[A-List] U.S. declares Nicaraguan revolutionary hero a terrorist; bars her from Harvard professorship

["tony black" <tal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
> The Guardian - March 4, 2005
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1430305,00.html>
>
> US BARS NICARAGUA HEROINE AS 'TERRORIST'
>
> Writers and Academics Voice Anger as State Department
> Refuses Visa to let Sandinista Revolutionary Take Up Post as
> Harvard Professor
>
> by Duncan Campbell
>
>
> The woman who epitomized the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution that
> overthrew the dictator Anastasio Somoza has been denied
> entry to the US to take up her post as a Harvard professor
> on the grounds that she had been involved in "terrorism".
>
> The decision to bar Dora Maria Tellez, one of the best-known
> figures in recent Latin American history, who has frequently
> visited the US in the past, has been attacked by academics
> and writers.
>
> "Dora Maria is as much a terrorist as George Washington."
>
> It comes at a time when President George Bush has appointed
> as his new intelligence chief a man associated with the
> "dirty war" against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
>
> A spokeswoman for Harvard University said it was "very
> disappointed" that she would not be taking up her
> appointment.
>
> Ms Tellez was a young medical student when she became a
> commandante with the leftwing Sandinistas in their campaign
> to topple the dictator.
>
> She was Commander 2' in 1978 when a group of guerrillas took
> over the National Palace and held 2,000 government officials
> hostage in a two-day standoff. After negotiations, she and
> the other guerrillas were allowed to leave the country. The
> event was seen as a key moment that indicated the Somoza
> regime could be overthrown.
>
> She later led the brigade that took Leon, the first city to
> fall to the Sandinistas in the revolution, and she is
> celebrated as one of the popular figures of the revolution.
> She became minister of health in the first elected
> Sandinista administration.
>
> Last year Ms Tellez, now a historian, was appointed as the
> Robert F Kennedy visiting professor in Latin American
> studies in the divinity department at Harvard, a post which
> is shared with the Rockefeller Center for Latin American
> Studies. She was due to start teaching students this spring.
>
> The US state department has told her she is ineligible
> because of involvement in "terrorist acts". A spokesman for
> the department confirmed yesterday that she had been denied
> a visa under a section making those who had been involved in
> terrorist acts ineligible. He said he could not comment
> further on the reasons for the ban.
>
> "I have no idea why they are refusing me a visa," said Ms
> Tellez from her home in Managua yesterday. "I have been in
> the US many times before - on holidays, at conferences, on
> official business."
>
> A number of academics and writers are protesting against the
> ban. "It is absurd," said Gioconda Belli, the Nicaraguan
> writer who was also an active member of the Sandinistas and
> is now based in Los Angeles. "Dora Maria is an outstanding
> woman who fought against a dictatorship. If fighting against
> tyranny is 'terrorism' how does the United States justify
> the invasion of Iraq? It is an insult."
>
> Ms Belli, whose memoirs of her time as a Sandinista, The
> Country Under My Skin, was published two years ago, said
> many people were puzzled and angry about the decision.
>
> Professor Andres Perez Baltodano, a Nicaraguan sociologist
> based in Toronto, said: "Dora Maria is as much a terrorist
> as George Washington." He described the taking of the
> National Palace as a heroic act which had helped to lead to
> the overthrow of a dictator.
>
> The US, under President Ronald Reagan, opposed the
> Sandinistas even after they had been elected in 1984 and
> supported the contras, or counter-revolutionaries in their
> attempts to overthrow them.
>
> In the 1987 Irangate scandal, it was discovered that the US
> was secretly supplying arms to Iran in exchange for money
> being channeled to the contras. When Mr Bush took office he
> rehabilitated a number of people associated with the contras
> and one, John Negroponte, is now his chief of intelligence
> responsible for dealing with terrorism.
>
> (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
>
>
>
> - --
> *** FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINANCE! ***********************************
> * Boycott the bourgeois mass-media.                            *
> *    [Critical endorsement only. Most sites need donations!]   *
> *                                                              *
> **********  ALTERNATIVE MEDIA FEATURE PRESENTATIONS:  **********
> * War on Terror MegaMix CD                        1.2MB/2m     *
> * http://bryan.coolmojo.net/waronterror_parody.mp3             *
> *                                                              *
> *                                                              *
> *                                                              *
> *                                                              *
> ****  JOIN THE COMPLETE GOODS & SERVICES BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL  ****
> GPG fingerprint = 2830 CEE8 4B63 72A0 F86E  622D 6245 9357 A705 91FA
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFCLM8FYkWTV6cFkfoRAqBeAJ9TDfCZtGcz+ERS1Eoc9vn1C+ExMwCfTaa0
> F1mpq5H7O3S7nEAmTI6Ka8k=
> =tqMj
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>