| | When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I have no food, they call me a communist (Brazilian Arch-bishop Dom Helder Camara) On hearing the US military was being used to bring food to starving people in Somalia, I was reminded that when Ronald Reagan was told of the 1988 hurricane that devastated Nicaragua, he said 'good' . His administration refused to supply a tent to help those left homeless and hungry by the storm. But with Congressional approval he later granted tens of millions of dollars in 'humanitarian aid' to the Contras to make certain that they would remain as a fighting force through the 1990 elections, adding a few more to the 30,000 already killed, and guaranteeing that Nicaraguans could only end the war by voting the Sandinistas out of power. Now children are once again free to beg on the streets of Nicaragua, a practice virtually eliminated by the Sandinista revolution, though it is all but universal in the third world. Food, like arms, remains a political weapon despite all the talk of a new post-cold war world order. |
