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Show Castro Type Big Explosion Seen For Nicaragua Nicaragua, 275 miles from the Panama Canal, is building up to a "big explosion" like the one which put Fidel Castro into power in Cuba, Lester Velie warns in the January Reader's Digest. There have been 22 uprisings against the iron dictatorship of Luis Somoza and his brother Anastasio in the past 2Vz years, Velie writes in the article "New Time Bomb in the Carribbean." Once, Castro offered planes and pilots to the rebels. The offer was rejected, but one Nicaraguan told Velie, "Sometime we may have to accept help wherever we can." One nation not offering any help, Velie says, is the United States. Although tortures, shootings shoot-ings and jailings are part of everyday life, we remain friendly with the dictator, just as we were with Cuba's pre-Castro ruler, Fulgencio Batista. The Nicaragu-ans Nicaragu-ans resent it similarly. Our former for-mer ambassador, Thomas Whel-an, Whel-an, was one of the most detested men in the country; Nicaraguans who have been beaten by steel-helmeted steel-helmeted national guardsmen remember that 3500 of the 5000 guardsmen received their training train-ing from U.S. Fort Gulick, in the Panama Canal Zone. More dangerous, Velie writes, is the Somozas' collaboration with the communists. They supplied sup-plied the campaign money with which Reds won top offices in the nation's labor confederation, the CGT. At the same time, the communists pretend to be split. Half, known as black communists, commu-nists, work with the regime. The other half, called red communists, commu-nists, oppose him, so they can emerge in some future revolution as "fighters for freedom." 1 |