IGNORING CONTADORA DEFEATS OUR PURPOSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540021-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: August 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540021-9
ARTICLE APP ED LOS ANGELES TD' S
ON PAGE - Z 26 August 1983
Ignoring Contadora Defeats Our Purposes
By ESTEBAN TORRES
and ALAN CRANSTON
embraced the idea of a multilateral peace
negotiation.
-Fidel Castro has shown a willingness to
make compromises that would facilitate
Cuba's reentry into the Latin American
family of nations.
Despite these substantial developments,
the Contadora process is suffering.
It is suffering from serious neglect-by the
Reagan Administration. When pressed, Ad-
ministration officials pay lip.service:to the
regional peace effort. Yet President Reagan
ignored Contadora in his post-summit com-
ments in Mexico this month, just as he
The leadership of the Contadora nations
offers the best means to achieve U.S. goals
in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala,
and to secure the imperiled democracies .of
Honduras and Costa Rica. The Contadora
nations, which face a far more ' immediate
threat than we do if the gathering storm
erupts, are united in agreement that pn
essential step is dialogue between the
United States and Cuba. While diplomati-
cally necessary, such a dialogue has been
blocked for reasons of domestic U : politics.
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
ignored it in his address to Congress in April.- sions that we can no longer afford to shun
Contadora is suffering from U,Sgt ?~ The United States must now demonsti ate
to pressure Nicaragua with a .show o orce. political maturity. We should withdraw our
Just 24 hours after the Contadoia'nations'
presidents proposed a naval flotilla; stop CIA funding ~ofythe war
10-Point-Peace Plan, against the Sandinistas; prepare to' goin
the Reagan Administration . announced 'the Contadora parties in a dialogue with Cuba;
deployment of the largest U.S. flotilla ever press for secure, internationally .44pervised
to sail Latin waters, as well as plans to`land elections in El Salvador, Guatemala and
up to 5,600 U.S. troops -in -Honduras,f'dr Nicaragua, and advance a package of deyei-
-military exercises." One Contadora press- opment assistance and debt refinIncing 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 tfie.Stale `.paying lip service to the Contadora -peace
D
epartment, for the move could gray star up
tremendous anti-American sentiment Ano
solidify support for those whom' it : was
designed to intimidate. The Contadora lead-
ers, who share U.S. aspirations for democra-
cy in the region, repeatedly exprtssed-
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 Cori-
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.
With the Contadora process, our govern-
ment has a framework for pursuing discus-
process, it should undertake these specific
steps, giving Contadora the unequivocal
support that it must have.if long-term' J S.
national interests are to be.securecL,
Esteban Torres, Democratic congressman
from La Puente, was ambassador to:IINESCO
in the Carter Administration.' 'California
Democrat Alan Cranston is a member of- the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a
candidate for the presidential nomination.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606540021-9