NICARAGUA UNDER THE SANDINISTAS: A BILL OF PARTICULARS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85M00363R000801790005-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 31, 2007
• Sequence Number: 5
• Content Type: REPORT

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NICARAGUA UNDER THE SANDINISTAS: A BILL OF PARTICULARS
-- Before it assumed power in July 1979, the Sandinistas
(FSLN) promised the OAS that they would establish a pluralistic
regime, encourage a mixed economy, puruse a non-aligned foreign
policy, and hold "free and fair elections."
-- Nonetheless, between August and September 1979, the
Sandinistas moved aggressively to consolidate all labor unions
under Sandinistat umbrella organizations. Nicaraguan support to
the Salvadoran insurgents began as early as August 1979 with the
building of guerrilla training camps in Nicaragua, and the
establishment in 1980 of a general command center near Managua
which is the focal point for the guerrillas' military and
political activities.
-- Despite its differences with the FSLN, in July 1979 the
U.S. began disbursing what was to be a $130 million aid program
for Nicaragua. By January 1981 the US had provided more aid
than any other government, and it also cooperated in multilateral
loans of $262 million--80o of all aid to the Sandinistas from
western governments.
-- In April 1980, the Sandinistas arbitrarily enlarged and
packed the membership of the quasi-legislative body--the Council
of State--from 33 to 47. This caused Junta member Alfonso
Robelo to resign.
-- Also in April 1980, the Sandinistas orchestrated a strike
against La Prensa, the country's only independent newspaper.
The strike cause the newspaper to close for several days.
-- In July 1980, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega announced
that elections would be postponed until no later than 1985.
Ortega stated that the Nicaraguan people had already "voted"
during the revolution. Power, he said, would not be raffled
off in a "bourgeois" manner.
-- In November 1980, Sandinista security forces murdered private
sector leader Jorge Salazar, who was unarmed, in a_transparent
setup. The private sector organization, COSEP, and the
independent political parties withdrew from the Council of
State in protest.
-- In mid-January 1981, during the final days of a guerrilla
offensive in El Salvador, the State Department announced that
captured documents and weapons confirmed that the guerrillas
had received a substantial supply of arms from abroad.
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-- In February 1981, Sandinista agents exercising government
power took over Nicaragua's independent human rights commission,
imprisoned its director, Jose Esteban Gonzalez, and seized the
commission's files on human rights abuses.
-- In March 1981, Sandinista-directed mobs--the infamous "turbas
divinas"-- prevented the holding of an outdoor opposition rally
near Nandaime by followers of Alfonso Robelo. Sandinista mobs
stoned and defaced the houses of Robelo and other opposition
leaders.
-- In April 1981, the U.S. suspended economic aid to Nicaragua
after determining that its Sandinista government was providing
arms, training, safehaven, and command and control facilities
to the guerrillas in neighboring El Salvador as part of its
doctrine of "internationalism" and revolution without frontiers."
-- In-July 1981, the government banned Managua's popular
archbishop, Miguel Obando y Bravo, from offering mass on television,
a Sunday tradition in Nicaragua that even Somoza had not dared
to prohibit.
-- In August 1981, Assistant Secretary of State Enders went to
Managua and proposed to the Comandantes a five point peace plan
to the government that would reduce regional tensions. The
Nicaraguan government responded with rhetoric and nothing more.
-- In September 1981, the government announced new "emergency"
laws that outlawed strikes and threatened to punish those
disseminating "false economic news."
In September 1981 the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN),
was formed from several exile insurgent groups and stepped up
operations along the border.
-- In September and October 1981, the government shut down
La Prensa on five separate occasions.
-- In October 1981, the government arrested private sector leaders
for violation of the emergency laws. They spent five months
in prison.
-- In January 1982, the government again shut down La Prensa.
-- In early 1982, the Sandinista government systematically and
forcibly removed almost ten thousand Miskito indians from
their ancestral homes in northeastern Nicaragua, and sent them to
camps in other parts of the country. About eleven to fourteen
thousand Miskitos fled to Honduras to escape this tyranny.
-- In March 1982, the government imposed a state of "emergency"
that established prior censorship of the media, banned political
activity, and suspended individual legal guarantees. This state
of emergency continues.
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-- Also in March 1982, approximately 1.7 million Salvadorans--
better than 80% of the eligible voters--defied guerrilla threats
and attacks to vote for a Constituent Assembly.
-- In April 1982, our Ambassador in Managua delivered an eight
point peace proposal to the Nicaraguan government. The government
again made no substantive reply.
-- In April 1982, the well-known democratic opposition leader
Alfonso Robelo decided to go into exile with the leadership of
his party, the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement (MDN).
-- In April 1982, after nine months underground, former FSLN
commander Eden Pastora ("Commander Zero") denounced the Sandinista
regime's ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union, and announced
that his own exile organization, ARDE, would challenge FSLN
control of Nicaragua.
-- In April 1982, a Honduran terrorist group linked with the
Sandinistas at Cuban urging hijacked a Honduran aircraft en route
to Tegucigalpa and demanded the release of political prisoners.
-- In June 1982, Pope John Paul II wrote a letter to the
Nicaraguan bishops expressing his opposition to the idea of a
"popular church"--a Sandinista attempt to wrest away the power of
the Catholic hierarchy and to promote certain pro-FSLN clergy.
The government barred publication of the Pope's letter for one
month.
-- In July 1982, a bomb exploded in an airline office in San Jose,
Costa Rica. The government of Costa Rica expelled three Nicaraguan
diplomats for their role in the affair.
-- In July 1982, Sandinista-supported terrorists bombed a power
station in Honduras
-- In August 1982, Sandinista organizations occupied more than
20 temples belonging to various Protestant sects on charges of
involvement in "counterrevolutionary activity." Some temples
remain in the regime's hands and members of these sects were
expelled from the country.
-- In August 1982, a pro-Catholic Church demonstration and a
counter-demonstration by Sandinista groups in the city of
Masaya led to several deaths. The government took over a
Catholic school and expelled a priest from the country.
-- In September 1982 a Honduran terrorist group with strong
backing from Salvadoran insurgents kidnapped and held hostage
over 100 Honduran businessmen in San Pedro Sula, seeking to force
the government to release a captured Salvadoran guerrilla leader.
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-- In October 1982, Nicaragua refused: the San Jose declaration
as a basis for talks on reducing tensions with other countries
in the area.
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-- In November 1982, the Sandinistas cut off a $5.1 million
U.S. aid program for the Nicaraguan private sector.
-- In January 1983, Sandinista border authorities refused
Conservative leader Miriam Arguello permission to return to
Nicaragua from Costa Rica.
-- In January 1983, the Nicaraguan government rejected an
invitation from its neighbor to observe the joint Honduran -
U.S. military exercises known as "Ahuas Tara."
In January 1983, political leaders of the Nicaraguan
Democratic Force (FDN) outlined a 12-point peace plan to establish
democratic freedoms in Nicaragua, giving Sandinista leaders two
weeks to respond.
-- In February 1983, the Sandinsta leaders turned the visit
of Pope John Paul II into a political circus that was the shame
of Central America. Sandinista police jailed Social Christian
Party members that led people to see the Pope.
-- On February 18, 1983, the Honduran government invited the
Sandinista Foreign Minister to inspect exile camps allegedly
located in southern Honduras. On February 23, the Sandinista
regime rejected the offer.
-- In March 1983, the FDN, noting that the Sandinistas had
refused to respond to its January offer, outlined a 13-point
philosophy and program to achieve democracy.
-- In April 1983, Eden Pastora released a letter announcing
that he was in Nicaragua to begin military operations against
the Nicaraguan government, and warning Cuban personnel that they
will be subject to attack.
-- Every sector of Nicaraguan society joined the Nicaraguan
revolution in 1979. Their goal was a pluralist, democratic society.
The Sandinista leadership clique's betrayal of that revolution
has forced the church, free labor, the press, and the private
sector to live in an increasingly totalitarian and tyrannical
society. It is no wonder that many Nicaraguans, including those
who worked in, led, or fought for the revolution have fled the
country or joined insurgent groups that now fight within Nicaragua.
-- In bringing its spurious and contrived allegations to the UN,
the Sandinista government is only confirming to the world the
failure of its leadership and the extent of the independent and
nationalist opposition to its despotism.
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