Cave-in on the Contras

The big Democratic vote in the House Wednesday for “humanitarian” aid to the contra rebels in Nicaragua might make sense if the members really believed any good would come of it.

But the vote was more cynical than that. It was an effort, made purely for political self-protection, to appease President Reagan, who has been trying for months to send more military assistance to the guerrillas fighting the Sandinista government. Since his request for $14 million in contra aid was defeated in April, Reagan has intensified his attacks on the Sandinistas as Soviet puppets, suggesting that congressmen who did not support the contras are soft on communism and scaring Democrats from conservative districts. Many switched their votes Wednesday just to get the President off their backs.

Some House Democrats tried to put the best face on their reversal by noting that the new contra bill provides $27 million only for nonlethal items like food, clothing and medicine. It also mandates that the money be distributed by the Agency for International Development rather than the Central Intelligence Agency, which is the designated agency for contra aid in a similar bill already approved by the Senate.

But as Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-Mass.) aptly put it, the whole concept of nonlethal or humanitarian aid for the contras is “a fig leaf.” Every U.S. aid dollar the contras use to buy food or medicine frees up another dollar they have raised from other sources to buy guns and bullets.

The House leadership can try to stall the aid bill in a conference committee that will be appointed to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions, but that would only postpone the damage Congress is doing by cooperating, even with relatively small amounts of money, with White House policy on Nicaragua.

What Congress ultimately must do is stop helping the contras once and for all and force Reagan to abandon the cockeyed notion that the Nicaraguan rebels represent a force that can push the Sandinistas around until they start seeing things the White House way. Even assuming that Reagan can keep his “covert” war against the Sandinistas going, it will never have much chance of success. Despite all the private financial support the contras get from right-wing ideologues, they simply do not have the popular support inside Nicaragua to defeat the Sandinistas.

The only way the United States can exert a moderating influence on Nicaragua, under the present circumstances and considering the sorry history of U.S. intervention in that country, is to put some distance between our two countries. Congress must give democratic allies in Latin America a chance to deal with the Nicaraguan revolutionaries free of the crisis atmosphere created by the Administration. The Contadora countries--Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama--have the same interest in Central American stability that the United States does, and know the Sandinistas better. Contadora remains the best hope for keeping peace between Nicaragua and its neighbors. The Contadora process would have a better chance of working if Congress kept aid to the contras bottled up. Votes like those of Wednesday just increase the chances of expanding violence and bloodshed in Central America.