Word: sandinistas
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...national radio and television broadcast last week, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra rolled out the heaviest artillery yet in his battle against political opponents of the revolutionary Sandinista government. He decreed the suspension of nearly all civil liberties in Nicaragua, including the right to strike and the rights of free expression, public assembly, freedom of movement, habeas corpus and protection from arbitrary arrest, search and seizure. His justification for that drastic crackdown: the threat of "political destabilization" posed by the "terrorist policies of the United States," as well as by the "internal pawns of imperialism." Said Ortega: "It is a fundamental...
That aggression seems to be taking a new form, at least in the Sandinistas' view. An earlier suspension of civil rights in 1982 was blamed largely on attacks by U.S.-backed contra rebels. But many outside observers now agree with the Nicaraguan military's assertion that contra activities are being contained for the moment. This time the decree was aimed at another, possibly more dangerous, threat: the Catholic Church and legitimate political parties, professional associations and independent unions that oppose the Sandinistas from within the country. The government fears that all these domestic opponents might band together with the contras...
Although it is still unclear how strictly the decree will be enforced, it had the effect of ratifying the sorts of measures the Sandinistas have been taking in recent months without the cloak of law. Their main target seems to be Nicaragua's Roman Catholic Church, led by the charismatic Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo. Days before Ortega's speech, Sandinista security agents had seized 10,000 copies of Iglesia, a new Catholic newsletter. Then just hours before the speech, government agents closed the magazine's office and seized its printing equipment. Apparently the publication offended the Sandinistas because...
...Nations 40 years ago, the World Court, formally known as the International Court of Justice, has received staunch support from the U.S. But when the 15-judge panel in the Hague agreed last November to hear charges from Nicaragua that the Reagan Administration was directing and supplying the anti-Sandinista contra rebels, the U.S. insisted that such conflicts were beyond the court's authority. Last week, as the judges were deliberating over the Sandinista case without U.S. participation, Washington's complaints about "political abuse" of the ICJ came to a head. The Reagan Administration formally terminated the U.S. agreement...
More than two months after Congress approved $27 million in nonmilitary, "humanitarian" assistance to help Nicaragua's contra rebels in their fight against the Sandinista government, money is finally flowing to the insurgents. As of last week the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office, which was set up by the Reagan Administration to distribute the funds, had dispensed $400,000 in aid. But rebel leaders are complaining that supplies, such as food, clothing and medicine, are still not reaching their troops. As a result, they claim, some guerrilla units have had to abandon their hit-and-run war against the Sandinistas...