‘Making It Tough for Peace’
Jeane Kirkpatrick asks, “Is It Democracy, or Recipe for Repression?” in Nicaragua, (Op-Ed Page, Sept. 28). She should be asked, is it democracy or the U.S. brand of repression that the Reagan Administration seeks? When was democracy asked of Somoza or any other of the military dictators the U.S. has supported in Latin America?
Are we, in describing the horrible conditions Marxism is presumably bringing in Nicaragua, even faintly aware of the malnutrition, illiteracy and grinding poverty there? Does the Administration show the slightest concern about the suffering of the people--the social conditions that make Latin America fertile ground for communism? The recommendations of the President’s own commission are ignored. The Alliance for Progress and the Good Neighbor Policy are buried and forgotten. Indeed, the contras make their U.S.-financed war on the schools and health clinics of the Sandinistas.
We are supposed to be a democracy in this country, but the people’s will, the overwhelming and constant opposition to support of the contras, has been denied and circumvented. Now the United States continues to block the regional efforts for peace in the name of “democracy.” Is it democracy the Administration truly wants, or do we want our recipe for hegemony?
LOIS VINCENT
Panorama City
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