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The Selling of the Sandinistas
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10214 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1986 |
2,865 Words |
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L. Francis Bouchey and Timothy Goodman
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Nicaragua's military situation has been relatively quiet for several months. The war continues, but most of the fighting has taken place in Washington.
In late June, the Reagan administration finally won approval from the House of Representatives for $100 million in military aid and supplies for the Nicaraguan Contras seeking to overthrow the communist Sandinista regime. This victory capped a protracted two-year struggle by administration officials to win congressional approval for a military aid package. Hopes for democracy in Nicaragua have rested on this political battle, since without U.S. aid the Nicaraguan democratic resistance could not operate as an effective fighting force capable of overthrowing the regime or pressuring it to democratize.
The Sandinistas also realize that the Contras require U.S. or other outside support in order to operate effectively. Accordingly, they too regard the U.S. arena as their principal battleground. Sandinista strategists have kept a wary eye on the congressional calendar, trying to forestall any U.S. aid to the resistance. Each time a Contra aid vote has approached, the Sandinistas have revived speculation that they might sign a Contadora peace pact, thereby affording ill informed members of Congress an opportunity to point to an impending diplomatic settlement as an excuse for rejecting Contra aid.
More directly, the Sandinistas have established an active and effective solidarity network in this country to influence U.S. foreign policy. Now several years old, this network is a well-coordinated united by their support for the Sandinista revolution. A hard-core vanguard directs the network, using its resources to mobilize and manipulate large numbers of political activists. Even though few people realize the extent or even existence of this solidarity network, it has high-ranking friends and sympathizers in Congress and has largely controlled the terms of the debate over U.S. policy toward Nicaragua.
The Nicaraguan Support Apparatus
The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) established its own solidarity network in the United States in 1977, two years before it took power in Nicaragua. The National Network in Solidarity with the Nicaraguan People, known as the NNSNP or the Nicaragua Network, has acted as the Sandinistas' agent in the United States since before the fall of dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Much as an agency works for an actor, athlete, or politician, the Nicaragua Network raises funds, generates publicity, and organizes support for the FSLN while dividing American society and obstructing efforts to pressure the Sandinista regime to open up its society and expel the Soviets and Cubans.
A handful of committed internationalist revolutionaries and "progressives" direct the support network. This vanguard attracts the needed sincere, unsuspecting individuals - Lenin called them "useful idiots" - who join the cause out of concern for peace and human rights. These recruits give the network financial, numerical, and organizational clout. The movement has lately reached out to dozens of new groups, from activist and academic organizations to churches, unions, civic groups, and even veterans' organizations.
The Nicaragua Network and its affiliated groups form the
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