The Choice: Contra Victory or Permanent Dictatorship

When more than 1,500 Sandinista troops invaded Honduras within days of the House’s defeat of aid to the contras , the Democrats seemed to take it personally.

Majority Leader Jim Wright fumed at the “marauding expansion of invaders,” and called the Nicaraguan action “a clear violation of the Rio Treaty.” House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr., mustering up the ultimate insult, called Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega a “bumbling, incompetent, Marxist-Leninite Communist.”

Other Democrats are puzzled over what the big fuss is about. After all, they point out, Nicaragua has made more than 300 incursions across the Honduran border (including more than 80 before the contras began fighting). Some have shown far more wrath toward the Administration for “hyping” the invasion than against the Sandinistas for carrying it out.

For those of us who have been saying for years that the Sandinistas are communists who are creating a Soviet/Cuban base in Nicaragua, all this would be amusing if it were not so pathetic. Could O’Neill be discovering only now that the Sandinistas are communists?

On the other hand, what is one to think of those comforted by the fact that this latest Nicaraguan aggression is nothing new, that it is just one of 300 violations of Honduran sovereignty? What does Nicaragua have to do to arouse their concern?

One of the Democratic point-men on Nicaragua, Rep. Michael D. Barnes (Md.), said on the House floor, “I must now say to the leaders of Nicaragua: What do we have to show for our efforts? What do we have to show for our forbearance? How much longer do you expect us to remain silent in the face of what seems to be the slow but inexorable destruction of the ideals of your revolution?” That plea was made not last week but in December, 1982. Since then the Sandinistas have stolen an election, “suspended” all civil liberties, wiped out entire Indian villages and driven tens of thousands of Nicaraguan peasants into exile or the armed resistance.

By now there is about as little mystery as to what the Nicaraguan communists are up to as there is about Cuba, Vietnam, Ethiopia or the Soviet Union. The question now is: How much longer will the Nicaraguan freedom fighters have to wait before the Democrats learn that being nice to communists doesn’t work?

More disturbing, you won’t hear any of the Democrats who are voting against aid to the contras talking about democracy in Nicaragua. Their goal is now “containment.” That means negotiating a deal: We abandon the contras, the Sandinistas promise not to attack or subvert their neighbors.

History has shown that containment--the idea that if we would only give sanctuary to communists on their own territory, they can be militarily or diplomatically held to their borders--does not work.

But even if it did, the question remains: Why aren’t liberals on the side of those who are desperately fighting to prevent their country from becoming another Cuba? All they want is what the Sandinistas themselves promised--free elections, respect for human rights, and non-alignment.

The tremendous smear campaign against the contras doesn’t relate to the facts. If the contras are only remnants of the old regime of strongman Anastasio Somoza, why are more peasants fighting with them now than were fighting during the revolution? Why is Nicaragua’s Cardinal Obando y Bravo urging the government to negotiate with the contras? Why has every political party and virtually every democratic leader, as well as many former Sandinistas, joined in support of the resistance?

The sad reality is that liberals don’t really seem interested in how much popular support the contras have. They have decided that the contras cannot win, and therefore should not win. Yet look at the drubbing that the Sandinistas received in Honduras from a contra force of barely trained and poorly armed kids. The reason the contras won is the same reason Israel was able to turn back five Arab armies on the first day of its existence--the contras were fighting for their lives, for freedom and for their God, not because some Cuban told them to fight.

Once the Nicaraguan people see that the contras are winning, the resistance will easily double in size. With international pressure, the Sandinistas will become as isolated as South Africa or Ferdinand E. Marcos was before his fall in the Philippines. Time will be on the side of the freedom fighters. Victory for the contras will be as inevitable as the victory against Somoza.

International support can begin with a strong bipartisan vote from Congress. The alternative is permanent dictatorship in Nicaragua and the end to any hope for peace and stability in the fragile democracies of Central America.