The Contras Are Losers

One of the few specific pledges that President Reagan made in his State of the Union speech was to keep helping the contra rebels who are fighting Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. He may not have seen information being compiled by his own government showing that the contra rebellion is a losing proposition. That spells doom for the Administration’s Nicaragua policy.

Reagan wants Congress to allocate $105 million in aid for the contras in the next budget. This would be on top of $100 million that Reagan wrested from a reluctant Congress last year, and $27 million in “humanitarian” aid that the contras got from Reagan in 1984. But the new request will not be easily accepted on Capitol Hill, partly because of serious questions about whether profits from the sales of arms to Iran were turned over to the contras. Estimates of how much the contras got range from $10 million to $50 million.

Quite apart from three investigations of the arms deal, federal agencies--including the FBI, the Customs Service and the General Accounting Office--are involved in at least seven probes of the contras. Among other things, the agencies are pursuing allegations that the contras, or their sympathizers, have been involved in drug smuggling, gun running and burglary. The GAO is still trying to determine what precisely the contras did with the $27 million that they got two years ago.

As if their legal problems were not enough, the contras are embroiled in serious political infighting. The umbrella organization that Administration officials prodded them to form last year, the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO), is falling apart from top to bottom. Two weeks ago several anti-Sandinista groups in Costa Rica withdrew from UNO, charging that it was controlled by former supporters of ousted Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. And it was widely reported that Arturo Cruz, a former Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States and one of the three top leaders of UNO, was prepared to resign from the organization for the same reason. Cruz has not made a formal announcement, but he told reporters that he had cleaned out his office at UNO’s headquarters in Miami. This infighting could be fatal. UNO was created precisely to give political respectability to the contras, who are suspect because so many of their field commanders were once officers in Somoza’s hated National Guard. An alliance with respected democrats like Cruz is supposed to make them palatable to Congress--if not to Nicaraguans.

One of the most vexing things about Reagan’s stubborn support for the contras is that he could be supporting legitimate opposition groups that have the trust and respect of Nicaraguans. Courageous elements of the business community, organized labor, the press and the Roman Catholic Church continue to resist efforts by the Sandinistas to transform Nicaragua into a Marxist state. This peaceful opposition would have a better chance to succeed if it were not for the violence and bloodshed caused by the contras. Reagan may want to believe, as he said in his speech last week, that he is helping “freedom fighters” in Nicaragua. But in truth he is adding another dark page to the sad history of U.S. involvement in Nicaragua.