And So We Capitulate : Liberal Democrats Hand Victory to Nicaragua’s Ortega

For once, Nicaragua’s chief Sandinista, Daniel Ortega, got it right: The agreement signed by the five Central American Presidents in Tela, Honduras, is “a death sentence” for the Contras.

Who is to blame for this debacle? Probably not Secretary of State James A. Baker III or his staff. When Baker forged the bipartisan accord on Nicaragua with congressional leaders last March, he did it against the cold reality of two inescapable facts: A liberal-dominated Congress would no longer provide military assistance to the Nicaraguan resistance; and the four democratic Presidents in Central America, noting the attitudes of their Yankee neighbors, had determined that supporting the Contras was politically perilous.

We Republicans in Congress, who co-sponsored this bipartisan accord, did so expecting that the resistance would not be demobilized until after free and fair elections were held in Nicaragua next February. Now we are told that the Contras must voluntarily demobilize by early December. That a deadline for voluntary action is a contradiction in terms doesn’t seem to bother the negotiators.

In assessing the Tela conference, let’s not forget what occurred in the aftermath of previous talks. After each meeting, hopes ran high that a real solution was at hand, but Sandinista promises became Sandinista crackdowns when the democratic opposition sought to exercise basic political rights. Why expect a difference now?

The problem with the Tela agreement, like all the others signed during the last 10 years, is that the four Central American presidents believe they have received firm commitments from the Sandinistas to democratize. As Henry Kissinger said last December, when commenting on the Angola accord in southern Africa, “We think history will be suspended at that very moment (when a treaty is signed), while when the communists sign an agreement, they know it’s not the end but the continuation of a process.”

The Sandinistas have a game plan: Promise the liberals in Congress democratic reforms and even make some concessions that do not threaten their control of the government, while simultaneously ensuring that the real reins of power remain in the hands of the Sandinista Party.

The blame for the sorry turn of events at Tela rests with the liberal majority in Congress. With respect to Nicaragua, they refuse to understand that the threat of force is essential when you are negotiating with communists. Paradoxically, they do accept this when it comes to supporting freedom fighters in Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia. But these nations are thousands of miles from the United States, and Nicaragua is in our strategic back yard. The asymmetry of the Tela agreement underscores Ortega’s victory. The Contras as a fighting force are eliminated before the end of the year. But in neighboring El Salvador, President Alfredo Cristiani is urged to negotiate with the Sandinista-backed communist rebels, who have no requirement for demobilization deadlines. How is that for a level playing field?

Ironically, while demanding the demobilization of the resistance, the Sandinistas continue to pump new Soviet Bloc weapons into El Salvador. In May, government troops discovered the largest weapons cache ever found there. It contained new weapons and ammunition manufactured as recently as 1988 in Cuba, North Korea and East Germany. In July, another cache destined for the Salvadoran rebels was discovered by the Honduran government. The origin of that shipment was Nicaragua, according to the Hondurans.

When Congress voted to end military aid to the resistance 18 months ago, we were assured this would give the Sandinistas a chance to display their true democratic nature. Since then, the Sandinistas have relentlessly sought to exterminate the last Contra strongholds in Nicaragua, failed to give the opposition any real political space, reneged on their regional commitments and continued to aid the insurgency in El Salvador. Instead of increased multilateral pressure on the Sandinistas to democratize, their intransigence is rewarded with a whimpering capitulation. I doubt that the resistance, even if pushed from Honduras, will trade its weapons for more Sandinista promises. Several thousand armed Contras roaming the Nicaraguan countryside will be one legacy of this dangerous and ill-advised agreement.

The real question for conservative Republicans is whether to continue the facade of bipartisanship that seems so important to the Bush Administration, or to admit that we and the resistance have been routed and start assigning to the liberal Democrats in Congress their appropriate role as pallbearers of democracy in Central America. So long as bipartisanship means settling disputes on these Democrats’ terms, we Republicans are foolish to indulge in it.