated that according to the decree, all news about the strikes have been declared illegal. Newspapers, on the other hand, have been affected by Nicaragua censorship. The director of the Nicaraguan daily La Prensa denounced the government's action. He said officers of the National Guard, accompanied by a government lawyer, told him that they had orders to "revise everything that is published, from the economic notices to editorials." The censors then immediately deleted all references to the strike. 

In protest to the censorship, La Prensa refused to publish a paper the next day. The paper's editor said that the newspaper has suspended operations indefinitely rather than submit to censorship. This story from the Mexico City daily, Excélsior.