and man. How can Congress ignore this storm, gathering close homeland?' His communications director went "with the vote on con tra aid,' he said, 'the Democratic Party will reveal, whether stands Ronald Reagan and the resistance with Daniel Ortega Communists.
But Reagan today has a great deal more in mind than military toys for the dispirited contras.
On Wednesday 5 March, three days before Reagan's broadcast, engineers started operation 86' southern Honduras, from Nicaragua's border and in the heart of the Kisan contras base area. Two thousand US and 800 Honduran troops will take part in these counterinsurgency exercise, seven miles from the border. A further 2,000 troops began a 'strategy and communications' exercise on 13 March.
The engineers' role is large aerodrome for EUROPE'S GOVERNMENTS and social democratic parties are a special target for Reagan. They support Contadora. In Socialist International even set up a committee to defend the Sandinista revolution with Gonzalez, Brandt, Mitterrand, Austria's Kreisky and Portugal's Soares.
Reagan's counter dangerous. 'The Nicaraguan just like the Philippines people,' he said on 8 March, 'have the right to self-determination through Nicaragua's had removed because it was opposing the great wave of democracy sweeping the Americas.
This campaign ignores a few minor problems. First, how do you defend self-determination by meone? And what assistance is the USA giving to the 'wave of democracy' passing through South Africa? How does it with US backing African puppet troops like UNITA?
The campaign lumps together genuine anti-dictatorial struggles as Haiti with fake cosmetic elections like Duarte's in El Salvador where torture, our considering with paganda drive to the vasIon to Occu just a few more issues "Cabanas 15 miles America is not tional situation.
to build a C-130 transport 1980 the and his whole rotten edifice. was promoled lo is crude but Marcos' cronies!
people, Second be Margarita Boniver, tionale' which invading. SO- delegation for South positive' democrao and the more. aircraft. This completes the infrastrucNicaragua. The US now has a network of military highways, strategic arsenals sophisticated communication and elecPanama to Honduras and surrounding tion. - which lalel ap- USA, proved Reagan's request, giving him his American troops would be necessary to halt the spread of communism in the ing is that at the beginning of December last year Frost and Sullivan, a respected New York firm which investigates the political risks involved in investment in various countries, made its predictions for 1986. It characterised Nicaragua, Lanka and Nigeria as the highest risks. 'The probability of North American indiminished in recent years,' it said, 'but Nicaragua have risen. The Reagan adend of 1986 or the - is directly forced to consider — sending its troops into a foreign sovereign country, Nicaragua, to overthrow its government. Reagan is conducting an all-out diplomatic and procreate the political conditions which will allow such an inConfronted with that situation the confronting the labour ment in Britain are: first, how serious is this threat? Second, why should it respond to it? Third, how can it respond?
A clear answer to 'why' settles all the others. What has to be grasped is that the struggle unfolding in Central La local conflict although even that would demand a response. What is happening in Central point. America is the key to the entire internaThe US administration desperately needs to re-establish the capacity of the United States of America to intervene killings, and jailings continue as before. It obscures what is happening in the Philippines where a mass democratic movement, viciously repressed with US help, threatened to bring down Marcos Aquino deflect this Illass movement and protect US interests. She has formed an absolute government, accountable to no-one, together with But the campaign is having its impact. In February a delegation from the visited Nicaragua. It included Italian Senator …ot a French group called resistance interna1985 collected signatures for an open letter to Reagan demanding military aid to the Contras!
On returning the West German SPD member, Wischnewski held a press conference which he used to attack the Sandinistas. The development of the revolution had got much worse, he said. There was 'no development towards 'Sandinistas did not listen to international opinion any This is a socialist speaking of a crisis, whose centre in the US banks, is the outward expression of two contradictory facts: first, the USA is the richest, and the leading capitalist power of the world: second, it is in decline. The US must impose by force what it once achieved with dollars.
Recently the oil crisis, the tin crisis, the growing agricultural cutting war between Europe and the USA intensify and highlight this situaThe imperialist powers, led by the are gleefully dismantling price fixing cartels which protected the prices of the commodities on which a whole range of third world countries, already groaning with debt, This spells ruin for countries such as Indonesia, Mexico, the Middle East, and everywhere else that depends on the export of foodstuffs or raw materials for survival. In east Asia. where Javanese _ economv is also down, the results are particularly dramatic.
The alc predictable The economic desperation and poverty racking the third world is throwing up revolt upon Dictators. friends of the USA, have tumbled in Haiti and the Philippines. The USA be able to find temporary replacements such as Aquino for lost friends such as Marcos. But without the dollars to back them up, such figures are little more than fingers in the dyke. And the problem is that today there are not enough dollars to go round.
What is happening to Napoleon Duarte in El Salvador is a very good illustration.- Only forty per cent of the people voted in his 'election' It was claimed as a big political success - - a cosmetic exercise justify United States military aid. Without it the Salvodorean government would have fallen to the FMLN eighteen months ago. Yet, even with sophisticated technology of the USA country which, two years ago, held the freest elections Central America has ever seen, in which the opposition ha OWll parties and newspaper in the middle of a war with the world's mightiest power.
What does Reagan want?
He does not expect European support for a US invasion. But he can try to neutralise European social democratic opposition.
He tries to exploit a deep contradiction in 'Eurosocialism', which relies on European capital for its plans: European capital has been happy to try to wean Latin American countries away from US influence, believing the end result will be an extension of their sphere of influence.
Reagan is raising the stakes to the point where either he wins or all capital loses out. After all, if the USA troops into Nicaragua and then loses, no-one's foreign investments will safe. 'Back us, he says 'or reap the harvest of our defeat.' In such a conflict there is no middle way. There is no peace with warmakers until they have been forced, one way or another, to abandon their plans for war.
pricethe depend.
the slowing entirely crisis, behind him, Duarte has been unable to inflict any significant defeats on the guerillas to carry through any economic reform. On the contrary, he has been forced to declare draconian leading to cuts of 40-60 per cent in the living standards desperately poor people. The result has been mushrooming organisations organisations, rights organisations and are led by, the FMLN.
al gull US well that it can hold in reserve - and where appropriate, use senc own be able to contain the effects of its own economic problems. the get its troops into Nicaragua where it faces its greatest problem, it will not be sends Moreover Duarte had been unable the austerity measures of already maximum.
the unions, the tiọn to a the human ments which look to, The US administration knows full advances the - a capacity to will not And if it cannot able to get them to the decisive areas o the world. The US world role and wor conditions are therefore directly tied inunculaid threat Cent Three 'external' developments stan in the way of the United States - fa tors which the Nicaraguan governm fully understands and explots to These the politic climate in the USA itself; the oppo US invasion by the gover of Central Souther America; and mass international op position which includes opposition t US action in Europe.
The 'internal' development is th Nicaraguan revolutio itself has made, in the midst of a civ war, in unifying and consolidating th people of Nicaragua themselves. Th in turn raises the military price the L would have to pay for any interventiot Since the middle of last year t
Nic: victe (of of signed America. In 1985 pred a great diplomatic en the Contadora group of Mexico, Columbia, Venezut... and Panama — was formed and began drawing up a peace treaty for the area which was due to be signed in November last year. The addition of a group of 'support' countries tina, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil — was a further success.
The key sections of the Contradora treaty — which aimed also to secure the signatures of Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala - were the two articles dealing with the role of foreign and Central American armed forces in the region.
Article 17 of the draft treaty of 7 September read to: 'Proscribe the carrying out of international military manoeuvres in the respective territories the countries concerned). manoeuvres of this type in progress must terminated no more than 30 days after this treaty is signed. Article 22 called for a moratorium in the build-up ot armaments in the region. and tor a stabilisation of armed forces in conformity with the region's needs for stability and security' For the USA such a treaty, if signed by Nicaragua's neighbours, would have been a disaster. The USA has always pretended that its military activities in Central America are directed against 'foreign' military activity by Cuba and the USSR. This is minimal to nonexistant. The real threat to the regimes El Salvador, Honduras Guatemala the existence Nicaragua, providing an example of a dramatically different social order to their own and serving as an inspiration to their peoples to revolt. It Contradora by the Costa Rican chancellor at the Lical meeting of cooperation countries of the EEC America in Luxembourg November 1985. The reason given was that Costa Rica was to hold elections in 1986, that Argen- Guatemala had just held elections and needed to reorganise 'administratively' The underlying reason more serious however. On 12 September a revised draft version of the treaty had been drawn up by This contained amendments which were unacceptable to the Nicaraguan government. First, it amended article 17 to foreign powers 'regulate' their exercises instead of ending them: in effect, nullifying the entire substantial modifications were made to All the articles dealing with the proposed moratorium on arms build-up.
No matter tions of principle accepted by signatories, LWO had been made to the US point of view. The US would not be prevented from carrying out its military manouvres, and Nicaragua would from organising to defend itself against US invasion.
Why were these concessions made? Above all in response to a concerted economic, political and military offensive from the USA — one directly linked the economic Throughout last year the debt situation ot the central American countries ha of ›een deteriorating to crisis point. Deb renegotiation is now crucial to the sur vival of the Contradora governments (see table 1). would The USA's message is simple: it has Socialist Action . 21 March 1986 was lild salvador between the 'elected' Central economic 10-12 need them.
Honduras handed was much America, the Contradora SAM-7 crucial demand that signalled a article. Secondly, were suspended.
how bold the declarathe crucial concessions principal danger be prevented the appropriate situation.
ISSe Nicaragua's against auras, on tie outer nana, ano Awad have conveniently US puppets, whatever their problems, at least have hotline to US funds when they really On the military front, the USA has Contradora group an ultimatum. It has escalated the level of military force employed and told the group to put up or shui up. On 2 December, for the first time in Central deployed ground-to-air missile on Nicaraguan territory, bringing down an MI-8 helicopter and killing 18 people (This missile, made in the USA, wa presumably part of the 'humanitarian' aid voted last year b qualitative step up in American military involvement.
It was at this point that discussions Nicaragua's point of view was very simple: the Contadora group, faced with such an escalation, could not react 'even-handedly' as if the USA and Nicaragua were two squabbling brats. They had to accept that the to peace in Central America was the USA itself and draw conclusions. Recent suggests that this stance has brought Nicaragua a very important diplomatic gain: a joint treaty with Costa Rica for mutual defence of the However, as regards the Contadora and remaining frontier countries, the unresolved. Until and unless the principle of right to defend itself an attempt by the USA unseat its sovereign government force is accepted and acted on, and un-