Nicaragua
Trail of US Illegality Ends at Contragate
Envío team
November has been a terrible month for the White House. For Nicaragua, the international scandal caused by the secret arms sale to Iran and the transfer of part of the profits from that sale to the contras has its positive side. While there exists the danger of a desperate wild-card move by Reagan in the short run, his anti-Sandinista campaign is taking such a beating with the "Contragate" scandal that it could emerge from this crisis irreparably crippled.
The impact of this huge scandal within the United States must be gauged in relation to the others that came just before it. There was the Poulard affair involving Israeli military spying in the States, the discovery of a broad "disinformation" campaign against Libya, the mismanagement of the Daniloff case, the uncertainty brought on by Reagan's stance at the Reijkavik summit, and the Hasenfus case. In a very short period, US foreign policy seemed plagued with failures.
The importance of the scandal must also be measured in relation to the Republicans' failure on the domestic front. Despite Reagan's personal campaign efforts, they lost the Senate in the November 4 congressional elections. A President facing an opposition Congress in his last two years of office inevitably begins to be a "lame duck"; the Contragate scandal will doubtless restrict Reagan's movements even further just as he was already showing signs of limping.
For Nicaragua, Contragate’s importance is related to the potentially explosive moment to which events had moved. Congressional approval of the $100 million in aid to the contras had positioned the Reagan Administration to play its final card. The period between the congressional elections and subsequent recess and the start of the presidential primary campaigns next fall were emerging as the most propitious time for the administration to make its final strike against Nicaragua. Preparations were being made to move in that direction. For several years now, November has been a month in which the Nicaraguan situation becomes even tenser. This year is no exception. Even Reagan's failure in the elections didn’t cause him to reconsider. Four days afterward he told Congress that his priority would continue to be bipartisan support for the contras.
The exposure of Contragate brings back into the picture alternatives that have always been there, but which may perhaps now be seen from a totally unexpected perspective.
The confrontation between the Reagan administration and the Nicaraguan government can be characterized as the illegality of arrogance facing the legality of weakness. Congressional approval of the $100 million on the one hand and the World Court's verdict in favor of Nicaragua on the other are the events of recent months that most clearly sum up this prolonged confrontation. The dynamics of these events in turn have opened doors to further developments. After the approval of the $100 million, the administration has sunk deeper into illegal activity; and after the World Court ruling, Nicaragua has tightened its grip on the force of law as a protective shield against US aggression.
When the confrontation between legality and illegality was at a crucial point, Contragate came along to proclaim the Reagan Administration’s illegal behavior to the whole world. It could change or even stop the inexorable logic leading to the final chess move. It could also permit pragmatic sectors in the United States to seek formulas that will allow negotiation and coexistence with Sandinista Nicaragua within the law.
Reagan's dynamic of illegalityWhen the transport plane in which Hasenfus was flying crashed inside Nicaragua, what spilled out were many of the links within this criminal network supporting the contras. The crash punctuated the illegality of the administration's actions.
On November l5 the People’s Anti-Somocista Tribunal (TPA) sentenced Eugene Hasenfus to 30 years in prison. Specifically, the sentence was 30 years for the crime of grave attempts against the security of the state and 3 more years for criminal conspiracy. But the net result was 30 years, since that has been Nicaragua's maximum penalty ever since the triumph.
Although the law permits an appeal to the second level of the TPA, Hasenfus and his Nicaraguan attorney and US advisers decided not to make use of that right and instead to have Sally Hasenfus petition President Ortega for clemency.
With that, the case was just about closed. To reopen it with a clemency decree—which according to Nicaraguan law would require approval not only of the President but also of the National Assembly—is a possibility that the Nicaraguan government has not rejected. While many in the US are saying that this clemency may be decreed relatively quickly, Nicaraguan officials have insisted that any decision along these lines will be a political one dependent on US modification of its intransigent unwillingness to negotiate with Nicaragua.
"The die is cast"Although the Hasenfus case received wide coverage in the US, it didn’t manage to call into question much less change the Reagan administration’s illegal war plans. One US plane blown to bits; two US citizens dead; another captured, tried and sentenced as a criminal; and a whole battery of compromising information about the "dirty war"—all this failed to constitute a scandal sufficiently serious to force a change in the war dynamic. Reagan had obtained a fragile consensus in Congress with the approval of the $100 million in August and with that had also squeezed out of Congress a kind of recognition of the war's "legality."
The US government began to take steps toward the "final solution" by preparing a broad plan to escalate the war involving substantially increased arms for the contras, the finishing touches on the area's military infrastructure and the diplomatic isolation of Nicaragua. With these steps the US administration broke out of the holding pattern that had preceded the appropriation of the $100 million.
Key steps in this direction were the Latin American trips taken this month by Philip Habib, Special Ambassador for Central America, and Elliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and the political and ideological brains behind the $100 million project.
During the first week of November, Abrams visited the governments of Brazil and Uruguay—two of the Contadora Support Group countries—and also met with US diplomats assigned to
Argentina (another Support Group member), Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. In Brazil he made the US government's intentions public: "to overthrow the Sandinista government" and to put a government "like that of Costa Rica" in its place.
Then on November l7 Philip Habib set out on a journey that would take him to Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia and Mexico—the last two countries also belonging to the Contadora Group. According to a knowledgeable observer, the essential message brought to all Latin America by the two officials was this: the survival of the Sandinista revolution is unacceptable to the US government and the decision has been made to destroy it by any means necessary; it would therefore not be wise for anyone to oppose this policy. It was an informative message, not a consultative one, and carried an implicit threat: no peace initiative would be worth the effort. What was being requested was resignation to the announcement, not approval of it, much less resistance. In addition to the threats, the foreign debt crisis created fertile ground for the required resignation.
This message largely explains why government leaders, the mass media, political groups and solidarity organizations throughout Latin America have been making so many declarations this month, and with a greater tone of alarm than ever before, warning of the tragedy entailed in a generalized war in Central America and US intervention in Nicaragua.
The Soviet Union's harsh condemnation of US policy in Central America should also be seen within this context of justified alarm. In an official declaration on November l6, the Soviet government urged the US to exercise "discretion, realism and responsibility," and at the same time declared "with all responsibility that the Soviet Union has not created and is not creating any kind of military base."
The "fatal" US message had immediate effects on the Central American governments. Never had President Arias of Costa Rica waxed more anti-Sandinista and anti-Nicaraguan. The mood even got to President Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala, who made critical allusions to the Nicaraguan government. In a speech to Guatemalan business people, he said that the Nicaraguan process was "neither democratic nor pluralistic," and held the government of Nicaragua responsible for creating the conditions for a confrontation that would destroy the country. This speech was given just a few hours after Habib left Guatemala.
Until now Guatemala has maintained a policy of "active neutrality" and a decision not to align itself with blocs "that would attack or isolate" Nicaragua. Guatemala's difficult neutrality position gets important support from the European Christian Democrats, who are very interested in the Guatemalan initiative to promote a Central American Parliament. Another important aspect of the current situation is Congress' refusal to approve as part of the general foreign aid budget the $300 million that was to go to the four Central American countries in connection with the original $100 million contra aid package. This has engendered insistent complaints from the Honduran and Costa Rican governments, whose very weakened economies seem to need the money desperately. When the eight Contadora and Support Group countries broke a long silence on November l in the UN General Assembly by unveiling a document
titled "Peace Is Possible in Central America," they once again got a slap in the face from the US, which gave its response in the Abrams and Habib visits: the only possibility between a Sandinista Nicaragua and the US is war.
But the Latin American countries didn’t give up. They turned to the UN and the OAS for the vital space needed to actively continue their nearly impossible mission for peace and legality; at the same time, under strong pressure from the US, they continued urging Nicaragua to make concessions to the US, in keeping with the long-standing Contadora approach.
Preparations made: Scenario readyThe illegal US positions, which shamelessly deprecate the World Court verdict and Latin America's desire to find a negotiated solution, are not mere rhetorical threats. The rejection of the rule of law is being translated daily into preparations for a war to destroy the Sandinista revolution.
The war machine continued to gear up. Accelerated training of the contras by CIA advisers began in various parts of the US (Florida, Georgia, Texas). According to information supplied by the contras, the first to be trained in the US are 100 carefully chosen FDN "officials." Contra spokespersons also stated that they have already received $60 million of the $100 million in new arms. (The remaining $40 million will be delivered by February l987.) The very fact that the contras have to be trained either in the US or on US military bases in other countries is a clear indication of the conflict caused in Latin America by this illegal war. This month, the governments of Belize and Puerto Rico distanced themselves from the matter; Hernandez Colón, the governor of Puerto Rico, said that training the contras on the island would create "more controversies than in other areas."
In order to prepare the whole scenario necessary for military escalation, the US this month activated all the Central American bases, especially the ones built in recent years in Honduras. It also created and put into operation a new post in the Southern Command in Panama to control all war traffic—naval and air—in the zone.
Moreover, since November l3, US warships—battleships, destroyers with missiles, aircraft carriers and ships fitted out with equipment for electronic spying and interception of communications from Nicaragua—have been stationed off Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. On November l9, for instance, they were less than 100 kilometers from the port cities of Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields. US warships were also spotted off Costa Rican shores.
This is not new. Since January 1981, for example, spy boats and warships in varying numbers have remained stationed at various points off Nicaragua's Pacific coast. "Gunboat diplomacy" is not an obsolete tactic of the last century, but one the US continues to use. In the present context of military escalation, the gunboats stationed in the Caribbean seem to be related to a strategy of isolation or naval blockade. They may also be there to give naval support to the contras if they try to take some territory in the coast region and set up a "provisional government." They may even be in place to attack strategic targets since the missiles on board the ships have a range of 150 kilometers.
Honduras: The military pawnThis month the US created a joint command made up of FDN leaders and Honduran army chiefs to direct the contras' actions, and Washington announced that it would donate supersonic fighter planes to the Honduran Air Force to augment the 12 Super Mystere planes already in Honduran hangars. This announcement was made after Congress went into recess, thus avoiding the legal nicety of discussing the matter with the legislative branch. It still remains to be decided whether the fighter planes will be Israeli Kfirs or US F- 5s. (The most modern variety, the F-5E, which Honduras wants, costs between $8 and $10 million apiece. The delivery of these planes, which no other Central American country has, would introduce a real military imbalance into the region; such a decision would be in open conflict with the solution proposed this year by Contadora based essentially on a regional weapons moratorium, especially those of an offensive nature, such as the fighter jets.
There were also unusual movements of both Honduran and US troops on Honduras' eastern border this month. In addition, a considerable number of contras tried to enter Nicaraguan territory along the central-western border with Honduras. Nicaraguan troops responded to that offensive, and, according to information from the Nicaraguan government, the contras suffered 80 dead and 120 wounded while the Sandinista army counted 2l dead and 16 wounded in five days of combat (from the 24th to the 29th of October).
Since that round of fighting—the heaviest of 1986—border clashes between the Nicaraguan army and the contras have continued. The already high tension along the border began to worsen on November 30—after the eruption of Contragate and evidently related to this internal US crisis—when US troops, with heavy artillery and combat helicopters, were placed only 15 kilometers from the Nicaraguan border, forming a kind of rear guard behind new fighting between the FDN and the Sandinista Army. By moving that close, the US violated a congressional condition on the $100 million which stipulated that US troops had to keep a distance of at least 30 kilometers from the border. It is noteworthy that Washington had to take it upon itself to complain, insistently and with a sense of alarm, that the Nicaraguan army appeared to have entered Honduras.
This month the Nicaraguan army published comprehensive data, heretofore not released, on contra losses in the whole war (1981 to October 1986). The figures show 12,301 dead, 2,301 wounded and 1,797 taken captive. Just in the first 10 months of 1986, the contras have suffered 3,734 dead, 1,132 wounded and 580 captured. In this same recent period, the Sandinista forces sustained 631 dead, 1,552 wounded and 163 disappeared.
Engaging the FDNFor several days, the Honduran government kept silent and Honduran officials denied it until they could no longer. This curious situation came about because the Honduran government and army do not want war with Nicaragua, and at the same time the contra presence on their territory is less and less tolerable. The contras—in alliance with Honduran officials who are in contra-occupied zones in Southeast Honduras—have also become an economic force in the area because of the large amount of money they handle. They are thus creating rivalries with high-level officials in Tegucigalpa and with coffee barons of the area. This prolonged presence has brought about one point of general consensus: all groups—private business people, peasants, religious organizations, government leaders and their opponents—are against the contras.
That is why at certain times the Honduran government and army try to close their eyes to the border clashes between the Nicaraguan army and the contras. At other times, US pressure becomes stronger and there’s no room for such evasiveness. In any case, the existence of a Honduran "contra-contra" (anti-contra movement) puts a further limit on the Reagan administration's idea of fabricating a border incident that would involve Honduras in a war with Nicaragua. It’s important to emphasize that the Nicaraguan defense minister, referring to the border tensions at the start of this month, indicated that a real clash between the two countries had been avoided thanks to the Nicaraguan army's discipline and the attitude of Honduran army units in those areas of conflict.
Costa Rica: The political pawnPreparations are also underway in Costa Rica. In addition to the presence of US warships in Costa Rican waters, a "cleanup operation" has been carried out near the northern border to prepare a kind of logistical rear guard for whenever war may break out. An incident could also be created along this border. Angel Edmundo Solano, former Costa Rican security minister and currently ambassador to Mexico, recently admitted to pressures he had felt from former US ambassador in San Jose, Curtin Windsor. In 1984 Windsor apparently suggested to him that there be a simulated attack on Costa Rica by a "foreign army," which would give the US the excuse to invoke the Inter-American Treaty and intervene in Nicaragua. If these pressures were applied then, when Costa Rica's neutrality was on firmer ground, it is no flight of imagination to think that the US is continuing to prepare such situations.
Costa Rica is becoming less and less neutral in the US-Nicaragua conflict. As part of the "final offensive" and one more sign of the checkmate the US government is lining up, the political counterpart of the military preparations took place in Costa Rica this month: the contras of the FDN, of BOS (Southern Opposition Bloc), and of MISURASATA, one of the two armed Miskitu groups, scheduled a meeting in San José to structure a future "provisional government," a "bill of rights" and a "Magna Carta" to improve their tarnished image, publicizing the "laws" through which they think they will rule Nicaragua once they overthrow the Sandinista government. The meeting implied not only a great effort in the difficult search for contra unity but also an important propaganda initiative of UNO as a "legalized" alternative government.
On November 24 Nicaragua registered a protest with the government of Costa Rica about this illegal meeting, which violated Costa Rican neutrality laws and showed support for a war declared illegal by the World Court. The next day the meeting was shaken by the eruption of Contragate, which pointed an accusing finger at all participants, especially Adolfo Calero, who is seen as the recipient of the millions of dollars transferred from Iran. The publicity plans fell apart, making UNO’s new image as a "legal alternative" in the conflict virtually nonviable.
In summary, the Reagan Administration has taken a number of steps simultaneously: stepped-up training and equipping of the contras, acceleration in setting up conditions for border incidents with both Honduras and Costa Rica, journeys throughout the continent trying to isolate Nicaragua diplomatically and get Latin America to resign itself to the military escalation, gunboats in Central American waters and the renovation of the contras’ political image. All these developments were omens of a notable stepping-up of the war and of difficult times for Nicaragua and the region. But right at the moment when the message was announced and the scenario was ready, Contragate exploded, shattering the logic of events.
US needs illegal behavior by Central AmericaThe contras' meeting in San José is only one example of how the US government needs the ongoing cooperation of the Central American governments, especially of Nicaragua’s neighbors, Honduras and Costa Rica, to further its military escalation. This complicity has been the case since the beginning of the war of aggression, but it is becoming more obvious as the war has begun to escalate.
If these two governments, which are putting their land and their politics (votes in international forums, declarations, boycott of Contadora, etc.) at the service of US plans, didn’t support the strategy, there would be serious limitations on the contra war. It would be harder to sustain military pressure on Nicaragua, and the eventuality of direct intervention, preceded by border incidents, would be less clear. Surgical bombing or any other kind of attack would also be more difficult.
Although Honduran complicity has been more consistent and less artful than that of Costa Rica—which in 1983 declared its "active and perpetual neutrality"—the fact is that the Costa Rican economic crisis and other factors in its domestic policy have brought the positions of the two countries closer together and have reduced both countries to pawns in the US chess game with Nicaragua. Although the positions of both on the international chessboard may be different—Honduras the military pawn and Costa Rica the political one—their function is complementary with respect to the same objective.
After the World Court ruling, which was a definitive statement to the world of the US war policy’s illegality, Nicaragua decided to return to the Court for a judgment on the complicity of Honduras and Costa Rica in that policy. Before making this decision, the Nicaraguan government publicly and insistently tried to resolve the border problems with Honduras and Costa Rica bilaterally. Honduras has never been receptive to this, but certain agreements were reached with Costa Rica, with France as a mediator, and plans were worked out for to demilitarize the common border. US pressures prevailed, however, and all efforts have been aborted. Nicaragua has thus gone back to the World Court to denounce this "complementary illegality" and force the two countries back to positions favoring legality, dialogue and negotiated solutions.
For both countries, but especially for Costa Rica, Nicaragua's decision represents a tough blow to their international image. In revenge, and in service to the permanent US objectives of blocking Contadora, both countries have declared that they will not return to the Contadora negotiating table until Nicaragua withdraws its petition from the World Court. And they have already put this decision into practice: this month, on the occasion of the OAS General Assembly in Guatemala, the foreign ministers of the eight Contadora and Support Group countries called together the five Central American foreign ministers, but only Nicaragua and Guatemala responded positively. Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador—the latter out of "solidarity" with the defendant nations—did not attend the meeting. The Honduran foreign minister declared that the Contadora process was "completely destroyed."
The Tegucigalpa Bloc—Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador—has always held a position of boycotting Contadora, but it’s now based on the argument that the Nicaraguan suit in the World Court blocks the Contadora process. It must be emphasized that Contadora itself has expressed no criticism of Nicaragua's decision. For a process such as Contadora, which favors dialogue, peace and a negotiated solution, rejecting recourse to a legal and peaceful means like World Court arbitration would be a basic contradiction. Furthermore, Contadora finds more breathing space to continue its difficult negotiating efforts in the Court, as happened in the case of the suit against the US.
Moreover, Nicaragua is trusting that the two long years that are the legal time frame for the countries to present their arguments and counter-arguments may serve as a sufficient political interim for Honduras and Costa Rica to correct their ways and distance themselves from the illegal US policy. For the present, Nicaragua's purpose with the complaint is to force both countries to begin a dialogue, although both are using it as a pretext precisely not to dialogue, thereby giving the US military solution free rein. An objective analysis of the tensions and indignation aroused by Nicaragua’s suit suggests that those who question and reject this legal recourse are equally rejecting international law and the road toward a peaceful solution.
Nicaragua's international dynamic of legalitySince the time when the World Court ruled and the US ignored that ruling, thus setting itself above international law, Nicaragua has insisted domestic and international legality to strengthen the victimized revolution.
On the international level, Nicaragua has looked for maneuvering room not only in the World Court, but also in the UN and OAS forums, just as Contadora has done. Nicaragua scored various diplomatic victories for international legality in the 41st UN General Assembly.
On November 3 the General Assembly approved a resolution "urging" the US to accept the World Court finding. (The vote was 94 countries in favor; 47 abstaining—among them Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica; and 3 against—the US, Israel and El Salvador.)
On November 5 it approved a resolution condemning the recruitment, financing, training, transit and use of mercenaries to destabilize the countries of Central America and Southern Africa. Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras tried to introduce amendments favored by the US, but failed. The vote: 106 countries in favor, 6 abstentions and 10 against.
On November 18, after a long and polemical debate on Central America, an agenda item in the 41st General Assembly, a resolution was approved by consensus supporting the efforts of Contadora and the Contadora Support Group.
On November 21, a resolution was approved deploring the US trade embargo against Nicaragua and calling on the United States to lift it "immediately," as 2 of the 15 rulings of the World Court had decreed. This resolution, quite similar to one already approved in 1985, includes in its preamble a reaffirmation of the Central American nations’ sovereignty and their right to choose their own political, economic and social systems without foreign interference. The vote: 86 in favor, 46 abstentions, and one (Israel) against. The US abruptly left the hall and did not vote.
The month also produced a novel conjunction of efforts between the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS) in support of the Contadora effort.
The OAS General Assembly met in Guatemala City from November 10 to 16. The three agenda topics were the situation created by Great Britain with its unilateral decision to extend the fishing ban around the Falkland/Malvinas Islands; the Contadora peace efforts and the problem of drug trafficking. Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras tried without success to introduce a proposed resolution calling on Nicaragua to withdraw its case at The Hague. Instead, a resolution was approved supporting the Contadora effort and calling on the eight countries involved to continue their work.
The illegal behavior of the United States—an OAS member—was made clear in several statements. Luis Gonzalez Posada, Peru’s ambassador to the OAS, said it unambiguously: "How is it that an OAS member state can 'legally' approve the financing, training and arming of an irregular army to attack another member state of the same organization?"
At the end of its Assembly, the OAS, jointly with the United Nations, suggested new possibilities in the Contadora effort, with a joint initiative that the secretariats of the two organizations called a "menu" from which the countries involved in Contadora could choose. Among the "dishes" on the menu were the following:
* observers to monitor border areas;
* relocation of the irregular forces;
* dismantling of military bases and installations;
* protection for refugees and aid in their eventual repatriation;
* machinery for observation and verification of agreements on arms, military maneuvers and advisers;
* investigation of reports regarding human rights violations and other matters; and
* coordinating mechanisms for economic assistance to Central American countries to restructure regional integration.
And its internal dynamic of legality and dialogueThree events in Nicaragua this month show that, internally as well, the dynamic of the revolution is orienting more and more toward legality and dialogue, toward a lessening of tensions and consensus. The Eucharistic Congress was celebrated, the new Constitution was approved and a major military parade was held in Managua.
The National Eucharistic Congress, called by the Nicaraguan Catholic Bishops' Conference last April, was held from November 16 to 23. The hierarchy invited bishops from all over the world to this religious celebration, which had as its theme "Unity and Reconciliation." Pope John Paul II sent Cardinal Opilio Rossi as a delegate, and he presided over several massive gatherings: Granada (12,000 in attendance), Matagalpa (7,000), and the Mass that closed the Congress on Sunday, November 23 in Managua (35,000).
Some 160 priests from across the country representing all religious tendencies plus the bishops of the Nicaraguan Bishops' Conference and 13 other bishops from Latin America and the United States took part in that Mass, celebrated at the Don Bosco high school in Managua. Among the latter the most important were Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, Archbishop Marcos McGrath of Panama and the Latin American Bishops’ Conference president and secretary, Antonio Quarracino and Darío Castrillón, respectively. The most popular of all the invited participants was the Nobel Prize-winning Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Monsignor James Hickey, Archbishop of Washington, DC, also visited Nicaragua during the week of the Congress.
Considering that it was an act of such importance in a Central American country, it is notable that there was a poor turnout from the region's bishops, with the exception of Monsignor McGrath. No one came from Costa Rica and the representatives from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala were second level. This tendency of Central American bishops to distance themselves has been manifested at other religious events organized by the Managua archdiocese.
The Nicaraguan government offered the bishops support for the Congress: facilities for mass mobilization in the provinces and the capital, plus housing, transport and protocol for foreign guests. The Congress’ Organizing Committee—the Managua hierarchy and some lay members linked to the private business sector—publicly declared that they had turned down these offers, except for the protocol privileges, although they recognized the lessening of tensions in Church-State relations by the manner in which the Congress was held.
The country's press, radio and television provided daily coverage of the Congress activities and President Ortega held meetings with most of the foreign bishops and with Mother Teresa, who at the end of her talk with him joyously communicated, first to the press and then to a large gathering of Managua religious workers, that the President had authorized members of her Sisters of Charity to come to work in Nicaragua. "And that not four can come, but four hundred, to work with the poor, the President told me," she said.
The Congress had been awaited as a test of the new climate produced by the dialogue between the government and the hierarchy as well as the efforts of the new papal nuncio. The outcome showed that the new climate of openness is both viable and reality, and that there are important moves toward a lessening of tensions to the benefit of the Nicaraguan people. The pope's message spoke of "reconciliation," a term usually viewed as a code word for dialogue with the counterrevolution ever since the Nicaraguan bishops proposed that "solution" in April 1984. Now, however, the pope's message spoke of reconciliation in its theological aspects and of the need for reconciliation inside the Church. There was no explicit or implicit critical reference to the "Popular Church"—as there has been on other occasions. Nor did the message make any allusion to "persecution of the Church," as previous messages have.
Moves by both sides to lessen the tensions showed the people of Nicaragua that revolutionary legality is not in contradiction with the religious dynamic and that the institutional Church has its space guaranteed in the new Nicaragua. There were also signs in the Congress of a slackening of tensions within the Church, such as participation in the final Mass by over 40 priests who support the revolution and the degree to which the Christian Base Communities followed the Eucharist theme, the center of their celebrations. Judging by its actions during the various events, a large majority of the general public that participated in the Congress appeared to ratify the view of the ceremonies as religious acts and devotion to the Eucharist rather than go along with the political connotation that some had hoped to give it.
After this celebration, it will be harder to return to the old line of a "persecuted Church" or a "lack of religious freedom" to justify the war against Nicaragua. Both the Catholic Church and the Protestant one (15% of the country's Christians) enjoy religious freedom. Between November 28 and 30 the Assemblies of God celebrated 50 years of work in Nicaragua with a series of events culminating in a national meeting that brought together 7,000 representatives from around the country. Commander Luis Carrion, one of the FSLN’s nine National Directorate members, spoke at the meeting, reiterating that the struggle for peace should unite believers and non-believers. The Assemblies of God is one of the largest Protestant denominations in the country, with 60,000 members and 400 churches,
Approval of the Political Constitution. The National Assembly completed its debate on the text of the country’s new Constitution on November 20. The Constitution is to become law on January 10, 1987, two years to the day after the newly elected National Assembly opened its first session.
Despite difficulties expected at the start of the debates in reaching consensus on many points, the consensus grew day by day during the 49 days of debate. On average, the Constitution’s 202 articles won a consensus of 78% of the legislators.
Opposition parties did not abdicate their positions, nor did the FSLN force them with political pressure. The debates ultimately became a sort of great forum, where the seven political parties in the Assembly frankly argued over their ideological differences with all the heat that a Constitution suggests. Beyond the legal debate, however, there appeared to be a desire to have a dialogue over national affairs in general as they related to the Constitution.
"It was tempting for everybody to speak of their own utopias," said Roberto Everstz, legal adviser to the National Assembly, trying to explain the debate that took place. Like him, the leaders of all the parties recognized the climate of frank dialogue, lack of tension, and healthy confrontation that ultimately produced a text some might call eclectic, but which Nicaraguans see as realistic. The Independent Liberal Party praised the final text as the most Liberal Constitution in Nicaraguan history. Socialists, Social Christians and Conservatives all recognize many of their own ideas in it. The only belligerent opposition to the text as a whole and to the majority of its articles came from the Marxist-Leninist Party (formerly the Marxist-Leninist Popular Action Movement, or MAP), which has two members in the parliament.
The moment of greatest crisis in the search for consensus came with the discussion of the name for the armed forces. Ultimately, however, the name "Sandinista Popular Army" was kept, with the additional provision that the armed forces are "of a national character, loyal to this Constitution," a solution that satisfied most of the opposition. In the organic part, the most critical moment came with the debate on the question of whether or not a President can stand for reelection. The opposition walked out of the debates for two days to express the importance they assigned to non-reelection as a guarantee of democracy. This position has its roots in the historic experience of Somoza’s continual reelections and the interpretation of those reelections as the basic cause of the dictatorial system. The Constitution ended without a ban on reelection, but the opposition returned to the debates. The spirit of compromise triumphed when it was found to be impossible to make it an indispensable requirement of democracy given the varied responses to this issue in Constitutions of other countries.
Daily observance of the debates revealed that the six opposition parties never produced common proposals; nor did the members of any particular party in the Assembly do so with any frequency. This same phenomenon was observed on the Sandinista side of the hall. But this, more than showing division, expressed the total spontaneity and lack of prior deals on wording. The legislator who played the greatest role as the "voice of the opposition" in the debate was Democratic Conservative Rafael Córdova Rivas, a very able orator. Those who had hoped for Independent Liberal Virgilio Godoy to play this role watched him sit through most of the debates without uttering a word.
The daily debates were extremely long—12 or 14 hours a day—and on average 80 to 82 of the 96 members of the parliament were present. "The passionate, witty and friendly debate captivated the opposition and kept them through to the end, and the FSLN made its own positions much more flexible," said Everstz. "The debate made it so that all considered the Constitution as their own. That explains the development of the political adventure that we’re living in these days."
After writing, discussing and approving the Constitution, an enormous step in the institutionalization of the revolution, the Assembly must now proceed to rewriting 21 different codes and laws made obsolete by the Constitution, among them the Civil Code, the Judicial Procedures Code and the Labor Code. Upcoming municipal elections were also announced, for which opposition parties have great hopes. They will undoubtedly serve even more to legalize the reality of the new Nicaragua.
The “Military Parade.” Legality and reduction of tensions, roads the Sandinista revolution has sought to travel both on internationally and domestically, involves an armed legality. The United States has left no alternative, imposing a war so cruel, so prolonged and so illegal on such a small country, attacking the right of self-determination, which is the patrimony of any country, great or small.
On November 8 Nicaragua formally commemorated the 25th anniversary of the founding of the FSLN and the 10th anniversary of the death in combat of FSLN founder Carlos Fonseca. The celebration, which brought representatives of 130 parties from five continents to Managua, had two moments. One, which took place throughout the country, was the "balance sheet," in which FSLN members in factories, offices, ministries, cooperatives and other work centers held public assemblies for several weeks to evaluate the degree to which they had fulfilled the 13 key points of the FSLN's historic program, written by Carlos Fonseca in clandestinity in 1969. They also critiqued their own fulfillment of the productive tasks, their revolutionary attitudes, their work methods, etc. This very self-critical aspect of the celebration constituted the national reality, the most important dimension of the celebration for many observers.
The other moment, briefer and more massive, was the November 8 rally in Managua in which Daniel Ortega, speaking for the FSLN National Directorate, gave the leadership’s own accounting to the people of the degree to which it had fulfilled its Historic Program. A statement by Brian Wilson, speaking for himself and the three other US war veterans who fasted on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, received particularly moving applause by the 250,000 Managuans in the plaza. Thomas Sankara, head of state of Burkina Fasso (formerly Upper Volta), spoke rousingly on behalf of all the foreign guests.
But the key event of the entire rally was the huge military parade. For more than 90 minutes some 8,000 soldiers filed past. They included representatives of reserve units from the capital, urban and rural militias, members of the famous Irregular Combat Battalions (BLI) and Light Hunter Battalions (BLC), units which carry the brunt of the war, and Army infantry units. In the procession were dozens of smoke-belching T-55 tanks of Soviet manufacture, BM-21 "katiuska" rockets, anti-aircraft rockets and modern radar. MI-8 and MI-24 helicopters, which have played a decisive role in the war, flew overhead. It was a demonstration of the defensive arms on which Nicaragua is counting.
Friends and enemies of the revolution agreed that the parade was "impressive" for the degree of development, equipping, discipline and organization demonstrated by an army that had come from nothing in only a few years. It was also impressive for the people who followed it on television. "We’ve heard the message," said a US State Department spokesperson a few hours later. The origins of this new and powerful army were to be found in those who headed up the parade, some 50 old men, veterans of General Sandino’s army, who paraded through the plaza to the strains of the song "La Adelita," and the veterans of the 1978-79 insurrection who paraded through carrying the ancient rifles and contact bombs with which the people overthrew the Somoza dictatorship.
On November 7, the evening before the event, thousands of Managuans gathered to hold vigils to remember the "heroes and martyrs" who fell in the liberation of Nicaragua. Masses, songs, meetings, visits to the homes of the families of the fallen, and photo and art exhibitions were also part of the celebration, in which the FSLN wanted to prove in different ways the legality with which the people extended the power won in 1979.
In the long message read by Daniel Ortega in front of the quarter of a million Managuans who stood for five hours under a broiling sun, the FSLN National Directorate was self-critical and stressed its commitments for the future: less use of "artisan methods" in its organizational approach, less bureaucratism, more humility, better governmental management, more austerity, more decisive struggle against the vices of the past.
The speech took on a marked international tone, appearing mainly a declaration of foreign policy principles. Among other things, it expressed Nicaragua’s support for the Soviet Union’s nuclear disarmament proposals and for the end of apartheid, asked punishment for those responsible for the death of Samora Machel, expressed strong solidarity with Argentina in its demand for sovereignty over the Falkland/ Malvinas Islands, stressed the need for dialogue in El Salvador, the end of the Iran-Iraq war and the reunification of Korea.
With this massive event, especially the military parade, the Nicaraguan government reaffirmed to the world and to the Central American governments its disposition to defend a revolutionary process that must be considered irreversible in the region, because of the domestic and international political consensus it has won and because of the powerful army that protects the new government and society.
The trail of US illegality ends at ContragateThe events of this month put the Reagan Administration’s dynamic of illegality—confronting the World Court in The Hague, the OAS, Contadora, the UN, all of Latin America and virtually the entire international community—against Nicaragua’s dynamic of legality—turning to all international forums and legalizing its government structure to confront the irrationality of force with the force of law.
In this high tension, suddenly Contragate exploded. The discovery in early November that high White House officials had been selling arms to the Iranian government caused a major scandal. To negotiate with "terrorists"—the Ayatollah Khomeiny’s Iran symbolizes the worst terrorism for both Reagan and the US people—put into question the "morality" and "legality" proclaimed by the ultra-rightist Reagan team. The scandal reached its height when it was discovered a few days later that part of the money obtained from this sale was diverted to the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries,. International "morality" had been violated and so had US domestic laws that had prohibited official aid to the counterrevolution since 1984.
What will happen now? How will Contragate influence the present confrontation? Although the scandal has barely begun, one conclusion is already clear: Contragate seriously limits Reagan's power to escalate the war according to the plans put forward when he won a precarious bipartisan approval of the $100 million. This consensus is now irreparably cracked.
Reagan's project required that Latin America and the world resign themselves to the fact that there’s no choice but to accept the war. This war was based on the fact that the contras could count on sustained US political and economic support. This is essentially what has changed. The least that Democrats opposed to the Reagan policy will do, as they have already announced, will be to definitively cut support to the contras when Congress reconvenes in January with a Democratic majority and a different committee makeup in the Senate. The image of the counterrevolution, always weak, with continual new cosmetics from the administration, is now stained in ways difficult to cover over. "Obviously, this matter has upset everything," said an FDN representative. To say "everything" is not mere rhetoric. The Reagan project, as it was designed and was to be implemented, has been seriously damaged.
What to do now? There’s a very serious message in this eruption of illegality for the pragmatic sectors in the United States who are seeking a formula for coexistence with Sandinista Nicaragua. Contragate lays bare for all to see the political erosion that maintaining its military project against Nicaragua implies for the Reagan administration. In this regard, it could be heralding the hour of a return to legality, of negotiation with a revolution that in its seven years of life has put down roots of irreversibility and only asks to be left in peace. This is one alternative. Given the magnitude of the scandal, however, the possibility cannot be discarded that the administration, caught red-handed in its own errors, hounded by this setback in its plans, will try to recoup this disaster with another: an irrational attack on Nicaragua. The President could try to justify the illegal use of funds as a lesser evil, necessary to stop a greater one—Sandinista "aggressiveness." He would have to justify this aggressiveness by fabricating it—a border incident, a pretext, a random shot to unleash the final attack, the yearned-for checkmate. The next two months, with Congress on recess, lend themselves to this second alternative.
Finally, the third alternative: with sustained counterrevolutionary military pressure abandoned and a negotiated solution never taken up, Democrats could lend themselves to a fallback "hostile peace," with political, diplomatic and economic pressures limiting the possibilities of economic and social development in Nicaragua for a long time to come.
Whichever of the three alternatives emerges, Contragate isn’ just one more episode. It came at a decisive moment to change the positions of the pieces on the board. And it will decisively influence the course of events in coming months.
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