Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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Association (LASA) was virtually ignored by the press, as were the
elections themselves. 138 They reject the claim that Arturo Cruz, the
official democrat according to the US government and the press, was
“excluded” from the elections. Rather, his business-based group made a
policy decision to exclude themselves despite protections to ensure fair
access, and the LASA observers doubt that he and his group had a
broad following in Nicaragua. The press reports that his “biggest rally
drew no more than 1000 fans,” and that his “agenda” is “more attuned
to the policy debate in Washington than to the hardships of life in
Nicaragua”: “Nor did Cruz’ calls for talks with the contras strike a
popular chord in Managua. To Cruz’ embarrassment, his own sister,
Lilian Cruz, penned an open letter to two progovernment newspapers to
remind her brother that her son, Sandinista army officer David Baez,
was slain battling the contras in April.” 139
The LASA investigation concludes that the FSLN “did little more to
take advantage of its incumbency than incumbent parties everywhere
(including the United States) routinely do.” The election “by Latin
American standards was a model of probity and fairness” 140 ; earlier
elections were either utterly fraudulent or “meant little more than
automatic ratification of candidates chosen by the incumbent party and
the U.S. government,” for most Nicaraguans. The report observes that
“We know of no election in Latin America (or elsewhere) in which
groups advocating the violent overthrow of an incumbent government
have themselves been incorporated into the electoral process;
particularly when these groups have been openly supported by a foreign
power”; surely nothing of the sort would be tolerated for an instant in
the United States. The elections were indeed “manipulated,” the report
notes, but by the Reagan Administration, which did everything in its
power to block and discredit them, including efforts to induce Cruz and
others to abstain. 141