US bars Sandinista academic

[emad]

Duncan Campbell
Thursday March 31, 2005
The Guardian

More than 120 North American academics have begun campaigning to get the US state department to change its mind about banning a leading figure from the Nicaraguan Sandinista revolution from teaching in the US.

Dora María Téllez has been prevented from teaching at Harvard because she is considered to have taken part in "terrorist acts" - the Sandinistas' overthrow of the dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Ms Téllez was due to take up the post of Robert F Kennedy visiting professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard this spring when she was told that she would not be allowed to enter the country.

She has visited the US on many occasions in her profession as a historian. The decision to ban her appears to have been taken in response to the new national "anti-terror" policies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1448658,00.html

[pinerow]

1. Good thing we live in a "free" society....

nt

[Fenris]

2. If she was a Contra, she'd be given a fucking department chairmanship.

[mike_c]

3. overthrowing despotic dictators is "terrorism" in American eyes....

The Somoza's were good for business-- they treated Nicaraguans like serfs and foreign investors like kings (for a piece of the action, of course). It's really amazing that the U.S. State Department still regards removing those pargons of greed and oppression from power as "terrorism."