Word: nicaraguan
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...move a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a vote that had been billed as a vital test of the Administration's interventionist foreign policy, the Democratic-controlled House rejected, at least for the moment, the President's request to give $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras, who seek to overthrow the Sandinista regime. "The Administration deserved to have its nose bloodied on this," said Democratic Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin. "They handled this really badly." To a disappointed Reagan, the vote was "a dark day for freedom...
...President is not guilty of posturing about the Nicaraguan threat. He truly believes. To him, Nicaragua's Ortega, in his Castro-style fatigues, is not merely a Third World revolutionary who delights in tweaking Uncle Sam, but an agent of the Kremlin, bent on spreading Communism through the hemisphere. When the question of what to do about the Sandinistas comes up at National Security Council meetings, Reagan assumes what one aide calls his "Churchillian mode." The normally amiable and relaxed President sits up straight in his chair; his eyes flash, his lips tighten, and his hands ball up into fists...
Though the supply of Nicaraguan arms to the rebels in El Salvador has allegedly tapered off somewhat in the past four years, Salvador President Jose Napoleon Duarte insisted in an interview with TIME last week that the Sandinistas are still providing the rebels with support as well as sanctuary. Said he: "There is no doubt that there is a whole centralization of the guerrillas' efforts in Nicaragua." In Guatemala, the Sandinistas have helped leftist guerrillas make a modest comeback after their insurgency was nearly exterminated by a massive campaign launched by the Guatemalan military...
...likely that the contras are going to make them vanish, at least anytime soon. Cut off from U.S. military aid by Congress since 1984, the rebels have been losing ground to Nicaragua's well-equipped, well-trained counterinsurgency battalions. A year ago, some 15,000 contras roamed the Nicaraguan countryside, mostly across the northern third of the country. Today only about 4,000 contras remain in Nicaragua; the rest have been pushed back into their Honduran sanctuaries. Last week, in raids timed to show the flag to Congress, 3,000 contras infiltrated across the Honduran border to stage attacks...
...contras are theoretically united under an umbrella organization called the United Nicaraguan Opposition, which was pulled together with U.S. help in 1985. In fact they are divided among themselves. Their political leaders tend to be former foes of the Somoza regime who fell out with the Sandinistas when the revolution was "betrayed"; many of the top military field commanders, on the other hand, served in Somoza's National Guard. Still, the contra forces are "too large and have too much support inside the country to be dismissed simply as a tool of the CIA," writes Leiken...