Another Central American Tyrant Passes from the Scene: Farewell to Tomás Borge
I cannot let this day pass without noting the death of one of Central America’s greatest tyrants, Tomás Borge. The obituary notice in today’s New York Times hardly lets readers know the kind of moral monster that Borge was. Perhaps the mourning by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro is enough to let people understand how vile he was.
Borge was one of the original group of Sandinista rebels who had been imprisoned by the authoritarian ruler of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza. He had been in prison for one year when in 1978 a raid by Sandinista troops (disguised in Nicaraguan army uniforms) seized the National Palace and held the leaders of Somoza’s regime hostage. The government gave into the raiders’ demands, released fifty of those they had incarcerated, paid the FSLN (the initials of the Sandinista National Liberation Front) a half million dollars in ransom money, and provided a plane to fly them out of the country to safety.
In 1979, Somoza fled and the Sandinistas took power, at first hiding their true intent and putting into office a coalition junta composed of non-Sandinista opponents of the old regime but in which their movement had a majority. The coalition collapsed, and the government was then run by the so–called commandantes of the revolution, who formed a new government intent on imposing a communist regime according to the classic Marxism-Leninism in which they believed.
The moderate junta the Sandinistas first put in place was meant as a fig leaf to give them time to build the kind of regime they preferred. The pressure from the new Reagan administration forced them, Borge said, “independently from our will, to develop political pluralism and a mixed economy.” That, he noted, was but a tactic, which had “made much more difficult the role of the revolutionary leadership within the masses. Political pluralism, mixed economy and the more general traits of the revolution,” he said, “tend to confuse the masses.” Hence Borge said it would have been better from the start to pursue “an ideological project which is as clearly defined as the one that existed in Cuba.”
It would take a few years, but the “ideological project” of a communist regime became one that the FSLN would implement before they were voted out of office in 1989, in an election they assumed they would win but which they were unable to avoid because of growing international pressure.
I often fantasize that leftists (of all stripes including the late senator Kennedy) shall receive as their final reward for the Good Lord the opportunity to live in the Society that they so maticulously sought to create for everyone else. Not as a leader, but as one of the folks.
.
Knowing all the while, that they are enduring a He11 of their own creation.
Senor Borge’s dilemna was not unlike Mr. Obama’s, both pursuing “an ideological project which is as clearly defined as the one that existed in Cuba” in their minds. He too could blame everything on his predecessor. Obama , however, did not waste any time on a “fig leaf” approach after he took office. He was able to go promptly and aggressively into the “difficult role of revolutionary leadership within the masses”" clinging to their guns and their bibles. Now he too is finding that “political pluralism, mixed economy, and the more general traits of the revolution ( here known as Change) tend to confuse the masses.” So now he is out among them, with a bag full of fig leaves, trying to cover his many shortcomings.
It is so overwhelmingly apparent that that’s how he perceives the electorate: as “the masses”, a huge number of largely illiterate nonentities who he can sway with his golden tongue to follow him, as the old anti-Commie song said, to “the Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
And now Saint Tomas Borge of Managua has gone to join Lenin, Mao, and Che Guevera in pantheon of Communist Saints, to be worshipped by the muddled masses. Love that word! It is so expressive of the Obama mind-set.
What Senor Borge’s eternal destiny will be is hardly for us mortals to declare. Also, as a true-born citizen of the UK I do look with a certain amount of cynicism at the professed anti-communism of his US contemporaries.
The reason? My knowledge of pre-Sandinista nicaragua was derived from the Readers’ Digest—itself no friend of Marxism. And the picture it painted of the Somoza regime was a most unpleasant one—keeping the ordinary people in ignorance, regarding the ordinary people as unfit to know anything. I later learned that when a previous democratic government had been elected, the Marines simply charged in and deposed it, putting Somoza in power as a puppet of the banana producers. Despite resistance by General Augusto Sandino(after who the Sandinistas took their name)this puppet regime retained power. (Nuch the same could also be said about that of Fungencio Battisa of Cuba.) I also heard reports of the Contras perpetrating atrocities of their own—schools especially being targeted.
My last news of Nicaragua was of women forced to die from ectopic pregnangies due to the “fantastical scrupleness” of the country’s anti-abortion laws. In short, if in doubt better two dead people than one!
Finally, I would be more than interested to know what Senor Ortega’s line was in 1982 when an Argentinian army, sent by the now-infamous General Galtieri—whose regime’s record is now well in the public domain—occupied the Falkland Islands, only to get a bloody nose when in the shape of Margaret Thatcher the Argies encountered a second Churchill.
Oh, that makes sense. The dictator was bad, so the communists who replaced him were good.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Anyone who relies on the Reader’s Digest to keep informed will remain semi-informed and even misinformed. I suggest you read Shirley Christian’s Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family.
I also recommend The Central American Crisis Reader, edited by Robert Leiken. The joint USSR-Nicaragua joint proclamation of March 1980 which condemned the “reactionaries” who objected to the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, was an eye opener.
Robert Czarkowski’s De Polonia a Nicaragua was also an eye opener. Czarkowski, a Polish national, was arrested upon entering Nicaragua with a legal visa, on suspicion of belonging to Solidarity. He spent nearly six months in prison before he was released. A regime which arrests someone on suspicion of belonging to Solidarity is up to no good. Unfortunately, the book is hard to find and is only in Spanish.
The Sandinistas supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and jailed a Pole on suspicion of belonging to Solidarity. That shows what the Sandinistas were. Carlos Fonseca, along with Tomas Borge and Silvio Mayorga. Fonseca wrote “De Nicaragua a Moscu,” where among other things, he endorsed the Soviet view of why it crushed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The top guns of the FSLN were wholehearted endorsers of Soviet imperialism.
My comment got eaten because of three links, so I will make this comment without links. Those who rely on Reader’s Digest for knowledge will become semi-informed and usually misinformed. I suggest that you read Shirley Christian’s Nicaragua: Revolution in the Family to get a more accurate view of the history of Nicaragua.
I also suggest that you read The Central American Crisis Reader, edited by Robert Leiken. In it you will find a March 1980 joint USSR-Nicaragua proclamation that “resolutely condemns” the “reactionaries” who didn’t like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The FSLN here supported Soviet imperialism, well before Reagan was elected.
Carlos Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga, and Tomas Borge were the 3 co-founders of the FSLN. Carlos Fonseca published circa 1957 Un Nicaraguense en Moscu, where he endorsed the Soviet crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
If you can get your hands on it,Robert Czarkowski’s De Polonia a Nicaragua relates Czarkowski’s experience in one of Tomas Borge’s prisons. Czarkowski, a Polish national, was arrested upon entering Nicaragua, even though he had a valid tourist visa. The reason: he was suspected of belonging to Solidarity.
These are three rather strong examples of the Sandinistas supporting Soviet imperialism.
Barry, it is a huge mistake to equate the socioeconomic and political situation in Nicaragua under Somoza to Cuba under Batista. The type of rule under each was very different, for one. Also, Cuba was not a backward “banana republic” or a society that was primarily rural and/or indigenous. I am not sure if this is a left vs. right distinction so much that American popular culture (including R. Digest) tended to lump Latin Americans together into an undifferentiated mass. To the point, Cuba had a sizable middle-class and a higher standard of living than the rest of Latin America. In fact, living standards were more similar to Italy and Spain rather than Latin America (excepting Argentina).
He was a monster, a pervert, drug peddling thief
who abused his own people. One of my pals, a refugee
from El Salvador, picked off the street in Mexico City,
was sent to Managua, suspected by the Borge types as
“a spy”, languished, tortured, abused, for many
months in Managua, than released to fly to Spain.
It was all Borge’s doing, such man should be described
and explained in the right context…a Marxist thief….
no different than Stalin’s butchering buddies…
FDR said that “Samoza is an S.O.B. but he’s our S.O.B.” When one of the first acts of the Sandanistas was to seize the Managua Jewish Center,I knew that nothing good would come from that regime.
Ron;
I still cannot understand how you – Ron Radosh – in your “other life” supported the Sandinistas and other assorted left wing thugs.
What the hell were you thinking??
Did not the lessons provided by Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Kim Jong 1, Honnecker, Ceaucescu, etc etc etc. give you pause as to the true intent of the Sandinistas?
Yea, Somoza was a bad guy, but going to a Stalin from a Hitler is not an improvement is it.
Ron, one day you need to write a book – or at least an article – to explain to numskulls like me why ordinarily very intelligent people, fall head over heels for radical leftist ideas and revolutionary “heroes.” And why some see the light (like you) and others never ever do.
I never supported the Sandinistas; indeed, had an op-ed in The NY Times opposing them, reported many times from Nicaragua for The New Republic, and if you look at my books listed on the right, you will see my memoir “Commies” in which I in fact discuss everything which you ask me to.
One Bolshevik POS down, but how many hundreds of thousands are left?
But, Ron, I read his book and Barricada said he was a great guy!
Tomas Borge….Borge…..
There’s a Star Trek joke in there somewhere…
Thanks to Mr. Radosh for writing on this topic.
Latins, like the Euros are easily seduced by the lure of big government, crony capitalist, socialist,…, even facists.
Nobody has really made the case for free market capitalism. The case for free market capitalism is actually rather counter intuitive. We are instinctivly drawn in by the lure of the safety net and the security of government empoloyment.