Economist (subscription), UK
BESIDES the natural disasters and civil wars typical of Central America, Nicaragua has also been cursed with a spectacularly corrupt succession of leaders. From Anastasio Somoza senior, of whom Franklin Roosevelt reputedly said that “he may be a son of bitch, but he's our son of a bitch�, to his eponymous son, who pocketed most of the foreign aid that arrived after an earthquake flattened the capital in 1972—the city centre is still largely grassland—to Arnoldo Alemán (pictured above left), who was sentenced last year to 20 years in jail for corruption and money-laundering, the country's caudillos, or strongmen, have contributed to making Nicaragua the poorest country in the isthmus. Its GDP per head, according to the IMF, is barely a quarter that of El Salvador, which suffered an even bloodier civil war between leftist revolutionaries and American-backed right-wing insurgents than Nicaragua did, but has done well since.
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