Nicaraguan bows out of Harvard divinity teaching post

[paineinthearse]

For an earlier story, see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=158x3488

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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/03/08/nicaraguan_bows_out_of_teaching_post/

Nicaraguan bows out of teaching post
Ex-rebel leader has visa denied
By Kathleen Burge, Globe Staff | March 8, 2005

A historian and former Sandinista leader who helped overthrow Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza is no longer scheduled to teach classes at Harvard Divinity School this spring after she said she was denied a visa because of her role in alleged "terrorist activity." Dora Maria Tellez applied for a student visa to study English last year at the University of San Diego.

She then planned to teach in Cambridge this spring as a visiting professor, although she had not yet applied for the required teaching visa. But once the student visa was denied, Tellez told Harvard of- ficials that she would not be teaching classes on religion and society because she expected her teaching visa would also be rejected. "I'm not angry," Tellez, 49, said yesterday in a telephone interview from Managua. "I feel threatened if the United States considers me a terrorist. I want an explanation."

Tellez, who is asking the Nicaraguan government to investigate, said she is also considering her legal options. Her supporters in the United States blame tightened immigration rules after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "I think with the new Homeland Security rules, George Washington would have been denied a visa," said John Coatsworth, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, which had approved Tellez's appointment. "If we are denying visas for people who are struggling against tyranny equally with people who are carrying out terrorist attacks against innocent civilians for no good reason, I think we're making a terrible mistake."

According to Gioconda Belli, a Nicaraguan writer who now lives in Los Angeles and has taken up Tellez's cause, the former Sandinista leader was denied the student visa under a section of immigration law that bars people who have taken part in terrorist activities. The letter to Tellez from the US Department of State quoted a section of the law that bans visas for anybody who "has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily injury, incited terrorist activity," Belli said.

more.......

David Abel of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

[davidinalameda]

1. George Washington would be denied a visa under this rule

maybe not would but should

but I wonder if she had been on the side of the Somoza regime whether or not she would have been allowed the visa

can we say double standard

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Of course a supporter of the Somoza regime would not be denied

Why, large numbers of them are already living in Miami.

[davidinalameda]

3. thank you

my first lover had an ex whose father was an official in the Samoza regime

they escaped here with the clothes on there back and a heck of a lot of money they had been able to get out of the country. Let's just say they didn't go without