Word: sandinistas
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...hours the House debated a Democratic proposal that would have banned any new U.S. funds to the contras fighting Nicaragua's Sandinista government. Even supporters of such a total ban viewed it as doomed. As soon as it was defeated, they figured, they would offer another measure that would give President Reagan a fraction of the $100 million he wants in contra aid. But as the scoreboard ticked off the tally, Democrats watched in amazement. The measure was winning, mainly because few Republicans were voting. Suddenly, with time running out, the Republicans pushed their vote buttons in a rush...
...idea that a well-respected liberal analyst would launch such a strong attack on the Sandinistas caused considerable stir in Washington. Leiken's apparent conversion was seen by the entrenched left as a betrayal and by Reaganites as a vindication of their long-held views. Most important, many Democrats who had relied on Leiken's analyses began to reconsider their Sandinista sympathies. Senator Edward Kennedy had the article read into the Congressional Record. Suddenly, Leiken became as controversial as Nicaragua itself...
...Since then, Leiken has assessed the Sandinista issue in other articles, including two pieces in the New York Review of Books. After two trips this year to Nicaragua, the most recent with Democratic Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin, he has changed his assessment of the contras. He argues that while the rebels were initially a small mercenary force made up of supporters of ousted Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, they have, as a result of widespread disenchantment with the Sandinistas, grown into a diverse army of 20,000 that is now a popularly based vanguard for a widespread and growing rebellion...
Leiken says his conversion was not of the light-blinding sort experienced by St. Paul on the road to Damascus. Rather, he claims, it was based on numerous trips to Nicaragua, during which the true nature of the Sandinista regime gradually became apparent even as his study of the contras convinced him of their potential. The changes in the Nicaraguan situation, he feels, have not been adequately reported by the U.S. and international press...
Moore attacked the Sandinista government for "violating its pledge" of political independence to make "a strong Soviet alignment," despite the United States' "extraordinary effort to have good relations" with the Sandinista government in its first two years...