IGNORING CONTADORA DEFEATS OUR PURPOSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201360005-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: August 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

A-= Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201360005-6
ON PAGE -Y-7 26 August 1983
STAT
STAT
Ignoring Contadora Defeats Our Purposes
By ESTEBAN TORRES
and ALAN CRANSTON
The United States has critical national
interests at stake in Central America-
fundamentally, the achievement of peace,
stability and democracy in the region. This
cannot be achieved unilaterally, yet we are
increasingly becoming isolated from friends
in Latin America who share our goal.
Earlier this year, representatives of
Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama
met on Panama's Contadora Island to initi-
ate a multilateral peace process. We have
just returned from meeting with key offi-
cials in.each of these democracies. While
we are greatly impressed with the progress
that they have achieved, we also are
alarmed at the negative effect that Reagan
Administration actions have had in system-
atically undermining the Contadora Group's
efforts.
Contadora has already produced not only
the general framework but also specific
proposals that could bring peace to the
region. The participants have pursued com-
mitments- to halt : foreign arms supply,
withdraw foreign.military advisers, secure
free elections,,, promote regional economic
development and bar the use of one nation's
territory for attacks on neighboring coun-
tries. In the process, four key U.S. objectives
have been advanced:
Regional leadership has emerged as an
alternative to the U.S. interventionism that
historically has set back our interests in
Latin America.
-Traditional enemies in the region are
cooperating to engage in a dialogue for
comprehensive`regional peace.
-Nicaragua's Sandinista regime has
embraced the idea of a multilateral peace The leadership of the Contadora nations
negotiation. Offers the best means to achieve U.S. goals
-Fidel Castro has shown a willingness to in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala,
make compromises that would facilitate and to secure the imperiled democracies ,of
Cuba's reentry into the Latin American Honduras and Costa Rica. The Contadora
family of nations, nations, which face a far more ' immediate
Despite these substantial developments, threat than we do if the gathering storm
the Contadora process is suffering. erupts, are united in agreement 'that n
It is suffering from serious neglectty the essential step is dialogue beftveen the
Reagan Administration. When Pressed, Ad- United States and Cuba. While -diplomati-
ministration officials pay lip service to the cally necessary, such a dialogue has been
regional peace effort. Yet President Reagan blocked for reasons of domestic U:S. politics.
ignored Contadora in his post-summit com- With the Contadora process, our govern-
ments in Mexico this month, just as he - went has a framework for pursuing discus-
ignored it in his address to Congress in April.- sions that we can no longer affordroshun.
Contadora is suffering from U.S. att The United States must now demonstrate
to pressure Nicaragua with a show o political maturity. We should withdraw our
Just 24 hours after the Contadora nations' i naval flotilla; stop CIA funding nL the war
presidents proposed a 10-point-peace plan, agaft1st the Sandinistas; prepare- to' din
the Reagan Administration -announced th'e Contadora parties in a dial
ed
deployment of the largest U.S. flotilla ever i press dialogue
a for secure, internationally supervised
to sail Latin waters, as well as plans to'land
to 5,600 U.S. troops in E3 Salvador, Guatemala , and I
a
u :in -Honduras'fdr Nicaragua, and advance a package of deyel-
tary exercises." One Contadora presi- opment assistance and debt refaiancing for
dent told us that when he heard the news Central American nations
from Washington, he' was convinced that ; Instead of the Reagan Administration
Castro's agents had infiltrated 'the.. State ,payj lip service to the Contadora _ peace
Department, for the move could gnty:stir up . process, it should undertake these specific
tremendous anti-American sentiment and steps, giving Contadora the unequivocal
solidify support for those whom' it ' was support that it must have .if long-ter m'tJ S.
designed to intimidate. The Contadora lead'- national interests are to besecured.. ?
ern, who share U.S. aspirations for democra-
cy in the re
i
a
s
g
on, repe
tedly expre
sed-
dismay that the Reagan Administration's
rhetoric of peace is consistently contradict-
ed by its military actions. . .
And Contadora efforts are suffering from
the CIA-funded "covert" war against -the
Sandinistas. This hapless venture is seen as
counterproductive by virtually every Con-
tadora leader..U.S. backing of the universal-
ly hated remnants of Anastasio Somoza's
National Guard justifies the Sandinistas'
otherwise unjustified military buildup, and
undermines efforts of democratic opponents
to focus attention on the Sandinistas' be-
trayal of pledges for a free press and free
elections.
"ogres, Democratic congressman
from La Puente, was ambassador to.LINESCC
in the Carter Administration.' California
Democrat Alan Cranston is a member of-'the
Senate F'or'eign Relations Committee and a
candidate for the presidential nominatidn.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201360005-6