FAMILIAR ECHOES ON CENTRAL AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605230002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605230002-7
WA3HHHINGTON TIMES
13 March 1986
Familiar echoes on C entral
sets of offenses: against their own
peop
le, and against their neighbors.
Their offenses against the Nicara-
America
RAYMOND PRICE againstgtyrannyets mtaking uparms
n 1983 when Henry Kissinger
agreed to become chairman of
the National Bipartisan Com-
mission on Central America -
what became known as the Kis-
singer Commission - he asked me
if I'd be available to help pull to-
gether its report. I said I thought so
and, sure enough, a few months later
Henry called to say the time had
come. So I found myself sitting with
the commission throughout its final
series of meetings and serving as
editor of its report.
The present debate over aid to the
Nicaraguan "contras" is giving me
an acute sense of deja vu.
The arguments have changed lit-
tle from what we heard in 1983.
Those who insist today that it's futile
to try to save Nicaragua were insist-
ing then that it was futile to try to
save El Salvador. Those now de-
manding negotiation with the San-
dinistas as the path to peace in Cen-
tral America made the same
demands then; and they argued just
as vehemently as they do now that it
was immoral to help the people bat-
tling the Sandinistas and their allies.
The critics' cry then was that aid
should be denied to El Salvador be-
cause of death squads. And, yes,
there were right-wing death squads.
But they were not the primary
threat.
The point today is not whether all
"contras" are pristinely, "clean," any
more than then it was whether some
Salvadoran rightists were guilty of
atrocities. Of course some "contras"
are not clean, even though most are
properly called "freedom fighters."
In a war, you take help where you
can get it. There were a lot of ragtag
ruffians in our own revolutionary
armies two centuries ago. As re-
cently as World War II we made com-
mon cause with Josef Stalin in the
effort to defeat Hitler. Stalin's
crimes didn't invalidate the struggle
against Hitler.
Fortunately, those who opposed
helping El Salvador lost the argu-
ment, and now El Salvador is free.
'Ibday, as they were then, the San-
dinistas are guilty of two separate
And the Sandinistas' offenses
against their neighbors amply jus-
tify help to the rebels from others in
the hemisphere.
The Sandinistas are brutal, com-
mitted totalitarians, who display
contempt both for democratic prin-
ciples at home and for peace abroad.
They live by the sword. They exalt
force. They shut down opposition
newspapers, harass the. church, im-
prison their critics; they have im-
posed a nationwide system of block
committees patterned on Fidel Cas-
tro's "thought police" to keep tabs on
everyone. With massive Soviet assis-
tance they have built a military ma-
chine that dwarfs anything ever
known in Central America.
They have broken every promise
they've made to the. Organization of
American States. They're thor--
oughly bad eggs, who seriously
threaten the peace of the region and
the security of the hemisphere.
The currently fashionable argu-
ment that aid to the "contras" should
be withheld for a specified period in
order to force them and us to negoti-
ate with the Sandinistas is fatuous. It
assumes the Sandinistas are waiting
only for a partner willing to negoti-
ate.
Ever since they consolidatedtheir
power by crushing the democratic
elements of the revolution that over-
threw Anastasio Somoza, the San-
dinistas have rebuffed every attempt
at serious negotiation. They have
adamantly refused to curb their ag-
gressive designs and to share power
with the people of Nicaragua. It's
they, not we, who have to be forced to
the bargaining table.
It has been two years since the
Kissinger Commission made its re-
port. While there remained some
differences among its members over
the precise ways of dealing with the
situation, the commission reached a
remarkable agreement on the threat
Nicaragua posed to its neighbors.
T he commission described- its
months of intensive study as
"an extraordinary learning
experience" Ironically, for some of
its members their visit to Managua,
which included a detailed Sandinista
briefing clearly based on worldwide
Soviet military intelligence sources,
proved to be the key eve-opener
Among the commission's conclu-
sions was this:
GG In Nicaragua, we have seen the
tragedy of a revolution be-
trayed; the same forces that
stamped out the beginnings of de-
mocracy in Nicaragua now threaten
El Salvador.... The use of Nicara-
gua as a base for Soviet and Cuban
efforts to penetrate the rest of the
Central American isthmus, with El
Salvador the target of first opportu-
nity, gives the conflict there a major
strategic dimension. The direct in-
volvement of aggressive external
forces makes it a challenge to the
system of hemispheric security and,
quite specifically, to the security in-
terests of the United States. This is
a challenge to which the United
States must respond.'
We still must.
Raymond Price is a nationally
syndicated columnist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605230002-7