From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Nicaragua - documentation
Date: 8 Sep 92 16:18:17 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO


Well, I can't wait for the last reports to come in the mail.  Just not
patient enough with the current debate going.  Considering the size
of this post, maybe I should start now anyway.  I hope those who are
interested in this subject have the patience to read the whole post.

Since Allen has admitted that the contras pursued a policy of terrorism,
I will not discuss them here.  I assume this means that Allen disagrees
with Reagan's characterization of them as "the moral equivalent of our
founding fathers" and was against the US support of them since their
actions were well known at the time. True, Allen?  Or do you think it
is okay to use such tactics for political ends?

-----

I will start with the general characterization of Nicaragua as a
"totalitarian state" so often heard from Allen and others.  
The America's Watch report from 1984 says:

	This description of a totalitarian state bears no resemblance to the
	Nicaragua of 1985.  The Catholic Church and several Protestant
	denominations not only operate independently in Nicaragua but they
	are outspoken in expressing their views on religious matters and
	also in every conceivable secular issue; similarly, business and
	professional associations are not only independent but are 
	unhesitatingly critical of the government and its leaders. Political
	parties representing a wide spectrum of views not only operate, but
	have elected representatives who debate issues in the Constituent
	Assembly.  The parties that chose to participate in the 1984 elections -
	from which no party was banned - were free to be as strident as
	they chose in attacking the Sandinista Party and its leaders, and
	frequently exersized this right on television and radio time provided
	to them without cost to conduct this campaign...

	Any Nicaraguan and any visitor to Nicaragua can walk into a score
	or more of offices in the country's capital and encounter the
	officers and employees of various independent institutions who
	will not only voice their opinions freely in criticism of the
	government and its leaders, and even challenge the legitimacy of
	the state, but will also do so for attribution.  Some will hand out
	literature expressing those opinions.  This is inconceivable in
	any state described as totalitarian.  Moreover, it is inconceivable
	in many of the countries vigorously supported by the United States.

The summary of the report says:

	1.  There is not a policy of torture, political murder, or
	disappearances in Nicaragua.  While such abuses have occurred,
	principally in 1981 and 1982, the government has acted in some
	cases to investigate and punish those responsible, although we
	continue to urge a full accounting of 70 Miskito disappearances
	from 1982 and 1983 and of the deaths (totaling 21 to 24) in the
	Leimus and Walpa Siksa incidents of 1981 and 1982.

	2. The [Reagan] administration has misrepresented the denial of
	press freedom in Nicaragua, attempting to convey the impression
	that former freedoms were eliminated by the Sandinistas.  On the
	other hand, serious problems of censorship persist and censorship
	should be ended except to the extant strictly necessary to deal
	with the national emergency.

	3. The issue of religious persecution in Nicaragua is without
	substance, although it is evident that the political conflict
	between the Catholic Church and the government has included
	cases of clear abuse, such as the expulsion of 10 foreign
	priests.  There is not a policy of anti-semitism, nor are
	Christians - Catholic or Protestant - persecuted for their faith.

	4. The Miskitos, who have become this administration's favored
	symbol of alleged Sandinista cruelty, suffered serious abuses
	in 1981 and 1982.  Since then, the government's record of relations
	with the Miskitos has improved dramatically, including an amnesty,
	efforts at negotiations, and the beginnings of repatriation, while
	the _contras'_ treatment of Miskitos and other Indians has become
	increasingly more violent.

	5. The November 1984 elections, though deficient, represented an
	advance over past Nicaraguan experience and a positive step
	toward pluralism, resulting in significant representation of
	opposition parties in the Constituent Assembly.  Nicaragua should
	be prodded to take additional steps to advance a democratic process.

	6. There is no evidence to support administration claims that a U.S.
	failure to interfere in Nicaragua would generate a wave of 
	"feet people".

	7. To state the above is not to disregard or in any way diminish
	the importance of abuses that have taken place in Nicaragua. [List
	of abuses deleted to save me typing time include press censorship,
	expulsions, arrests for peaceful activities, limits on public
	rallies, intimidation].  Perhaps most disturbing of all, since the
	revolution succeeded in 1979, there has been an interlocking
	relationship between the Sandinista Party and the state so that,
	for example, it is the Popular Sandinista Army that defends the
	state and it is Sandinista sponsored organizations that choose
	2 of 3 members of the tribunals that try those accused of a variety
	of security-related offenses.

There is some damning criticism here.  It is not a "ringing endorsement".
It is a balanced statement that shows that abuses were not policy, were not
continuous, and have been corrected.

One issue of contention has been the 1984 elections. The body of the
America's Watch report states that the 1984 elections "compare favorably 
with those of El Salvador and Guatemala and do not suffer significantly
by comparison with those of Honduras, Mexico or Panama." 

A central issue of the 1984 elections is censorship.  The following 
is an excerpt from the report of the Latin America Study Group (LASA), 
an academic group that observed the election.  It parallels the
comments of America's Watch but goes into more detail.

	A more troublesome area is that of official censorship.  There was
	relatively little censorship in Nicaragua until March, 1982, when
	the government declared a state of emergency in response to the
	escalation of _contra_ activities.  On August 1, 1984, restrictions
	on media coverage of all subjects except for military developments
	(e.g., attacks by _contras_) and some economic matters (e.g., food
	shortages) were lifted, as part of the implementation of the 1984
	Electoral Law.  However, censorship of some explicitly political
	news occurred intermittently during the electoral campaign.  The
	most egregious case was the initial censorship of _La Prensa's_
	coverage of Virgilio Godoy's withdrawal from the election; but
	news about disruptions of Arturo Cruz's political rallies by FSLN
	sympathizers in the pre-campaign period was also suppressed.

[Note that Cruz withdrew from the election prior to the campaign.]

	For purposes of this report, it is important to ask whether the
	press censorship practiced by the government seriously restricted
	the electoral candidates' freedom of speech or prevented them
	from getting their parties message to the electorate.  Our
	delegation concluded that it did not.  Apart from the obvious fact		that censorship of _La Prensa's_ coverage of the opposition was far
	from complete (indeed, each day's edition during the last week of
	the campaign was full of anti-FSLN and pro-Coordinadora propaganda),
	there was no censorship of the country's 39 radio stations, including
	two run by the Church hierarchy and others in neighboring countries
	run by the _contras_.  Television stations carried a series of
	uncensored debates involving the presidential or vice-presidential
	candidates of all seven parties participating in the elections.  
	Also uncensored was the formal campaign programming of each party,
	broadcast free of charge on state-run television and radio stations
	under a provision of the 1984 Electoral Law.  By the end of the
	campaign, each party had been given access to to a total of 22 hours
	(15 minutes per day) of free, uninterrupted television time, in prime
	early evening hours, on both channels; and 44 hours (30 minutes per
	day) of free radio time on all state-run radio stations.

Allen recommended the book "Nicaragua - Revolution in the Family" by Shirley
Christian, a correspondent.  The book regularly criticizes Sandinista action
while ignoring other evidence, thereby offering a distorted, one-sided, view.
She only mentions significant achievements such as the literacy campaign and
health care improvements in passing, only spending a few paragraphs to
attempt to label them as tools of indoctrination.  No proof is offered,
however.  While good achievements do not make up for abuses, all facts must
be considered when examining a governments record; something she apparently
was not interested in doing.
 The following example is cogent.  One issue with regards to the
1984 elections is that Sandinista neighborhood organizations had
control over ration cards and could starve people into submission. This is
what she has to say about this:

	Perhaps more important, access to several basic food items depended
	on being on good standing with one's CDS [Committee in Defense of
	Sandinista] leaders.  Daniel Ortega once said that there would be
	no _nacatamale_ elections under the Sandinistas - a reference to
	Somoza's custom of paying for votes with helpings of a popular
	corn-and-pork dish and the local equivalent of corn liquor.  The
	Sandinistas did it differently.  Instead of stooping to bribe or
	reward with something special, they exersized control over the
	food that went on every table in Nicaragua for every meal.
	page 300

She offers no evidence to support this contention.  Here we have
proof by assertion.
Compare that with a discussion of the same issue by the Latin American
Study Association (LASA):

	The most commonly cited channel or vehicle for such abuses is the
	neighborhood-level CDSs, which allegedly use their control over
	the distribution of food ration books to compel political
	obedience.  We could find no evidence to support these allegations,
	however.  The rations booklets in use in Nicaragua enable the
	holder to buy several basic products (e.g., rice, sugar, beans
	cooking oil, soap) at state-subsidized prices through local
	privately-owned stores.  They are distributed through the CDSs,
	once a year - not on a weekly or monthly basis.  Our interviews
	with neighborhood social workers and individual residents revealed
	that everyone automatically receives a ration card, whether or not
	they participate in CDSs activities, and regardless of their
	political views.  Community development told us that while some
	CDS officers may occassionally abuse their authority and "act as
	lord and master" over their neighbors, such abuses are neither
	widespread nor systematic; they are usually motivated by personal
	feuds rather than political considerations.  In our conversations
	with average citizens, we found no instance of witholding or
	threatening of ration cards by CDS officials.

My primary source is "Nicaragua - Unfinished Revolution", a book which
is a compilation of reports and quotes by a wide variety of sources
ranging from the US govt to Sandinista members, and including the
America's Watch report and the one by LASA.

Another issue is intimidation of the oppositiion during the election.  Allen
posted some quotes from an Amnesty Intnatl report which mentioned some abuses.
I have not yet received the report from AI but the America's Watch report
discusses the issue to some extent and the LASA report discusses it in detail.
I will post on the AI report when I get it.  

LASA examined complaints
filed with the government commission and _independently verified_ these 
complaints with the opposition parties.  Although some parties declined 
to report to this commission, most parties did report to it.  In their
discussion with the opposition parties, the Communist party was the primary
one which chose not to report disturbances.

	The most serious incidents of this type occurred _before_ the formal
	campaign even began (on August 1).  Only 5 alleged disturbances of
	this type occurred during the campaign itself, and apparently none
	occurred during the last 6 weeks of the campaign.

	At the time of all disturbances involving Arturo Cruz, Cruz and his
	party were not legally registered as participants in the electoral
	campaign (indeed, they had just announced their decision to _abstain_
	from the elections), and the Cruz rallies which were disrupted were
	held in violation of Article 38 of the 1984 electoral law, which
	requires all organizations seeking to conduct public campaign
	rallies to apply to the CSE for a permit at least one week in advance.
	The same article promises police protection against any groups which
	try to disturb public rallies or demonstrations which have been duly
	authorized by the CSE ...

	[Note that America's Watch indicates that such protection was
	provided to election participants when notice of the rally was
	given - dean]

	The _legally registered_ opposition parties were able to hold the 
	vast majority of their rallies unimpeded by pro-FSLN demonstrators
	of by other kinds of government interference.  National or regional
	leaders of several different opposition parties (PPSC, PSN, PLI) told
	our delegation that they had been able to run their campaigns
	relatively unhindered by the FSLN, and that after the initial
	_turba_ disruptions in late July and early August, the FSLN had
	made efforts to gain better control over its own supporters.  PPSC
	leaders attributed the initial disturbances to "lack of discipline"
	among some of the FSLN's younger enthusiasts


What we see is that the abuses that did occur did not significantly affect
the elections.  Even an opposition party admits that the disturbances were
the result of enthusiastic supporters, not an FSLN strategy.
There is much evidence that Cruz, and his group (the
Coordinadora) never intended to participate, that they had little support
anyway (Cruz had been out of the country most of the time since 1970) and
that the US pressured many participants to not participate.  I can post
this if anyone wants to see it.  Remember that Cruz and the Coordinadora
were vocal supporters of the contras.  The main opposition was the Liberal
Party (PLI).  Their presidential candidate (Virgilio Godoy) 
decided not to participate the
day after a meeting with the US Ambassador.  His party was furious and split
over the issue.  His vice presidential candidate accused him of taking a
$300,000 bribe from the US and ran in his place.  When the PLI won some
seats and it became clear that the PLI would participate in the
Consituent Assembly, Godoy rejoined, though still claiming it is a sham.
According to an article in the New York Times on 11-15-94 (by John B. Oakes):

	By their own admission, United States embassy officials in Managua
	pressured opposition parties to withdraw from the ballot in order to
	isolate the Sandinistas and to discredit the regime.

	"It was really very light pressure," said one diplomat dryly.  Some
	politicians affected did not quite see it that way.  One conservative
	leader who refused to withdraw commented with some bitterness: "Two
	weeks before the election, a U.S. embassy official visited my
	campaign manager and promised to help him with money to succeed
	as party leader if he withdrew from my campaign.  He did.
-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)