Word: nicaragua
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Cardenal left Nicaragua in the spring of 1980 to lecture in this country against the Sandinistas and organize a coherent opposition. He speaks with dismay about the country he left behind, "controlled in effect by Cuban advisors, lacking the basic freedom of the press, and without the prospect of open elections for the future...
...MANY liberals in this country argue that the Sandinistas haven't been given a chance. Although Carter doled out more than $200 million in funds to Nicaragua in 1980, the Reagan Administration quickly cut all American assistance and hinted that an invasion--either covert or overt--might be imminent. The Sandinistas, the liberals believe, have simply been forced to react to this pressure by seeking help from Moscow and Havana and engaging in a military build...
However, such actions do not seem to be advancing Washington's hope of isolating Nicaragua. Quite the contrary: U.S. pressure against Nicaragua has roused the old fear of bullying intervention in Central America's internal affairs, even in nations that have little sympathy for Nicaragua's Marxist line. For example, Panama's sugar industry is severely depressed, and many workers at the mills are on layoff. But Panamanians insist that they will spurn any part of Nicaragua's sugar quota that might be offered to them. As for the Washington-supported military campaign...
Anxiety is growing in the U.S. as well. A combined U.S. and Latin-American panel headed by Sol Linowitz, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, and Galo Plaza, former President of Ecuador, last week advocated a new approach for negotiations among the U.S., Nicaragua, other Central American governments and revolutionary movements, and even Cuba and the Soviet Union. The aim would be to work out "understandings" like those between Washington and Moscow that ended the Cuban missile crisis by trading a Kremlin agreement not to put Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba for a U.S. pledge...
However sensible, those are ideas that would take a long time to implement. The near-term outlook thus remains for an odd combination of intermittent, savage but low-intensity fighting in Nicaragua and a continuing, much louder political uproar in both Central America...