QUOTATIONS ON SANDINISTA ELECTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R001400130025-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 5, 2008
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: November 8, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ROUTING SUP
C/IPD/OIS
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MEMORANDUM TO DISTRIBUTION LIST A
FROM: OTTO J. REICH
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
I Executive Registry
84. 9732
November 8, 1984
SUBJECT: Quotations on Sandinista Elections
Enclosed are three compilations of quotations on the
November 4 elections in Nicaragua. These could be of use for
discussions on the Sandinista elections.
(1) Statements by Sandinista officials such as Daniel
Ortega and Tomas Borge. These statements are indicative of the
Nicaraguan leaders' attitude toward elections and the purpose
of their elections--the legitimization of the Sandinista
regime.
(2) Statements by foreign diplomats critical of the
elections. For example, Carlos Andres Perez, former President
of Venezuela and Vice President of the Socialist International,
has made several statements concerning his disappointment with
the type of elections the Sandinistas had scheduled.
(3) Reports and editorials from newspapers in Latin America
should be of particular interest in the United States. The
press in Costa Rica, Nicaragua's neighbor, has been extremely
critical of the Sandinista elections.
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STATEMENTS MADE AFTER SANDINISTA ELECTIONS
New York Times editorial, November 7, 1984:
"Only the naive believe that Sunday's election in Nicaragua
was democratic or legitimizing proof of the Sandinistas'
popularity. The result was ordained when opposition parties
tamely accepted terms that barred them from power."
Luis Esteban Rey (Member of Venezuela's House Foreign Relations
Committee and Foreign Affairs Advisory Committee; Political
Affairs Columnist), Venezuela's El Diario, November 4, 1984:
"There doesn't exist [in Nicaragua] the necessary atmosphere to
guarantee a truly democratic result from the elections.... It is
certain who will win: The Sandinistas....The impression exists
that there had not been an environment of full freedom to
promote candidates and programs as in other countries."
Aristides Calvani (former Venezuelan Foreign Minister), El
Diario, November 4, 1984:
"These are not elections in the sense that we understand then,
and they lack any democratic validity. Their objective is to
consolidate power with the Sandinistas. Elections without
opposition and without liberty are not elections."
Marcos Falcon Briceno (former Venezuelan Foreign Minister and
former Ambassador to the U.S.; also President, Foreign Affairs
Advisory Committee), El Nacional, November 4:
"I don't believe that these could be truly democratic
elections. They are apparently looking for a type of
legitimacy, for international acceptance, and, of course,
internal [legitimacy]. But ... I don't believe this [election]
deals with a true democratic contest."
Eduardo Gonzalez Romero (Vice President of the Venezuelan
Chamber of Deputies Foreign Policy Committee; recently returned'
from trip to Nicaragua), Daily Journal, November 4:
"The Sandinista government has not provided the minimum
guarantees of participation for the parties in the democratic
coordinate and other political movements in Nicaragua."
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Madrid's Diario 16 (independent, center-right), editorial:.
"The elections which are being celebrated today in Nicaragua
have one fundamental problem: The democrats are not
participating. It is not enough to celebrate elections for a
country to be democratic...."
Spain's Catholic Ya (conservative) commentary:
The elections which are being celebrated today in Nicaragua,
under a state of emergency, without an electoral census and
without documentary control of voters, do not offer any
guarantee of impartiality. Those who believed in the
possibility of a democracy, fruit of a union of the different
progressive factions which formed the guerrillas and fought
against Somoza, now feel themselves justifiably defrauded...."
The following quotations are taken from reports in the two
pro-Sandinista dailies, Barricada and El Nuevo Diario
Friedrich Koenig, Austrian Christian Democratic Deputy:
The desired pluralism does not exist. I have found that there
is a large discrepancy between what is practiced and what is
said in the electoral law.
"For example, when Leonel Arguello (of the supreme
electoral council) visited Vienna, he told us that press
censorship would soon be lifted and we see that it still
exists. I accept that there is censorship when it deals with
security but not when it is censorship of anti-government
criticism because that is what the opposition does.
"I am sorry that freedom of the press does not exist in
Nicaragua, because there is censorship and often it has nothing
to do with security. That censorship I have seen in the paper
La Prensa. Therefore I regret that the elections could not be
representative for all of the political forces in the country.
"I also fear that after the elections not much will
change....I do not say that there is a communist system in
Nicaragua but that there are many signs that Nicaragua is
moving toward that system and for that I am very sorry."
Felix Pedro Espinosa (Political Secretary of the Nicaraguan
Conservative Party):
"...I saw some 20 people at some voting places, others were
empty. I believe that the elections were a failure, perhaps
because the people had a lack of confidence."
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Ramon Ariuzu Martinez (member of the Nicaraguan Popular Social
Christian Party):
The Popular participation was about the same as the
abstention. If we take into account that the Nicaraguans got
up early to do their duty, then what we have before us is a
generalized abstention or an inexplicable apathy."
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STATEMENTS ON ELECTIONS BY NICARAGUAN OFFICIALS
Comandante Daniel Ortega, official radio
Nicaragua, October 22, 1984
(statement made after Independent Liberal
withdrawal from the electoral campaign)
station
Voz
de
Party
(PLI)
Even if we have to go by ourselves we are going ahead with
the elections on the 4th of November, and no matter what we
will ratify the popular will and support the revolutionary
process with the FSLN at its head.
Comandante Tomas Borge interview on Bulgarian Television aired
in Cuba on September 13, 1984
When asked about the upcoming elections in Nicaragua, Borge
candidly admitted their objectives:
1) "advance the institutionalization of the revolution" and
2) "eliminate yet another pretext for intervention by the
Reagan Administration."
Comandan.te Bayardo Arce, secret speech before the Nicaraguan
Socialist Party (PSN), quoted in Barcelona's La Vanguardia on
July 31, 1984
If we did not have the U.S. imposed state of war, the
electoral problem would be totally outdated in terms of its
usefulness. What a revolution needs is action. Action is
precisely what constitutes the essence of the dictatorship of
the proletariat....
* *
...democracy as they call it, bourgeois democracy, has an
element we can manage and even derive advantages from for the
construction of socialism in Nicaragua.
* *
...do we have strategic differences with the PSN or does the
PSN have them with us? With that approach, we see things a
little more substantively and would ask whether the time hasn't
come to make the party of the revolution stronger, to gradually
form a single party. Why are we Communists going to be wearing
different shirts if real, concrete socialism is being
constructed in the power strategy of the Sandinista Front?
Comandante Daniel Ortega, La Prensa, December 5, 1983
Never will the power of the people be overthrown--not with
bullets and not with votes.
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Comandante Jaime Wheelock, Barricada, November 28, 1983
Either there will be a Revolutionary Sandinista Nicaragua
or there will be no Nicaragua at all.
Sub-Comandante Rafael Solis, La Prensa, December 24, 1981
...the elections in Nicaragua will not be to contend for power
but to strengthen the revolution.
Comandante Humberto Ortega, Speech, August 24, 1981
...but we have not committed ourselves to the elections they
think we are going to promote, and we never--we have said this
on other occasions speaking for the Directorate--never will we
allow power to be disputed.
Comandante Humberto Ortega, Barricada, August 24, 1980
These will be our elections. Remember that they are
elections to reinforce power, because the people hold the power
through their vanguard party, the Sandinista National
Liberation Front and its National Directorate.
Comandante Humberto Ortega, Barricada, July 11, 1980
Our people already voted on July 19, 1979, with weapons in
their hands and the blood of 50,000 Nicaraguans. They voted
for themselves, for Sandinismo.
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QUOTATIONS IN THE MEDIA ON SANDINISTA ELECTIONS
Washington Post Editorial, November 1, 1984
The Sandinistas once hoped to legitimize their rule by
elections, but those they are running Sunday, five years after
taking power, will resolve nothing. Their Marxist-Leninist
side showed through, and the democratic opposition, faced with
a measure of harassment that prevented fair campaigning,
withdrew.
Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega of Nicaragua, New York Tines, October
24, 1984 front-page article
Don't our people have more than enough experience voting
without being able to change any of the situations that afflict
them?
Free expression means being able to say yes or no, not just
Colombia's leading daily El Tiempo, October 24, 1984 editorial
The withdrawal of the Liberals from the campaign and from
the elections of November 4 in Nicaragua restricts to the
maximum the representativeness of this election and of course
puts another difficulty in the path of democratic normalization
in Central America. Already the parties and groups that
supported the candidancy of Arturo Cruz had put in doubt the
sincerity with which the Sandinistas are complying with their
commitment to free voting, expressed before and after the
overthrow of Somoza.
Costa Rican La Nacion, October 23,.1984 editorial titled "The
Illegitimacy of a Process" (Editorial is in response to
withdrawal of Partido Liberal Independiente (PLI) from
e ec coral process.)
The PLI [Independent Liberal Party], which was considered
favorable to the Sandinistas, has decided to withdraw from the
process because they believe there are no real guarantees for
the celebration of the elections. Their presidential
candidate, Virgilio Godoy, has called for a national dialogue
to seek those guarantees. With this decision, besides the
FSLN, there only remain the Socialist, Communist, PSC, and
Movimiento de Accion Popular to present a facade of pluralism,
which, with the withdrawal of the PLI, has been totally
dissipated.
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Costa Rican La Republica editorial October 23, 1984 titled "The
Mask Slips
...Two weeks before the election day, Dr. Virgilio Godoy
clipped a new piece off the mask of liberty and democracy with
which the Sandinistas have tried to conceal the real face of
the totalitarian farce to take place November 4th. In
addition, the emergency conditions they have prolonged until
April, 1985 will let them maintain a brutal political
repression over the country; the false elections will occur in
this framework.
Godoy [PLI leader] ...has been a minister of the Junta
Sandinista for four years. If he now refuses to participate in
the masquerade, it is out of shame over continuing to appear as
part of the farce.
Luis Esteban Rey (Venezuelan columnist), October 12, 1984,
edition of E1 Nacional
One must also take into account what is going to be,
finally, the elections. The agreement which was about to take
place a few days ago in Brazil between Arturo Cruz, of the
Coordinadora Democratica, and Comandante Bayardo Arce, with
Carlos Andres Perez and Willy Brandt as witnesses and virtual
intermediaries, failed because Bayardo opposed consultations by
Cruz with other Coordinadora parties in Managua. We do not
understand, really, this position of the Sandinista comandante.
Arturo Cruz, Op-Ed, Washington Post, September 28, 1984
Last week on four successive days in four different cities,
my followers and I were physically harassed by Sandinista mobs
as we tried to meet indoors with our organizers. The mobs (or
turbas) brandished steel clubs and machetes. I, myself, was
hit in the face with a rock, spat upon and grabbed by the
hair. To my shock, the international press headlined these
incidents by referring to Sandinista "police protection." They
failed to report that this "protection" arrived three hours
late in Leon. And it goes without saying that such
"protection" would be unnecessary if the government was not
organizing mob violence against us.
By now it should be obvious that our insistence on minimal
electoral conditions was not to provide a "pretext for
withdrawing" but rather to ensure that my countrymen can
express their political will. The justice of our demands has
been confirmed by their support by the Socialist International,
Spain, Costa Rica, El Salvador and the Contadora group. As a
result, the Sandinistas have been forced to yield formally to
some of our demands lest they forgo any international
credibility.
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Front-page of September 20, 1984, edition of Costa Rica's
La Nacion
The leader of the Coordinadora Democratica Nicaraguense
(CDN) and proposed Presidential candidate was hit by a stone in
his left temple. The blow, although it caused no serious
wound, did draw blood. The incident took place yesterday
afternoon in the city of Leon, 90 kilometers west of Managua.
Dr. Arturo Cruz, together with other opposition leaders, was
meeting with 300 supporters in a closed building. As they met,
groups of militants belonging to the "turbas divinas" (the
shock troops of the regime) began to collect in the vicinity,
carrying clubs and chains, and menacing anyone who tried to
leave.
European Democrat Union (EDU) report on Uicara ua's Electoral
Process, September 1984 (Nicaraguan Government invited EDU for
fact-finding mission)
The preparations for the elections and the country's
political climate being what they are, free voting by
individual citizens cannot be expected. The EDU mission has
arrived at the conclusion that in this context the demands of
the Coordinadora are fully justified--leaving aside the general
amnesty and the dialogue with the armed opposition; without a
realisation of these demands free elections are not possible;
on the contrary, it is the rejection of the demands which is an
important indication that free elections are not intended..
The elections are being shaped and exploited by the
Government of Nicaragua to the end of consolidating its own
power and of facilitating further measures on the road to a
Marxist-Leninist regime. The government for these reasons
cannot afford free elections because they would conjure up the
serious danger of its losing the majority.
The Popular Social Christian Party (PPSC) in August 7, 1984,
edition of La Prensa
We have not found any sign on the part of the ruling party
or its organizations that they mean to honor in practice the
guarantees they have offered.
Costa Rican La Nacion August 10, 1984, Editorial on the
Preelection Conditions in Nicaragua
What the regime in Nicaragua is doing is exactly what
always has happened in all communist regimes, but in different
shades. In the case of the neighbor country, for reasons that
are perfectly transparent, the elections are an effective
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instrument to better the image of the regime, that is to say,
to project to the outside world the appearance of a frank open
democracy and even a return to the original proposition of the
Anti-Somoza insurrection.
There will not really be freedom of the press, nor a right
to strike, nor free issuance of the vote. The result of the
ballot box has already been dictated by the regime.
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CRITICAL STATEMENTS BY FOREIGN LEADERS ON SANDINISTA ELECTIONS
Manuel Penalver, Secretary General of Venezuela's Accion
Democratica (AD) Party, October 29, 1984 edition of El
Universal (printed text from TV talk show "Impacto")
No Marxist-Leninist government can have free elections
because it is a totalitarian systeri conducting elections with
one party, one list. Only the naive can believe that this can
change.
Van Den Broek, Netherlands' Foreign Minister, October 25, 1984
(remark about the desirablity of Coordinadora participation in
ilicaraquan elections)
[It would] "make the elections more pluralistic than is now the
case, when no genuine opposition party is participating."
Carlos Andres Perez (former Venezuelan President and member of
the Socialist International), October 23, 1984 edition of
Venezuela's El Nacional
One of the gravest errors committed by the Sandinista Junta
in the electoral process was not having assured the
participation of presidential candidate Arturo Cruz of the
Coordinadora Democratica, the most?genuine representative of
the opposition.
If there is no freedom of expression until the counting of
the votes, the elections will not be genuine.
Ellemann-Jensen, Denmark's Foreign Minister, October 1, 1984
radio interview
We have some reservations that the elections which are now
scheduled can be called free since the opposition has not been
permitted to carry out an election campaign, since there has
not been freedom of the press, and [in the absence of] all of
the things which we believe are natural. But I have to say
that I have been encouraged by conversations I had with the
Nicaraguan Foreign Minister where he gave assurances that they
are prepared to consider certain improvements in order to
commence a peaceful development in the situation.
The question about a free election, that is a central
question and there is the hope that Nicaragua will show its
goodwill, for example, by postponing the election which is
scheduled in a few weeks, inter alia, in order to give the
opposition the possibility to participate. Such is a free
election in the way we normally speak of it.
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Aristides Calvani (former Venezuelan Foreign Minister),
September 30, 1984 edition of Venezuela's El Nacional
The democratic parties' demonstrations are sabotaged and
their leaders beaten. The structure of the so-called
Sandinista Defense Committees, united with the disturbances and
action by various state security police forces, are conducting
psychological intimidation.
What the democratic parties are asking for is a crust of
bread. They are requesting barely minimal conditions for the
electoral process and a time extension for the elections.
Venezuelans would never accept an electoral process under the
existing conditions in Nicaragua.
Carlos Andres Perez interview in September 16, 1984, edition of
Venezuela's El Nacional
Unfortunately, I have been all along a very strong critic
of the way in which the Sandinista regime has focused on this
extraordinary initiative of calling elections on November 4th
of this year....
Unless the Sandinista Junta modifies its conduct, I
believe, the elections would unfortunately not open the path we
all wish....
Edgardo Paz Barnica, Honduran Foreign Minister, Press
Conference on September 6, 1984
Question: Can there be free elections in Nicaragua without
first having an internal reconciliation process?
Answer: It seems to me, and I am not trying to meddle in the
internal affairs of other countries, that any country having a
conflict as serious as the one you mentioned must hold dialogue
between the government and its opposition without excluding
anyone, in order to establish a climate of social peace that
will permit the establishment of a democratic government
through the electoral process.
Edgardo Paz Barnica, Honduran Foreign Minister, September 3,
1984 edition of Tiempo
Because of survival and conviction we desire free elections
in Nicaragua.... We want democratic governments for all
countries, borne of free and honest elections. We honestly
believe that the way Nicaragua is now the exact conditions do
not exist for an alternative of this nature....We further
believe in democracy as a way of life and government. We would
desire for Nicaragua a democratic government emerging from
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free, honest, and internationally verifiable elections....
Honduras desires that in Nicaragua there exist a pluralistic,
participatory, and representative constitution, not a red
constitution nor a black constitution. Let the people
determine their own destiny, without foreign interference of
any kind, but with the necessary liberties to promote progress
and social change through peaceful means.
Jose "Pepe" Figueres (three times President of Costa Rica)
quoted in August 27, 1984 edition of La Prensa Libre
I was not in Managua this past July 19, because I felt
cheated. Several times I advised the nine comandantes,
pointing out to them the convenience of assuming a ;lore
pragmatic line and asking them to surround the electoral
process with indispensible guarantees; they didn't pay me the
least attention. I can see that it's difficult for them to
start riding a bicycle without having learned beforehand. They
are not conducting their revolution within the parameters that
are acceptable for the rest of the region.
Roberto Galvez Barnes Honduran Ambassador-at-La r a for
Economic Cooperation, June 30, 1984 edition of La Prensa
All political parties in Nicaragua should participate in
the November elections. Nicaragua has reduced the voting age
to 16 years old, hence it seems it should now revise its
electoral law.
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