Nicaragua is a country with a curious recent history.
The people of this central American country had
gotten rid of a brutal dictator, Anastasio Somoza,
and replaced him with Daniel Ortega, a leftist
who schemed for some years to overthrow Somoza.
His reign soon proved to be as dictatorial, if not
in fact more so, than that of the dictator whom he
overthrew. After a protracted effort to rid the nation
of the Marxist, Ortega was replaced with a democratically-
elected government and leader, restoring freedom
and stability for Nicaragua.
Ah, but how quickly people forget some things,
including what transpired the last time a certain
leader headed the national government. After some
years of their hard-won democracy the Nicaraguans
brought Ortega back to power (!). And things went
back to the way they were in the 1980s when Ortega
ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist.
Of late, Ortega had a bunch of politicians from the
opposition parties arrested and imprisoned. Two of
them, Juan Sebastian Chamorro and Felix Maradiaga,
have each been sentenced to 13 years in prison for
"conspiracy to undermine national integrity", that is
to say, opposing the government. After a farcical trial
in which the defense lawyers were forbidden to speak
to the defendants --- their clients! --- and the defendants
were forbidden to speak, period, Chamorro and Maradiaga
have been held in a prison where they are subjected to cruel
and inhumane conditions all the while. Whatever possessed
the Nicaraguan people to return this Marxist monster
to power? Now they are faced with the task of ousting this
power monger and his rotten regime for the second time.
Santayana was spot on when he said "Those who do not
learn from the past are condemned to repeat it." The people
of Nicaragua receive a grade of "F" for they have failed to
learn anything from their recent history regarding trying
socialism as a political and economic system. They have
failed their history lesson spectacularly.
MEM
No comments:
Post a Comment