[PEN-L:190] Re: Strong left criticism of foreign aid

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis: This sounds consistent with what I've been hearing out of
Nicaragua in recent years. The selfish behavior of Sandinista cadre is
depressing, but really part of the same pattern that exists everywhere on
the planet earth today. The only thing I would question is the moral
perspective your "Communist" friend views Nicaraguan events from. After
all, it was Edward Shverednaze and Elliot Abrams who sat down together in
Costa Rica to work out the terms of the sacrifice of Nicaragua to facilitate
Soviet-US "improved relations".

On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Trond Andresen wrote:

> They were quite depressed after this year, and she broke off before the
> scheduled end of the project she was involved in. They were not
> primarily depressed by the unemployment and general social
> deterioration and rampant capitalist anarchy. This they were prepared
> for, and knew about from earlier trips. No, the real depressive factor
> was the observation of the foreign-aid-based parasitical domestic class
> that has emerged especially after 1990, consisting to a significant
> degree of former functionaries from the Sandinista administration and
> movement. My friends say that immediately after the lost election of
> 1990, 500 different groups were established, with the primary objective
> to gain money from what my friends call the "Foreign aid market". My
> friends say (I have no other data on this) that 50% of Nicaragua's
> foreign income today is aid, and that the Dept. of culture is run
> wholly on aid money.