Word: nicaraguan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
WASHINGTON--President Reagan, seeking public pressure on Congress to approve $100 million aid for "virtually defenseless" Nicaraguan rebels, declared yesterday evening that the funds are needed to "deny the Soviet Union a beachhead in North America...
Thus it should come as no surprise that despite years of covert aid and training from the CIA and $27 million of "non-lethal" U.S. aid this past year, the Contras have failed to hold a single piece of Nicaraguan territory. Their brutality has cost them what little popular support they may once have had. With the failure of their latest offensive most Contra units have retreated to bases in Honduras and Costa Rica...
...they have ever represented a legitimate rebellion against the Nicaraguan government, it is clear now that the Contras are entirely a creation of U.S. foreign policy--dependent on their paymaster for their limited ability to inflict malicious harm on the Nicaraguan people...
...Nicaraguan government has its problems, yet it enjoys widespread popular support. The Sandinistas' overwhelming victory in elections that were declared by international observers to be largely fair and open is a credential that can hardly be claimed by U.S. client countries like E1 Salvador or Guatemala...
Finally, the argument that aid to the Contras provides the Reagan Administration with needed leverage to negotiate a settlement with the Nicaraguan government is hardly credible. The State Department has consistently denied reports of Contra atrocities and the presence of ex-Somacistas in rebel units. It has twice ignored attempts by other Latin American nations to start negotiations through the Contadora process. We heard the same rhetoric last year about negotiations; what has been done...