News: Sandinista priest presides UN General Assembly

Former Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann is elected president of the U.N. General Assembly. His bio is more interesting than merely "being a US born Roman Catholic priest".

He backed the revolution in Nicaragua, joining Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega's government as foreign minister, a period sprouting fierce US under cover opposition in the so-called "contra-revolution".

D'Escoto's anti-American past includes successfully taking the US to the International Court of Justice in the Hague for arming Contra rebels and staging a hunger strike against U.S. policy.
In 2004 he told a U.S. news program former President Ronald Reagan was "the butcher of my people" and called President George W. Bush Reagan's "spiritual heir". (Full)

In his acceptance speech, he said "(..) love is what is most needed in this world. Selfishness is what has gotten us into the terrible quagmire in which the world is sinking, almost irreversibly, unless something big happens."
d'Escoto spoke out against what he called "acts of aggression" in Iraq and Afghanistan — without mentioning the US by name: "The behavior of some member states has caused the United Nations to lose credibility as an organization capable of putting an end to war and eradicating extreme poverty from our planet," he said. (Full)

The only thing, I can say is: "Hear, hear!"

Source: The Road Daily
Picture courtesy Isidro Hernandez (La Prensa)