DEBASING THE LANGUAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820021-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: March 6, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820021-4
ARTICLE AFi' NEW YORK TIMES
ON PAGE 6 March 1986
ABROAD AT HOME I Anthony Lewis
Debasing the Language
BOSTON
George Orwell taught us that
politicians corrupt words in or-
der to sell corrupt policies. If
Orwell were here now, how savagely
he would be dissecting the latest ex-
ample of Newspeak: the Reagan Ad-
ministration's sales campaign for aid
to the Nicaraguan "contras."
"Freedom fighters," Mr, Reagan
calls the contras. But what about
their connections with the Somoza
dictatorship that ravaged Nicaragua
for 45 pears? When Senator Richard
Lugar asked the question, he got this
answer from Assistant Secretary of
State Elliott Abrams:
"You asked about the allegation
that the Nicaragua resistance con-
sists of or is led by, supporters of the
late dictator Anastasio Somoza. We
have reviewed the facts carefully and
conclude that this charge is incorrect
and misleading."
Reagan's
statements on
the contras
But the evidence of Somoza links is
overwhelming. And of course Mr.
Abrams knows it.
Edgar Chamorro was a leader of
the principal contra force, the
F.D.N., until he quit in disgust last
year. He said: "The contra military
force is directed and controlled by
officers of Somoza's National Guard,
who fought at the dictator's side until
the very end and then fled to Hon-
duras."
Robert S. Leiken of the Carnegie
EndowiXient has been highly critical
of the Sandinista Government of
Nicaragua. In the March 13 issue of
The New York Review of Books he
wrote: "The F.D.N. high command,
with one exception, is drawn entirely
from the [Somoza] National Guard,
and many were senior officers in it."
Then there is the question of the
contras' behavior toward civilians in
Nicaragua. The Reagan Administra-
tion says that any past tendency to-
ward brutalities has been curbed and
that the contras are models of respect
for human rights. The eyewitness ac-
counts of what they do show those
claims to be utterly cynical.
The contras' "premeditated li-
ar Chamorro said, was to
terrorize civilian noncombatants.
During his four years as a leader, he
said, murders,
mutilations, tortures and raves were
committed in pursuit of this Doi cv. of
which the contra leaders and their
C.I.A.-superiors were well aware.
Americas Watch, a human rights
organization, has just published an
authoritative report on Nicaragua. It
condemned both the Sandinistas and
the contras for gross abuses. And it
criticized the Reagan Administration
for giving "false information" in "an
effort to explain away" contra brutal-
ities.
For example, American - newspa-
pers reported last summer that a con-
tra force had executed'll civilians in
cold blood in the town of Cuapa. A
lawyer for Americas Watch went to
Cusps, interviewed -residents and
confirmed the story in gruesome de-
tail. But the Reagan Administration
denied it.
President Reagan discussed the in-
cident in a report to Congress last
November. "According to those. on
the scene," he said, what happened at
Cuapa_ was "a military-to-military
engagement" and "there were no
civilian casualties."
Americas Watch asked the State
Department who "those on the
scene" were. It got no answer for
months. After its report was printed,
it was told by the U.S. Embassy in
Nicaragua that no one from there had
gone to Cuapa or otherwise investi-
gated the incident.
This week Mr. Reagan said that de-
feat of the contras would put in jeop-
ardy the "small and fragile democra-
cies" of Central America. But those
very countries are unhappy about the
Reagan war policy. Costa Rica is
trying to close its territory to the con-
tras. Honduras is blocking delivery of
U.S. aid to them. Guatemala has
called for a regional settlement.
Eight other Latin countries, repre-
senting 90 percent of the region's peo-
ple and land, sent their foreign minis-
ters to Washington last month to urge
a halt in U.S. aid to the contras. In-
deed, nearly every friend we have in
the hemisphere is opposed to the poli-
cy. But in the Reagan view they are
all out of step but us.
"The world is watching," the Presi-
dent said, "to see if Congress is as
committed to democracy in Nicara-
gua ... as it was in the Philippines."
But in the Philippines we helped with
diplomacy, not arms, a movement
that arose from the people, not one in-
vented, funded and directed by the
United States.
Carlos Fuentes, the Mexican novel-
ist and diplomat, stands in for Orwell
in a column In Newsweek Interna-
tional this week. He writes: "The de-
basement of language by President
Reagan when he calls [the contras]
'freedom fighters' is as insulting to
the history of the United states as to
the history of Latin America." 0
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000503820021-4