Report

NICARAGUA: Haunted By The Past
AFTER THE SANDINISTA NATIONAL LIBERA- tion Front was soundly defeated in last February's elections, most friends of the Nicaraguan Revolution rushed to blame the United States, noting that 10 years of relentless aggression had hardly created a climate for free and democratic balloting. Implicit in this reaction was the conviction, based more on faith than evidence, that had the war and embargo been ended, the FSLN would have won.

Article

A Spider's Web
George R. Vickers
AT TEN O'CLOCK ON THE NIGHT OF FEBRU- ary 25, Rafael Solis, first secretary of the Nicara- guan National Assembly and a prominent Sandinista, was roaming among banks of telex machines at the national election center and muttering to himself. The telegrams piling up all reported huge margins of victory for the opposition.
BRAZIL Lula: "We can take power
Bill Hinchberger
Late for our interview, presidential candidate Luis InAcio "Lula" da Silva exploded into the room like the prover- bial gangbuster. He sported a lit cigar, probably the fruit of his time spent with Fidel Castro the week before.
HOME OF THE YUPPIES
Trish O'Kane
AT THE CORE OF POWER WITHIN THE CHA- morro government is a small group known as "the yuppies," all of whom belong to a think-tank called COR- DENIC (Commission onthe Recuperation and Development of Nicaragua). It was founded on April 8, 1988 by current foreign minister Enrique Dreyfus.
In Review
Struggling for Survival: Workers, Women, and Class on a Nicaraguan State Farm by Gary Ruchwarger. Westview Press, 1989, 128 pp.
NATIONAL OPPOSITION UNION (UNO)
Trish O'Kane
CONSERVATIVE National Conservative Party (PNC) Formed in 1984, this influential oligarchic party allied with COSEP is perhaps the most anticommunist in UNO. It has official ties to the Conservative International and runs one of Nicaragua's most vociferous opposition radio sta- tions, Radio Corporaci6n.
On the Record
And Our Lithuania? "We look at Mexico as our Eastern Europe." U.
Taking Note
MF
Henry Morgan II, or The Preppie Pirate AT APPROXIMATELY 4 P.M.
The New Old Order
Trish O'Kane
MANAGUA'S WESTSIDE CEMETERY IS VIR- tually abandoned on this breezy Sunday afternoon, aside from a few portly women selling daisies and gossip- ing at the crumbling stone entrance. Amid the hodge- podge of white wooden crosses and aging marble head- stones bearing the names of Argiiello, Cardenal, Pallais, Lacayo, Oyanguren and other families of the Nicaraguan political elite, stands a tall, very rusted iron cross.
THE YANKEE: ENEMY OF HUMANITY
George R. Vickers
UNITED STATES EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE AND destabilize the Nicaraguan economy have been ongo- ing since shortly after the overthrow of Somoza. Bilateral U.
What Went Wrong
Carlos M. Vilas
ANTONIO WAS WITH ME IN THE MILITIA BACK in 1981 and 1982, when we used those ancient VZ rifles with their devilish bolts. He had taken part in the in- surrection in Managua's Monsefior Lezcano barrio and was a point man for the Sandinista Defense Committees.