By Kristine Zylstra-Moore. Kristine is the Program Coordinator of FortWhyte Farms. There, she works with marginalized youth to build skills in sustainable urban farming. She and her husband, Peter live in central Winnipeg with their cat, Emma and their half-dozen chickens.
I have to confess. I carry inside myself a certain longing despair. Somewhere between grade school and university graduation I learned too much about our world and its gross injustices. And to top it all off I managed to marry someone who can only be described as obsessed with the pursuit of ever more revelation of how the powerful have and continue to take every advantage and, for lack of more precise language, screw over the rest of the world.
He does this, I know because he has hope that we can change it. He believes that it is only by knowing the truth that we can work to set ourselves and our brothers and sisters free. Mostly I believe this too and I do have hope… it’s just a butterfly kind of hope, the sort that takes your breath away for a moment of two… until it flies away and I’m left facing the cold hard facts.
I recently encountered the poem from which I’ve titled this post and honestly I cried. It’s difficult to explain, but these words crawled inside me and made themselves a home, a home that displaced some of the familiar despair.
I wanted to share the entire poem. It is written by Barbara Kingsolver and dedicated to the Nicaraguans killed by the Contras in the 1980’s. I find it incredible how the words speak so clearly to both that particular context and a much broader one. I am uncertain how well-known the details are of what occurred between Nicaragua and the United States so I’ve included a brief explanation and a link to a lengthier one at the end.
In the late 1970’s, the US-backed Samoza dictatorship of 40 years was overthrown by a group which came to be known as the Sandanistas. They formed a provisional government and in 1984 elections internationally recognized as free made a transition to democratic rule. Early on, the Sandanistas gained recognition from international organizations for their progressive social programs as literacy and nutrition levels rose.
Unfortunately powerful interests were not impressed with the redistributionist policies nor friendly relations with Cuba and the USSR. Throughout the 1980’s the US provided organization, arms, training, planes and even pilots to the Contras, an opposing group largely composed of Samoza’s former National Guard. CIA agents and mercenaries were also directly involved in the fighting. They explicitly targeted civilians and the means to their livelihoods. At least 13,000 unarmed Nicaraguans were killed and the country’s economy and infrastructure were devastated leading to further hardship for the country’s survivors.
In 1986, The International Court of Justice found American actions in Nicaragua to be illegal and ordered them to pay significant reparations. Instead the US refused to acknowledge the finding and continued with their actions in the region for several more years.
If you are interested in a more detailed description including the links between the CIA funding and drug trafficking, there is a good paper available here.
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