Word: nicaragua
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...supporting the rebels opposed to Nicaragua's Marxist government, is the U.S. trying merely to harass the Sandinistas or to topple their government? Whatever the objective, a new CIA assessment provided to congressional oversight committees argues that the 10,000 to 12,000 U.S.-backed contras simply lack the training, financing and political support required to overthrow the Sandinistas. The secret report, details of which emerged last week, noted that the guerrillas would be thwarted by Nicaragua's superior army and militia, which total some 100,000 troops...
...could be serious about winding down the so-called secret war surfaced last September. In discussions at that time with members of Congress, Administration officials reportedly said that as a precondition for ending hostilities, they intend to ask for a guarantee that the contras will not be prosecuted in Nicaragua. White House officials, however, have denied any plans either for ending support of the contras or for the general amnesty...
Oddly, despite the signals pointing to a diminution of the U.S. role, suspicion is also growing that the Administration may in fact be pondering direct military intervention in Nicaragua. Washington corridors are filled with talk of a plan for a U.S.-backed invasion of Nicaragua some time in 1984. One supposed invasion scheme, reportedly code-named "Pegasus," is said to call for U.S. air and sea support for an attack by the Hondurans, the contras and possibly other Central American nations...
Such talk may be intended only to frighten the Sandinistas into behaving in a more democratic fashion. If so, then that campaign may have begun to pay off. Nicaragua has taken a number of conciliatory steps in recent weeks, perhaps because of U.S. pressure and almost certainly in response to warnings from West European leaders that were conveyed to Nicaragua's Interior Minister Tomas Borge during his October tour of the continent. The Europeans bluntly told Borge that they might no longer provide financial and diplomatic support for the regime if it did not moderate its increasingly totalitarian ways...
...Sandinistas have announced that 1,000 Cuban advisers have left Nicaragua and that others will leave if El Salvador and Honduras expel their U.S. advisers. The government has also let it be known that leftist Salvadoran rebels are no longer welcome on Nicaraguan soil, forcing them to find another haven. In addition, the Sandinistas have hinted that elections will be held in 1985, and have made overtures to leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the country's embattled business community to sit down and discuss their differences...