IN NICARAGUA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706930004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 13, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: April 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
` Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706930004-6
NE'
AZI
NEW YORK TIM:.S MAG
x 28 April, 1985
By Mario Vargas Uosa
ICARAGIJA
S NICARAGUA A MARX-
ist-Leninist state? Is it another Cuba or is it on its way to
becoming one? To find the answers to these questions, I trav-
eled to the heart of the revolution.
En route to Nicaragua, I made a stop in Venezuela, where a
friend expressed his amazement. "You? In Managua? That
i place is practically another Cuba. With your reputation as a
right-winger, things could go badly for you. Be careful." (For
reasons that elude me, anyone defending freedom of expres-
sion; tree elections and political pluralism in Latin America is
known as a right-winger among the area's intellectuals.)
Actually, I wasn't careful at all. Instead of going badly,
things went so well that I was worn out - bone-tired from the
hospitality lavished on me by the Sandinistas and by the oppo-
i nents of the regime. During my monthlong trip in January, I
talked to hundreds of people. I traveled through most of the
country, where fewer than three million people live in an area
I somewhat larger than that of Greece. And I found striking dif-
ferences between Nicaragua and Cuba.
By its fifth year, Fidel Castro's Cuba had become a Soviet
satellite. Cuba's economic and military survival depended on
the Soviet Union. Every sign of opposition had been sup-
pressed. The private sector was eliminated. The party bu-
reaucracy had extended its tentacles throughout the country
and ideological regimentation was absolute.
In Nicaragua, five and a half years after the fall of the
dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, a pluralist society -
even though it is under stringent state control - still exists.
Private enterprise dominates agriculture, cattle raising,
commerce and industry. Political opponents openly denounce
the regime through the Democratic Coordinator, a coalition
of anti-Sandinista political parties, labor unions and business
i groups. And despite severe censorship, criticism can be found
in La Prensa, the weekly Paso a Paso, and two or three radio
news programs. opposition is tolerated be-
There is no doubt that political oi cause it is not very effective. As the November elections
demonstrated, the Sandinistas do not allow competition on
real terms (they refused to postpone the elections in order to
complete negotiations with the popular Coordinator coalition
so that its candidates could appear on the ballot). But it is also
true that the opposition is not subjected to the terror and
paranoia that threaten all dissidence in a totalitarian state.
Nicaragua, which now plays host to thousands of visible and
invisible advisers from the Soviet Union, Cuba and the coun-
tries of the Eastern bloc, receives military and technical
assistance from these countries. But Nicaragua is far from
being a satellite of the Soviet Union - not because of a deci-
sion by the Sandinistas, who would, I believe, have been glad
to place themselves under Moscow's protection, but because
of Soviet reluctance to assume the burden of another Cuba or
to risk a direct confrontation with the United States. (During
my stopover in Venezuela, President Jaime Lusinchi told me
that be had asked the Soviet Union if it was planning to send
MIG's to Nicaragua; the reply he received through the s us
sian Ambassador was: "We're not that crazy.")
plains Fidel Castro's speech late last year in which he an-
nounced what everybody already knew: that Cuba would
maintain a prudent neutrality if Nicaragua were invaded. He
urged the Sandinistas to reach a negotiated settlement with
the United States within the framework of the Contadora
agreement. (The treaty was first put forward last year by the
Contadora nations of Latin America as their proposal for a
peaceful settlement for Central America.)
Limited aid from Moscow, combined with internal resist-
ance to the establishment of a Marxist-Leninist regime, eco-
nomic disasters brought on by nationalization and statism in
the early years of the revolution, as well as deprivations
caused by rebel terrorism and sabotage, have all served to
moderate the Sandinistas,
be following asvaguely neutral, nation-
alist now appear to
alist and socialist political model - one that they believe will
make the regime's survival and the achievement of domestic
peace more likely. If this direction is maintained, there is a
chance that the Sandinista regime will evolve into a loose so-
cialist dictatorship independent of the Soviet Union. Yet, one
cannot rule out the possibility of a sudden return to the San-
dinistas' original intentions (to turn Nicaragua into a Marx-
ist-Leninist state) should the external circumstances change
I - for instance, if the Soviet Union should suddenly decide to
take Nicaragua under its wing.
In the meantime, the Sandinistas have boldly announced
they would sign the Contadora agreement, devalue their cur-
rency, reduce subsidies to transportation and abolish those
for certain basic goods. They have also announced a mora-
torium on arms purchases and promised that 100 of the Cuban
military advisers - a fraction of the total - would be sent
home. They are declaring that their regime is a nonaligned,
pluralist mixed economy. That is now half true, but it could be
a reality if in exchange for their concessions, they could ob-
tain peace and guarantees of non-intervention.
JCL 9~ * * * * * * * *
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706930004-6