Partial Text of Address by Reagan: ‘Let Us Keep Faith With These Brave People’

Here is a partial text of President Reagan’s speech Tuesday on aid to the contras:

My fellow citizens. The matter that brings me before you today is a grave one and concerns my most solemn duty as President. It is the cause of freedom in Central America and the national security of the United States.

Tomorrow the House of Representatives will debate and vote on this issue. I had hoped to speak directly and at this very hour to members of the House of Representatives on this subject but was unable to do so.

Because I feel so strongly about what I have to say, I have asked for this time to share with you--and members of the House--the message I would have otherwise given.

I speak today in the . . . spirit of bipartisanship. My fellow Americans--and members of the House--I need your help.

‘Mistakes of the Past’

I ask first for your help in remembering--remembering our history in Central America so we can learn from the mistakes of the past.

Today, however, with American support, the tide is turning in Central America. In El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica--and now in Guatemala--freely elected governments offer their people the chance for a better future--a future the United States must support.

But there is one tragic, glaring exception to that democratic tide--the Communist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

It is tragic because the United States extended a generous hand of friendship to the new revolutionary government when it came to power in 1979.

Congress voted $75 million in economic aid. The United States helped re-negotiate Nicaragua’s foreign debt.

From the very first day, a small clique of Communists worked steadily to consolidate power and squeeze out their democratic allies.

Soviet arms and Bloc personnel began arriving in Nicaragua. With Cuban, East German and Bulgarian advisers at their side, the Sandinistas began to build the largest standing army in Central American history and to erect all the odious apparatus of the modern police state.

11 Prisons Instead of One

Under the Somoza dictatorship, a single facility held all political prisoners. Today there are 11. Eleven prisons in place of one.

The Sandinistas claim to defend Nicaraguan independence. But you and I know the truth.

One Nicaraguan nationalist, who fought in the revolution, says, “We are an occupied country today.” Many brave Nicaraguans have stayed in their country despite mounting repression--defying the security police, defying the Sandinista mobs that attack and deface their homes. Thousands--peasants, Indians, devout Christians, draftees from the Sandinista army--have concluded that they must take up arms again to fight for the freedom they thought they had won in 1979.

The young men and women of the democratic resistance fight inside Nicaragua today in grueling mountain and jungle warfare.

Who among us would tell these brave young men and women, “Your dream is dead; your democratic revolution is over; you will never live in the free Nicaragua you fought so hard to build?”

‘Betrayed the Hopes’

The Sandinistas call these freedom fighters contras-- for counterrevolutionaries. But the real counterrevolutionaries are the Sandinista comandantes, who betrayed the hopes of the Nicaraguan revolution, and sold out their country to the Soviet empire.

The true Nicaraguan nationalists are the leaders of the United Nicaraguan Opposition: Arturo Cruz--jailed by Somoza, a former member of the Sandinista government; Adolfo Calero--who helped organize a strike of businessmen to bring Somoza down; and Alfonso Robelo--a Social Democrat, and once a leader of the revolutionary government.

These good men refused to make any accommodation with the Somoza dictatorship. Who among us can doubt their commitment to bring democracy to Nicaragua?

So, the Nicaraguan people have chosen to fight for their freedom. Now we Americans must also choose.

For you and I and every American has a stake in this struggle. Central America is vital to our own national security--and the Soviet Union knows it.

The Soviet Union already uses Cuba as an air and submarine base in the Caribbean. It hopes to turn Nicaragua into the first Soviet base on the mainland of North America.

I know that no one in Congress wants to see Nicaragua become a Soviet military base. My friends, I must tell you in all seriousness: Nicaragua is becoming a Soviet base every day that we debate and debate and debate--and do nothing.

Eventually, we Americans will have to stop arguing among ourselves. We will have to confront the reality of a Soviet military beachhead inside our defense perimeters--about 500 miles from Mexico.

‘Nothing but Bad Choices’

A future President and Congress will then face nothing but bad choices, followed by worse choices.

My friends in the House, for over 200 years the security of the United States has depended on the safety of unthreatened borders, north and south. Do we want to be the first elected leaders in U.S. history to put our borders at risk?

Some of you may say: this is fear-mongering. Such a danger to our security will never come to pass. Perhaps it won’t.

But in making your decision on my request for aid tomorrow, consider this: what are the consequences for our country if you are wrong?

I know some members of Congress who share my concern about Nicaragua have honest questions about my request for aid to the democratic resistance. Let me try to address them.

Do the freedom fighters have the support of the Nicaraguan people?

I urge members of the House to ask their colleagues, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who recently visited a town in Nicaragua that was a Sandinista stronghold during the revolution. He heard peasants, trade unionists, farmers, workers, students and shopkeepers all call on the United States to aid the armed resistance.

Can the Contras Win?

Can the democratic forces win?

Consider: There are 20 times as many Nicaraguans fighting the Sandinista dictatorship today as there were Sandinista fighters a year before Somoza fell. This is the largest peasant army raised in Latin America in more than 50 years.

And thousands more are waiting to volunteer, if American support comes through.

Some members of Congress--and I know some of you--fear that military aid to the democratic resistance will be only the first step down the slippery slope toward another Vietnam.

I know those fears are honest. But think where we heard them before.

Just a few years ago, some argued in Congress that U.S. military aid to El Salvador would lead inevitably to the involvement of U.S. combat troops. But the opposite turned out to be true.

Had the United States failed to provide aid then, we might well be facing the final Communist takeover of El Salvador, and mounting pressures to intervene.

Instead--with our aid--the government of El Salvador is winning the war--and there is no prospect whatever of American military involvement.

Respectful of Rights

American aid and training is helping the Salvadoran army become a professional fighting force, more respectful of human rights. With our aid, we can help the Nicaraguan resistance accomplish the same goal.

I stress this point because I know many members of Congress and many Americans are deeply troubled by allegations of abuses by elements of the armed resistance.

I share your concerns. Even though some of those charges are Sandinista propaganda, I believe such abuses have occurred in the past. And they are intolerable.

As President, I repeat to you the commitments I made to Sen. Sam Nunn.

As a condition of our aid, I will insist on civilian control over all military forces; that no human rights abuses be tolerated; that any financial corruption be rooted out; that American aid go only to those committed to democratic principles.

The leadership of the United Nicaraguan Opposition shares these commitments, and I welcome the appointment of a bipartisan congressional commission to help us see that they are carried out.

What Are U.S. Goals?

Some ask: what are the goals of our policy toward Nicaragua? They are the goals the Nicaraguan people set for themselves in 1979: democracy, a free economy and national self-determination.

The United States will support any negotiated settlement or Contadora Treaty that will bring real democracy to Nicaragua. What we will not support is a paper agreement that sells out the Nicaraguan people’s right to be free.

My friends, the only way to bring true peace and security to Central America is to bring democracy to Nicaragua. And the only way to get the Sandinistas to negotiate seriously about democracy is to give them no other alternative. Seven years of broken pledges, betrayals and lies have taught us that.

That is why the measure the House will consider tomorrow--offered I know in good faith--which prohibits military aid for at least another three months--and perhaps forever--would be a tragic mistake.

It would not bring the Sandinistas to the bargaining table. Just the opposite.

The bill, unless amended, would give the Sandinistas and the Soviet Union what they seek most--time. Time to crush the democratic resistance. Time to consolidate power.

And it would send a demoralizing message to the democratic resistance: that the United States is too divided and paralyzed to come to their aid in time.

My fellow citizens, members of the House: let us not take the path of least resistance in Central America again. Let us keep faith with these brave people struggling for their freedom.