Such an influence is true, as it was also true the one from the US to evict Ortega from presidency in 1990. Let�s analyze both kinds of blackmail.

Sixteen years ago Sandinism was successfully overthrown by the US through a Contra terror campaign acting from Honduras. Daniel Ortega�s government had to fight both the country�s poverty and a bloody war against US financed mercenaries who harassed them from neighbouring Honduras. An entire generation of people, already decimated by the war against Somoza, gave their blood again to defend the Sandinista revolution. Nicaraguan mothers watched how their children were compulsory drafted to fight. Many of them never returned. Thirty thousand Nicaraguans lost their lives in that war. The US supported presidential candidate Violeta Chamorro promised that in case she was elected she would bring peace and would end the draft. She won and she honoured her word. Once the war finished in Nicaragua the Sandinistas could only die from hunger and infectious diseases. That�s how the US intervened in Nicaraguan politics. Let us see now how Cuba and Venezuela do it.

These two countries also �blackmail� Nicaraguans. Venezuela has proposed to sell Nicaragua all the oil the country needs to overcome the energy crisis, to be paid on a 25 year term. The first two years they would not pay at all and the other 23 at only one percent interest. It won�t be necessary that Nicaragua pays with money, it could do it in kind, same as Argentina and Uruguay do. This agreement was signed with 50 governorships, most of them Sandinistas, and for that reason the current government, kindred to the US, impeded Nicaragua to receive 3.5 million barrels of Venezuelan crude oil.

As well, through the AMUNIC (Nicaraguan Municipalities Association), Venezuela wants to sign 33 agreements to integrate them in the Asociaci�n Mercal (Latin American Market) in order to market their products.

Cuba�s blackmail consists of increasing the share of Nicaraguans on Operation Miracle [1], i.e. the quantity of people of humble origin who will undergo eye operations at Havana hospitals. May 3rd, 2006, the first 75 Nicaraguans were already intervened through this mission. One month later they were 137. Every fifteen days new flights financed by Venezuela carry them from Managua to Havana to be operated on. All patients are poor Nicaraguans and receive absolutely free medical care. Venezuela also includes poor Nicaraguans among the patients to be attended for free on its new Cardiology hospital, built with a capacity to receive four thousand Latin Americans patients.

On the other hand, the Cuban adult literacy campaign �Yo s� puedo� (Yes I can) has been extended to 100 of the 153 Nicaragua�s municipalities and will allow to teach reading and writing 150.000 people before the end of the year. After the fall of Sandinism the index of illiteracy, which had been diminished to 12 percent thanks to the Sandinista adult literacy campaigns, has tripled in Nicaragua under the rule of neoliberal politicians. Last year the Cuban method was already proven with success in Nicaragua during a pilot plan in practice in several governorships administered by FSLN (National Liberation Sandinista Front), good enough to ateach to read and write more than two thousand Nicaraguans. The Cuban government and the people have donated all audiovisual material, including five thousand television sets and five thousand VHS video recorders, plus the handbooks, besides providing pedagogic advice for the literacy program.

Yes, all the US, Venezuela and Cuba are trying to put pressure and to �blackmail� Nicaraguan citizens to control their political preference and vote. The reader can now judge the methods used.

[1] http://www.axisoflogic.com/cgi-bin/exec/view.pl?archive=144&num=21924

� Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com (Translation copyright)

Pascual Serrano is a Spanish journalist and writer. He belongs to the founding team of www.rebelion.org. He is also Chief of editorial contents at the Latin American television channel Telesur. His own personal website is www.pascualserrano.net.