It’s
been a bad month for Latin American autocrats. Earlier this month, onetime
Guatemalan Generalissimo Efraín Rios Montt was found guilty of genocide and
sentenced to 80 years in prison for his role in the Central American Cold War.
Last week, Argentine dirty warrior Jorge Rafael Videla, who presided over the
bloodiest period of the 1976–1983 dictatorship died behind bars in Buenos
Aires. And such was the disarray of Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela that the autocrat’s
successor Nicolas Maduro was left to explain why this oil-rich nation of 28
million is running short of food and toilet paper.
Now
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is facing a hell all his own. The trouble
comes not from imperialist gringos, palace rivals, or hanging judges, but
Ortega’s own stepdaughter, who claims that the Sandinista supremo began abusing
her sexually when she was 11 years old. Now 45 and a mother of three,
Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo also alleges that her stepfather is behind a
campaign to silence her that is so vindictive and intense it amounts to a
“civic death.”
This
family conflict has flared on and off for the last two decades. But the fact
that it has now come roaring back to roil Nicaraguan courts and public opinion
says a good deal about this iconic caudillo and the delicate state of democracy
in parts of this region.
Source: The daily beast
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