Former Sandinista leader:
'Reagan was the butcher of my people'
Following are excerpts from a June 8 "Democracy Now!"
radio interview with the Rev. Miguel D'Escoto, who was
Nicaragua's foreign minister under the Sandinista government in
the 1980s. D'Escoto resides in Managua, Nicaragua's
capital.
Democracy Now!: The eight years Reagan was in office
represented one of the most bloody eras in the history of the
Western hemisphere, as Washington funneled money, weapons and
other supplies to right-wing death squads. And the death toll
was staggering--more than 70,000 political killings in El
Salvador, more than 100,000 in Guatemala, 30,000 killed in the
contra war in Nicaragua. In Washington, the forces carrying out
the violence were called "freedom fighters." This is how Ronald
Reagan described the Contras in Nicaragua: "They are our
brothers, these freedom fighters and we owe them our help. They
are the moral equal of our founding fathers." ...
D'Escoto: Reagan ... for having been the butcher of
my people, for having been responsible for the deaths of some
50,000 Nicaraguans, we cannot, we should not ever forget the
crimes he committed in the name of what he falsely labeled
freedom and democracy.
More perhaps than any other U.S. president, Reagan convinced
many around the world that the U.S. is a fraud, a big lie. Not
only was it not democratic, but in fact the greatest enemy of
the right of self-determination of peoples. Reagan ... was
known as the great communicator, and I believe that that is
true only if one believes that to be a great communicator means
to be a good liar. That he was for sure. He could proclaim the
biggest lies without even as much as blinking an eyelash.
Hearing him talk about how we were supposedly persecuting Jews
and burning down non-existent synagogues, I was led to believe
really, that Reagan was possessed by demons. Frankly, I do
believe Reagan at that time as much as Bush today was indeed
possessed by the demons of manifest destiny. ...
I'm quite aware that to the people of say ... Project for a
New American Century, that is counted as a big plus. Because of
Reagan and his spiritual heir George W. Bush, the world today
is far less safe and secure as it has ever been. Reagan in fact
was an international outlaw. He came to the presidency of the
United States shortly after Somoza, a dictator that the U.S.
had imposed over Nicaragua for practically half a century, had
been deposed by Nicaraguan nationalists under the leadership of
the Sandinista Liberation Front.
To Reagan Nicaragua had to be re-conquered. He blamed Carter
for having lost Nicaragua, as if Nicara gua ever belonged to
anyone else other than the Nicaraguan people. That was then the
beginning of this war that Reagan invented, and mounted and
financed and directed, the Contra war--about which he
continually lied to the people, helping the United States
people to be the most ignorant people around the world. I said
ignorant, I don't say not intelligent. But the most ignorant
people around the world about what the United States does
abroad. People don't even begin to see--if they did, they would
rebel. And so, he lied to the people, as Bush lies to the
people today and as they push on, thinking that the United
States is above every law, human or divine. And we took ...
Reagan's United States, his government to court, the World
Court. I was foreign minister at that time here in Nicaragua.
... And the United States government received the harshest
sentence, the harshest condemnation ever in the history of
world justice.
In spite of the fact that the United States since the early
1920s has been proclaiming to the world that one of the proofs
of its moral superiority as compared to other countries around
the world is the fact that it abides by the international law
and was obedient to the world court, when the United States was
brought to the world court in Nicaragua and received the
condemnation, the United States failed to heed the sentence and
they still owe Nicaragua--by now must be between $20,000 and
$30,000 million--at the time when we left government the
damages caused by that Reagan war was over $17 billion, and
this, according to very moderate estimators of damage, people
from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America,
people from Harvard University and from Oxford and from the
University of Paris--basically this is the team that was pulled
together to estimate the damage.
The United States was ordered to pay for the damage. Bush
never even wanted to talk to me about it. I said, "Well, let's
have a meeting so that you comply with your sentence of the
court." He said to me in two different letters that there was
nothing to talk about.
So, Reagan did damage to Nicaragua beyond the imaginations
of the people who are hearing me now. The ripple effects of
that criminal murderous intervention in my country will go on
for what, 50 years or more.
Reprinted from the June 24, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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