Sandinistas Charge ‘Escalation of Aggression’

The Sandinista government Wednesday decried Washington’s planned embargo on U.S.-Nicaraguan trade as “a new escalation of aggression” in the war it said the Reagan Administration “has declared against the people of Nicaragua.”

Vice President Sergio Ramirez said the embargo is aimed at destroying the Sandinista revolution and will seriously affect the national economy. But Ramirez insisted that the revolution will not be jeopardized.

“No kind of economic or trade blockade against Nicaragua endangers or jeopardizes in any way the social, political and economic projects of the revolution,” he told reporters at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Ramirez is acting president in the absence of President Daniel Ortega, who is in Eastern Europe after an official visit to Moscow.

The “blockade,” as the Nicaraguans call the announced embargo, was front-page news Wednesday in Managua newspapers. “Not One Step Back,” said a headline in Barricada, the Sandinista party daily. “They won’t bring us to our knees,” said El Nuevo Diario.

They Don’t ‘Feel Alone’

Other countries will increase their support for Nicaragua, Ramirez predicted, adding, “In no way do we feel alone in the world. This is a unilateral attitude of the Reagan Administration, . . . part of the war that it unilaterally has declared against the people of Nicaragua.”

Asked if the U.S. embargo could push the Marxist-oriented Sandinistas closer to the Soviet Union, he said, “We will be closer to all countries of the world who want to support this revolution, and we can include among those countries the Soviet Union.”

Although the U.S. trade embargo will not take effect until next week, Ramirez said Nicaragua is immediately canceling Nicaraguan airline flights and exports to the United States.

The United States traditionally is Nicaragua’s top trading partner. Before the Sandinistas fought their way to power in 1979, about 40% of the country’s trade was with the United States. Today, government officials estimate, the figure is about 16%.

Find Other Markets

Ramirez said Nicaragua will have to find other markets for its beef, bananas, sugar, tobacco and other exports. And he admitted that it will be difficult to find new sources of the agricultural chemicals, spare parts for industrial machinery and other goods that have been imported from the United States.

“We have to say that these measures, these economic reprisals, seriously affect the economy of the country,” he said. “We are going to study carefully what measures need to be taken to reorder the economy on a national scale to face up to this new escalation of aggression.” The embargo will be toughest, he said, on private enterprise, which accounts for about 60% of the country’s economic production.

He called the embargo “absolutely illegal and arbitrary” and said Nicaragua will fight it in the World Court and other international organizations. However, such efforts are not expected to have any effect on U.S. policy.

But Ramirez said U.S.-Nicaraguan diplomatic relations will continue unless the United States decides to break them off. “The embassy of the United States in Managua is going to function as usual without any kind of interference,” he said.