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Article: Another saviour: Nicaragua. (Sandinista healer known as 'Jesus of the Poor')
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 9, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PEOPLE in Nicaragua are flocking to the home of a 33-year-old former mechanic in the Sandinist army who likes to be known as "Jesus of the Poor". In white robes over black army boots, Marcos Bonilla claims to heal the sick: "He who was here 2,000 years ago is here again," he says.
Mr. Bonilla strikes a chord in a superstitious country that has suffered avery imaginable disaster, man-made and natural. Managua, the capital, is still scarred by the 1972 earthquake that destroyed its centre. The country languishes under the inheritance of a decade of war between the former leftist Sandinist government and the American-backed contra guerillas. In early April a ...