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Nicaragua Threatened: Reagan Moves Toward War

By Robert Gould

As we are printing this issue of THE VETERAN, the Reagan Administration has revealed that it is seriously considering the use of U.S. combat troops in Nicaragua.

These threats to use troops coming on the heels of recent aggressive moves against Nicaragua are partly being used as political pressure on Congress to restore aid to the contras. However, they are of great concern to veterans and all Americans who vividly remember the quagmire that was the Vietnam War, and who do not want to see a repetition of our government sending Americans to fight against a people defending their lives and liberties from foreign domination.

In fact, on May 1st, Reagan used the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War to order a total economic blockade of Nicaragua, canceling all imports, all exports. Having faced the loss of the contra aid vote in Congress, and widespread criticism for honoring Nazi was dead in Bitburg, Reagan moved quickly to tighten the economic vise in which he had already placed Nicaragua over the past 4 years.

The current economic embargo is indeed and escalation in the Reagan Administration's economic warfare against Nicaragua, which is attempting to weaken and demoralize the widespread popular base of the Sandinistas, while creating a dissatisfied middle class fifth column in Nicaragua that can link up with the contras. By weakening Nicaraguan society internally, Reagan hopes that the government will either collapse or become a more susceptible target to the military intervention that he is now contemplating.

What are the arguments Reagan is using to using to justify his vicious attacks on the Nicaraguan people?

1. That Nicaragua is engaged in "aggressive activities in Central American," and
2. That Nicaragua is a Soviet satellite whose "massive arms buildup" threatens the U.S.

Both these charges are blatantly false.

WHO IS REALLY ENGAGED IN AGGRESSIVE ACTIVITIES?

U.S State and Defense Department officials have told the New York Times (March 30, 1985) that they do not believe Nicaragua has any intention of attacking its neighbors.

A Congressional position papers states that Nicaragua's military capabilities are inferior to the combined military power of its U.S.-allied neighbors in Central America, in both land based military power and air power.

According to David MacMichael, former CIA analyst in Central American affairs, there has not been a verified report of arms moving from Nicaragua to the insurgent forces in El Salvador since April 1981.

Nicaragua supported the proposed Contadora treaty for peace in Central America. The Reagan Administration has refused to sign that treaty, and pressured its Central American puppets to also refuse to sign, mostly because the treaty calls for all outside military personnel to be withdrawn from Central America. Although Nicaragua has agreed to remove all Cuban advisors, the U.S. would never consent to withdraw its massive Central American military presence that is the mainstay of the brutal right-wing regimes of El Salvador and Guatemala, and which has turned Honduras into an armed camp in preparation for the threatened U. S. military invasion of Nicaragua. The Honduran buildup has included the construction or enlargement of eight airfields, and the staging of a virtually continuous series of war games over the last two years, involving thousands of combined U. S. and Honduran troops at a time.

The only aggressor in Central American is the U.S., which has funded a 15,000-man army of Contras, who have killed over 8,000 Nicaraguans, and provided the aid and expertise that is ultimately responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Guatemalans and 50,000 Salvadorans at the hands of rightwing government troops and death squads.

SOVIET ASSISTANCE IS VERY LIMITED

No Soviet or Cuban military bases exist in Central American; many U.S. bases exist, For example, the U.S. maintains its main command center for Latin America in Panama (the Southern Command), including 8 U.S. command posts and training centers: at least 10 military bases in Honduras alone are being "improved" by the U.S., with more on the way, In addition, there are two U.S. naval fleets patrolling off the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Central America, and five other military bases within close striking distance of Central America, including the U.S. military base in Cuba itself. Nicaragua has proposed an agreement prohibiting any foreign troops or bases in Central America; the U.S. has rejected this proposal.

A leader of the U.S. supported contras, Adolfo Calero, has stated that his own contra troops have seen no evidence of a major buildup of Soviet arms in Nicaragua (New York Times, Nov 22, 1984).

Jaime Chamorro, editor of the anti-Sandinista newspaper La Prensa, has stated that the Soviets are providing little assistance to Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan President Ortega's recent trip to the Soviet Union was planned in January to request agricultural credits after the U.S. had pressured the Inter-American Development Bank to hold up a $58 million agricultural loan to Nicaragua.

REAGAN'S ILLIGAL TRADE EMARGO

Given the foregoing, there can be no justification for the escalating economic warfare being waged by the Reagan Administration against Nicaragua. In addition, Ronald Reagan's trade embargo against Nicaragua is an illegal act:

—The Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the U.S. and Nicaragua are signatories, stated in Article 19 that:

"No State may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another state and obtain from it advantages of any kind."

The 1956 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the U.S. and Nicaragua allows for freedom of commerce and navigation, and the treaty requires a one-year notification before it can be terminated. Reagan's embargo violates the Friendship treaty since the treaty is still legally in force.

Finally, the embargo may likely violate the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and also the 1974 UN Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States.

REGAN MORE ISOLATED (AND DANGEROUS) THAN EVER

While the embargo is a dangerous escalation of the war against Nicaragua, it is also costing the U.S. a great deal of worldwide respect. The foreign ministers of Canada and of several European countries, including Reagan's strong allies of Great Britain and West Germany, strongly disapprove of the embargo and the Executive Committee of the Common Market on May 15th voiced its opposition when it proposed a political cooperation agreement with four Central American Countries, including Nicaragua. On the same day, representatives of 24 Latin American countries, at a meeting of the Latin American Economic System, called on the U.S. to lift the embargo to help Nicaragua. Even Reagan's Central American friends have not jumped on the embargo bandwagon, and the embargo has already by criticized by the conservative Nicaraguan Archbishop Obando y Bravo, and by the rightwing business sector in Nicaragua, which will be directly by the loss of U.S. trade. Thus, in the wake of the Bitburg fiasco, Reagan is again legally and morally isolated in his Nicaragua policy.

In face of this widespread opposition, the Reagan Administration continues to push for aid to the contras by saying that the only alternative will be the commitment of American combat forces in Central America. Many of the same arguments used to sell the American public on Vietnam are being used again—with claims even being made that an invasion of Nicaragua would be an easy military task—by many of the same policy makes who lied to us before, and who have lately been trying to rewrite the history of the Vietnam war to make us forget the lessons of the past.

The Reagan Administration daily prepares for conventional and nuclear war, asking those of us who can least afford it to foot the bill. While the military budget for next year will be approximately $300 billion, Vietnam vets are given inadequate Agent Orange benefits, with proposed social cutbacks including a year's freeze on veterans pensions, disability compensation and retirement benefits. We all have a stake in opposing Reagan's dangerous and costly aggression, and it is crucial that we organize widespread U.S. Congressional and public opposition to continuation of any aid to the contras. We must also end the embargo and economic war that Reagan is waging on the Nicaraguan is waging on the Nicaraguan people, which recalls the U.S. economic destabilization of the Allende regime in Chile. That resulted in the rightwing coup that killed 30,000 people. Whether Reagan plans a Chile-style economic overthrow of the Sandinista government, or an Indochina—style military debacle, we have to put a stop to him now!

—Robert Gould
U.S. Out of Central America (USOCA)

For additional information about the situation in Nicaragua and the activities of USOCA opposing U.S. intervention, please write or call:

USOCA National Office
2940 16th St, Suite 7
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 550-8006