Letters to the editor should be sent to NACLA, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 454, New York, NY 10115. They may be edited for length and clarity. No Denial I don't mind being the correspon- dent you use to make a point about media coverage in Latin America, es- pecially if the point is an important one, but I fail to understand how my remark in Panama illustrated what you said it did ["Taking Note," July 1989]. You quote me responding to a question about the OAS censure of Gen. Manuel Anto- nio Noriega by pointing out that the last time the OAS censured a foreign leader, it was Somoza, and HE was gone within a year. But then you leap wildly to the conclusion that my observation meant that I had written the Sandinistas out of Nicaragua's history...indeed, that I "fail to understand that there has been a revolution in Nicaragua." Your logic escapes me entirely. To say in passing that the OAS censure of Somoza was historically important is hardly to deny the role of the FSLN in the overthrow of the dictatorship. The Sandinistas were, as they claim, the vanguard force in Nicaragua. But no serious analyst of the Revolution de- nies the importance of the political and diplomatic struggle in Nicaragua in 1978 and 1979. The isolation of the dictator- ship inside and outside Nicaragua cer- tainly was a factor in its demise. Lead- ers of the FSLN and its supporters may rightly argue that the Revolution would eventually have triumphed regardless of the international support it received, but it would have taken longer had not the Nicaraguan business class, Mexico, the OAS (and eventually the United States) turned against Somoza. But I wasn't even making that modest argument. By referring to the Somoza censure, I was only pointing out that the OAS knows a loser when it sees one. Noriega's days are probably numbered, I said, because he is isolated even in Latin America, and the diplo- matic isolation of a dictator often pre- dicts his demise. Nicaragua, as you correctly point out, is another matter entirely. I did not analyze the political situation there in my reports from Panama. And your claim that my one casual reference to Somoza shows that I deny the reality of the Sandinista Revolution and am manipulated by the U.S. government strikes me as both absurd and unfair. Tom Gjelten Latin America correspondent National Public Radio Unintended as it apparently was, Tom Gjelten's remark did indeed illus- trate a common tendency among re- porters and policy-makers to view revolution--and all Latin American politics for that matter-as an elite af- fair. For the dominant political culture of this country, the conscious over- throw of the established order by a grass-roots mass movement is an alien and dangerous notion-one which is actively denied. The point of the column was that this denial colors not only the images of Nicaragua put forth in the media, but the design of U.S. policy. Only policy- makers sufferingfrom historical amne- sia and imperial blindness could be- lieve that with $9 million they can buy enough votes to turn back the clock on Nicaraguan society. Gjelten's efforts to provide a his- torical context in his letter show up why his off-hand comment was eminently quoteable. In mass media reporting, nothing has a context, or the only con- text is the United States' pursuit of "our" interests, one of which is cer- tainly to assure us that revolutions never really occur.-MF No Anticommunism As a long time reader of Report on. the Americas, I was more than a little shocked and disappointed after reading "The Real Green Revolution" [March 1989]. Particularly offensive was the anticommunist thrust of Radil Gonzilez's "Coca's Shining Path." I would expect to find something like this in Time or Newsweek or some other ruling class mouthpiece. The whole article has only two footnotes, neither of which gives us any background on where Mr. Gonzalez got his informa- tion. Statements such as "Peru's Hualla- ga Valley in the heart of the Amazon is the bastion of Sendero Luminoso, the country's largest guerrilla movement, CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 known for its ruthlessness," feed right into the State Department's attempts to use "the fight against communism" as a justification to fund counterinsurgency campaigns against indigenous move- ments. Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman's latest book Manufacture of Consent goes to great lengths documenting "anticommunism" as a major weapon in the U.S. government's propaganda arsenal. I can't understand NACLA falling into this trap. How come Mr. Gonzdlez couldn't find anyone from The Communist Party of Peru (Sen- dero's real name) to interview? I am not saying don't criticize "Sendero," just try and present both sides. I have yet to see an interview with a representative of the Communist Party of Peru (Sendero Luminoso) or even with someone from what has been de- scribed as their "all-but-official publication El Diario" in any Left/ liberal or anti-imperialist publication (other than the Maoist press). I feel strongly that NACLA owes it to its readers to at least try to present "Sen- dero's" point of view, especially in light of the rapidly escalating U.S. military involvement in Peru under the cover of "the war on drugs." Thomas C. Mountain Hawaii Black History Committee No Record I was fascinated to read about Ig- nacio Rodriguez-Mena Castrill6n's baseball career ["A Talk With the Dean," September 1989], as I am writ- ing a book about the experience of Latin American players in the United States (titled Foreigners at Their Own Game). But he is is not listed in the Baseball Encyclopedia. It is very common for ex-players to boast that they played in the majors when they really played for a minor league team affiliated with a big league club. If Rodriguez-Mena Castrill6n did play major league ball or even if he only played in the minors, it would be a great story to include in my book. Milton Jamail Austin, Texas Apologies from NACLA's fact- checking department. It seems that Ignacio Mena never played for the Senators. He played for minor league clubs in Galveston, Havana, Orlando and Dublin, before ending his career with Greenville in 1954.
