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March 8, 2007
fragile - yet enduring
In 1987, as the Republican President of the United States was selling weapons to Iran and using the profits to prop up a military insurgency in Central America, a 27 year-old freshly-minted American engineer named Ben Linder was traveling into Nicaragua to put his skills to use building an infrastructure for the peasants in that country.
On April 28, 1987, as Ben Linder was constructing a small hydroelectric dam in rural Nicaragua, the American President's insurgents murdered Mr. Linder. First wounding him with a grenade and then shooting a bullet into his head
International rock star Sting, wrote a song about the killing later that year - through which the idealistic Mr. Linder will, no doubt, long be remembered.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer also remembered Mr. Linder earlier this week.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer; 6 March, 2007; p. A6; ’20 years later, killing seen as a turning point – UW grad’s death brought global notice to civil war’
Posted by williamfrick at 7:25 PM | Comments (0)