Bluster Over Managua

President Reagan’s war against Nicaragua is winding down as his surrogate army of Contra fighters retreats into Honduras. But diplomatic relations between Nicaragua and the United States are still strained and could even be broken off unless both governments move more rapidly to replace the diplomats assigned to each other’s capitals.

This diplomatic impasse developed in July, when the Sandinistas expelled U.S. Ambassador Richard H. Melton and seven other diplomats from Nicaragua, claiming that they were trying to destabilize the country. A few days later, in a classic tit-for-tat move, the Administration ordered the expulsion of eight Nicaraguan diplomats from this country. One of them was Ambassador Carlos Tunnermann Bernheim, who was also his government’s representative to the Organization of American States, which is headquartered in Washington. Tunnermann at first threatened to resist his expulsion, arguing that his status with the OAS gave him immunity from the order. In the end, he wisely departed for Managua.

Since then, however, the Sandinistas have rebuffed U.S. efforts to resolve the impasse by refusing to grant visas to several U.S. diplomats that the State Department has designated as replacements for the ousted embassy officials. Officially, the Nicaraguan government claims that “technical defects” are delaying the visas. Privately, they say that the visas are being held up to pressure Washington into allowing Tunnermann back into this country.

Tunnermann’s expulsion was not ordered for any cause in which he was personally involved. He was an effective and reasonable spokesmen for the Sandinistas, who have a right to be somewhat hostile in dealing with a government that is trying to topple them. But by adding a pointless series of tantrums of their own, the Sandinistas are exacerbating an already bad situation.

There is simply no good purpose to be served by refusing to allow the United States to replace embassy personnel in Managua. In fact, the Sandinistas could provide an opportunity for the frustrated Administration officials who would like to take one last wild punch at Nicaragua before Reagan leaves office. By refusing to resume normal diplomatic relations, the Sandinistas could tempt the President to break off diplomatic relations entirely. That would be a serious mistake, given the importance of reliable communications between Managua and Washington at a time of crisis, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. After all, for seven years now Reagan has let his heart, rather than his head, determine how this country deals with Nicaragua. One hopes that the Sandinistas will swallow their anger and pride long enough to get relations with the United States back to the point of minimal stability, if not civility.