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LA in the News: Nicaraguan Group Says 17 Gov’t Foes from Countryside Killed
The article describes that on Friday, September 13, the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center documented 17 deaths of government opponents from the rural north of Nicaragua (Selser 2019). All of the victims participated in political protests last year against Ortega’s regime and it was discovered that the victims were killed by gunshot wounds. The Nicaraguan Human Rights Center’s President, Vilma Nuñez, announced at a news conference that witnesses saw the killings being performed by “police and paramilitaries” (Selser 2019). The police and paramilitaries were known to participate in the repression of protests and the murder of 325 protestors last year. According to a report by Nuñez’s colleagues, no arrests were conducted for any of the 17 murders, all of which were rejected an investigation and were ascribed to personal conflicts among citizens.
Nicaraguan citizens against Daniel Ortega’s regime are pictured marching in protest and waving Nicaraguan flags. Photo by Alfredo Zuniga.
According to information Nuñez received from the local press, there have been around 30 killings in the rural north this year (Selser 2019). One situation that occurred in the province of Jinotega between January and June involves the killing of four members of a family notably against the Ortega regime. Three out of the 30 killings, however, occurred in Las Trojes, Honduras and were caused by pro-government assassins rather than police and paramilitaries. After this instance, a request for comment was issued towards the government, but it was rejected.
The article does well to briefly describe the type of terror that occurs in Nicaragua under Ortega’s regime. However, I believe the article could do more to describe the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center’s functions in combating political corruption and in describing its influence or status in political processes. Additionally, the article does not do much to describe the nature of last year’s Nicaraguan protests at all. Leaving such important information out of the article does not provide enough context to the reader to understand why the government is still permitting killings of their opponents.
With regards to the article’s connection to class themes, I found the Ortega administration’s killing of protestors to be a representation of the types of severe political crises that would be identified as one of DeFronzo’s critical factors for revolution. I also found it interesting how the Ortega administration’s repression of protests could be compared to Batista’s attempts to silence his opponents before the Cuban Revolution. Additionally, I found it interesting how Ortega is targeting individuals from the rural north, whereas the Mexican government during the revolution focussed attacks on rural individuals from the south. The differences in rural communities’ locations are likely reflective of different geographies within both nations.
Source: Selser, Gabriela. “Nicaragua Group Says 17 Govt Foes from Countryside Killed.” Washington Post, September 13, 2019, sec. The Americas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/nicaragua-group-says-17-govt-foes-from-countryside-killed/2019/09/13/1027a16e-d66f-11e9-8924-1db7dac797fb_story.html.
Class Notes 9/16/19
Class started with Max’s LA in the news which was about the Argentinian agricultural industry. The government is switching from corn being the main crop to soy beans. Soy is a much less reliable crop when compared to corn. It is cheaper to grow which is why the switch was made. The corn market in the US maybe not great shape this winter because of this change, there will be a decrease in corn supply.
Dr. Holt discussed how the Cuban revolution is different from the other Latin American revolutions because it was a Spanish colony for much longer. Once Cuba became free it became a protectorate of the US. Cuba was dependent on the US for its economy. We then broke up into groups to discuss how the Cuban revolution fits the DeFronzo’s framework.
Mass frustration—poverty, inequality, corruption, neo-colonialism, censorship, exploitation (US controlled land)
Dissident elites—Castro as an elite since he was educated, also had alliances with students
Cross-class unification—Unified under Anti-Batista, and against brutality
Political crisis—the sugar economy was going downhill, limited profit over the course of the year, also the puppet president
Permissive world context—US scared about communism. At first the US was permissive about the revolution but once Castro shifted more towards the left end of the political spectrum the US became more nervous.
Exam Questions:
-Does the Cuban Revolution fit DeFronzo’s framework why or why not?
-How does the US’s view of the revolution change over the course of the revolution?
Links:
Wooster Hispanic / Latinx Month Program
Fall History Picnic Wednesday 9/18 @4
All are welcome at our fall picnic! I write to share a message from our official picnic historian, Dr. Greg Shaya:
Please join us for the Fall History Picnic Wednesday 9/18 from 4-6pm at Bornhuetter Pavilion!
Come relax together and meet your professors and fellow students. Your student reps and your favorite professors will be there.
We’ll supply hamburgers, veggie burgers, salads and lemonade. There will be croquet – and the distant possibility that a student may win the title. (It would be the first time, however. A Shaya family member has held the History Croquet Title since the founding of the game.) For more information on croquet at Wooster, see https://youtu.be/oFMCUzsKHrs
We hope to see you all there! gks
Class notes 9/13/19
Professor Holt began class by congratulating us on finishing our primary source essays before encouraging the class to think about how one can use primary and secondary sources to measure the success or failure of revolutionary movements.
Then, Rita presented her LA in the News article, which discussed squatters* discovering human remains on the property of former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessener. The article provided much-needed context on the roughly 400 people killed or disappeared during his regime – according to Rita, Stroessener persecuted any and all political opposition – and portrays the contemporary Paraguayan government as disinterested in investigating these atrocities.
After the presentation, Holt transitioned us into thinking about the contemporary Zapatista Army of National Liberation (ELZN*) with a picture of an ELZN sign. We were asked to translate it – it warned readers that they were entering upon Zapatista property – which served as a good reminder of the radical armed-group’s focus on self-autonomy and communal land ownership.
This discussion was interesting because it demonstrated how many of the conditions that sparked the Mexican Revolution still apply to the current group resurrecting the Zapata name – the decades-long single party rule of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI*) can be thought of as a similar, more-cosmetically legitimate compliment to the other Latin American dictatorships and the group are still fighting for land autonomy they’ve been denied for over a half-millennia.
Then, we talked about the ELZN Wikipedia article specifically – first in groups, then as a whole class – and my group was primarily frustrated with the articles emphasis on secondary over primary sources, and its focus on their ideology over the history which much contextualize why such a group came into existence. After showing a picture of hooded ELZN members in front of an Emiliano Zapata mural and talking about their general self-seclusion in rural, we then talked as a class about our aforementioned qualms with the Wikipedia article, which served two useful purposes: (1) it allowed us to think about the potentially negative aspects of preferred forms of “credibility” on the website – and how this makes adding information on women, people of color and other marginalized groups challenging – and (2) it helped to get us thinking about how we might make our upcoming Wikipedia contributions stronger.
The ELZN page was a good introduction to Wikipedia summaries and the editing process, as its editing history showed the topic to be highly contentious. While Holt assured us that we weren’t likely to face roadblocks this huge as editors, it serves as a reminder that how people talk about the past and present is inherently political and that the power in being able to influence what is or isn’t being written about cannot be overstated.
Questions:
Is there such thing as definite success or failure with revolutionary or counterrevolutionary movements? Even if Zapata failed to achieve his goals in the Mexican Revolution, would you consider a group taking on his name to be a form of revolutionary success? Could the same be said when counterrevolutionary or reactionary groups suffer similar defeats but still impact contemporary politics nonetheless?
Our Wikipedia editing assignments, plus our look at the Zapatista page, show that even seemingly objective mediums are inseparable from politics. If you’re adding onto an existing page, is there anything significant with regards to what the past authors did or didn’t emphasize? If you’re creating a new article, does the topic’s past lack of discussion indicate any flaws with what topics and sources contributors tend to value?
Definitions:
Squatters – People living on abandoned property, in Latin America this is widely done to find and loot valuable materials
ELZN – Zapatista Army of National Liberation – contemporary left-wing militia group in Mexico named after Mexican revolution figure Emiliano Zapata. Like Zapata the group prioritize land redistribution and a communal ownership of property through extra-political and militant means.
PRI – Partido Revolucionario Institucional – Dominant political party in Mexico from the aftermath of the Revolution until their electoral defeat in 2000. While Mexico is often thought to be a Latin American anomaly via it’s lack of a long-lasting dictatorial regime throughout the 20th century, the PRI’s single-party rule is functionally similar to these governments.
Links
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/08/paraguay-alfredo-stroessner-human-remains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation
LA in the News: Argentinian Farmers ditch corn in favor of soy
Argentian corn field last harvest season. Photo by Augustin Marcarian
This article out Buenos Aires explains the recent move by the Argentinian government to have farmers switch from primarily corn exports to soybeans. This shift in crop export is unexpected and unusually late as the planting season in Argentina is already underway and this switch puts Argentinian farmers behind in the planting process. This decision stems from the fact that the Argentinian economy has been stagnating causing turmoil in larger cities such as Buenos Aires. The President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, has been under fire for the economic struggles of Argentina and this year is an election year in which he is struggling in the polls. This is ultimately what has caused for this action. Macri, is looking for a way to jump start the Argentinian economy temporarily to score cheap political points to maintain his job.
The question then becomes will this sudden change be effective. From a cost standpoint, soy is much cheaper to grow than corn as seeds cost less, it requires fewer resources and is easier to manage. From this base knowledge it seems that Argentina will able to make up some ground by having higher profits. However, this is not the case as soy yields a dramatically lower price per capita due to the ongoing trade-war between the United States and China. The hope of Macri is that Argentinian soy will be unaffected by the trade war and will result in some economic gains. However, economists believe that this policy change may be the final nail in the coffin for Macri as the trade war is only expected to continue thus skewing the price of soy.
Apart from potentially costing Macri his presidency the Argentinian switch may cause food challenges abroad as Argentina is the worlds third largest exporter of corn in the world. This sudden lack of corn will cause the price of corn around the world to rise and given that corn is a highly valued grain around the world this will have a ripple effect around the world. The effect will start in other corn producing nations as they are able to increase their revenue due to higher prices while corn importers will struggle to buy corn due to the price increase. This does not account for the trade war with between the US and China as the Chinese economy is difficult to predict.
In the United States this will hurt American farmers the most as soybeans are an essential crop to many farming co-ops and the influx of Argentinian soy will only add salt to the wound as the price of soy will continue to plummet from its already low point.
This is a timely article as we just finished discussing the Mexican revolution which was based on agrarian land reform. This is precisely what is transpiring in Argentina, the government is facing pressure from the working class and from that pressure a quick fix is being prescribed. The question becomes will this fix the issues or just proliferate the problem leading to radical reform.
Source Link:https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/farmers-argentina-ditch-corn-turn-soy-policy-outlook-darkens-n1049646
Class Notes 9/11/19
On Wednesday, Sep 11th, We started out class with more tips and tricks on our primary source essay that is due on Friday Sep13th.
Next, we heard from Elliot presenting his LA in the News piece. The headline chosen was Mothers Force to Sleep in the Hallways of the South Hospital due to a Lack of Space. This story was set in Honduras and was expressing the overcrowding in the maternity ward in a third world context. Elliot expressed the hospitals lack of concern given for these new mothers who’s children had fevers. This article told two different stories of women sleeping on the floor or on benches after giving birth to be with their sick baby. Elliot then tells a brief antidote about his personal time in Honduras and the conditions there.
Professor Holt briefly defined Oral Tradition in context of Corridos in Mexico before we split into Then we split into discussion groups. Oral Tradition is a way of passing information, tradition spread by word of mouth, this could be stories, songs, folklore etc. In the context of class we were talking about Corridos; A popular narrative song and poetry that forms a ballad. Topics vary from oppression, history, daily life for peasants, gossip and other social relevant topics We split into groups to talk about the Corrido’s we read about and how to analyze them. One of the discussion questions focused on was: What are Corridos and how can we use them as a primary source? We spent about ten minutes at the end of class to listen to Tiempos Amargos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2tlHtx0Zgc), a Corrido we read about.
In our large class discussion one interesting question to come up was wether Corridos were just a northern tradition or if it was also southern. From what I could find there are some about Zapata but not much about specific southern culture. This doesn’t necessarily mean they did not exist in southern Mexico but they are harder to find today. Another topic we talked about was the fact that this was a masculine genera. We also noted the way Corridos have changed over time and now they are either folkish or they are about the drug environment. There is a new subcategory of corridos called Narcocoridos that are about the current drug situation in Mexico. If you want some more Corridos you can listen to click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_XG8NMCOPM
Here are some more Corridos lyrics that I found in english about notable events of the revolution:
http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/Mexicoreader/Chapter5/rev%20corridos.pdf
Questions:
What was the role of gender in this Corridos tradition? why is it considered masculine?
What is the benefit of looking at Corridos as a primary source? How can we use it to relate to other source we have looked at?
During the time of the revolution would one consider Corridos more as propaganda or as storytelling? or dose is it dependent on the context and not the time period?
Class Notes: 09/09/19
We start off class today with Prof. Holt asking the class about our weekends and making a comment about the party on the green; mentioning how Wooster is a small town and it’s not hard to hear things. Prof. Holt then goes on to talk about the email she sent the class for signing up to wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CreateAccount that included a link to join the class wiki) She asks if anybody had any advice for creating a wikipedia account and the general advice is to keep the username appropriate. Then Prof. Holt talked about how she uses her own name and believes that it is her obligation to not hide behind an anonymous name. She talks about how one student had issues changing the David Ortega KH: David Ortiz page because it is so disputed. Then we move onto questions about the primary source paper, and one of the questions is about a cover page/ word count and word count can be in the heading and cover page is optional. Then someone asked about how to cite the primary source from Wasserman’s book and Prof. Holt showed us this website (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/books.html.) Then Prof. Holt reminded the class about the history lecture on 09/10/19.
Dani begins LA in the News with an article titled Mexico Says It Has Cut the Number of Migrants Heading to the U.S. Dani tells the class that Mexico has sent members of the National Guard and police officers to the border to reduce the migrants heading to the U.S. When it comes to why Mexico decided to do this, it is because of Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico. Andrez Lopez, the president of Mexico, is facing criticism because of this decision partly because it is unethical and partly because it makes Mexico look like the U.S’s puppet. This decision also places migrants in danger, and Mexico has failed to meet their promise to return migrants to their homeland. Dani relates this article to one of the five criteria for a revolution which is tolerant world context. She wonders about the difference between the treatment of migrants in northern vs. southern Mexico because South Mexico is basically part of Central America. Prof. Holt Another student suggested that migrants would probably be treated better in South Mexico.
Now the class begins in earnest. Prof. Holt puts up three questions: What were the key changes made in the 1917 Constitution? How well do changes to Agrarian Policy reflect Zapata and Villa’s goals? Those of Madero? How revolutionary are the changes and what criteria are used to define “revolutionary?” Here we have two key terms, 1917 Constitution and The Agrarian Law. The 1917 Constitution was the new constitution for Mexico after the revolution and was actually written during the revolution. The Agrarian Law (1915) was written by Victoriano Carranza and talks about the ownership of land with regards to villages. Prof. Holt asked the class what we thought about the Constitution and some notable things were the legal terms, the fact that a Constitution has multiple authors, when and why the constitution was written and about the workers’ rights shown in the Constitution.
Then we split into groups and begin discussion. My group talked about how the nation had the right to whatever land it wanted, as well as the nation’s right to give out private land. We talked about how depending on your perspective Zapata may have actually liked some of the land changes. When we discussed how revolutionary the changes were we realized that it depended on your perspective. From a U.S perspective, the changes weren’t particularly revolutionary but, when compared to the previous system, the changes were drastic. It went from unregulated to well-regulated. For question 2 we didn’t have very much to say, the changes were pretty revolutionary and we all liked them and we thought it was kind of funny how the Constitution that was written in the middle of a revolution allowed for unionization. The group ended with Prof. Holt gaining our attention. She asked the class about different evaluations about what we read and some key points are that the language was very technical, there was a juxtaposition between maternity leave in the U.S and everywhere else in the world. Additionally, we also talked about the vaguely defined land, and the anticlerical sentiment during the revolution as well as how the compensation for land could be easily corrupted. We ended class with Prof. Holt telling us about what we would be doing on Wednesday and dismissing us.
Questions:
What is one way in which the more educated people in history have tricked less educated people with complex terms and sentence structures?
From a Latin American perspective, how does the difference in culture from the North to the South of Mexico affect their views on motherhood?
How can revolutionary leaders use language as an effective propaganda tool?
LA in the news: Paraguay Investigates Human Remains Found on Ex-dictator’s Former Property.
On September 8, 2019, the remains of an estimated four individuals were found buried under a bathroom in the house of the former Paraguayan rightwing dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Local authorities subsequently launched an investigation to verify whether the remains belonged to victims of the Stroessner regime –a regime that committed multiple crimes against humanity. One of the primary goals of this investigation, asserted María Stella Cáceres, director of the Museum of Memories, would be to advance efforts to identify and return the remains of the victims of Stroessner’s dictatorship.
The article provides information on the Stroessner regime that is helpful in understanding the importance of the finding of the bone remains and the frustration of some Paraguayan groups by the government’s insufficient involvement in uncovering the crimes of the dictatorship. For instance, it addresses the regime’s “routine use of persecution, kidnap and torture” against opposition groups and the LGBT community. The article further highlights the horrors of the regime by stating that “at least 423 people were executed or ‘disappeared’, 18,722 tortured and 3,470 forced into exile.” Yet, as the article points out, only 37 bodies of those murdered under Stroessner have been discovered to date. This has led activist groups across the country to denounce the Paraguay government’s failure to adequately fund investigative work.
Through interviews of Paraguayan activists, the article portrays the Paraguayan government as passive and somewhat uninterested in uncovering the crimes that were perpetrated against its people. On the other hand, it highlights the involvement of independent groups and institutions in denouncing the Stroessner regime’s crimes and giving the victims’ families closure by returning the remains of their lost ones. It also seems to be written from a foreigner’s perspective, or is at least intended to a foreign audience. This is evident by the author’s emphasis on clarifying that families digging for hidden treasures in places where they were “squatting” (which is how the human remains were discovered) is common practice in Paraguay.
This article relates to our class themes in that addresses the dictatorship of a Latin American leader, which speaks to our discussions of Diáz’s regime. The persecution of indigenous people under Stroessner, especially, speaks to our extensive discussions of the rights and characteristics of indigenous populations in the context of the Mexican Revolution. Finally, the fact that this article addresses how the consequences of the Stroessner dictatorship persist today is reminiscent of our future discussions of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, whose roots can be traced by to the Diáz regime.
Source: Costa, William. “Paraguay Investigates Human Remains Found on Ex-dictator’s Former Property.” The Guardian. Sep 8, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/08/paraguay-alfredo-stroessner-human-remains.