Remembering Nicaragua

Bill Gentile, a former Newsweek photographer, and the late Randolph (Ry) Ryan, formerly a Globe editorial writer and columnist, returned to discover the fate of Gentile's photo subjects, many of whom were victims of or participants in the war between the US-backed Contras and the Sandinista government. "We had everything," said one woman as she recalled the time before a Contra raid in which her son was killed. "Now we are in the worst misery."

Gilles Paquin, a Canadian journalist in the film, tracked down a man who commanded a Contra force under the name "Jimmy Leo" that was linked to another massacre. The Sandinistas, Leo said, "assassinated our families, too." Leo, who went on to become a member of the National Assembly, added, "The past must not be revived." Gentile's old Sandinista comrade, Captain Julio Ochoa, is now friends with a former Contra. "We are brothers now," Ochoa said. "We don't wish war on anyone," said his friend.

While the filmmakers found a spirit of reconciliation, the war left Nicaragua the second-poorest country in the hemisphere. Corruption is endemic, typified by former President Arnoldo Aleman, who in 2002 was facing trial for the illegal diversion of $100 million. (He was subsequently convicted and is maneuvering to void the sentence.)

The film director, Peter Raymont, interspersed footage of the 2002 trip with scenes from "The Whole World is Watching" about the conflict in the mid-1980s. That film captured Ryan at work on a Globe article. He was one of the most forceful journalistic opponents of the war, and his work and that of others discouraged Congress from giving the Reagan administration all the money it requested to crush the Sandinistas.

The administration still managed to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the war. By contrast, according to the US Agency for International Development, US assistance to Nicaragua this year totals $42 million. Ryan, too, moved on to other topics, leaving the Globe to work for the United Nations. His continuing passion for Nicaragua was evident in the film. "We are all responsible for this earth together and . . . for the weaker among us," he said. Ryan died two weeks after his return.

Many of his friends will attend the showing of both films at Harvard's Carpenter Center at 7 p.m. tomorrow. It is open to the public; admission is $8. The films are a reminder of the common humanity of the people that US interventions have callously left behind.