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"The War Is Always There, Sometimes Just A Mile Or Two Away"

By Bill Davis

When the VVAW delegation began to come together as a cohesive group in late 1985, we planned to go to Nicaragua as organized as possible to gather facts and data to relate to the American people on our return. The delegation was, for the most part, sympathetic to the Sandinista revolution and opposed to current U.S. policies aimed at the Nicaraguan people—support for the contras, the trade embargo placed on their country. As Vietnam vets we felt we'd seen a lot of the world and that we had a good handle on what was occurring in Nicaragua based on our discussion with others and the reading we'd done. Nothing in fact could have prepared us for what we were to experience.

As we left the plane at the airport and passed through customs, a large crowd waited outside of the customs area. We presumed they were there to greet other passengers, but slowly began to realize we were the only people left in the terminal area. People in the crowd smiled shyly or reached out to touch us. Some held up their children to see. A group of people resenting pictures and throwing questions at everyone.

I was stunned momentarily as I began to realize how important the Nicaraguans thought our delegation's visit was. By the next day, radio and newspaper reports covered the country, and people would approach us throughout our stay to say they had read about our visit and to tell us how pleased they were to have us in their country.

On more than once occasion the buildings and trees and temperatures in the evenings combined to literally look and feel like areas in Vietnam, but the people didn't fit the screenplay of that Asian war. Smiling and inquisitive, the people in the cities and towns we saw walked about freely day and night and spoke openly their political opinions. Slogans on the walls and political billboards were in evidence everywhere, not just the "frente" (the front as the Sandinistas are known) but those of all the parties, left and right in the opposition were also in plain sight.

The army was everywhere, men and women in uniform, all armed but incredibly not oppressive or threatening. How different from so many armies we've seen. Absent was the swaggering military types, pushing through crowds, forcing their way to the front of lines, commandeering the best for themselves, threatening any who stood in their way.

Except for their uniforms and those on guard here and there, the army could have been invisible, standing patiently in line for the bus; the military vehicles carry as many civilian passengers as soldiers. For all the weapons they carried, not once did we see one taken from the shoulder or drawn in anger from the holster.

In Managua the war seems far away, as people spend the nights in restaurants and cafes until the wee hours. The city is alive in a near circle around the devastation of the 1971 earthquake. The ruins exist today in a monument to the millions of bucks of relief funds that Somoza pocketed, and act that defiantly hastened the revolution.

The U.S. Embassy is bathed in moonlight looking every bit the part of Dracula's Castle that the singer Bruce Cockburn referred to as it looms above the city.

It is in the countryside, however, that the revolution is put to the test daily. The people are poor—very poor—and while their life is better now than it has ever been, the U.S. embargo (the U.S. government's refusal to allow any trade with Nicaragua) has simply denied them the little things we take for granted. Every bottle, bag, piece of plastic, any container is used over and over again. Batteries, flashlights, pens, pencils ?these are gold. But the beggars are absent; children, for the most part, stand politely for pencils or the "prized" baseball cards. Missing too are the armies of prostitutes and drug peddlers that seem to populate areas where American GI's are. Stories of this type of Americanization of Honduras begin to leak through and you begin to see vast differences in these two countries the size of Alabama and Mississippi.

The war is always there, sometimes just a mile or two away, and the physical evidence is not so far. In the rich agricultural province of Uno La Segovia, the "bread basket" of Nicaragua, the burnt civilian bus lies overturned by the side of the road. In the wards of civilian and military hospitals, the young men and women lie wounded, the 13-year old with one leg in the arms of his father, a militia man. Enough carnage is there that some can't see for tears welling up and clogged throats. The reality of Nicaragua, a 19-year-old young man four years in the army, wounded five times, hardened in 50 battlers or skirmishes, eager to rejoin his unit, an uncertain future.

What can be said of the Contras that people haven't heard? They make war on women and children. They kidnap entire families. They attack unarmed civilians, health workers, teachers. They've never won a battle or skirmish, they've never held so much as a single small village. They are populated top to bottom by Somoza's former "La Guardia." They're by and large a gang of criminals who shoot up schools and homes and other strategic targets that can't shoot back. The common and poorest of Nicaraguans loather and hate the Contras. These U.S. sponsored criminals will never gain the support of the people; they will carry on their activities as long as the funding lasts or the Sandinistas finally crush them.

In a community center near the town of Jinotega, we picked up spent bullets and rockets casings from a Contra attack a few nights before. The family next-door in a house of mud and wood said the Contras boldly challenged the empty building to come out and fight. Another victory for Reagan's equivalent of the U.S. "Founding Fathers." Sandinista officials everywhere, highest to the lowest were always patient and friendly, responding to even the most controversial question we had with good humor.

To a person, Nicaraguans are extremely concerned about a U.S. invasion, discussing how they will fight, calmly speaking of how they will die until the American people will have enough and end the war.

Unless you travel to Nicaragua, it is impossible to gauge the distortions in the U.S. press and media about the country, its people, the so-called "Marxist oppressive society," the censorship, the draft, the church—the subjects are endless. The portrayal to the American people is inaccurate, to be polite—absolute bullshit to be realistic.

Once outside the U.S. the apparent opposition to U.S. aggression in Nicaragua is overwhelming in the world press. The Contadora process has again and again vindicated the people of Nicaragua, and the U.S. press has time and again portrayed the Sandinistas the "the bad guys." Further, the press shows the rest of Central and South American firmly aligned with the Reagan Administration—a truly gross distortion.

Internationally, the Reagan Administration's efforts to ostracize Nicaragua have backfired and it is the U.S. that is becoming isolated politically around the world.

Hopefully, the words and pictures, videos of VVAW's delegation to Nicaragua will help to turn the tide in this country to the reality of U.S. policy in Nicaragua and all of Central America.

Bill Davis