Smart Move

The Bush Administration made the right decision Friday when it scrapped plans to provide financial aid for Nicaragua’s political opposition. While well-intentioned, the plan could have--indeed, probably would have--backfired.

Administration officials were trying to find ways to funnel money to the United Nicaraguan Opposition, the political coalition that last week nominated Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, publisher of the newspaper La Prensa, to run for president of Nicaragua in an election scheduled for next Feb. 25. Key members of Congress had already made it clear they did not want the Central Intelligence Agency to help the opposition, since it is tainted by its role in providing arms and assistance to the Contra rebels during the Reagan Administration. So the White House and State Department proposed sending money through the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-private foundation that gets most of its funds from Congress.

Under the proposal, the Administration would ask Congress to appropriate $6 million that the endowment, in turn, would donate to the Nicaraguan opposition and Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council, the body that will supervise the elections. (Under Nicaraguan law, political parties can accept foreign contributions if equal amounts are donated to the Electoral Council.) But the plan was technically illegal under existing law.

The Nicaraguan opposition has many U.S. friends, representing, as it does, La Prensa and other media, independent labor unions, Roman Catholic church groups and private businessmen who have peacefully tried to resist the Sandinistas’ campaign to turn Nicaragua into a Marxist-Leninist state. Unfortunately, the futile war waged by the Contras with American support makes it hard for Nicaraguan opposition groups to accept overt U.S. aid without being suspect. The Contras were so obviously funded and manipulated by Washington that the Sandinistas branded everyone who opposed them as Yanqui puppets and the label still carries weight in Nicaragua. Thus, handing an opposition candidate $3 million might please many Americans, but it would also hand the Sandinistas an issue with which to sandbag their challengers.

And the idea that the Nicaraguan opposition needs U.S. help to wage an effective campaign may be too condescending. Chamorro and her family’s newspaper, not to mention the private business groups that support her and the Catholic Church, have shown themselves quite capable of keeping the Sandinistas politically off-balance, and of drawing international attention to government repressions. In fact, assuming that Nicaraguans are incapable of deciding their nation’s future without help from the United States reflects an arrogance that led directly to support of the Contras.

By the same token, the world will be watching the Nicaraguan elections, so it is unlikely the Sandinistas can get out of line without getting caught.

The legislation that created the National Endowment for Democracy prohibits aid to specific candidates or political campaigns, so the law would have to be amended for any money to go to Chamorro. When the Administration asked Congress to do that, many key members of Congress just said no. Friday State Department spokesman Richard Boucher announced that Secretary of State James A. Baker III had decided not to ask the foundation to go beyond election activities permitted by its charter.

Congress has already donated $3.5 million to the Nicaraguan electoral commission through the endowment, and if more money is needed, let it be sent the same way. Support for the neutral commission at least gives the United States the right to monitor the election process in Nicaragua to keep it honest. Going through channels also gives it the moral authority to call down the Sandinistas if they get out of line.

For now, the United States has little, if any, moral authority in the eyes of Nicaraguans, thanks to Reagan’s failed war against the Sandinistas. Under such circumstances, trying to help our friends there will probably do them more harm than good.