A MATTER OF SELF-DEFENSE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303310015-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: April 15, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303310015-7
ARTICLE APP
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
15 April 1984
Jeane I Kirkpatrick
A Matter of Self -Defense
The core of the United Nations Charter is Anti- ing. determined, armed attack against its neigh-
Cie 24, wrath enx>ns all member states to "refrain
in their international relations from the threat or
use of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of any state." This prohi-
bition on the use of force was never intended to
stand on it., oA-i. but was to be seen in the con-
text of the entire Charter. In particular, as stated
in Article 51, it was not intended to "impair the
inherent right of individual or collective self-de-
fense if an armed attack occurs against a member
of the United Nations, until the Security Council
has taken measures necessary to maintain inter-
national peace and security."
... The structure of the U.N. Charter was ac-
cepted by its member states on the expectation of
the effective functioning of collective peacekeep-
ing measures. However. this vision was never real-
ized. Instead of a world order operating according
to the principles and procedures of the U.N.
Charter, there emerged in the aftermath of the
Second World l'i'ar two contending orders.
The first was an order dominated by the
Soviet Union. committed to and engaged in a
process of continuing expansion through the
use of violence.
The second was a Western, democratic order,
comprised of the Western, democratic states
and committed to the defense and the promo-
bors,.the government of Nicaragua has openly
proclaimed its commitment to what is called
"revolutionary internationalism."
"This revolution goes beyond our borders," de-
clared Interior Minister Thomas Borge in a speech
delivered on the second anniversary of the revolu-
tion. "Our revolution was always internationalist."
. By late 1979, at a time when the Carter
administration was providing Nicaragua with
large amounts of economic assistance, the San-
dinistas had already initiated the build-up of a
military machine vastly superior to that of any
other country in the region....
In June 1980, the Sandinistas invited the Sal-
vadoran guerrillas to set up command and control
headquarters in the Managua area, and Nicara-
gua and Cuba began at that time their full-scale
support of El Salvador's FMLN, including the
training and provision of arms and supplies... .
In 1980 and 1981, Nicaragua and Cuba engaged
in massive airlifts of arms and supplies to El Sal-
vador's guerrillas from Papalona Airfield in Nica-
ragua, with the objective of preparing the guerrillas
for a large-scale January 1981 offensive....
In early 1981, the Sandinistas began aggres-
sively to violate Costa Rica's treaty rights to use
tion of democratic values... government initiated activities designed to de-
The dilemma created by the clash of these stablilize and intimidate the Costa Rican govern-
two orders, these two was of conceiving and ment. On July 4, 1982, for example, Nicaraguan
acting in relationship to law, has occupied a agents were directly involved in the bombing of
very great deal of intellectual and political at- the offices of a Costa Rican airline in San Jose.
tention ever since. 4n June 1983, the Sandinistas infiltrated into
The dilemma was incisively stated by George Honduras a 100-man guerrilla force trained in
Kennan in an early essay entitled, "Diplomacy Cuba and Nicaragua as a first step toward de-
in the Modern World," in which he wrote: "The stabilizing the Honduran government....
American concept of world law ignores those December 1983, a group of some 2,000 M s
means of international offense, those means of In kito Indians fled their concentration camps-and
the projection of power and coercion over other er it is not too much to call them that-at Francio-
peoples which bypass institutional forms en- cerpe, Nicaragua, and took refuge in Honduras at
tire,y or even exploit them against themselves. the Morooon refugee camp. The Nicaraguan gov-
Such things as ideological attacks, intimidation,
t.ional paraphernalia of national sovereignty. It
ignores, in other words," Kennan continued,
"the device of the puppet state and the set of
techniques by which states can be converted
into puppets with no formal violation of, or
challenge to, the outward attributes of their
sovereignty and their independence:"
... It is in this context that we must view the
case of Nicaragua and its own insistence today
in the world on protection under Article 24. At
the same time that it is engaged in the continu-
the San Juan River.... In 1982, the Nicaraguan
Last May 13, the House Permanent Select
Committee on telliigene issued a report,
w1h ., concluu e_&"the Sandinistas have
ste. u Their su ort for *uurreen~ce in dura-s-,an-d-5 ant e u an- icaraguan aid or rnsur-
Bence constitutes a clearcture of active
promotion or revo~ On t frontiters
thro 'out Central America by Cuba and Nica-
ra ... 'he ouse committee said, "The in-
teWgence supportutg these iudements provided_
to the committee js convincin "
Jus_t_last_weel a Democratic men r .9f the
&nate Ir ellivence Co mittee atatal hat it was
the committees tudament that "Nicaragua's in-
v9lvement in the affairs of El Salvador, and to a
lesser degree its other ner'hors continues."
In response to a declaration y the armed
opposition that they were prepared to lay down
arms if they could participate in a peaceful political competition for power and help settle Nicara-
gua's political question through the ballot box,
the government of Nicaragua announced that
such opponents would not be permitted to par-
ticipate under any circumstances and would in-
stead by tried in abstentia as criminals. The gov-
ernment of El Salvador took exactly the opposite
position and actually invited the armed opposi-
tion to participate in the election on condition
only that they lay down their arms and agree to
peaceful political competition.
It seems perfectly clear, therefore, that to
portray Nicaragua as a victim in the current
situation is a complete Orwellian inversion of
what is actually happening in Central America.
There can be no question by reasonable persons
that Nicaragua is engaged in a continuing,
determined, armed attack against its neighbors,
and that under the charter of the United Na-
tions, if not according to the laws of the class
struggle, those neighbors have the right of indi-
vidual or collective self-defense... .
As we confront the clear and present dangers
in the contemporary world, we must recognize
that the belief that the U.N. Charter's princi
es
pl
As of this "time, there is not a scintilla of evi- of individual and collective self-defense re
uire
q
dente to suggest that any of the Nicaraguan ac- less than reciprocity is simply not tenable.
tivities in support of armed attack against its
neighbors, especially El Salvador, have ceased. The writer is U.S. ambassador to the
The supplies from Nicaragua for the Salva- United Nations. The article is excerpted
doran insurgency arrive by air, by sea and by from an address before the American
land. They arrive by small planes, such as Cess- Society of International Law.
nas, which land on dirt roads and fields and off-
load their arms. Small boats and dugout canoes
are used to ferry arms from Punta Cosinqina in
Nicaragua across the Gulf of Fonseca to El Sal-
vador and further up the coast. Larger quanti-
ties of weapons and supplies load and leave
from Nicaragua's now famous west coast ports
on ocean-going vessels....
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303310015-7