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You don't the half of it, Mr. Christopher... you can't really know them unless you're one of them.  Since they're your own people it makes your hair stand on end when you think about it... I have both Sandinistas and PLC in my family.  It's a really messed up thing, it's like being a child of heaven with brothers living in hell.  They're crooks no doubt, and they are powerful.  Their tentacles weave around the world in vast, invisible networks of power and money that was earned dishonestly through force, intimidation, brute power and annihilation of all opposition to resistance of their will.  Somoza was a cold, brutal, unfeeling, uncaring and ultimately arrogant dictator who never thought a group of "hinchos " was going to take over his family's empire but it happened, and my forefathers suffered because of it.  I am an oddity in the world: I am a first-generation immigrant from Nicaragua who is fully assimilated into American society and culture, so much so that other Latinos think I was born here and look at me as a sellout or America-lover.  Americans rarely look at me at all, through my education and assertiveness I have been able to be given a modicum of respect in most circles, especially when I spread money around since it seems that is all that matters in the world, anyway.  I don't the Nicaragua of the '60s when Somoza was in power or the Nicaragua of the '80s when the Sandinistas were running it into the ground, but their is one common thread that all the generations of Nicaraguans still alive today can agree upon:  Nicaragua was better under a Somoza than a Sandinista.  Every Nicaraguan I have spoken to from the older generation says that life was better under Somoza, no matter if they live like hidalgos, burgueses, caciques or finqueros or campesinos.  Can I ask you a question, Mr. Christopher?  In your time in Nicaragua did the Sandinistas inspire in you the hatred that exists for them in every honest, forthright Nicaraguan?  It seems to me that in your writings you express a general loathing for them worthy of a true Nicaraguan.  I would commend you if I didn't think hatred was a bad thing, but if their are people to be hated in the world it's themall right.