Tribute from Seattle

The first meeting of Nicaragua Nexus is being held on the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Ben Linder on a stream high above the then tiny village of Bocay, Jinotega. His story is told in great detail in Joan Kruckewitt's diligently researched book The Death of Ben Linder and in the film American-Sandinista, which we will be viewing as part of the meeting.

At this time last year, Patricia Davis published a brief tribute that mentions efforts -- so far unsuccessful -- to name an engineering library building in Linder's honor at University of Washington. On the blog Radical Seattle Remembers she writes, correctly, that "he was much more of an idealist than an ideologue, and his decision to travel to war-torn Nicaragua was motivated by humanitarian concerns much more than political ones. "