U.S. Foreign Polciy Toward the Sandinistas

Undying aims are engraved on the soldier’s heart as he marches into combat. Untouchable points emblazon the politicians’ memoranda as they converge on the baize table. The people’s hope turns always toward peace. But men pass and die, and so do ideas. New ones replace the old, driving the wheel. War has no place for anything static.
R. Pardo Maurer
U.S. Foreign Policy Toward the Sandinistas
Nicaragua, a small country located in Central American has approximately 6 million people. Since the country’s independence was achieved in 1821 its story has been of one of incessant strife between the ruling parties. During the beginning of the 1980s Nicaragua became a major concern for policy makers in the United States.
Even though most people during this time started to hear about the Sandinistas, this does not mean that it was the beginning of Nicaraguans revolt against U.S. foreign policy, rather, the struggle of some Nicaraguans against the United States began during the 1920 with the General Cesar Augusto Sandino.
The leadership of Sandino begins around 1912. During this time there was considerable discontent about the U.S. imposed government of Diaz. Eventually liberal generals Luis Mena and Benjamin Seledon led a rebellion against Diaz who did not hesitate in requesting aid from the U.S.
Seledon was captured and the young Cesar Augusto Sandino witnessed the general being dragged by U.S. Marines trough the streets of Masaya in Nicaragua.[1] As a result of this struggle between the people and government a civil war erupted in the 1920s. In 1927 colonel Henry L. Stimson representing the U.S. president Calvin Coolidge mediated the conflict; at this time, all the leaders of the parties agreed to an armistice, except Augusto Sandino who by now was a general and who demanded the withdrawal of the U.S. Marines as a condition for laying down the arms. When that condition was not met Sandino declared “Our enemies from this day forward will not be the forces of the tyrant Diaz, but rather the marines of the most powerful empire in history. It is against them that we are going to fight.”[2]
In July of 1927 Sandino with his supporters attempted to take the city of Ocotal, but the U.S. marines responded by bombarding the city. Since then, “the marines stayed on to continue to fight against Sandino and to train the National Guard”[3] In 1933 Sandino achieve his objective of expelling the marines, but in 1934 Sandino and most of his troops were killed in an ambush laid by “Tacho” Samoza Garcia.[4]
The Samoza dynasty lasted for several decades. After twenty years of acquiring power by a coup in1956 Anastacio Samoza Garcia was killed. He was replaced by Luis Samoza Debayle until 1967 when he died from heart attack. As a result of this death Anastacio Samaza Dabayle came to power until 1979 when he was overthrown by the Sandinista Revolution.[5]
When the Sandinistas came to power, according to U.S. policy makers, they represented a serious danger to the democratization of Latin America, “our policy for Nicaragua is to support the democratic center against the extreme of both the right and left, and to secure democracy and lasting peace”[6] said Olive North. (North was a key Reagan administration official involved in the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran. The money of these sales served both to both to encourage the release of U.S. hostages and to support the contras.) Obviously, the U.S. was concern that Nicaragua would fall under the influence of the Soviet system, and that this will create a domino effect. However, the U.S. assumption was not based on facts but rather just like the arguments made before the war on Iraq it was an excuse to justify an intervention in Nicaragua. Robert J. Lagomarsino from California, a member of the House of Representatives tried to justify the U.S. intervention by saying, “Our security is more directly threatened in Central America than in Central Asia.”[7]
Not doubt that this Central American country through the years has been of great value for the U.S. For example, the brutal and corrupt Samoza’s government was an allied of Washington. Therefore, Nicaragua was converted in a base from which the U.S. was able to advance its military power, to end the democracy in Guatemala in 1954, to attack Cuba in 1961, to threaten democracy in Dominican Republic in 1965, and to intervene in El Salvador in 1972.[8]
Just like in so many other examples, in Nicaragua the U.S. foreign policy created the opposite of what it was supposed to achieve. The Sandinistas leaders aware of the history of the U.S. intervention in Latin America, and also aware that another U.S. intervention was inevitable “decided to respond by building up a large military establishment with aid from the socialist bloc countries, and from several other countries including France”[9]
The U.S. trade embargo, just like in Cuba was not effective in Nicaragua and it had a damaging effect in the economy of this small country. The former minister of Foreign Trade Alejandro Maritinez Cuenca says:
The U.S. embargo effectively forced a more acute dependence on the countries of the East….the crisis of the 1980’s made impossible for even the richest countries of Latin America to be able to commit resources to Nicaragua in the amounts and in the time they were required, therefore we had to increase our economic dependence on the Soviet Union especially, and on the countries of Eastern Europe, such as the German Democratic Republic and Bulgaria, and also on Cuba. Great inconveniences were created with the extension of the trade toward the east, but without a doubt, it was better than remaining completely isolated.[10]
Obviously not all people in Congress were confident that the U.S. policy will work in Nicaragua. Gerry Studds a representative from Massachusetts said, “U.S. intervention in Latin America has produced Samoza, Pinochet, and a string of ruthless generals in Guatemala; the Bay of Pigs, the attempts to kill Castro, an economic embargo and a freeze on diplomatic relations. It has not produced freedom for Cuba.”[11] But despite some opposition in Congress, the U.S. approach to Nicaragua did not change, however, President Reagan stated that the United States, “does not seek the military overthrow of the Sandinista government, or to put in its place a government based on supporters of the old Samoza regime, executive authority in Nicaragua should be changed only through elections.”[12]
But if elections was good for democracy, then why the United States did not promote the same policy during the 43 years of the Samoza dynasty? Furthermore, why did the United States supported this illegitimate and corrupt regime? Perhaps it is good at this time to remain ourselves who Anastacio Samoza Debayle was. Samoza or “Tacho” as he was known by his friends, was never a popular ruler, but “the Managua earthquake of December 1972 and its aftermath brought to a heal the problems that have been developing between the Samoza family and sectors of the Bourgeoisie, Samoza stole a substantial portion of the earthquake assistance from the U.S. and other countries and made lucrative deals for his family on state rebuilding projects.”[13]
Samoza by “taking large portions of the internal emergency relief funds, which were desperately needed to rebuild the country and the lives of the people, turned the vast majority of Nicaraguans ever more vigorously against him, and as the people protested, Samoza became increasingly repressive which in turn created animosity toward the regime….Samoza was thrown out in July 1979 because first, he drove a wedge between himself and his clique, on the one hand, and virtually every other Nicaraguan; second, his domestic policies, particularly after the earthquake, including human right abuses.”[14]
The Samoza dynasty the critics said had become a client of the United States.This dynasty probably would not have retain power for so long without American political support, little question exists that part of this support, - the probation of arms- was of major value for the Samozas.[15]
When in 1979 Samoza fled to Miami he;
“left a death toll of 50,000, 80 percent of them civilian killed by Samoza’s indiscriminate air bombardment of six major cities in a vain attempt to keep the Sandinista guerrilla from consolidating power, it also left on it wake 100,000 wounded, an estimated of 40,000 orphans and 150,000 Nicaraguans refugees in the neighboring counties of Honduras and Costa Rica…Samoza and his closest associates systematically siphoned off all the loose cash in the country, leaving the Central Bank with reserves of only 3 million dollars he was unable to lay his hands on…in [his] systematic strip-mining of Nicaragua, not only had Samoza and his cronies mortgaged their extensive agriculture and commercial industrial holding to the hilt, but also Samoza run up foreign debt of 1.6 million dollars which [according to experts] ‘was not destined to foment the economic and social development of Nicaragua, bur rather to free internal resources so they could be taken out of the country’”[16]
But if everyone was starving and dying in Nicaragua this is some of the things that the Samoza regime acquired for himself with the help of the United States;
The private sale of cattle to Panama, the clandestine sale of cattle to Costa Rica, a monopoly in the distribution of tallow, the pasteurizing plant, ‘la salud’ in Managua, ownership of the gold mine ‘San Albino,’ an extra income of 175,000 dollars a year from an ‘additional contribution’ of 2.25 percent of the production of North America Mining companies, ownership of 51 cattle ranches, ownership of 46 coffee plantations, ownership of a huge Montelimar ranch, ownership of 50 percent of the shares of the Nicaraguan cement factory, ownership of 41 percent of the shares of cotton mill…ownership of 50 percent of the shares of the Momotombo National Match Company, whose sales where assured by prohibiting the importation of cigarette lighters; ownership of the newspapers Novedades, ownership of most of the sawmill in the country; ownership of the building that housed the Nicaraguan legislation in Mexico and Costa Rica; ownership of various apartment houses in Miami, ownership of the electrical plant in Chinandega, Tipitapa, Jinotega, Estali and la Libertad; ownership of the las Mercedes property adjoining the Managua airport[17]
By judging the policies of Samoza and the support that he received from the United States one is tempted to affirm that more than spreading democracy the U.S. was and still is concerned in keeping in power some one who is not in opposition to U.S. interests. To what other conclusion can one come? When the people express themselves, when they support a government that is against the U.S. policy, when people want their resources to remain in the hands of their government and not of international corporations, then the United States turns against that government, calling it corrupt, communist, terrorist, violator of human rights, centralize etc. isn’t it so with Chavez in Venezuela?
It does not seem to matter for the United States how repressive or corrupt a regime is, as long as it serves its economic, military, and political interest. Human rights, freedom of expression, elections, better economic policies, support for a popular democratic elected government, none of this is in the interest of the United States if this means that its economic interest and all other interests are being questioned by other sovereign nations.
The Sandinista revolution was a great opportunity for the United States to work with the new leaders. Congressman Gus Yatron from Pennsylvania understood this. “Isolating ourselves from the provisional government, or seeking to somehow exclude the Sandinistas from any role in Nicaragua’s future, can only serve to further reduce our influence in Nicaragua and to strengthen the most radical element within the opposition, and finally to further damage what remains of the credibility of our commitment to human rights and self-determination within this hemisphere.” [18]
Instead of helping the new leaders who had overwhelming public support, or in the words of Adolfo Calero, an opponent of the Samoza dynasty, Nicaraguans wealthy are not the only one who supported the Sandinista revolution, or weren’t the only ones who turned against Samoza…practically everybody; the rich, the poor, the middle class, the students, the professionals everybody”[19] supported this new regime, but the United States first ignored them, then once it realized the its economic interests may not be guaranteed it turned against them alleging that they are being influenced by the Soviet system when in reality the United States “forced” the Sandinista leaders to seek help overseas, first to keep the country running, and then to defend themselves against the Contras; an armed group financed first, by the United States Congress, then with the Secret economic aid from Ronald Reagan.
Therefore, the Nicaragua “alliance with the Soviet bloc was strategic in nature, involving the kind of military and economic cooperation and aid the Sandinistas needed to survive over the long term.”[20]
As always, when the United States seeks to legitimize the intervention it alleges that the national security is being jeopardize, and seeks to legitimize this adventure in international organizations, being this the United Nations, NATO, etc. Just like the Bush administration did before the invasion to Iraq, the Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirpatric claimed that “Central America in the most important place in the world for the United States.” As a result of this approach the Reagan administration ran “a republican platform that deplored ‘the Marxists Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua and the Marxist attempt to destabilize el Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras…[while in the mean time assuring that] we republicans will support the efforts of the Nicaraguan people to establish a free and independent government.”[21]
The promise to support the efforts of Nicaraguan people was never fulfill. “On November 4, 1984, a presidential election was held, which was won by the leading Junta member and revolutionary Daniel Ortega…however, some opposition parties boycotted it, claiming unfair conditions. While the Reagan administration and many United States media outlets claimed the election was not free or fair, numerous electoral watchers affiliated with Western European governments, as well as United States non-governmental organizations, declared the results legitimate.”[22]
A few days later thinking that the Nicaraguan government may become “a model for third world development, the Reagan administration geared up to overthrow it, Secretary of State Shultz called it a ‘cancer, right here in our land-mass’ and President Reagan declared that his objective was to remove it.”[23]
But Regan was not the first administration to turn its back to the Sandinistas. During the first 18 months of the FSLN (Sandinista Front of National Liberation) in power the Carter administration provided 118 million in direct aid, but then, the U.S. intelligence claimed that the Sandinistas were helping the Salvadoran guerrillas and President Carter said, “I have not alternative but to cut aid to the Sandinistas before I left office, because there was evidence that was clear to me that the Sandinistas were giving assistance to the revolutionaries in El Salvador, and the law requires me to stop the aid. I was very eager to give the people of Nicaragua economic aid, but it was not possible under those circumstances.”[24] The Sandinistas were giving assistance to the revolutionaries in El Salvador? Doesn’t is sound like, the same argument that we heard in 2003? –Saddam Houseing is giving assistance to the Terrorist in the Middle East – and by the way, didn’t someone say in the Bush administration that the Middle East is the most important region for the United States?
Certainly, Pedro Maurer, the author of The Contras, 1980-1989 had it right, “The United States approached Latin America in general, and Nicaragua in particular, with a lack of gravity that was guaranteed to breed mischief and ill will…the policy of the United States was not straightforward. Under President Jimmy Carter it supported the Sandinistas. Then it dropped them. Under President Ronald Reagan, it ignored them, and then it supported the contras, secretly. Then it said it did not. Then it supported them openly, but said it was to stop the flow of arms to communist guerrillas in El Salvador. This came as news to the contras, who could care less about El Salvador. Then the United States dropped the Contras.”[25] Is it surprising? Not really, even if we never read a book of history most of us recall that this is exactly what happened to the ruthless Saddam in Iraq, who first enjoy U.S. support and then as he turned his back he got the U.S. army in his yard.
Before we can analyze why the U.S. decided to help the contras it is better if we start by discussing who the revolutionaries Sandinistas that came to power in 1979 were.
Henry Emerson says, “the rise of the Sandinistas and their staunch alignment with Cuba and the Soviet bloc was actually a product of U.S. foreign policy blunders in their dealings with Nicaragua from the late 1920s until the early 1930s and, in particular their repeated underestimation of rebel General Augusto Sandino and his potential impact. Sandino was not always so staunchly anti American, [his] first concern was to fight against Nicaraguan conservatives and even some liberals, who abandoned the fight against the conservatives in the wake of foreign intervention from the U.S.”[26]
But moving from Sandino to the Sandinistas of 1979 there is evidence that, “Though there is much to criticize in Sandinista policies, their reforms earned the approval of the international community. The World Back acknowledged that its projects were ‘extraordinary successful in Nicaragua in some sectors, better than anywhere in the world.’ The Inter-American Development Bank, in 1983, wrote approvingly that ‘Nicaragua has made noteworthy progress in the social sector and is laying the basis for long-term-economic development.’ [and] Jose Figures, considered the father of democracy in Central America, said that ‘for the first time, Nicaragua has a government that cares for his people.”[27] A government that cares for its people? That is a no, no before the eyes of the U.S.
But not only international institution recognized the things that the Sandinistas were doing, “We had the Sandinistas in the 1980s, but then they disappeared. I was an adolescent. I have good memories of that time, we did not have thieves, we did not have drugs,”[28] said Ronal Rodriguez, a local lawyer who is wheelchair-bounded.
Samoza came to realized that he was loosing power when he found out about the creation of The National Directorate that consisted of nine Commandants of the Revolution who was created to hold almost absolute control.[29] The National Directorate came from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). When Samoza fell, the FSLN proclaim itself the vanguard of the people, and it had three fundamental components;
First, the FSLN was the vanguard of the Nicaraguan people. Second, the war with the United States was inevitable. Their interpretation of U.S. Nicaraguan relations during the last century made them militantly anti-American and convinced them that the United States would demand Samoza-like subservience from any successor government. And third, Statist economies produce best for the people and nation, this idea was firmly rooted in the mind of FSLN founder Carlos Fonseca Amador.[30]
It is also important to recognize that within the National Directorate there was The Junta of National Reconstruction. This Junta was appointed by the Sandinistas as a provisional government in anticipation of Samoza’s fall. “When the Sandinistas toppled Anastacio Samoza, [Daniel] Ortega became a member of The National Directorate.[31] The Junta members were inaugurated at the National Palace on the Plaza of the Republic, and Daniel Ortega was the only member of the National Directorate and The la Junta, then in 1984 he was elected president.
In order to win broad domestic support and critical international support in the war against Samoza, the Sandinistas adopted a broad front strategy devised by Daniel’s brother, Umberto Ortega. This strategy proclaimed support for largely centrist objectives – a mixed economy, political pluralism and international nonalignment – as well as the open incorporation of a wide cross section of the country’s people in the government. But within the new government, the hegemony of the Ortega’s, which had emerged within the FSLN after August 1978, was consolidated and assumed extraordinary importance, for it was during this early period that the nine commandants set the direction of the revolution.
This direction was proclaimed in the “72 hours” meetings, this document first, redefined Sandinista strategy in general now that Samoza had been overthrown, second, overcome the internal division among leaders and followers, third, identify priorities for the years ahead based on, (a) national defense, specifically the development of the military and internal security forces to defend the revolution against domestic and international enemies, (b) consolidation of the government and development of a national economy; and (c) make the Sandinista Front a party.[32]
As the time passed on and the euphoria of a revolutionary victory calmed down Daniel Ortega started to gain power. “On 24 September 1979 Daniel Ortega made his first personal contact with President Carter in the White House. Carter emphasized his desire for friendly relations with Nicaragua and his intention to give aid and support to the new government [which he did during the first 18 months of the new government in Nicaragua] but he also noted three U.S. concerns; that the Sandinistas not intervene in the affairs of neighboring countries, that they maintain true international nonaliengmen, and that they respect human rights in a democratic atmosphere.”[33] What an irony, here the U.S. is asking Nicaragua to do, what itself has seldom if ever done.
Stephen J. Solarz a House Representative from New York seemed to understand what Carter was asking to Ortega, “this says to the government of Nicaragua, unless you adopt the kind of political arrangement in…which we believe you should adopt, we are going to conduct a paramilitary assistance operation against your government.”[34] But despite this broad petition, before Ortega left the White House he mentioned that the FSLN is interested in the U.S. support and said, “Nicaragua is not a factor in the radicalization of El Salvador- now, in the past, and it will not be in the future…we will not link you [Mr. President] with the past.”[35] But as we will see ahead this mutual interest in helping each other was brusquely set back when the Reagan administration came to office in 1981.
There is not question that the Sandinista government had numerous restrictions and has bended the rules; however, the media, and in particular the U.S. media has not been transparent in portraying both sides of the story. The U.S. media has only showed the side that denigrated the leaders of the Sandinista party, but in reality,
“in Nicaragua, there was real pluralism of the press, parties, and trade unions. There have been real strikes, street demonstrations, and national rallies of opposition parties…Nicaragua had three major newspapers, widely divergent in political orientation; La Prensa, still with some credit [after] the struggle against the dictatorship, is the tribune of the bourgeoisie-liberal opposition; Nuevo Diario, born as a left wing scission from La Prensa, has taken a line of critical support for the FSLN; Barricada, is the central organ of the Sandinista Liberation Front, but La Prensa is the most influential of the three.[36]
La Prensa kept up its attack on the ‘murderous irresponsibility’ of the Sandinista police, to the point that “on October 29, 1980 the paper reach the bottom of the barrel with an obituary of Pepa the Mule. The animal in fact, had been killed by a burst of machine-gun fire when it went to graze on a dark night in the vicinity of a Sandinista encampment, and fail to answer the sentry’s cry.”[37]
Political Pluralism also existed during the Sandinista regime, and it was seldom if ever mentioned in the U.S. media. In Nicaragua there was, “eight political parties, five labour federations, and six employers’ organizations [were] represented on the Council of the State, and unlike their hapless counterpart in Easter Europe, they [did] not confine themselves to the role of mere extras. Each one had headquarters of its own, [held] cadre schools, printed its own propaganda material, put forward draft legislation, and organized mass demonstrations or even national rallies.”[38]
Perhaps the most important thing and something that most of the Western media fell to recognize is that “despite the FSLN’s... fierce opposition to any stoppage of work, the wage earners have never renounced the ultimate weapon of strike action. During winter 1979 and summer 1980, in fact, there were quite a few strikes against both private employers and state management, in the construction and textile industries, the health service, the furniture sector, and the sugar refineries.”[39]
It seems evident that at least in some occasions the U.S. government and the media have united themselves to portray a distorted image of the truth. For example in Nicaragua, a deeply catholic country, according to Tomas Borge in an article that was published in La Prensa in August 2, 1980, there was complete freedom or religious worship. A number of ‘red’ priests sit on the government [and occupied charges such as] Minister of foreign affairs, Minister of Culture, Minister of Social Welfare, etc.
On August 21, 1979 the Junta of National Reconstruction adapted the Statute of Rights and Safeguards, in this statute according to article eight, literals one, two, eleven, and fifteen, the death penalty is abolished. The 7,500 captured Samozist Guardsmen, including the words tortures, have the right to proper trial and risked a maximum sentence of thirty years imprisonment. The International Commission on human rights [should] regularly visit the places of detention. The liberty and safety of citizens is guaranteed by law. Arrest warrants are issued by judges. In the case of minor offences not one must be held without charges for more than twenty four hours. Every person in custody is presumed to be innocent until duly found guilty. Nicaraguan citizens have the right to freely enter and leave the country.
Obviously, the Sandinista regime was not perfect and it is fair to say that it had many flaws, but perhaps as it happens now in Colombia, (where the U.S. is helping to wage a war “against terrorism” and had created a four million internal refuges, and converted Colombia in the first country in the Western hemisphere and the second in the world with such high numbers of refugees,) the U.S. support and financial aid given to the Contras created an environment where the Sandinistas were forced to respond and in that process they also violated human rights and created economic chaos, and eventually converted Nicaragua in the Second poorest country after Haiti in the American continent.

The Contras

Armed resistance to the FSLN begun within a year of the Sandinista triumph, “the rebellion was touched off by “Dimas” a veteran Sandinista hero, in early 1980, at the time when the Carter administration was still providing aid to the Sandinista regime…the most skillful of this [contra group] raised money from Cuban and Nicaraguan exiles and in 1981 received training under the auspices of the Argentine military junta.
However, the revel with the highest reputation as nationalistic leader, Eden Pastora Gomez, was [being] subsidized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIA. Pastora joined the revolt in early 1982, just as the United States was taking a direct interest in the struggle.
By 1983 many contras and supporters affirmed that ‘the end of war was in sight’ but the frailty of the Reagan’s administration’s approach was exposed in 1984, when news about the mining of Nicaraguan harbors by the CIA touched off an international scandal and led Congress to reject [aid to the contras]”[40]
But the CIA was not only involved in mining the Nicaraguan harbors and the explosion of the petroleum storage tanks in the port of Corinto in October of 1983, which occasioned enormous economic loses, it also trained contra troops who “concentrated their attacks on cooperatives, state farms, grain silos, trucks, road repair equipment, saw mills and other economically significant targets.”[41]
The mining of the Nicaraguan harbors trigger a legislative response in the U.S. Congress. The Boland amendment , section 793 of the department of defense appropriations act, 1983, provided, “None of the founds provided in this act may be used by the Central Intelligence Agency or the department of Defense to furnish military equipment, military training or advice, or other support for military activities, to any group or individual, not part of a country’s armed forces for the purpose of overthrowing a government of Nicaragua or provoking a military exchange between Nicaragua and Honduras.”
The provision of this amendment meant nothing for President Reagan, nor did international law stop him by intruding himself in the politics of a sovereign nation. The fact that the U.S. has the power does not mean that it is above the international law.

Violation of a Congressional Mandate, and International Law

So how Reagan did violate this Congressional mandate, more specifically the Boland amendment? Two secret policies were coordinated by the National Security Council staff in the Reagan administration and it is known as the Iran/contra affair. “The Iran operation involved efforts in 1985 and 1986 to obtain the release of American held hostage in the Middle East through the sales of U.S. weapons to Iran, despite an embargo on such sales. The contra operation from 1984 through most of 1986 involved the secret government support of contra military and paramilitary activities in Nicaragua, despite Congressional prohibition of this support.”[42] The illegal sales of arms to Iran allowed the Reagan administration to help economically the contras. As a result of this U.S. illegal activity 40,000 people were killed and the economy of Nicaragua was devastated.
How this secret aid to the contras began? An article published in the Washington Post on March 10, 1982 gives us a clue of the presidential defiance of the law. “On November 16, 1981, CIA…director William Casey proposed to president Reagan that he approved $19 million for the CIA to organize a counter-revolutionary force to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government…the President accepted Casey proposal and authorized the CIA to finance and train paramilitary commando forces to provoke a counter-revolution in Nicaragua. Throughout 1982 the CIA rallied anti-Sandinista military forces, and created bases of operation in Honduras, on Nicaragua’s border.[43]
But Reagan was not the only one in helping the contras, they got donations from foreign countries, and they also got contributions from wealthy Americans sympathetic to Reagan’s contra support policies.[44]
The argument made by the administration with relation to the violation of the Boland amendment that was passed in 1982 is; “the purpose of what we are doing in Nicaragua is not to overthrown the Nicaraguan government, but to induce them to negotiate, and through negotiations to end their provisions of military assistance to El Salvador and to revel groups and Honduras and Elsewhere”[45] however this claim was just an excuse, because there is evidence that the Sandinistas were always open to negotiations.
Congressman Solarz, from New York was clear when he said, “but when the government of Nicaragua indicates a willingness to sit down at the negotiating table and to enter into agreement which would result in the termination of the military assistance they are providing the revels in El Salvador, if we simultaneously cease providing military assistance to groups trying to overthrow them [the Sandinistas], and we refuse to participate in such negotiations, it seems to me to render hollow and hypocritical the stated purpose of our government in terms of what we are doing in Nicaragua.”[46]
Congressman Leach from Iowa, together with congressman Salarz were able to point out the contradictions of the Regan administration about the supposed purpose of helping the Contras, both congressman took a trip to Central America and met with Daniel Ortega who said to them that the government not only was interested in sitting down with the United States in an effort to reach an agreement, but he also indicated that his government was prepared to enter into arrangements which would provide for the verification of these assurances. More specifically, Ortega indicated his willingness to accept joint land and sea patrols and, in principle air surveillance.[47]
So, does the argument of helping the contras to induce the Sandinista government to negotiations sounds like the argument made during world word II, when the U.S. claimed that it had to use a nuclear weapon to force the Japanese to surrender, when in reality the Japanese have being offering to surrender way before Hiroshima and Nagasaki was destroy? Suddenly enough, it certainly does.
The Reagan administration not only disobeyed the mandate of the Boland amendment, but it also violated the Charter of the Organization of American States. Congressman Hamilton from Indiana made two principal arguments against covert action in Nicaragua, and he help us understand this better; the first arguments “is really a legal argument, and I think the gist of it is that covert action violates the Charter of the Organizations of American States…the article says, that no state or group of states is to intervene directly or indirectly for any reason whatever in the internal or external affairs of any other state…the point is, when the United States is conducting a covert action in Nicaragua we are in clear violation of the organization’s treaty.”[48] But apart from his legal argument, congressman Hamilton also made a pragmatic argument, “for very little gain from the conduct of covert action, the United States is incurring a great many negatives,”[49] for example, the Reagan’s behavior has enabled Sandinistas to rally support within the country, to suppress freedoms at home in Nicaragua. The Reagan’s behavior is also negative because it undercuts the U.S. image in the international community, and we will find hard to make them believe that we act legally, fairly, decently and overtly.[50]
Aware of the illegality of the covert action, Howard Wope, congressman from Michigan came up with a great question that most of us would like to know the answer. “When will we begin to understand that the kind of external intervention by the United States is counterproductive in terms of achieving stability, counterproductive in terms of addressing the conditions that breed revolutions in Central America, and ultimately counterproductive in terms of American national interest within that region?[51] Let’s hope that policy makers come up soon with an answer and we can learn when the Bush administration will begin to understand that war on terror has not eliminated terrorists’ threats but instead it had multiplied them.
By helping the Contras the Reagan administration has also violated article 51 of the United Nations Charter, the article states, “nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent rights of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations…until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter.” The violation occurs because the U.S. refused to take the Nicaragua issue to the U.N. Security Council.
If International law, domestic law, and ethics were not enough for Reagan to stop him from providing aid to the contras, neither was the U.S. Constitution. Article I of the Constitution obliges the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Any one would understand that this would have required Reagan to carefully study what Congress was not allowing, but as George J. Church of Time magazine says, “There is no evidence that such review was ever undertaken.”[52]
If the U.S. president was stubborn about breaking the Congressional mandate, if Reagan did not care about international law, what can we expect from Daniel Ortega who was forced by the U.S. behavior to govern under state of emergency where many political and civil rights are restricted? It is true that the Sandinista regime has violated human rights and has done awful things, but again evidence shows that Ortega was willing to lift the state of emergency, and for this to take effect Ortega asked that, “The aggression against the people of Nicaragua must…stop.”[53] Despite this petition the U.S. continued to aid the contras, and as a result Ortega who was democratically elected and was unwilling to give up power, had to govern in a state of terror, where everyone was a suspect of helping the Americans and conspiring against the revolution.
So, who were the contras, these “brave” men that the Reagan administration spent $250 million in covert operations and was dying to help them, even if that means disobeying the U.S. constitution? A good number of them were a mercenary gang of former Guardia thugs of Nicaragua’s tedious Samoza dictatorship, hired by the Central Intelligence Agency, and another good percentage of them were peasants, former Sandinistas and Black Creoles.

The End of the Conflict

In March, 1988 a truce was signed between the contras and Sandinistas, and if February 1989 the Sandinistas agreed to hold elections by February 1990. The U.S. backed candidate Violeta Chamorro won the elections. And the Reagan view and argument that Ortega was evil, Commie tyrant and dictator who opposed democracy was not longer credible for Americans, because “oddly enough, when a majority of Nicaraguans…voted against the Sandinistas, this evil, anti-democratic Commie tyrant left office.”[54]
In 1986, despite the U.S. humiliation to Nicaragua, this small country did not responded by attacking the U.S., or its army tried to kill U.S. policy makers as the United States has done in numerous occasions in Cuba, Iraq, Chile, etc. instead this brave and sovereign country though a lesson to the U.S. by taking the issue of the Nicaragua’s harbor bombing to the World Court; with it Nicaragua affirmed its compromise and respect to International Law.
When the court ruled in Nicaragua’s favor, and dismissed the U.S. government claims and condemned the U.S. for “unlawful use of force” and ordered Washington to pay indemnities which Nicaragua under international supervision calculated between 17 and 18 billion dollars, the U.S. decided not to pay the money and instead responded by escalating the terrorist war and issuing official orders to its forces to go “after soft targets” and to avoid the Nicaraguan Army.[55] Are you wondering what the U.S. media said about this court ruling? The editors of the New York Times call it a “hostile forum” and therefore just like the UN, irrelevant.[56]
With all the evidence of how detrimental can some of the U.S. foreign policy be, a question comes to mind; does the U.S. government protect those who are willing to accept U.S. foreign policy, even when these rulers violated human rights, and kill U.S. citizens as Samoza did with ABC news correspondent, Bill Stewart? The answer is, yes it does. It has done during the forty years that lasted the Samoza dynasty. BUT, when these hateful rulers not longer protect the economic interest of the United States, then they are seen as evil, here are the words of Samoza in Miami who still had not finished unpacking his luggage after he fled from the Sandinistas. “I was forced to follow the plan of the United States word for word. To assure the future of the National Guard and the Liberal Party, I had tried to adjust myself to the plan point by point. I had made all the military chiefs understand the importance of accepting faithfully and in its entirety Pezzullo’s plan [Lawrence Pezzullo was a U.S. Ambassador] but now Mr. Carter and his Department of State [are] holding me responsible for things over which I have no control”[57]
This is a very small part of the U.S. foreign policy linked to an story that began in 1912 with a young revolutionary called Cesar Augusto Sandino, whose ideas and philosophy trigger a revolutionary movement that eventually overthrown Samoza; a man who spoke English better than Spanish, who was educated at West Point Military Academy, and who became the only cadet in history of that prestigious institution to receive a private army as a graduation gift.

Fausto Sicha
U.S. Foreign Policy Toward the Sandinistas
Bibliography

A Quick Review of Iran-Contra, ciadrugs.homestead.com/files/irancontrareview.html.

Alegria Claribel and Darwin Flakoll; Death of Samoza: Curbstone Press, United States, 1996.

Bone James; The New York Times; Kisses and Deals: The Secret of the come back commandante.

Brown Timothy; The Real Contra War: Oklahoma Press, 2001.

Brown Timothy; When the AK-47s Fall Silent: Hoover Institution Press 2000.

Chomsky Noam; La Quinta Libertad: Grupo Editorial Grijalbo, Barcelona 1988.

Chomsky Noam; Hegemony or Survival: Americas Quest for Global Dominance; Henry Holt and Company, LLC, New York, 2003.

Church J. George; TIME; What Laws Were Broken: Monday, June, 01, 1987.

Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives; Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760.

Emerson Henry; U.S. Foreign Policy Blunders: From Sandino to the Sandinistas, May 28, 2008.

Floy Christ; Sandinista! How Will Bush Make Nicaragua Pay for its Disobedience? 11/07/0:. www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15538.htm.

Garvin Glenin; The Miami Herald: Samoza Family Seeking Come Back: May 7, 2000.

Hoyt Katherine; The many faces of Sandinista democracy: Ohio University Press, 1997.

Jezer, Marty; News World Center, commonDream.org Nicaragua Lesson: Friday, November 30, 2001.

Jstore; Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 99, No, 1 spring 1984.

Kinzer, Stephen; The New York Times; Sandinistas Agree to Direct Talks About Cease-Fire: November 6, 1987.

Maurer Pardo; The Contras 1980 – 1989: The Washington Papers, Washington DC 1990.

Miranda and Ratliff; The Civil War in Nicaragua: Transaction Publishers 1993.

President Ronald Reagan; Letter to Rep. Dave McCurdy: July 11, 1985.

Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs; United States Policy Toward Nicaragua: June 21 and 26, 1979.

Walsh Iran/Contra Report- Executive summary. www.fas.org/irp/offdocs.walsh.execsum.htm.

Weber Henry; Nicaragua; The Sandinist Revolution: The Thetford Press Limited, London, 1983.

Endnotes
[1] Hoyt Katherine, The many faces of Sandinista democracy, Ohio University Press, 1997, p7
[2] Hoyt K p8
[3] HK p8
[4] Brown Timothy, when the AK-47s fall silent, Hoover Institution Press 2000, p99
[5] Brown Timothy, The Real Contra War, Oklahoma Press, 2001, pXXV
[6] Maurer Pardo, The Contras 1980 – 1989, The Washington Papers, Washington DC 1990, p26
[7] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p17
[8] Chomsky Noam, La Quinta Libertad, Grupo Editorial Grijalbo, Barcelona 1988, p14
[9] HK p51
[10] HK p107
[11] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p58
[12] President Ronald Reagan, Letter to Rep. Dave McCurdy, July 11, 1985.
[13] Hoyt Katherine, The many faces of Sandinista democracy, Ohio University Press, 1997, p11
[14] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p176
[15] Brown Timothy, The Real Contra War, Oklahoma Press, 2001, p79
[16] Alegria Claribel and Darwin Flakoll, Death of Samoza, Curbstone Press, United States, 1996 p11
[17] Alegria Claribel and Darwin Flakoll, Death of Samoza, Curbstone Press, United States, 1996 p12
[18] Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs; United States Policy Toward Nicaragua, June 21 and 26, 1979.
[19] Garvin Glenin, The Miami Herald; Samoza family seeking come back, May 7, 2000
[20] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p38
[21] Jstore; Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 99, No, 1 spring 1984, p1
[23] Jezer, Marty; News World Center, commonDream.org Nicaragua Lesson, Friday, November 30, 2001
[24] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p155
[25] Maurer Pardo, The Contras, 1980 – 1989; the Washington Papers, Washington DC. p4.
[26] Emerson Henry; U.S. Foreign Policy Blunders; From Sandino to the Sandinistas, May 28, 2008
[27] Jezer Marty, Newsocenter. Commondream.org; Nicaraguan Lesson, Friday, November 30, 2001
[28] Bone James; The New York Times; Kisses and Deals: The Secret of the come back commandante, p50
[29] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p19
[30] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, pXII
[31] Bone James; The New York Times; Kisses and Deals: The Secret of the come back commandante, p50
[32] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p3, 15
[33] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p153
[34] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p34
[35] Miranda and Ratliff, The Civil War in Nicaragua, Transaction Publishers 1993, p, 154
[36] Weber Henry; Nicaragua; The Sandinist Revolution, The Thetford Press Limited, London, p100
[37] Weber Henry; Nicaragua; The Sandinist Revolution, The Thetford Press Limited, London, p102
[38] Weber Henry; Nicaragua; The Sandinist Revolution, The Thetford Press Limited, London, p106
[39] Weber Henry; Nicaragua; The Sandinist Revolution, The Thetford Press Limited, London, p107
[40] Maurer Pardo, The Contras, 1980 – 1989; the Washington Papers, Washington DC. p3
[41] Hoyt Katherine, The many faces of Sandinista democracy, Ohio University Press, 1997, p110
[42] Walsh Iran/Contra Report- Executive summary, www.fas.org/irp/offdocs.walsh.execsum.htm.
[43] A Quick Review of Iran-Contra, ciadrugs.homestead.com/files/irancontrareview.html
[44] Walsh Iran/Contra Report- Executive summary, www.fas.org/irp/offdocs.walsh.execsum.htm.
[45] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p16
[46] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p17
[47] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p13
[48] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p19
[49] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p19
[50] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p19
[51] Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives, Concerning U.S. Military and Paramilitary Operations in Nicaragua HR 2760 p31
[52] Church J. George; TIME; What Laws Were Broken; Monday, June, 01, 1987
[53] Kinzer, Stephen; The New York Times; Sandinistas Agree to Direct Talks About Cease-Fire. November 6, 1987
[54] Floy Christ; Sandinista! How Will Bush Make Nicaragua Pay for its Disobedience? 11/07/06. www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15538.htm
[55] Chomsky, Noam; Hegemony or Survival; Americas Quest for Global Dominance; Henry Holt and Company, LLC, New York, p100
[56] Chomsky, Noam; Hegemony or Survival; Americas Quest for Global Dominance; Henry Holt and Company, LLC, New York, p99
[57] Alegria, Claribel; Death of Samoza, Curbstone Press, Printed in the United States, 1996, p15
[58] Alegria, Claribel; Death of Samoza, Curbstone Press, Printed in the United States, 1996, p12

Fausto Sicha