Congress ‘Toyed’ With Nicaragua Rebels, Bush Says

Vice President George Bush, gearing up for an Administration showdown with Congress over aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, accused lawmakers Monday of having “toyed with the contras. “

In a speech here to the Texas Daily Newspaper Assn., Bush also urged a “new wave of flexibility” by international lenders and government in dealing with debt-ridden Latin American countries.

“We’re on the verge of a tremendous, long-term advancement of freedom or else the stunning loss of a once-in-a-century opportunity,” Bush said.

He cited leftist Nicaragua as “the major threat to democracy in Central America.”

The Reagan Administration faces a tough struggle with the Democratic-controlled Congress later this year over a White House request for $105 million in aid to the contras in fiscal 1988. Bolstered by the Iran-contra scandal, opponents of the request are predicting that they can defeat the aid.

Bush cited a U.S. government-sponsored poll in January by the Costa Rican affiliate of London-based Gallup International that reported that more than two-thirds of the people surveyed favor continued U.S. assistance to the contras. The poll sampled 1,200 adults in each of four countries: Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

“The people who are most affected by our Central American policy--the Central Americans themselves--support it,” the vice president asserted. “They have a right to know we will not toy with them the way Congress has toyed with the contras.”

Bush also said that the staggering foreign debt facing many Latin American countries--particularly those that have recently returned to elected civilian governments--create civil tensions that “could bring down the democracies.”

Bush’s remarks came as he returned from Ecuador, where severe earthquakes and aftershocks earlier this month forced the country to suspend payments on its foreign debt.