Nicaragua
New Successes, Higher Stakes
Envío team
“We cannot permit these communists to succeed,” said President Reagan on May 24, in a speech to the National Association of Industrialists. This surly sentence inadvertently underscores a central theme in the analysis of events this month—success.
After being hit with the commercial embargo, Nicaragua reacted by embarking on the most extensive diplomatic effort to date. Its success in both Western and Eastern Europe included unanimous rejection of the embargo and broad economic cooperation which will assure Nicaragua’s survival for now. In its military offensive, meanwhile, the Nicaraguan army is still making notable advances against the counterrevolutionary forces.
To the degree that these successes undermine Reagan’s plan and strengthen the revolution, his administration could be tempted to apply other forms of pressure. The Contadora peace process is at one of its weakest moments, while new debates in Congress on aid to the counterrevolutionaries could raise the possibility of direct intervention as the only “efficient solution.” In preparation for this, military maneuvers in Honduras are intensifying and the militarization of Costa Rica is fast becoming a fact. Nicaragua’s moment of success thus shapes up as a moment of increased danger as well.
The world rallies against the embargoFollowing his failure in the April 23 Congressional vote, Reagan suffered an even bigger setback a few days later when he decreed a commercial embargo against Nicaragua. Virtually every government in the world, principal political organizations of the various countries and the most prestigious international bodies criticized the measure. Many governments were moved to initiate or renew economic agreements favorable to Nicaragua. In time it also became apparent that the only public support for the embargo—offered by El Salvador and Honduras—was only verbal; it has not resulted in a commercial break with Nicaragua.
On May 6, with the embargo about to go into effect, Nicaragua requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the US decision. This was the ninth time that Nicaragua had denounced US aggressions in this body. During two days of debate, delegates of 36 countries (13 of them Latin American) unanimously condemned the measure. They based their position on the principle of self-determination of nations, as well as that of non-interference in a country’s internal affairs. On May 10 the Security Council approved a resolution condemning the embargo for the reasons cited and demanding that it be lifted. The US vetoed the articles condemning the embargo, and abstained from voting on the resolution that pushed for the reopening of the Manzanillo talks.
The embargo was also debated and condemned in Caracas, Venezuela, in a meeting of the 25 countries that make up the Latin American Economic System, and in Geneva in early June, by the 90 member countries in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs or GATT Council.
The political support represented by these resolutions was echoed by many other governments, agencies, parties, and organizations. It was shown above all by the urgently needed economic cooperation Nicaragua’s leaders obtained in their tours last month.
President Daniel Ortega visited 13 European countries in 25 days, in the following order: the USSR, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Spain, France, Italy, Finland and Sweden. This was the longest and most complex trip a Nicaraguan leader has taken to date.
In a press conference on his return to Nicaragua on May 20, President Ortega touched on the particular aspects of his trip that have been widely treated abroad:
- Nicaragua had already arranged the top-level meetings with the Soviet Union by early April, when the date for the Congressional vote on the $14 million was still being debated.
- These meetings were motivated fundamentally by Nicaragua’s urgent need to meet what Ortega termed “vital needs for a petroleum supply.” He explained that Nicaragua had already made special requests of Mexico whose assistance he described as “invaluable,” but that Nicaragua “cannot buy oil under the conditions of the San José Accord.”
- At no time did the Nicaraguan government propose to any Congressional delegation visiting the country before the April 23 vote that it would make “concessions” regarding its relations with the Soviet Union. According to President Ortega, he spoke with Senators Harkin and Kerry during their visit about his forthcoming trip to the Soviet Union in the context of Nicaragua’s oil crisis.
- President Ortega received word of the embargo decree while in Yugoslavia. The trip to Western Europe, for which general plans already existed, was put into effect at that point due to the urgency of the situation.
The oil problemNothing is more vital to the survival of a country than energy. Nicaragua is not an oil producer. It is developing its geothermal energy capacity but still relies on thermoelectric energy, which requires oil. The cost of Nicaragua’s annual oil needs represents 40% of the foreign exchange the country earns through its exports. As of August 1980, Nicaragua began to receive petroleum from Mexico, which offered it credit on very favorable terms. In 1981 Mexico and Venezuela ratified the San José Accord, through which they promised to supply oil for regional development to the Central American and Caribbean countries at very favorable terms.
From the beginning, Nicaragua has been accumulating debt by purchasing oil on credit. In 1983 Venezuela suspended its supply to Nicaragua, due to lack of payment and Mexico assumed the full requirements. At that point Mexico asked Nicaragua to seek a “second supplier.” Throughout 1984 this “second” supplier was the Soviet Union, which provides 50% of Nicaragua’s total needs. One month before the embargo was imposed, the Mexican government suspended Nicaragua’s credits for oil purchase (Nicaragua’s debt to Mexico was then $563 million), and requested cash payment toward the debt in the amount of $100 million. This decision was not made without strong tensions and debate among the various political currents within the Mexican government regarding Nicaragua—and therefore, Contadora. The principal goal of President Ortega’s trip to the Soviet Union was to resolve the oil problem, and it was resolved. From now on the Soviet Union will provide Nicaragua with 80-90% of its oil needs. Libya, Iran and Algeria will support the provision, as they have already been doing.
On May 27, the Mexico-Nicaragua Mixed Commission met to study the forms of cooperation between the two countries. Among other agreements, Mexico promised to supply Nicaragua with 320,000 barrels of oil between July and September, which Nicaragua will pay for “in terms that are compatible” with the San José Accord, including the direct trade of oil for Nicaraguan products. In the last quarter of the year, Nicaragua will require 410,000 barrels. The two governments decided to postpone the discussion of how this will be handled. At the end of the session, the Mexican representative referred to Mexico’s commitment to “rouse the world’s conscience about the hegemonic pressures that seriously threaten peace.”
In addition to oil, Nicaragua got other emergency assistance and signed important cooperation agreements with all the countries of the Socialist bloc. What card did Nicaragua use in negotiating with the socialist nations if in fact it maintains its non-alignment? Time and deeds have demonstrated its position with respect to the US government in its own sphere of influence, while it has gained moral prestige because of its non-aligned and non-totalitarian model in Latin America.
President Ortega’s trip to five Western European countries was complemented immediately afterward by the three-week trip of Vice-President Sergio Ramírez, who toured Austria, West Germany, Belgium, Holland and Spain. Several Western European countries promised assistance and cooperation agreements to help with this emergency as well as to sponsor Nicaragua’s development strategy. Among these, the most important for Nicaragua’s future energy independence was Italy’s $25 million credit for the second phase of the Momotombo Geothermal Project, aimed at harnessing energy from that volcano.
Between oil, lines of credit and humanitarian aid, Nicaragua obtained more than $400 million from the 17 European countries visited by its president and vice-president. This equals the foreign exchange that Nicaragua earns annually through its exports. Of this, just over half was accorded by the socialist bloc and Yugoslavia, and half by Western Europe. “We did not concern ourselves with making it 50-50,” said Vice-President Ramírez. “It just turned out that way, which reflects the equilibrium of our policy.”
The nine countries of the European Economic Community (EEC) approved a special aid project for Central America this month. Its significance does not lie in the amount, which, despite the doubling of aid given Costa Rica last year, will amount to $200 million for the whole region over five years. It resides in the political decision which underpins the project. The EEC, after a long period of “neutrality,” has now decided to play a political role in Central America. This is being increasingly understood as a challenge to US political domination in the area. During Sergio Ramírez’s trip, Nicaragua made agreements for other assistance and bilateral cooperation projects with the EEC. Ramírez called the results of his conversations with top EEC representatives in Brussels “extraordinary.”
With the aid Nicaragua received on this trip it will have a sufficient material base to survive in 1985, and in some categories (agricultural and industrial inputs) through part of 1986.
Following the success of these visits, Minister of Foreign Cooperation Henry Ruiz visited North Korea; Presidential Secretary Rodrigo Reyes toured Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil; and Deputy Foreign Minister Hugo Tinoco went to Canada. (Canada had already made a qualitative change in its policy toward Nicaragua in 1984, when exchanges between the two countries increased spectacularly. Nicaragua’s Commercial Office in Miami was transferred to Toronto this month due to the embargo, despite critical statements and pressure from US Secretary of State George Shultz. At the beginning of June, Canadian Foreign Minister Monique Vezina visited Nicaragua to sign several economic cooperation accords, of which the most important was an US$11 million credit for the second stage of the Momotombo Proyect.) In general terms the common goal of all these trips, as well as of contacts made in other countries such as Japan, was to broaden areas of economic cooperation and exchange in the wake of the embargo. “We have taken advantage of the embargo to transform our economy in an orderly fashion around our real needs,” said Vice President Ramírez.
On his return to Nicaragua, President Ortega summarized the positions that had been confirmed in all the countries visited:
- Support for the Nicaraguan project of pluralism, mixed economy and non-alignment.
- Rejection of any political force expressed through economic, political or military pressures.
- Effective support for Contadora and the Manzanillo dialogue.
- Rejection of the embargo, ratification of commercial support for Nicaragua, and a willingness to readjust economic cooperation to the new situation.
When President Reagan alludes to the success of the Sandinistas, he is indirectly referring to this own failure. The commercial embargo was one of the major failures of his Nicaraguan policy, both within the United States and abroad, particularly among NATO allies. By tying the embargo decree to his European visit, Reagan made its failure more evident and exacerbated the bad image associated with his trip.
Various international sources have criticized Daniel Ortega’s trip to the Soviet Union, terming it at least “inopportune.” These criticisms have faded to a degree based on the complete itinerary of his trip and Nicaragua’s difficult economic situation, which made the trip and its results most opportune indeed. The revolutionary government’s desire for non-alignment was expressed through the extensive high-level official trips in which Nicaragua knocked at all doors in search of political support and economic cooperation. It is expressed even more eloquently by the fact that at every door there was a positive response.
The international response to the embargo was solidarity, perhaps more extensive and solid than Nicaragua has received in the six years of its revolution. The embargo was judged universally as the injustice of a giant country against a small one and as political revenge—after failing to win the vote in Congress, the Reagan administration resorted to force instead. In the final analysis, the embargo was perceived as an expression of weakness. Was the Reagan administration unaware that its measure could boomerang? Although this seems impossible, the sanction was decreed, despite all the political costs. What does all this mean? Is it only a political game in which the Republicans take up a proposal made by the Democrats (one sector of whom had suggested the embargo) in order to later declare it ineffective and thus more forcefully argue for military measures? Or is it the decision of an increasingly isolated and erratic foreign policy? If the latter, it could also signify a slide toward irrational measures, among which military intervention or punitive blows by air cannot be discounted.
The embargo has its silver liningThe embargo did not catch Nicaragua napping. As agile as their response was in the international arena, it was just as quick domestically. A symbol of this is the fact that in the early dawn of May 7, two hours before the embargo went into effect, the first shipment of bananas previously sold to the United States was aboard a ship steaming toward Belgium. Banana shipments continued throughout the month, destined for the port of Gant, from which they are distributed to markets throughout Europe.
This international distribution network was easier to obtain than a popular mobilization adequate to the tasks that lie ahead. Putting a brake on the internal consequences of the embargo will test the political capacity of the FSLN to engage the population in economic measures. It will not be easy.
In the first weeks of the embargo, a few basic points are being emphasized:
- Promote self-sufficiency in food production, by growing basic grains and home vegetable gardens. A few fruits and vegetables that do not require special care will be emphasized and simple cultivation methods that do not require imported seeds or fertilizers will be used.
- Promote a movement of “innovators”—workers who create spare parts and adapt machinery for new uses.
- Stress preventive medicine, especially through environmental hygiene campaigns.
There will also be a national inventory of machinery and tools for the first time, as well as a centralized market for automobile spare parts and an emphasis on saving energy.
The embargo will undoubtedly lead to greater scarcity, which may well complicate the task of mobilizing people to deal with these critical moments. This is especially true given the amount of energy that has already been mobilized around military defense, and the fact that the population has not yet assimilated the consequences of recent changes in economic policy.
Although the embargo was a critical moment for national unity, that unity neither solidified nor cracked. Some large private cattle and coffee growers did opportunistically grab the moment to try to wrest economic concessions from the government, however.
In the National Assembly, a majority of members approved a statement condemning the embargo. They also approved another important economic document calling on Central American parliamentarians to exchange viewpoints toward a united position regarding the foreign debt. This is the main theme that affects and unifies the entire continent in this period of economic crisis.
As a result of efforts by the FSLN and other parties in the Assembly, there has been progress in the political climate regarding “national issues,” i.e., defense of the country and national sovereignty. The subtle ideological differences of the different parties and different levels of sincerity and intensity of support for a consensus on these issues can be clearly seen in the debates.
The abrasiveness of the extra-parliamentary opposition finds expression in conversations with the foreign delegations that constantly visit the country. Their public belligerence continues at another level in the pages of La Prensa, which enjoys substantial freedom despite the continued existence of prior censorship. Various articles in La Prensa demonstrate their discomfiture with the image of them penned by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa for The New York Times Sunday Magazine. This article was reprinted in various newspapers around the world, including La Prensa. Vargas Llosa describes this opposition as an “association of the elite,” without a social base. He characterizes them as impractical, “prone to internecine wrangling,” and closed to recognizing the error of not having participated in the elections. “They preach a legalism and an orthodox liberal democracy that Nicaragua has never had,” notes the author. “They have adopted the politics of catastrophe—of waiting for the contras, aided by the United States Marines, to rescue them.”
Like twins on a seesaw, the importance of the political role played by opposition ally Cardinal Obando goes up as the weakness of these sectors, eclipsed by the electoral process yet still in the country, drags them down.
What was the Nicaraguan bishops’ reaction to the economic embargo? There has not been a single joint pronouncement of any kind. As usual, the majority of the bishops are silent or worse. For example, Monsignor Vega, President of the Bishops Conference, in an interview on Radio Sandino, limited himself to the following hyperbole: “The elements that moved them to make that decision can explain the nature of the phenomenon.”
On his departure to Rome to receive his cardinal’s hat, on the other hand, Monsignor Obando told journalists in the Managua airport that “It is the poor, those who lack resources, who are jeopardized” by the embargo, and that in this “crucial moment it is necessary that all Nicaraguans sit down and talk.” In a press conference in Rome, on the eve of the May 25 ceremony, Monsignor Obando was more explicit: “We, the Nicaraguan bishops, think that the problems of Nicaragua should be solved through civilized means, and if a dialogue had occurred, taking into account all those in arms, this blockade would have been avoided.”
By tying the embargo to dialogue with the counterrevolutionaries Monsignor Obando sided with the position of the Reagan administration presented in the note sent to Nicaragua announcing the sanctions. In the broad spectrum of public statements made by world leaders about the embargo, Monsignor Obando is the only one who linked it to talks with the contras and made the former the justification of the latter.
By contrast, the Catholic and Protestant institutions that make up the majority of the Permanent Committee of Nongovernmental Organizations of Nicaragua are participating actively in the international campaign, “Let Nicaragua Live,” inaugurated by the government on Children’s Day, June 1.
On that day President Ortega provided new data about the effects of the war on children. Since 1981, 189 children under the age of 12 have been killed or assassinated, 98 wounded, 9 mutilated and 189 kidnapped. 7,582 children have lost one or both parents.
Nicaragua’s international success helps consolidate a social project put to a disproportionate test by the United States. The permanent reality of the war dampens any triumphal vision, however. To the degree that Reagan views this success as his failure, he could be provoked into drastic military decisions. Furthermore, Nicaragua’s undeniable successes cannot hide the enormous organizational challenges Reagan’s economic blow pose to a poor country that has already borne the weight of four years of a war of attrition.
Military successes in offensive maneuvers and border incidentsFor several months the Nicaraguan army has been focusing its efforts in the departments of Jinotega, Nueva Segovia and Madriz, the zones of greatest counterrevolutionary concentration. The contras, active for some months within Nicaraguan territory, have been hit hard; their organization has been broken up and many have fled back to their bases in Honduras.
The Ministries of Defense and the Interior report a total of 656 contras dead in these and other departments in the month of May; the number of wounded is undoubtedly higher. The figures are probably not final, since the operations in the north must be added to a major Sandinista offensive in the center of the country with the goal of isolating the Jorge Salazar Commando (some 3,000 men), and another against ARDE forces in the southeastern department of Río San Juan, in which 60 counterrevolutionaries were reported dead in the last days of combat (May 26-31).
One of the most talked-about attacks this month took place on May 16, when a group of 200 failed in a suicidal attempt to take the Atlantic port city of Bluefields. The Bluefields attempt cost the attackers 24 dead and 47 wounded in a five-hour battle. Misurasata had attacked the nearby community of Pearl Lagoon two days before.
Crisis in the dialogue with MisurasataThe dialogue between the Nicaraguan government and Misurasata, begun in December 1984, is a centerpiece of the search for peace in the Atlantic Coast. This month the dialogue was broken.
On May 25 and 26 the fourth round of negotiations was held in Bogotá between the government negotiating team and Misurasata leader Brooklyn Rivera. The government arrived with expectations of evaluating compliance with the accords reached in Mexico in April, setting up a commission to monitor any future problems, and advancing to deeper issues. Misurasata admitted responsibility for 4 of 11 attacks listed by the government as having taken place against civilians or civilian government officials after April 25, the date of a mutual agreement in Mexico to “avoid offensive military actions.” Declaring that he had only signed these accords for their international impact, Rivera insisted as a condition for continued talks that the Sandinista army pull out of a large portion of the Atlantic Coast, that the local self-defense militias (made up in the main by Miskitos and Sumus) disarm and that Misurasata take over the defense of the communities. He also insisted that a delegate from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, another from the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and another from the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference be named to the verification commission and act as mediators in future talks. When the government rejected these conditions, Rivera walked out.
The government position was that this proposed demilitarization of the Coast neglected the existence of other armed groups in the area. The government’s list of attacks was offered as proof that Misurasata could not control the actions of these groups, including Misura, FDN and ARDE. With respect to outside mediators, Comandante Luis Carrión, head of the government team, suggested a monitoring commission composed of Nicaraguans agreed to by both sides. Rejecting Rivera’s proposal, Carrión argued that it violated Nicaragua’s sovereign right to handle its internal conflicts. He also pointed out that it implied a substantial modification of the agreements for direct talks, and therefore could not be used to justify breaking off the talks. Carrión said that Rivera’s unilateral decision had been influenced by hardliners within Rivera’s US advisory team. (Rivera’s advisers include Bernard Nietschmann, geography professor at the University of California, Berkeley; Steve Tullberg, a lawyer with the Indian Law Resource Center; Ted MacDonald of Cultural Survival; and Jim Anaya, an Apache lawyer also linked to the Indian Law Resource Center. Another Rivera adviser is Armstrong Wiggins, a Miskito who has worked with the Indian Law Resource Center since 1981. Carrión noted that he has had a strong influence on Rivera.)
On May 29 Nicaragua’s Office of the Presidency issued a statement ratifying the government’s willingness to return to the negotiating table whenever Rivera requested it, and adding another important point: that it was “fully disposed to dialogue with all those indigenous groups in northern and southern Zelaya who want to discuss accords for a cease fire, and assure the supply of provisions and health services to the communities.” Other measures announced in the statement included suspending the use of identity cards and internal travel permits, speeding up the autonomy project, and “the gradual, orderly and planned return” of Miskitos to their original communities along the Río Coco, beginning with the return in early July of Waspam and Francia Sirpi.
Even though the talks with Misurasata have been interrupted, the fact that the government decided to take these bold steps is an indication of the move toward peace initiated on the Coast. These changes, however limited and despite an unresolved military situation, augur the possibility of another success for the revolutionary process.
As a result of the Sandinista offensive, many counterrevolutionaries have crossed back into Honduras or Costa Rica. Nicaraguan sources estimate that the Sandinista army has pushed between four and five thousand to Honduras, where they are in camps very close to the border. “Although hit, they still have important operational capacity,” said Comandante Luis Carrión, named this month to replace Comandante Jaime Wheelock as the National Directorate member in charge of Regions I and VI, the two northern regions most affected by the war.
With the complicity of some sectors of the Honduran army, FDN forces are again carrying out operations from inside Honduran territory, which has led to border incidents. This month, Nicaraguan Defense Minister Humberto Ortega publicly admitted that there have been exchanges of fire across the Honduran border on several occasions. International wire service versions spoke of Nicaraguan army incursions into contra border caps and the abandonment of some of these camps by order of the Hondurans. The Honduran government’s refusal to let journalists visit the area of Las Vegas lends credence to this information. By way of its radio station, the FDN itself mentioned that attacks against the camps had caused “significant damage” to its forces.
Honduran Presidential Minister Ubodoro Arriaga declared that the counterrevolutionaries must be disarmed and expelled from Honduras and a statement from the Honduran National Security Council expressed Honduras’ “disposition” not to allow armed groups in its territory. In the May meeting of Contadora, however, the Honduran foreign minister corrected Arriaga’s statements, declaring that the contras were indeed fleeing toward Honduras, but that there were no camps there.
This gave Nicaragua the opportunity to propose to Honduras during the Contadora meeting that a special Contadora commission be set up for the immediate supervision of the border, especially the stretch between Trejos and Las Vegas, where the majority of FDN camps are located. It proposed that this commission make no public declaration that might compromise Honduras, but that it recommend solutions to the problem of counterrevolutionaries in Honduran territory.
Honduras refused to accept the commission. This was seen by many Central American analysts as proof that, despite official declarations by some within the Honduran government and army that they understand the problem, nothing has really changed in Honduras’ policy toward Nicaragua or toward US interests in the area. One foreign analyst remarked that Honduras only wants to “raise the rent” for playing the role the US has assigned it in the Central American conflict.
This was not the only such initiative rejected by Honduras this month. Panamanian armed forces chief General Noriega, who has friendly relations with both the Nicaraguan and Honduran armies, offered to set up and mediate a meeting between Comandante Humberto Ortega and General Walter López, who head these respective forces. Within several days, General López dashed growing optimism by rejecting the talks, claiming that “the problems are being analyzed within the Contadora framework.”
By rejecting first the “Contadora framework” for border supervision and then a bilateral approach to the problems, Honduras is maintaining its decisive role as a sanctuary for the counterrevolution. It also continues to serve as a permanent base for US military maneuvers.
In the uninterrupted chain of joint maneuvers initiated by the United States in 1981 with “Halcon Vista,” some 70,000 US soldiers have now been trained on Honduran soil. There they have practiced the diverse operations that would be necessary for a military intervention in Nicaragua.
In the May maneuvers known as “Big Shot,” two hundred artillery troops from the Illinois National Guard trained in the use of cannons and mortars. As these maneuvers wound down, another entitled “Cabanas-85” was announced. Among the strategic tasks of this third largest maneuver since 1981, 1,800 US soldiers will construct a 150 km . highway for military vehicles in the north-central zone of Honduras.
While these maneuvers unfold in the north, the militarization of Nicaragua’s southern neighbor grows. This month it was announced in Costa Rica, amid heated debate, that 24 US Green Berets will train 800 Costa Rican Civil Guard members in a new rapid deployment battalion in counterinsurgency tactics. The battalion will be led by 45 Costa Rican National Guard officers, trained by US advisers for ten weeks in Honduras. This unquestionably represents the beginning of the end of Costa Rican neutrality. These men will be nothing less than the first nucleus of an army in a country that decided in 1949 to never have one and that in 1983 proclaimed its “active, perpetual and non-armed neutrality.”
Frontier incidents, too, have spread to Costa Rica. According to information from Nicaragua’s Ministry of Defense, the Sandinista army put an offensive strategy into motion on May 26 near the Costa Rican border. It was aimed at destroying three ARDE camps comprising 300 men, installed along the edge of the Río San Juan, in Nicaraguan territory. Within days ARDE troops were fleeing back into Costa Rica, and it is said that Edén Pastora himself traveled to Miami to ask for help. The operation included a third attempt to bomb an air strip 60 meters from the river, constructed by ARDE, this time to destroy it once and for all.
On May 31, when the three campsites had already been taken by the Sandinista army and skirmishes were continuing along the riverbanks, an incident occurred in Las Crucitas, in Costa Rican territory, in which two Costa Rican guards died and nine were wounded. Both the Costa Rican government and that country’s media gave very contradictory information about the incident. The politically motivated version that emerged from the wave of contradictions was that 400 Sandinistas has crossed the river border to ambush the guardsmen. The Nicaraguan version sustained that not a single Sandinista soldier had crossed, and attributed the incident to a provocation cleverly prepared by ARDE with the goal of creating a conflict between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
As with the Honduran incidents, the situation revealed the political role that Costa Rica is playing in the Central American conflict. The Monge government decided to cut diplomatic relations with Nicaragua “to the lowest possible level” by not accrediting its new ambassador, scheduled to arrive in Nicaragua in July. This will leave diplomatic relations in the hands of a charge d’affaires. Monge also decided to call an emergency session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, while most of the Costa Rican media engaged in a strong anti-Nicaragua campaign. The United States sent the mortars and rocket-launchers this “country without an army” requested. For its part, Nicaragua proposed that Contadora create a commission to carry out an on-site investigation of the facts and asked France to mediate in search of a solution to the conflict. France was suggested because of the French government’s collaboration throughout 1984 in various meetings of the Nicaragua-Costa Rica Commission. As a long-term measure, Nicaragua proposed the creation of a 300-kilometer demilitarized zone along the border of both countries.
The Nicaraguan Army continues to score military successes against the counterrevolutionaries, an achievement that carries a high economic, social and human cost. The greater success would be peace, but this seems a long way off.
Given the characteristics of the war in Nicaragua, with other countries giving virtually open support to the counterrevolutionaries, military successes imply the intensification of border incidents, and therefore, diplomatic crises with Honduras and Costa Rica.
These crises take very different forms. The size of the counterrevolutionary presence in Honduras and the willingness of that government to turn a blind eye toward the military plans of the Unites States make frictions with Honduras more manageable, since Honduras is not interested in keeping a low profile. There are more contradictions in Costa Rican official policy, and the country plays on its image as a defenseless nation without an army. The counterrevolutionary force of ARDE is also less conflictive, since it is smaller and more poorly armed.
Nicaragua’s requests for bilateral treatment of the border conflicts make sense in light of the distinct sets of circumstances operating in Honduras and Costa Rica.
Contadora is currently passing through the weakest moment in its brief history. US pressures on each of the four countries in Contadora and on the three Central American countries allied with the US have resulted in a step backward in the peace initiative as well as growing disunity among the four countries involved in it. They were not capable, for example, of making a joint statement against the embargo or the $14 million requested from Congress, despite the fact that both measures contradict Contadora’s very objectives. Nor have they been capable of jointly urging the United States to renew the Manzanillo talks, despite the fact that Contadora itself on January 9—nine days after the unilateral break by the United States—recognized that these talks complemented the Latin American peace initiative.
The crisis came just as Contadora was retreating step by step from the contents of the September 7 Peace Accord, an accord that only Nicaragua accepted. In the months following the drafting of that accord, Contadora insisted it would only accept refinements; now some of its members seem to be accepting the introduction of fundamental modifications.
These modifications relate to the area of security. Regarding foreign military presence—bases, advisers and maneuvers—pressure by the United States through Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica is close to achieving a change of position by Contadora. Instead of a total proscription, US presence would be permitted for a time. This would amount to the legitimating of a presence which from the Nicaraguan point of view is the key to the current conflict. The legitimating of that presence is one of the highest objectives of the United States in its intent to effectively block Contadora. This objective has been publicly known since October 1984.
The resulting paradox is that Nicaragua is defending Contadora and its Peace Accord more than Contadora is willing to defend itself or its proposal. This is all the more impressive because the accord contains important security concessions on Nicaragua’s part.
The substantial differences on the question of security between Nicaragua and the other three Central American countries (Guatemala continues to maintain its independence) became clear in the May 15 meeting in Panama, in which the three proposed mechanisms for regional disarmament that would only affect Nicaragua.
At the end of the meeting, Nicaraguan Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Hugo Tinoco said clearly that the “process of refining” the Peace Accord is becoming a “process of undermining it.” Tinoco offered two examples to demonstrate his point: 1) there is an attempt to change the total prohibition on maneuvers to allow “regulated” maneuvers; 2) there is an attempt to change the focus from the “rational use of force” to “military balance,” which would leave aside the US and counterrevolutionary troops in the area and ignore the fact that the “militarization” of Nicaragua is the effect, not the cause, of the crisis.
The gravity of the moment for Contadora does not lie only in the pretensions of the three Central American countries but also in the Contadora group’s new and obvious openness toward them. That in turn reflects the efficacy of US pressures on the member countries.
This waving and bobbing is nothing new. Contadora has frequently repeated the cycle that leads to the stagnation of its initiative, when its own limits and the non-participation of the main player, the United States, becomes evident. In these moments of impasse, it has always been Nicaragua, with new initiatives or with concessions, that has breathed new life into Contadora. Now in these moments of crisis, with Nicaragua strengthened internationally, President Ortega announced in a speech on June 1 that Nicaragua continues to support Contadora, but that “it cannot continue making more concessions than it has already made.” Ortega added that “the government of the United States should not think that it can turn Contadora into an instrument of pressure against Nicaragua so that we keep making concessions right up to the liquidation of the Sandinista revolution.”
This crisis in Contadora, particularly since the next tense meeting will be discussing security issues, makes the renewal of the Manzanillo talks even more urgent, so that the US and Nicaragua can treat their security problems bilaterally.
On May 17, Nicaragua presented the US government with a concrete proposal to renew dialogue in Manzanillo in the first half of June. On May 28, the US Embassy in Managua gave a noncommittal answer, recalling that the US had abstained from the topic of Manzanillo in the UN Security Council debate on the embargo, and that this abstention meant neither rejection nor acceptance.
Throughout the world, condemnation of the embargo went had in hand with support for the Contadora initiative and Manzanillo as concrete roads to peace. Some sectors of Congress also raised this issue during the debate about funds for the counterrevolution.
Pressure at an international level and within the United States could lead to renewal of the Manzanillo talks. Nicaragua would accept them even if they were nothing more than a brief façade and were not complemented by other concrete initiatives expressing a desire for peace on the part of the Reagan administration. Everything so far, however, shows that there is no desire in the US administration to coexist with the Sandinista government. Rather the decision is to destabilize and be done with it at any cost.
Given the evidence of Nicaragua’s successes and the continual failures of its own policy toward the Sandinista revolution, the Reagan administration is now seeking to regain its advantage. The new votes in Congress on “humanitarian” aid to the counterrevolutionaries, with all the amendments and clauses that have been presented, offer a “second opportunity” to test bipartisan support for the Reagan project. This project has been gaining a broad anti-Sandinista consensus in Congress, but those who find the Reagan project unacceptable have not found a different design with which to concretize this anti-Sandinismo.
Among the forms considered, a “final solution” through military means has not been discarded. George Shultz recalled it this month in his criticism of those in Congress who voted against military aid: “They are hastening the day when the threat will grow and when we will be faced with an agonizing choice about the use of US combat troops.” Two weeks later, the large US dailies pointed out that the political novelty of the moment was that an invasion of Nicaragua was now being discussed openly, not as something inevitable but certainly as something very simple.
In any case, for Nicaragua the road is clear: survive, maintain the successful military offensive, administer international solidarity adroitly, and above all sustain the participation of the majority of the population in production, defense and political co-responsibility. In these crucial moments, Nicaragua must also use its alignment with Latin America and with progressive forces throughout the world to turn back the domineering will of the United States.
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a monthly magazine of analysis on Central America