Word: nicaragua
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Ever since its existence became known last October, the CIA'S how-to book for Nicaraguan rebels, Psychological Operations in Guerrilla War, has been high profile. When it was being distributed in Nicaragua, however, it seems the manual was also highflying. Congressional investigators revealed last week that packets of the controversial booklets were attached to about 100 specially designed balloons and floated from neighboring Honduras to Nicaragua last March to scare the leftist Sandinista government by creating the impression that the Washington-backed rebel effort was more widespread than it was. The airborne handbooks, coated in plastic to make...
...most prominent member of Nicaragua's democratic opposition, Arturo Cruz Porras, 60, has long criticized both the Marxist-led Sandinista government and the Reagan Administration for their part in polarizing his country. Last week, however, Cruz gave surprising support to the White House in one of its most controversial aims: persuading Congress to reinstate funds to the anti-Sandinista rebels known as the contras...
...Christian government in a now predominantly Muslim country. We cannot hope to predict where the next tragedy will hit, but some guesses are more reasonable than others. Perhaps the Philippines, where uncritical U.S. support of the heavy-handed President Marco is viewed with increasing resentment. Other good bets include Nicaragua, or South Africa...
...situation in Nicaragua is less hopeful, and the choice for Washington painfully limited. There is no serious prospect that, by themselves, the counterrevolutionaries, or contras, could overthrow the Sandinista regime, much as that would be in the American national interest. But they have proved important as an instrument to make the regime more malleable; there is little evidence to support the opposite view, that they solidified the regime. By cutting off aid to the contras, Congress irresponsibly deprived the U.S. of an important bargaining counter...
...area. In general, the U.S. should continue working with Contadora, but it must insist on effective enforcement and should not let itself be pressured into accepting a premature and incomplete agreement. Standing on principle and playing for time may not be the worst policy here. Obviously, the appearance in Nicaragua of sophisticated offensive weaponry could change the equation...