We all know what poverty is--see it on TV, read about it in the NY Times, but rarely engage with its intrinsic origins.
The truth is that the United States has had a profound and heinous influence in Nicaragua since the early 20th century.
That canal we now cruise through--in Panama--was originally meant to be here, in Nicaragua. You can see from the map below that Lake Nicaragua would've made the project a lot less expensive than the Panama Canal.
American troops invaded in 1909, and took control until 1933. This is when Sandino, a national hero here (the Ché of Nicaragua) led a revolution to overthrow the military.
The Americans "left," but also put Somoza in power..a puppet dictator meant to protect American interests. He reached an "agreement" with Sandino in 1933, and had him assassinated in 1934.
Somoza, and later his two sons, ruled the country for 45 years. It's unknown how many thousands of innocent citizens he killed, but there are still torture cells under his palace in Managua.
In 1939, FDR said,
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
That same year:
Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.
After the Sandinistas overthrew the government in 1979, Nicaragua got its first taste of "freedom"..that is, until Ronald Reagan imposed a full trade embargo against the country, and started planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's Corinto harbour.
I can't define freedom, and I don't know when it arrived in Nicaragua.
But if we find it "self-evident" that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,
There has never been a free Nicaragua.
So now this little boy is asking me for a peso. What do I tell him?
The truth is sad.
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