In their 1979 agreement with the OAS, the Sandinistas promised "free elections, a broad-based democratic government, full guarantee of human rights, fundamental liberties, freedom of religion, union rights, a mixed economy, an independent foreign policy of nonalignment, and a minimum permanent military corps." Nearly a decade later, they have yet to fulfill one promise. In fact, only days after that OAS meeting, the Sandinistas privately outlined plans to create a communist dictatorship in Nicaragua and spread their revolution throughout Central America.
Despite receiving more than $100 million in U.S. aid during the Carter and Reagan administrations, the Sandinistas proceeded to eliminate human rights. In less than two years, with Soviet help, over 30 military bases either were completed or were being built. U.S. debate began to center on the merging threat of a Marxist Nicaragua. Today, that threat is no longer debated.
Daniel Ortega has made clear his contempt for agreements with the OAS and peace plans of the kind proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. On December 13, 1987, Ortega said that if the Sandinistas lost an election, they would hand over the government, but not the power.
Some experts have predicted such Marxist commitment all along. In the following pages, THE WORLD & I presents the full text of the briefing given by Lt. Col. Oliver North to the Iran-Contra committee in July 1987. Although the analysis was written more than a year ago, the Sandinista threat to Central America looms larger than every today. Latin American expert Roger Fontaine updates North's analysis and also traces the Sandinistas' sophisticated attempts to influence the U.S. Congress to vote against Contra aid.
Since its establishment in the summer of 1979, the Sandinista regime has appreciated the importance of the U.S. Congress for its survival. At first, Congress functioned as a source of soft good wishes and hard currency. The Congress has acted as a shield and buffer for the new regime, a service especially important after President Reagan took office.
Overall, the Sandinistas, despite an occasional misstep, have performed brilliantly in their deliberate courting of the American Congress. Even their patron, Fidel Castro, could take some lessons.
Fidel, for all his Machiavellian manipulativeness, has managed over the years to find only a handful of admirers on the Hill. He could never depend on the U.S. Congress to save him. The Sandinistas can and do.
The Sandinistas see it differently because they already know Castro cannot and will not save them at the critical moment. Grenada is still a very fresh memory in Managua. The Sandinistas also know that despite the Soviet Union's generous export of advanced arms, they have gotten only halfhearted training from the Soviet bloc in how to use them.
Managua, moreover, remains forever at the end of a very long supply line, and Moscow has given too many indications that Sandinista survival ranks low on its list of
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