Read the whole thing if you want context.When Chavez calls for Latin American unity and regional economic integration based on a continental social charter, he is taking up again the business Anastasio Somoza tried to have buried in Managua's Larreynaga field that February night in 1934. Like Sandino, Chavez believes people in Latin America can and should sort out their political and economic arrangements to suit themselves without foreign impositions. That is why the United States government would like to have him killed. That is why European governments cravenly refuse to denounce US intervention.
The traditional oligarchy in Nicaragua wants their country to be a colonial adjunct of the United States as they always have done. In that they seem to be supported by "centrist" and social-democrat style politicians like Eduardo Montealegre and Herty Lewites. They, like the Liberal PLC party, dominated by Arnoldo Aleman will deal with imperial agents like Paul Trivelli in the local US embassy so long as they get an appropriate share of whatever political benefits and perquisites are on offer.
The only political force in Nicaragua openly and determinedly defending Nicaragua's independence is the Sandinista FSLN. The tension between Adolfo Diaz-style sell out to US imperial scheming and Augusto Cesar Sandino's vision of Nicaragua's place within a united sovereign Latin America is again defining politics in Nicaragua. The energy crisis and Venezuela's obviously decisive role in any resolution it may have lend an unpredictable new dynamic to an old pattern of regional politics.
Sandino's vision of Latin American dignity and autonomy, renewed and revitalised by Hugo Chavez, simply refuses to die. Both the US government and the European Union are anxious to keep Nicaragua as a loyal, secure satrapy of the US empire. Nicaragua is a country traditionally perceived to be strategically important for its location on the American isthmus. Just as it did in Haiti, the European Union will support the US government in doing whatever it takes to squash potential moves towards autonomy by Nicaragua through alignment with Venezuela. The current crisis in Nicaragua should be seen in that overall context.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=54&ItemID=8861