Benjamin Linder (1960 – 1987) Hydropower for Nicaragua

Benjamin Linder

b 1960 Seattle, d 1987 Nicaragua

Linder was a young US mechanical engineer who was so inspired by the struggle of the Sandanistas in Nicaragua that he moved there in 1986.   That was at the height of the war between them and the Reagan-backed mercenary terrorists known as the Contras.   Linder did a lot of good work there on bringing electricity to a remote area by the construction of a dam, and on vaccination campaigns.  He made a good friend in a fellow American and fellow engineer named Rebecca Leaf.

In 1987 he was traveling to scout out a site for the dam with two locals when they were ambushed by Contras.  He was wounded by a grenade and then shot in the head, and his companions were killed.  This caused an uproar back in the US, where the Contras were not popular.   The Reagan administration responded by blaming him for being in a dangerous zone, the you-shouldn’t-have-walked-into-my-bullet theory of suicide.  A Republican congressman, Connie Mack, said as much to his mother’s face when she testified, showing the sympathy for which they are renowned.

Oddly enough, there is another Benjamin Linder floating around the Internet, one who seems like our Linder’s mirror twin. He is a VP of marketing for Unwired Planet, a firm trying to bring Internet access to cell phones. While Linder #1 was out there hiking in the jungle, trying to bring electricity to the desperately poor, Linder #2 jets around the world trying to bring a new toy to the absurdly affluent.

Ms Leaf still lives there (as of 2015), and is director of the Benjamin Linder Association of Rural Development Workers.  She is an MIT grad, and has now built dozens of small dams and drinking water projects around the town of El Cua.  In 1997 she won the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest for her work on rural electrification in Nicaragua.

 

Links

Benjamin Linder, Photographs and Memories, a nice memorial page from a coworker in Nicaragua, Don Macleay

Linder v. National Security Agency (95-9251) is a description of the wrongful death suit brought by Linder’s family against various US gov’t agencies that were involved with the Contras.

In his 11/11/96 column in “The Nation” magazine Beat the Devil, Alexander Cockburn quotes the Linder family lawyer’s as having a quite different take on Linder’s death. They cite the forensic reports of Nicaraguan and American doctors in saying that Linder was killed by a gunshot to the temple from an inch away.

There’s a nice tribute to Linder in Juggler’s World magazine, talking about a tour of jugglers through Nicaragua just days after his death.

Jun-99

 

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