Spyglass
They believe they will live for many decades, something possible with the ruling neighbor, for being 45 years old, but absurd for the Nicaraguan octogenarian.
Extremes tend to come together, as the old adage goes. It is due to having surprising similarities regarding certain themes, ideas or ideological criteria which can validly be pointed out as antipodes, that is, positions placed in a diametrically opposite place. This makes it impossible to find elements to begin the search for a minimum agreement. This week, Daniel Ortega, 80, alongside his wife, Rosario Murillo, “co-presidents” of Nicaragua after illegal changes to the constitution and while celebrating the Sandinista revolution, said publicly and shamelessly: “There will no longer be elections here so that they (without mentioning who) will try to capture the government, capture the power.” Total nerve, but expected.
A search for similar criteria in Latin America allows us to find a situation experienced in El Salvador, where Nayib Bukele does not need to change anything in the Constitution because he has tight control of the Supreme Court and Congress, with the difference of having solid popular support because of the way he eliminated gang members, but also citizens who do not belong to these terrorist gangs. The maneuver involves eliminating the constitutional veto on the participation of a sitting president. Both are also similar in the number of those innocent prisoners who died when they are in the power of the State, and in the way they are fed, treated and maintained, although popular support is still solid. Those who criticize him have exile as the only option.
A notable difference between Ortega and Bukele is the academic level of both, and respect for the Catholic Church, positioned as a defender of the obvious and inevitable abuses derived from that type of government, such as against the freedom of expression of thought. Both receive criticism from local and foreign organizations that defend human rights, which is necessary even though some have contradictory ideological tendencies and are adverse to those who exercise control in this way. They believe they will live for many decades, something possible with the ruling neighbor, for being 45 years old, but absurd for the Nicaraguan octogenarian. All of this contributes to eliminating any minimal possibility of a united Central American isthmus, under his command, of course, as Bukele claims to dream.
502 years after the
first foundation
Tomorrow, July 25, marks 502 years since the first founding of the city of Santiago de Guatemala, a small village in the town of Iximché founded in 1470 by that ethnic group, whose rulers received the Spanish in 1524. In 1527, the tense interethnic relationship caused its destruction and it was transferred in 1541 to the nearby Kakchiquel town of Tecpán, in the Almolonga valley. There it was destroyed by the current from the crater of the Agua volcano, and it is known as Ciudad Vieja. It was settled in the Panchoy valley, where it flourished as head of the Captaincy General. The earthquakes of 1773 turned it into La Antigua and it was reborn in the Valley of the Virgin. It did not change its settlement even with the devastating earthquakes of 1917/18 and 1976.
This very brief compendium demonstrates the regrettable nature of the widespread national ignorance of this interesting history. Santiago de los Caballeros of Guatemala is part of the group of transferred cities: Panama, Santo Domingo, Granada and León, in Nicaragua; Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia; Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba, from 1496 to 1776. This situation is due to carelessness and an attitude of not giving importance to what happened in Guatemala, which in turn explains in a certain way the current fashion of using English, unnecessarily, and to a certain extent servile to foreign languages, which does not make sense because Spanish is a better language, and with more tributaries of various European and American cultures, not only Latin.