Word: nicaragua
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From the capitals of Western Europe to Central America's jungles, Nicaragua's Sandinista government was on the move last week. Its main objective: to outflank the Reagan Administration and its allies by force of diplomacy and of arms. On the diplomatic front, the Sandinistas were trying -- less than successfully, as it turned out -- to open a rift between the U.S. and Western Europe over the trade embargo that Washington imposed on Nicaragua earlier this month. At the same time, Nicaraguan troops were foraying along the frontier with Honduras in a continuing effort to contain anti-Sandinista contra rebels ensconced...
Above all, the Nicaraguan government was intent on creating an image of firmness. On a blitz of Western Europe that was hastily added to a 13-day pilgrimage to East European capitals, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra repeatedly asserted that Nicaragua was not about to bend under the U.S. embargo. In Spain, France, Italy, Finland and Sweden, he pitched strongly to his hosts for help in filling the sizable trade vacuum ($168 million in 1984) left by U.S. sanctions...
Beginning his West European swing on a combative note, Ortega emerged from a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez to describe President Reagan as "a fascist, like Hitler, who wants to turn Nicaragua into a giant concentration camp." Gonzalez was visibly uncomfortable. While cautioning that the U.S. trade embargo could force Nicaragua "to seek aid and support from the other side," meaning the Soviet Union, Gonzalez made no promises about increasing Spanish-Nicaraguan trade...
...Even as Nicaragua dangled the prospect of a change of course, Sandinista soldiers launched a one-day incursion into neighboring Honduras in pursuit of the contra guerrillas. After being repulsed by the contras, the Sandinistas returned to the attack at week's end. At least one Honduran soldier was killed and several others were wounded in the second incursion, leading the Honduran military to declare the border area a "zone of military emergency...
...Problem: the specter of "another Cuba" in Nicaragua. Cause: the Sandinista regime. Solution: bring down that regime by backing the contras...