Sandinistas and Anti-Semitism

The Times article (March 14), “Sandinistas Are Anti-Semitic, Group Charges,” is not the first time that the legitimate government of Nicaragua has been accused of anti-Semitism. On previous occasions the Sandinista regime was imputed with burning synagogues, humiliating Jews, driving them out of the country, confiscating their property and torturing them. In short, a fully stocked pogrom.

All of those charges are fallacious, prejudicial and plainly false. Thorough investigations by Amnesty International, the Organization of American States, Americas Watch, Pax Christa, our own ambassador Anthony Quainton, Rabbi Marshall Meyer (who traveled from Argentina; now at the University of Judaism) and others failed to verify any evidence of anti-Semitism despite assertions to the contrary from President Reagan and the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith.

Some holdings belonging to Nicaraguan Jews were in fact confiscated after the fall of Anastasio Somoza. Especially was the case with the real property of collaborators with the Somoza clan who fled Nicaragua to avoid prosecution.

There was the instance of a particular Jewish family that was extremely close to Jose Somoza, the tyrant’s half-brother who headed the loathed National Guard. Several members of this family were investigated for illegal arms shipments to the National Guard during the closing chapters of the Somoza dictatorship.

Unlike other countries in South America, Nicaragua has no tradition of anti-Semitism. It is very difficult to be anti-Semitic in a country that practically has no Jews. The few Jews they do have figure most prominently in Nicaraguan society. One of them, a former minister of education is now the Nicaraguan ambassador to Washington (Carlos Tunnerman). Another man, Israel Levites, is one of the earlier martyrs of the Sandinista revolution. A market in Managua was named after him.

WILLIAM A. ALVAREZ

Irvine