AIDING 'CONTRAS' HARMS DEMOCRACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000707040021-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2011
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: April 23, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

C'TAT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000707040021-4
A~TI~IE APB RED
~ ~~
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
23 April 1985
Aiding N`contras-harms democracy
~' . By Robert E. White
HE 1979 Sandinista victory over the tyranny of
Nicaragua's ruler, Gen. Anastasio Somoza, began
the mildest revolution Latin American has ever
seen, or is ever likely to see. -
Unlike the Mexican Revolution early in this century,
the Sandinistas have not killed United States citizens,
have not effected large-scale expropriation of foreign-
owned enterprises, have not persecuted priests and
religious. ~ `
Unlike the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Nicaraguan
rebels have not resorted to people's courts and drumhead
executions, have not repudiated the enormous debts
piled up by the predatory dictatorship they ousted, and
have not quit the Organization of -
American States. ~ . - =.1 . `'.. '
The Sandinistas have` committed
their share of follies and excesses.
They have censored the opposition
newspaper, ~ La Prensa; introduced '
Karl Mans into the school curriculum,'-
offended leaders of the Roman Catho- .
lic Church by keeping undisciplined ;
priests 'iri" govensment posts; ~ and ~'
brought the East-West conflict to Cea-.
tral America by ~ giving, Cuban mill-~=~
tart' ~ advisers a role in " the ~ ~ new ``
Nicaragua.. , .-_.. .._. ~c .~ ..-..
-The problem with the Sandinistas;"_ `
however is not so much that they are:
Mancists~"a? that they ~are.~soldiers.
~ They tend to think of the Nicaraguan
people as an army which must have
disciplined land direction if they are successfully to de-
fend their revolution against its enemies:` ' `' ~ `" ` '
For all its flaws, the first two to three years of the revo-
lution in Nicaragua realized impressive gains.
The popularity of those leaders who had driven the
Somoza gang from power was reinforced by ambitious
government programs of health -care, literacy crusades,
and the distribution to_poor campesinos of lands that
. had belonged to their former_ oppressors. In 1983, a year
in which all other Central'American countries suffered
economic decline;., Nicaragua's :economy achieved a 5
percent rate of growth.,.,;,; ?,, a:,,,-. n ..-
Yet in early 1981; ?, less- than two .
years after-the revolution, and well b~
fore the inevitable disillusionment of
`marry who had "welcomed ; ; '.the.
Sandinistas, the Reagan administra-
-lion created a counterrevolutionary'
force and set in motion the train of
events designed to culrninate in the
overthm4?~ ' "';,f' . i'tie' Sandinista
government ---~
- It is inaccurate for Reagan
policymakers to charge that the
~ Sandinistas have "betrayed their rev-
olution" when, from its first days in,. _
office, this administration has done everything it could to
ensure that the Nicaraguan revolution would fail.
It was easy for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
to recruit contras. After Somoza's fall, the off-scourings
of the Nicaraguan National Guard fled to other countries
of Central America. With no civilian skills, many of these
~ former guardsmen survived only by criminal activity
such as car theft, cattle rustling, and smuggling. _
Others worked in harness with the military death
~ squads of EI Salvador and Guatemala. These refugees
from Somoza's Army formed the core of the CIA-created
revolutionary force. _ - _ ....
The contras have plundered the fields and burned the
~ silos of Nicaragua; they have tortured and murdered
health workers and literacy teachers: Yet ~-the anti-
Sandinistas have yet to capture and hold one,village in-
side Nicaragua. They have proved totally impotent to ac-
complish the task for which the United States created
them, to overthrow those who overthrew Somoza.
Indeed, according to the retiring chief of United States
forces in Central America, Gen. Paul F..Gorman, the
contras cannot oust the Sandinistas "in the foreseeable
future," with or without US aid. If General Gorman is
correct, the Reagan administration :does not have a
policy,toward Nicaragua; all it_ has is a recipe to kill more
and more people. - ~ -
The creation of the contras has had -one indisputable
effect. It has impeded the emergence of an authentic; uni- -
fied anti-Sandinista coalition. The US .Congress should
end all support to the contras, not to lessen the pressure
onthe-Sandinistas, but to increase it. As Harry R.ositzke,
' a former CIA operations officer, has written in the For-
, eign Service Journal, "Just as the Bay of Pigs consoli-
dated Castro's position, so the contras'- ~ operations
~ strengthen the Sandinistas." ~ `` ~ ~ ="--`~?- -' ,
Without the funding, guidance,' and supervision from
the CIA, the contra force will quickly disintegrate. With
no foreign threat, the Sandinista junta will lack any pry
teat to curtail liberties and tighten security.- Then and
only then can the leaders of Nicaragua's still vital inde-
pendent institutions oppose the Sandinistas free fmm the
?" ?~^ `~""~ ' ~ ~ taint of being equated with those who
took up arms against the Nicaraguan
government at the bidding of a foreign
? power. As the anti-Somoza, now anti-
? Sandinista, . intellectual ~ Emilio
Alvarez Montalban told me~ after a
~~ spirited discussion ~ we had' is
c Managua, "You are right about gone
'thing. With `peace the democrats ~of
Nicaragua have a chance; without
= peace we have no chance." : "`' ~ ''
' ' Unless the US Congress ' ~staads
~'" fum and cuts off all funding for the
~~, contras, the results will do grie~s~~~~
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000707040021-4
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000707040021-4
Z
harm not only to the cause of abut
and democracy inside Nicaragu ,
throughout the region.
Central America is five ~ o~~e
but one nation -five finge
same hand. A contra attack has political repercussions
in Honduras and encourages hard-liners to oppose nego-
nations in El Salvadon - - . -- - -. _ .. _ ,. -. ---~-.... _ .
It is idle to believe that President Jose I aa~oleo e
Duarte can successfully pursue peace through gu
in El Salvador when, just a few miles away, the Reagan
administration is advancing war in Nicaragua. How can
Honduras salvage democracy and respect for the Wile of
law when United States Policy forces this decent but des-
titute country to violate its treaty Pledges and accept the
presence on its soil of 10,000 Nicaraguan counterrevolu-
tionaries? Many Hondurans are convinced that the pri-
__ _ _ ,. mary threat to Honduran democracy
and territorial integrity comes not
~~ from the Sandinistas, but from the
contras. _ _ r ~ ,-
- In her seminal work ' `~ ~ vthat
~. non," Hannah Arendt argu
fear of revn]~~*~~^, ;:8s .ti".T^,:. t is iiiiicien
leitmotif of United States foreign
policy since World War ~ II. ~ She
pointed out that "in the contest which
divides the world today and in which
so much is at stake.. those will prob-
. ably win who understand revolution
. ,and such understanding can nei-
ther becountered or replaced with., an_expertness in
counterrevolution:" ~ F ~~ ~ ~ .. ~ n is not that
_ The real fear of the Reagan administra
the Sandinistas will identify with the Soviet Union and
Cuba;. its real. fear is -that the Sandinistas will- not - iden-
tify with the SovietUnion and Cuba:, s ,~ ,-, ~ -~-~" Ole can
If, -out of the revolution, the Nicaragu poop
forge~a democratic, nonaligned state, then what pretext
will the United States have to prop up a brutal and cor-
rupt military status quo in Central America instead of
accommodating US-policy to the indigenous forces of po;
litical, economic, and social change? ~ ' ^ ~".
An end to the Reagan-sponsored contra movement
will write finish to an unthinking anticommunist crusade
` which has strengthened the hard-line Sandinistas and
harmed those who seek to negotiate a political settlement
between Nicaragua and the other countries of Central
.America. - - _ _.. ... .~ -, ~ ..
I ~ Robert ~E. White, US~ambassador to EI Salvador
in the Carter administration, is Warburg professor of -;
international relations at Simmons College; Boston, ~
`?. =and senior fellow: at the Center for Development
PoGcy,~ a public policy advocacy organization in
Ntas%i~D.C,; ~'~z.~ t tr,.: w~.rayar? 1_a~~ _ ~. ~ ._ A:;
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000707040021-4