Word: somoza
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...week's end, the capital was back under Somoza's control, but he faced a prolonged struggle in the countryside. To the list of towns captured by the rebels were added the names of Masaya, Somotillo and Guasaule. In the south, a rebel column continued its pressure on Rivas (pop. 26,000), where the temporary government set up two weeks ago by the Sandinistas and their allies hopes to establish its capital. Said a dispirited national guard officer: "The rebels are like mosquitoes. We can never get rid of them...
...Somoza was also losing on the diplomatic front. In Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS) rejected a U.S. proposal for an inter-American peace-keeping force to be dispatched to the strife-torn land. Nonetheless, in a 17-to-2 vote from which the military governments in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Chile and Uruguay abstained, the OAS approved a resolution calling for "the immediate and definitive replacement" of Somoza's regime. The resolution cleared the way for the rebel junta to gather more support from anti-Somoza forces both inside and outside the country...
...five-member provisional government. Panama's Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrera welcomed three of its members to his capital with a military band, honor guard and government-arranged cheering throngs usually reserved for visiting heads of state. Following the OAS meeting, Peru broke off diplomatic relations with the Somoza regime; Brazil recalled its ambassador to Managua, announcing that relations with Nicaragua had been "suspended...
Caught off-guard by the depth of hostility to Somoza's corrupt reign, the Carter Administration has floundered in its pursuit of a response. U.S. intelligence officials did produce evidence that Havana has supplied some weapons to the rebels, several of whom were trained in guerrilla tactics in Cuba. Nonetheless, reports TIME Washington Correspondent William Drozdiak, "the obsessive concern with Cuban involvement struck some OAS members as blind paranoia. Panama, Mexico and Costa Rica even discerned a more sinister motive in the ill-substantiated attacks: to find an excuse for robbing the Sandinistas of their victory by sending...
...Administration is trying a new approach. It was expressed by Assistant Secretary of State Viron Vaky, who told a congressional subcommittee: "Nicaraguans and our democratic friends in Latin America have no intention of seeing Nicaragua become a second Cuba and are determined to prevent the subversion of their anti-Somoza cause by Castro." At week's end, new Ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo flew into Managua to meet with Somoza. Simultaneously, veteran Diplomat William G. Bowdler, who was on the U.S. team that earlier this year tried to persuade Somoza to step down, met with representatives of the rebel government...