US Involvement is (Check One) Nefarious; Useful

I quote:

"Last week, a top official of the U.S. Embassy in Managua dismissed Nicaragua as no longer important to the U.S. and told a Nicaragua Network delegation from the United States that he wanted nothing to do with the country’s political parties, all of which he characterized as “feckless, corrupt, nasty and worthless.”

Despite these comments by Matthew Roth, the political officer of the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. Agency for International Development is funding Nicaraguan groups to provide training in “democratization” and media skills.

Media programs, such as those offered by the International Republican Institute, are supposedly designed to help Nicaraguan media, particularly radio stations, learn to provide fair and balanced coverage. However, leaders of the Association of Nicaraguan Journalists (APN), told the delegation that they intended to teach reporters to oppose the re-election of President Daniel Ortega and to play a double role as reporters and unofficial electoral observers. Jan Howard, the USAID officer for the embassy, acknowledged, “Sometimes they get a little carried away.”

In the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections, the U.S. embassy overtly supported a particular candidate opposed to Ortega. Such public declarations have not been issued this year, although the delegation heard concerns about the possibility of threatening or leading public statements from US officials late in the campaign term as occurred in 2001 and 2006. Such prior statements included threats about the termination of remittances, which many Nicaraguan families rely on. Additionally, the US has urged and even organized a united opposition in past elections. In the current cycle, a representative of the Constitutional Liberal Party implied that the party has privately been encouraged by the US Embassy to withdraw from the race.

The delegation from the Nicaragua Network, which has more than 30 years of experience following Nicaraguan issues, recently concluded a one-week trip to Nicaragua to investigate the role of the United States in the upcoming Nicaraguan elections. The delegation met with officials from the US embassy, Nicaraguan government officials, three political parties and alliances of parties running presidential candidates, and several U.S. and Nicaraguan non-governmental organizations that have received funding from the United States government."

New Nicaragua Video posted

Hi you literate ones,

Just posted, upper lefthand column of www.ediemeidav.com, some truly rough initial footage from the boxing gyms of Nicaragua, taken in 2011.

A sneak peek, more to come from there and Cuba.

Yours,
Edie

Little Video I Shot Yesterday in a Managua Boxing Gym

I share this little video clip -- two young boxers fighting while a third dances around with the happiest, most foolish grin -- because I love the way that, in these gyms, vortices of intensity, every single kid says and believes he will be next world champion.

Perhaps the roughness of the video, shot on a handheld with which I'm nothing but amateur so far, does not hide the intensity of these kids.

So far, have talked with a few contenders and a few champions, and there is an intensity -- should we call it sophrosyne? -- to the guys who did make it. Discipline, clarity, purity, eyes on the prize: the champions have in spades what the contenders hope for.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1210773097

Last Adventure in Nicaragua

Last time I was in Nicaragua, I was sent up a volcanic mountain on the back of a burro laden with now surely old-fashioned GPS equipment: up that mountain, on those six jaded burros, went a pack of five brothers and myself. Supposedly I had come to Managua to act as a translator for my father who had long tried to bring alternative energy to Nicaragua. More about this father of mine: he did not, in fact, accompany us up the volcano. We were equipped, instead, with a few machetes, dulled slicers meant to clear brush as we rode forward on the burros' backs. And just a bit more about this father of mine, now dead two months: a benign idealist, one who always wished to see the best in human nature, he thought he was giving me the ultimate afternoon experience and giving the brothers, who had worked with him for a while, a chance to chat it up with his American daughter. Or god knows what he really thought; that afternoon, he had to be imprisoned in his favorite small Managua hotel, the Hotel Cesar where the duena knew he loved the flan, in a series of unconscionably endless meetings. Meanwhile, the fruit of his loins got to have pure experience, on burros, heading up a mountain.

More about this mountain, then: we rode up not into the sunset but setting forth at a very practical moment in the morning, laden with fruit and some sandwiches. I had thought to bring one bottle filled with boiled tap water, and it gave off an intestinal gurgle from where it jiggled in the horse's saddle-pocket. Very early in the trip, machetes flying left and right to clear our path, we pulled off to a shaded plateau and sat and, companeros of the road, broke bread together. In some essential tic, at that second, I remained my father's daughter, filled with a supremely blind joy: I was one with the people! We were all employed in hard labor together!

I think, in the tradition of cliffhangers, I will adjourn here and continue what ended up being a life-or-death experience in the jungle on another day . . .