Nicaraguan Obsession

Of the many sad days in the Reagan Administration’s downhill slide toward open warfare with tiny Nicaragua, Tuesday was one of the worst.

At the United Nations, the United States stood alone to veto a Security Council resolution urging this nation to comply with a World Court decision banning U.S. aid to the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. On the same day it was revealed that the Administration is looking for places in the United States to train the contras because its Central American allies refuse to have anything to do with them.

Rarely has the Administration’s isolated position on Nicaragua been illustrated so starkly. At the UN, even close allies England and France chose to abstain rather than support a U.S. position that is not just stubborn and arrogant, but in violation of international law. The Central America countries that President Reagan claims to be defending against the threat from Managua--Costa Rica, El Salvador and Honduras--again made clear their doubts the contras will have any success against a larger and better-equipped Sandinista army.

Saddest of all is the fact that these developments will make no difference in Washington or Managua. Having bluffed Congress into giving him $100 million for the contras, Reagan is pushing forward with plans to make his surrogate army look effective enough for him to ask Congress for even more money within a few months to keep the dirty little war going. The Sandinistas, for their part, will continue to build up their already massive arsenal with the help of the Soviet Bloc.

Neither side is about to budge. Reagan will continue to delude himself that the contras, with little popular support inside Nicaragua, will somehow topple the Sandinistas. The Sandinistas will exploit for propaganda purposes here, in Nicaragua and abroad, every misstep by Washington and its surrogates. Their cynical show-trial of the captured mercenary from Wisconsin, Eugene Hasenfus, is a perfect example.

Reagan won’t abandon this cockeyed crusade against Nicaragua, so Congress must refuse to give any more money to the contras and do what it can to keep private groups from supporting the Nicaraguan rebels as well. Only when the Sandinistas feel less threatened can our Latin American allies in the Contadora Group hope to pressure them into signing a peace treaty with their neighbors, as they were close to doing until Reagan began backing the contras.

If the Sandinistas let down their guard and agree to stop threatening their neighbors, world opinion will shift. Washington will no longer be isolated; the Sandinistas will be, if they don’t live up to the Contadora treaty. An isolated Nicaragua would not get much help from the Soviets, because beyond arms supplies they would not want another Cuba putting a strain on their economy. So Latin America, Europe and even the United States can then use economic leverage, rather than force, to push Nicaragua towards democracy for the first time in its history.

It will be a slow, difficult process, but Contadora Group diplomats believe it can work. It must be given at least a chance to work, because Reagan’s sterile strategy promises only worse bloodshed in Central America and continued international isolation for the United States.