From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Subject: "Totalitarianism" in Nicaragua (IV)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 17:08:19 GMT

"Totalitarianism" in Nicaragua (IV)


    "The Nicaraguans have far more justification for censoring _La
    Prensa_ than we can claim in examples just enumerated..."


From _The Washington Post_ June 7, 1986, "Nicaragua Isn't the First
Government to Censor" by David Kairys.

The recent op-ed column by the managing editor of _La Prensa_ is
part of a flood of criticism of the Nicaraguan government for
censorship and denial of civil liberties.  As a civil liberties
attorney whose practice and writings are dedicated to protection
of free expression, I do not believe the Nicaraguan record on
civil liberties is any worse than our own record during wartime.

A delegation of Nicaraguans came to New York University Law
School some weeks ago to confer with scholars and lawyers about
the new Nicaraguan constitution now being drafted.  I had
expected to see signs of totalitarianism, or at least
repression.  But the Nicaraguan delegation represented a wide
range of perspectives, including representatives of four
different opposition parties.

One of the first speakers was conservative Eduardo Molina-
that's right, a conservative-who thinks, for example, the
Sandinistas are too tightly in control of the military, abortion
should be banned and the name of God should be specifically
invoked in the preamble to the new constitution.  He views the
Nicaraguan political system as "more like Mexico, not like
Cuba."

It was clear from the Nicaraguans and from the draft
constitution itself that this small country is committed to
democracy, pluralism and free expression.

Free speech is a great source of pride in the United States.
There is probably no country with a better record of tolerance
of dissent than contemporary America.

However, we often distort our past in this regard.
Historically, our courts have allowed government censorship and
worse, particularly in time of war: after our revolution, many
were sent to prison for violating an act of Congress that made
it a crime to criticize the government; news reports about the
Civil War were regularly censored; our Supreme Court approved of
censorship of the mails in 1877; the Espionage Acts during World
War I made it a crime to "promote  the cause of [our] enemies"
or "obstruct recruiting," and Eugene Debs, a popular third-party
presidential candidate, was imprisoned for mildly criticizing
our role in the war and discussing legal challenges to the
draft; during World War II there was press censorship, and all
persons of Japanese ancestry on the  West Coast were imprisoned
in concentration camps even though there was never a conviction
or credible proof that any Japanese-American had committed any
act of sabotage.

This is not a great history of freedom or tolerance during
wartime.  It permits us little moral ground to judge others-
particularly a small country in whose affairs we have repeatedly
intervened to promote the interests of dictators and rich
landowners, and which we now subject to organized terrorism.

The Nicaraguans have far more justification for censoring _La
Prensa_ than we can claim in examples just enumerated.  After
the revolution, the owners of _La Prensa_ changed its editorial
policy, and three-quarters of its editorial staff left in
protest and formed another paper.  The new _La Prensa_ got
substantial funding from the U.S. government through the
National Endowment for Democracy, a corporation established and
funded by Congress.

_La Prensa_ seeks to publish stories aimed at undermining the
military effort and destabilizing the government.  The effects
of false reports cannot be quickly or easily countered in
Nicaragua.  The editors of _La Prensa_ also explicitly support
U.S. military funding for the contras.  Thus, it is roughly as
if the soviets mined our harbors and organized and funded a band
of malcontent Americans to amass in Canada and attempt to
overthrow our government with military and terroristic
incursions into the United States, while funding a newspaper in
the United States that supports the deadly incursions and
publishes destabilizing stories.  I do not believe we would
allow this to happen, and nothing in our constitutional history
suggests that the courts would protect such a newspaper.

        ["roughly as if" that is, excepting that the Soviet Union
        should be replaced by some unimaginably powerful nation as
        much larger than the U.S. as the U.S. is than Nicaragua (1,500
        to 1 GNP ratio, roughly), while the "malcontent Americans" are
        a KGB trained, funded, armed, in fact, created and directed
        force formed from the remnants fo the National Communist Guard
        that held power under the 42-year Super-USSR backed
        dictatorship overthrown by the U.S. revolution. --HB]

The Reagan administration is applying a more stringent standard
of tolerance to the Nicaraguans than our courts have ever
applied to our own government.  In Nicaragua a foreign power of
overwhelmingly superior might is mining harbors and organizing
and financing large military incursions and random acts of
terrorism.  Compared with other governments facing far less
serious threats, including the United States, the Nicaraguan
response to _La Prensa_ has been restrained.

There is a vicious obsession with Nicaragua high in our
government, and it has nothing to do with civil liberties.  The
administration has regularly acted to restrict civil liberties
domestically and regularly supports repressive regimes abroad.
Our fundamental principles of freedom and democracy are being
cynically manipulated to gain support for the administration's
unpopular military intervention in Nicaragua.

[Transcribed by David Barzilai]


            =============================================
            T h e   " N i c a r a g u a   L i b r a r y "
            =============================================

*
* =========
* Nicaragua
* =========
*
  WHO-WERE CONTRAS    Contras' origins; make-up; practices - documented
  FSLN     H-RIGHTS  Documented HRs comparison w/Somoza,Guat,ES,others
  FSLN     MISKITOS  Sandinista treatment of Miskitos;Charges & Realit
  FSLN     NICAJEWS  Debunks charges of Sandinista 'Anti-Semitism'
*
  OXFAM84  NICARAG   Oxfam America's 1984 report on Nicaragua, in full
  FSLN     ACHIEVE   Documented: achievements of the Nica. revolution
*
  NICA-84  ELECTION  Documented: Fair under Sandinistas; US subversion
  FAIRNESS NICA-USA  Flwup:`Is Nicaragua More Democratic than the US?'
  NICRAGUA ELECTION  Study in US subversion of '90 Nicaraguan election

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