June 2
GUEST: Becca Renk, sustainable community organizer for the Nicaraguan Jubilee House Community and its project, the Ciudad Sandino - the Center for Development in Central America, talks about her work in bringing the revolution to a larger audience.
Alliance for Global Justice
The picture to the right is of Ben Linder, a US volunteer who was ambushed and killed in Nicaragua by the US backed CONTRA rebels. Linder was building a small, water powered generator to bring electricity to a nearby town when he was assassinated.
The CONTRAs were the US answer to the Sandinista Revolution. Rather than pitching in to help one of the poorest countries in Central America, the US tried to bring back the brutal Samosa regime. This meant destroying many of the achievements of the Sandinistas.
The Sandinistas started out with a campaign to teach all Nicaraguans to read. Hundreds of young, educated volunteers were sent into the countryside to simply bring the nation into the age of literacy. A second campaign was initiated to bring medicine to the people of Nicaragua. Nurses and doctors were trained to finally bring medical aid to the vast majority of people who had never had such services. They established hundreds of rural clinics where everyone could access medical care.
A third pillar of the Sandinista Revolution was education. College education was declared to be free if a student would promise to use that training to benefit the people of Nicaragua. Soon the sons and daughters of impoverished farmers were sent to school to become the doctors and nurses of their communities. Primary and secondary education was similarly brought up to First World standards. Schools were built and teachers were trained all over Nicaragua.
The Contras was the reaction of the United States to Nicaragua's revolution. The US armed and trained this guerrilla army to attack the very advances that the Sandinistas had made. They killed the literacy workers, destroyed the medical clinics, and terrorized the countryside. Hundreds of volunteers were ambushed and murdered in an effort to return Nicaragua to the fold of obedient countries, willing to let their natural resources and peoples be exploited by the empire of the north.
We can easily see how the same sequence of events have happened to many countries dominated by the United States. Cuba's and Venezuela's literacy, medical, and educational programs looked a lot like Nicaragua's. And the response from the United States has always been the same. For the ideals of these revolutions have always been a danger to the US, a country that gives the fruits of its people's labor to the very richest of its capitalists. What if the American people demanded more for themselves? Free healthcare and free education? What if the United States started asking the billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes. Well, that's the worry that has driven our nation to be at war with the socialist countries of Latin America.
