[Social_Critic]

But you see, need to focus on the fascist regime in Cuba, which is by far the worst. Cuba is taking over Venezuela ...as it turns out Maduro isn't even Venezuelan, he's from Colombia. And of course I focus where my strengths lie. I attack human rights abuses where the energy is better spent, and it's much more useful to try to undermine and destabilize and eventually destroy regimes which are really really bad like the emerging Cubazuela.

[Spouter]

But you see, need to focus on the fascist regime in Cuba, which is by far the worst. Cuba is taking over Venezuela ...as it turns out Maduro isn't even Venezuelan, he's from Colombia. And of course I focus where my strengths lie. I attack human rights abuses where the energy is better spent, and it's much more useful to try to undermine and destabilize and eventually destroy regimes which are really really bad like the emerging Cubazuela.

Maduro is enthralled in his own "birther" scandal, just like Obama? In America, these "birthers" have damaged the credibility of their cause with their farcical conspiracy theories. The more serious conservative commentators dismiss these nuts completely. I noticed that you provide no evidence or source for this assertion concerning Maduro's supposed Colombian ancestry.

The idea that Cuba is worse than Colombia is also laughable. In Colombia, there have been 257,089 registered victims of paramilitary violence (http://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/ca ... 2&q=257-89) and "violence has displaced millions... and continues to displace tens of thousands every year" (http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/colombia). Castro's worst crimes do not approach this scale of atrocity. Are there tens of thousands displaced internally by paramilitary violence every year in Cuba? How do you think the statistics will compare on public health, standard of living, literacy, and so on? Cuba is a dictatorship, with unjust limitations on civil liberties, but government services are fairly good for the region (even better than the US in some aspects). These services are virtually nonexistent in Colombia, and the violence and poverty is much, much worse - by orders of magnitude.

So, you want to "undermine and destabilize and eventually destroy" the popularly elected government of Venezuela? - no, that is not biased at all. By the way, if you are worried that Venezuela is drifting into the sphere of Cuban influence, the best way to avoid that would be for the US to simply accept the Maduro-regime and to normalize relations with them. If we treat them as an enemy, then they will obviously seek out other nations to become allied with. Because Cuba is the only country in Latin America outside of US influence that has as much power and so many resources, naturally Venezuela will fall under her influence. It is not rocket science. The US could easily stop the creation of this "Cubazuela," which you find so scary that it paralyzes your intellectual process.

Outside of propaganda-land, the facts are readily apparent. Despite the loss of military bases in the region, the US is still the dominant force in the entire hemisphere. We call the shots. And so, if this "Cubazuela" that sends you into spasms of fear is actually real, then that is ultimately the fault of the US. It must be hard for you to perceive this, because you are trapped in a world of irrational propaganda. Instead of documented facts, you are used to rumor and innuendo, which has convinced you that Maduro is actually a Colombian, and has filled your mind with countless other fantasies. I feel sorry for you.

[Social_Critic]

Cuba is worse than Colombia by far. I don't direct USA foreign policy. If I were, the Castro regime would be pulverized.

[Spouter]

Cuba is worse than Colombia by far...

Nonsense. The only way to compare Cuba to Colombia and arrive at the conclusion that Cuba is worse, "by far," is if you use a double standard in your evaluation.

"Universal Periodic Review: HRW Submission on Cuba," April 18, 2013, http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/18/univ ... ssion-cuba:

Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2012 the government of Raúl Castro continued to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, travel restrictions, and forced exile... the government continues to sentence dissidents to long-term prison sentences in closed, summary trials, or hold them for extended periods without charge.

Sounds pretty bad, but in this list of Raúl Castro's violations of human rights, among all the travel restrictions and arbitrary detentions, I see nothing about political dissidents being assassinated by paramilitary death-squads. And I find it odd that they would claim that Cuba is "the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent," when clearly, the death-squads that operate with impunity in Colombia are a much worse, much more violent form of political repression. I agree, I would not want to live in a country where I would be arrested for speaking out against the government or for participating in a demonstration, but I would rather live there, where I face only beatings, arrest, kangaroo courts, etc., versus a country like Colombia, where I face violent death.

I refer you once again to "World Report 2012: Colombia," http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/colombia. I have emphasized a few passages.

Candidates campaigning for the nationwide and local elections in October 2011 were also frequently killed amid reports of alleged links between candidates and armed groups. According to the Colombian NGO Mision de Observacion Electoral, 40 candidates were killed in 2011, representing a 48 percent increase in such crimes reported during the 2007 local elections.

These kinds of crimes are not mentioned in the report on Cuba. Here is a typical violation as documented by Human Rights Watch: "Brothers Marcos Maikel and Antonio Michel Lima Cruz... were arrested in December 2010 and sentenced in a closed, summary trial in May 2011 to three and two years in prison, respectively." This case is troubling because one of the brothers has developed serious health issues. Here is another typical case: "Rogelio Tavío López... was detained on March 2, 2012... His wife said he was arrested without judicial orders and has since been held in a prison in Guantanamo province without being brought to trial." This poor guy is being punished for simply organizing a protest.

I admit that these things are bad, but they could be much worse. Just look at Colombia:

Successor groups to the paramilitaries, led largely by members of demobilized paramilitary organizations, have grown to have approximately 5,700 members, according to official numbers as of October 2011. Toleration of the groups by public security force members is a main factor for their continued power...

...the groups engage in drug trafficking; actively recruit members, including children; and commit widespread abuses against civilians, including massacres, killings, rapes and other forms of sexual violence, threats, and forced displacement. They have repeatedly targeted human rights defenders, Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders, trade unionists, and victims’ groups seeking justice and recovery of land. Successor groups appear to be responsible for the 34 percent increase in cases of massacres registered in 2010 and the continued rise in cases reported during the first half of 2011... In January 2011 Colombia’s national police chief publicly stated that such groups are the largest source of violence in Colombia.

As you can see, Colombia is a slaughterhouse. There is more:

Over the past decade the Colombian Army has committed an alarming number of extrajudicial killings of civilians... The executions occurred throughout Colombia and involved multiple army brigades...

...In September 2011 Jorge Noguera Cotes, who directed the DAS [National Intelligence Service] from 2002 to 2005, was convicted of having put the intelligence agency at the service of paramilitary groups, including in the 2004 killing of a university professor...

...While the number of trade unionists killed every year is less today than a decade ago, it remains higher than any other country in the world... Impunity for anti-union violence is widespread: Colombia has obtained convictions for less than 10 percent of the more than 2,900 trade unionist killings reported by the ENS since 1986...

Now, how does this compare to the arrest of dissidents in Cuba? Would you rather be arrested and sentenced to some squalid and dangerous prison, where at least you have a fighting chance at survival, or would you rather be dragged out of your house and instantly shot to death? What's worse - arbitrary detention or summary execution?

Notice that all of my facts are from Human Rights Watch. I have used one consistent standard in my evaluations - data reported by HRW. According to this data, the only objective conclusion possible is that Colombia is much more repressive and violent. This conclusion is especially authoritative, because HRW is so highly critical of Cuba, and if there were anything worse that they could have included in "Universal Periodic Review: HRW Submission on Cuba," such as evidence of widespread political murders, or even isolated incidents, then they would have surely included it. On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence of political murders in their report on Colombia.

The only way you can conclude that "Cuba is worse than Colombia by far" is if you use a double standard. Colombia is an ally that receives millions in financial and military aid, and therefore we measure them by a more forgiving standard. Cuba is an officially designated enemy, and therefore we use the harshest and most exacting standard possible. This is called hypocrisy.

[Social_Critic]

You see nothing about paramilitary death squads assassinating people in Cuba because there's no such thing. In Cuba the repression is multilayered.

The first level is to deny you education and job progress. In a state where everybody works for the regime or does so because they issue a permit, this becomes a very powerful tool. One reason why I escaped was my inability to enter high school because I was a known opponent of the regime by the time I was 13 years old.

The second layer is physical violence such as beatings by regime supporters who can do so with impunity. They can also have the local CDR press to move you to much lower quality housing (they did it to my dad after he was seen to be anti regime).

Then they can arrest you and hold you for days at a time, and can threaten parents with the loss of their children.

Finally there's the dreaded G2, the secret police. They pick you up and they take you away. You can disappear, never to be seen again. Or you can pop back up for a quickie trial and punishment in one of their jails. If they think you are too much trouble they execute you.

So you see, when you compare Cuba with Colombia you show a complete lack of understanding of what really goes on. Face it, you are a communist laying out propaganda. Your first lame attempt here was to defend the Venezuelan puppet, and you couldn't even spell the guy's name. You have a LONG way to go before you can play in this league.

[Spouter]

You see nothing about paramilitary death squads assassinating people in Cuba because there's no such thing...

Thank you for finally admitting the facts. In Colombia, there are paramilitary death squads running around and killing people, whereas in Cuba, there are not.

You go on to describe how "the repression is multilayered" in Cuba - discrimination on jobs and services, physical intimidation by supporters of the regime, arbitrary arrests and kangaroo courts, etc.. I guess it is possible that in Colombia the repression is not so "multilayered." After all, why bother to beat someone up or threaten them with prison, when a death squad can simply drag the offending dissident off and shoot them? Then again, if the Colombian government is willing to have their political opponents murdered, then they are probably also willing to engage in less violent forms of repression, such as the kind of discrimination and arbitrary arrests that trouble you so much in Cuba. The exact same thing could easily be going on in Colombia, in addition to the widespread political murders, which, by your own admission, are not happening in Cuba. If a Cuban is discriminated against or beaten up or losses custody of his children, that is a big deal to you, but if the exact same thing, or worse, happens to a Colombian, you could care less.

You seem especially troubled that in Cuba "the local CDR press to move [dissidents] to much lower quality housing." But in Colombia, "[v]iolence has displaced millions of Colombians internally, and continues to displace tens of thousands every year." - http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/colombia. Same exact thing, except that the method of displacing these Colombians from their homes is far more brutal, and the crime is much more widespread and affects many more victims. Are you really going to claim that the CDR has displaced millions of Cubans from their homes over the same period of time? Tens of thousands each year? And I wonder, when Cubans are displaced from their homes and forced into "much lower quality housing," how low actually is the quality in comparison with the poverty in Colombia? Do the displaced Colombians even have alternative housing to move to, even if it is of "much lower quality"? These questions would not even occur to you because you have already determined that the suffering of Colombians is unworthy of your consideration. Only Cubans count.

When it becomes impossible to argue on a factual level, newspeak often comes in handy. I made an assertion, based on documented facts, that the repression in Colombia is objectively worse. You suggest that repression in Cuba is worse, because it is "multilayered." Well, what does that little piece of jargon mean? You list some violations of human rights in Cuba, but you make no effort to show exactly how widespread these crimes are - for example, how many people actually are displaced from their homes by the local CDR, or are arrested for political reasons, or lose custody of their children, or are executed in secret prisons. You already admitted that the repression is more violent in Colombia, because the murderous death squads do not exist in Cuba. But, you could still make a case perhaps, if you could show that there are more victims of this softer, more "multilayered" style of repression, i.e. that it is more widespread and affects many more people than the political murders in Colombia. However, such an approach would invite a closer look at the facts, and I know you don't want to go there. Just call it "multilayered" and leave it at that; don't even mention anything too specific about Colombia, because that could get you into trouble. The repression has more "layers" in Cuba, whatever that means, and that's that. Actually, Colombian repression has an extra "layer" that can not be found in Cuba at all - widespread political assassination.

It is easy to decode your newspeak.

In Cuba the repression is multilayered.

None of your examples of Cuban repression are worse than the paramilitary assassinations that occur frequently in Colombia. You list milder forms of repression, but these crimes may also be occurring in Colombia as far as you know, in addition to the assassinations. You offer no proof to the contrary. The only reason that Cuban repression is different than the Colombian variety is because it is "multilayered." Translation: the only reason that Cuban repression is different from the Colombian variety is because it is happening in Cuba. Victims of Cuban repression are worthy of our outrage and indignation, because Cuba is an officially designated enemy. Victims of Colombian repression, which you admit is much more violent, do not count all. They are invisible. Out of sight, out of mind. That is because these crimes are committed by our allies.

The hypocrisy is truly stunning.

[Social_Critic]

As I said, in Cuba there's no paramilitary death squads, nor are there drug dealing guerrillas like the FARC running around the "Cuban jungle". Cuba is a lot worse than Colombia because the Cuban regime is an absolute dictatorship. Why would they need paramilitary death squads? All they need to do is go pick up the individual they want, torture him or her as they think is needed, and then murder him. Or they can order up a trial and get him or her condemned to whatever number of years they want. Cuba has an Orwellian set up. The whole island is sort of a gulag where slave people are allowed to mingle with tourists, sex tourists, and Sandalistas.

[Spouter]

Cuba is a lot worse than Colombia because the Cuban regime is an absolute dictatorship.

At first, you simply asserted that Cuba was worse than Colombia, with no supporting argument or evidence whatsoever. This assertion was presented as a self-evident truth.

I challenged that assertion, and you decided to defend it by with the claim that political repression in Cuba is "multilayered." I still do not understand precisely what this jargon is intended to convey. You gave some examples of "multilayered" repression, such as arbitrary arrests, loss of housing, etc., but there is no indication that these things are not happening in Colombia as well, and none of these violations sound worse than the widespread political assassinations in Colombia.

Now you assert that Cuba is worse because it is an "absolute dictatorship." Apparently, an "absolute dictatorship" has no need for paramilitary death squads, like those which are currently rampaging through Colombia. Your suggestion is that there is no need for semi-official paramilitary forces to carry out the repressive designs of the ruling regime, because official forces and agencies are able to act directly on behalf of the government - "All they need to do is go pick up the individual they want, torture him or her as they think is needed, and then murder him."

If this was really happening on a widespread scale, then, yes, I would agree, Cuba is worse than Colombia. In Colombia, this kind of political terrorism is very widespread indeed, and thanks to a diplomatic cable that was wired from the US embassy in Bogata, Nov. 19, 2009 (http://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/ca ... 2&q=257-89), we can assign a precise number to all the murder and mayhem - 257,089 registered victims of paramilitary violence!

The reason that the fascist government of Colombia uses paramilitary forces to repress the population is obvious - plausible deniability. In a small way, this attempt to preserve a veneer of legitimacy, as laughable as it is, is still a sign of progress. In the 1980's, when Reagan launched his war of terrorism against Nicaragua, the American public and Congress would not allow him to directly and openly use official government resources. Instead, he had to use covert resources, and although the Contras committed terrible crimes on his behalf, it was still necessary to conceal these crimes, at least superficially, and to distance the US government from them through plausible deniability. The crimes were still committed, but at least not so openly.

And so, if official government forces are running around, kidnapping, torturing and assassinating people, just like the death squads in Colombia, then that would make Cuba worse, because what the Colombian government prefers to conceal and distance itself from, Cuba would be doing openly and brazenly. All that remains for you to do, in order to complete your argument, is to demonstrate that these crimes committed by official government forces in Cuba are as widespread as the crimes committed by semi-official paramilitary forces in Colombia, or at least demonstrate that the former approaches the latter in scale.

There were 257,089 registered victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia by 2009. If official organs of the Cuban government had committed at least half as many acts of political violence, or even a third, then I would say, yes, Cuba is worse, or at least just as bad. Can you demonstrate that there have been 85,000 victims of such violence in Cuba over the same basic period of time? Can you show that there has even been 40,000? 20,000? 10,000? You don't even quote isolated incidents from the documentary record, let alone demonstrate a widespread trend.

According to the "Universal Periodic Review: HRW Submission on Cuba," April 18, 2013 (http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/18/univ ... ssion-cuba), there are many violations of civil rights in Cuba, including "short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, travel restrictions, and forced exile." There are also kangaroo courts that lay down longer term sentences. Nothing is said about assassinations or executions. This report is highly critical of the communist regime, and the author goes to great pains to demonstrate that "Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent." Presumably, if there were evidence of political murders, whether by government or paramilitary forces, or even credible allegations of such, then it would have been included, because HRW is going to such great pains to depict Cuba in a negative light. However, they still have some intellectual integrity, and although HRW may love to report on political assassinations by official government forces, they are not willing to make up incidents out of their own imaginations.

You, Social_Critic, seem to have no such scruples. Actually, you are smart enough not to assert anything too specific. You allege that the government of Cuba is directly murdering dissidents, any "individual they want," but you do not bother to indicate the scale of these atrocities. How many people precisely are being "picked up," "tortured," and "murdered" by the government each year? Can you give me at least one isolated incident from the documentary record?

I find it strange that you don't like to quote from the documentary record at all. I am trying to defend the assertion that Colombia is worse than Cuba, but I do not excuse or justify the abuses committed by the communists. I admit that Cuba "has an Orwellian set up." But the question remains, who is worse, Colombia or Cuba? Maybe Colombia has even more of an Orwellian setup, with much more violent and widespread repression of the population. In fact, I think that is certain. I reached this conclusion from a review of the documentary record, as reported by the very same HRW that you encouraged me to look at. The reports on Cuba contain nothing about executions and assassinations, but there are some fairly bad crimes being documented, and I have quoted some of them. In this debate, you are attacking Cuba, and I have been forced to defend it with the argument that it is not nearly as bad as Colombia. In essence, you are on the anti-Cuba side, and I am (somewhat reluctantly) on the pro-Cuba side. Why then is the guy on the pro-Cuba side the only one who is quoting real facts from the documentary record about Cuba's violations of human rights?

The answer is childishly simple. Your antipathy to Cuba is not based on documented facts. It is based on feelings and imagination.

I challenge you to produce a well documented instance where a direct agent of the Cuban government, "pick[ed] up the individual they want[ed], torture[d] him or her as they [thought was] needed, and then murder[ed] him." Just one incident. The slaughter began in earnest under Uribe (shortly after Colombia became the world's leading recipient of US military aid in 1999, coincidentally), so please restrict your examples of Cuban political assassinations to the last ten or fifteen years. I know in advance that you will be unable to demonstrate a widespread trend of such assassinations, as could easily be done in the case of Colombia, so do the best you can to produce just one isolated incident. No matter what your example is, no matter how violent and disgusting it is, I should be able to find ten such incidents from Colombia, probably from the same year as your hypothetical Cuban atrocity.

I keep trying to tell you, but your propaganda-derived certainty will not yet you accept it: Colombia is worse than Cuba by orders of magnitude.

My sense of certainty is derived from the evidence. Simply read the HRW reports on Cuba. They are indeed troubling, but they are nothing compared to the same agency's reports on Colombia. That is were the slaughter is really going down.

[Social_Critic]

I really don't have to show you anything. I'm from Cuba. We have a long history of suffering under that monster, and there's nothing I'm willing to tell you about my personal life to convince you of anything. Just understand very clearly, that never, ever, will the regime be allowed to be in peace. Nor will we ever give you a chance to cover for their crimes. This isn't an intellectual game you have entered. This is real life. Out here, in the dark, we wait.

[Sithsaber]

We get it; one day soon all shall bathe in the blood of the Cuban traitors, better dead than red, no peace till I get back my plantation back east etcetera et cetera.


It is right that Colombia and Cuba can't be compared. Cuba is a surveillance state that cracks down on almost all forms of dissent, whether such actions are necessary due to their neighbor is debatable. Colombia is still in the midst of a generations old civil conflict, and its power base is more into maintaining personal fiefdoms and stemming a possible red tide than inclusive reforms. It's basically apples and oranges; besides, i don't think either side here really wants to jump into the liberty vs security debate due to obvious hypocrisies found in both parties.

[Spouter]

I really don't have to show you anything.

You have no documented facts? I am not surprised.

I'm from Cuba. We have a long history of suffering under that monster, and there's nothing I'm willing to tell you about my personal life to convince you of anything.

You misunderstand completely. I do not care that you are from Cuba, and I am not interested in hearing anything from your personal life. I am interested in facts - something from a newspaper, a report from a human rights organization, from the UN, etc.. These kinds of facts are independent of your personal experiences, and hence they are more trustworthy. Some anecdote from your personal life is completely useless to me. How can I trust it? Better to rely on the authority of the documentary record.

Just understand very clearly, that never, ever, will the regime be allowed to be in peace. Nor will we ever give you a chance to cover for their crimes. This isn't an intellectual game you have entered. This is real life. Out here, in the dark, we wait.

Very poetic! If you want to talk about people suffering "in the dark," then your comments would be more appropriate if used in connection with Colombia, rather than Cuba. The suffering of Cubans gets a lot of press, and when dissidents are forced to flee or are exiled, they will usually be welcomed with open arms by the US, thanks to Clinton's "wet foot, dry foot" policy. Before this revision of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, even migrants intercepted at sea were given a home in the US. But despite this tightening up of the laws, every single Cuban, with only rare exceptions, the second his or her foot hits US soil, instantly becomes a legal resident, no matter how they got here, and within a year, if they fill out their paperwork correctly, they will become citizens.

Compare this to our immigration policy with respect to other countries. The Haitian boat people are fleeing from a much poorer country, and their government is much more violently repressive. Do they automatically become legal residents with an assured path to citizenship the instant their feet hit US soil? Of course not. Colombia is the same. Look at the case of Julio César Gómez and his wife, Liliana, who fled from the violence of leftist guerrillas in Colombia, and who first presented their petition for political asylum in 1992. They were finally separated from their children and deported in 2007, despite the fact that "a brother of Mr. Gómez was assassinated by guerrillas in 1987, and in recent years a niece and a nephew were murdered." (see "Students’ Family Members Are Deported," Oct. 31, 2007, Terry Aguayo and Julia Preston, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/us/31 ... print&_r=0). You would think that US immigration officials would be more sympathetic to the plight of these political refuges, since they were fleeing from leftist violence, but no, back to the slaughterhouse they were sent. If we are so unsympathetic to those fleeing the leftists, it is likely we are even more unsympathetic to those fleeing from the right-wing paramilitary groups that were loyal to Uribe. Why bother to make Colombia the world's leading recipient of US military aid, and then allow Uribe's victims to escape to safety in the US? Better to send such refuges back to suffer in silence, or as you put it, to suffer "in the dark."

Cubans who are exiled or who manage to escape can easily find a home in the US, where they receive the protection of our laws and the benefit of our civil liberties. They can speak out against the communists, print newsletters or start websites, write to their congressmen or the press, organize demonstrations, or do basically whatever they want, and all without any fear of reprisal from Castro's security forces. Not only are Cuban dissidents given a voice, but it is a prominent voice. Colombian dissidents and refuges, on the other hand, are routinely sent right back into the slaughterhouse, no matter how wet or dry their feet may be. They are not often given asylum, and so they do not have a safe platform, free from reprisal, from which they can speak out against their persecutors and inform the larger world of their suffering. Instead, their suffering goes on without significant comment in the US. The suffering of Cubans, however, generates a lot of commentary. It isn't going on "in the dark" at all. As a matter fact, it is very well illuminated, almost as if it was under a spotlight.

[Social_Critic]

As Sithsaber said, Cuba is a highly repressive state run by a dictatorship. The flavor is increasingly fascist, they even dare have Fidel Castro's son Antonio out on the golf course winning golf tournaments, and Raul's hedonist daughter gets a lot of press for opposing Fidel's old homophobic policies. So it's fascist and now we get hereditary oligarchs and everything.

Our red friend keeps insisting Colombia has to be worse than Cuba and wants me to criticize Colombia. Being cuban I'd rather wait to see if I can press the button on the woodchipper grinding the Cuban dictatorship into sawdust.

[Sithsaber]

A problem with what you're saying is that you are being openly piecemeal about this. Political dynasties are legion throughout the governments of the world, and nobody seems to care when the Bush and Clinton Dynasties get into office. Add to this the businesses and power brokers who push things behind the scenes for generations.


And why is Castro's daughter hedonistic? If she's hedonistic than Chelsie Clinton and the Bush Twins are the whores of Babylon.
(Being pro gay rights doesn't have to mean gay orgies)

[AndresSerrano]

And as per usual, opinions herewith are basically from people who don't know shit from shinola and who mostly rely on the crap they read and they only read the crap that agrees with their preconceived notions.
The Castros are not dictators? REALLY?? TRULY???
The Sandinistas have not kept Nicaragua back 30 years?? REALLY?? The utter fools who have these notions need to go for a visit first to Costa Rica, Panama and el Salvador, hell, go visit Belize, Guatemala and Honduras as well, all peers to Nicaragua. Prey, do then go to Nicaragua and do report back. Tell us what differences you find.
Your second trip should be to Colombia (that evil country mired in a civil war) and Ecuador (the socialist republic that more closely speaks Venezuelan 21st Century Socialism) and do prey tell us what kind of comparisons you can draw.
Both Nicaragua and Venezuela are cesspools of corruption, ineptitude and the destruction of what little people have. Do come to Caracas, where spaghetti is starting to be short, where toilet paper is an iffy thing, where most CHEESE comes from bloody URUGUAY for christ's sake, where fuel is given away but where industrial estates are in such disrepair that one needs a four by four to go visit plants. Tell the parents facing 30 % inflation so far this year that socialism works...... I won't ask you to go to Peru or Chile, that would be unfair in a comparison to Venezuela, as both are well on their way to becoming firts world countries, particularly Chile. But go see Ecuador, where the same Chavez ideas (the good ones) are delivering a prosperous, fairer society, where farmers can get to market on paved roads, go to Colombia, where despite an evil war, a country advances with giant steps towards fullfilling the true needs of its peoples......