NICARAGUA: I'm the Champ

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A buzzard, coasting high in the air over Central America last week, would have seen nothing unusual. The mountainous, forest-matted isthmus lay quietly in the greasy November sun. Among the many human realities invisible to the buzzard were the boundary lines—the imaginary but very actual barriers that said: "This is Costa Rica; this is Guatemala; this is Nicaragua."

Far below the coasting buzzard, in the grey-green jungles of northern Nicaragua, more was stirring than his great bird's-eye view could catch. Snaking through the scrub, guerrilla riflemen made short, sharp little...