Banners Backing Nicaragua Election Unfurled for Orange County Drivers

Friday morning commuters traveling beneath nine Orange County overpasses got the message: “U.S. Hands Off Nicaragua Elections.”

More than 27 members of the Orange County Pledge of Resistance unfurled banners at 6:30 a.m. at the nine sites in a demonstration supporting Sunday’s election pitting the leftist Sandinistas and the U.S.-backed National Opposition Union (UNO) party in Nicaragua.

Demonstrator Jay Kaluzny said: “We are out to raise Orange County’s awareness on the Nicaraguan elections. We’re telling the U.S. to stop interfering.”

During the morning rush, vehicles on the Riverside, Santa Ana, San Diego and Costa Mesa freeways responded to the banners with cheers, honking of horns and gestures of disapproval.

Another demonstrator, John H. Smith, stood on the San Diego Freeway overpass at Culver Drive. He and two others held a banner that read: “U.S. Respect Nicaragua’s Election.”

Smith said, “Since American tax dollars have been flowing at a tremendous rate in Central America, how can we afford not to pay attention down there?”

Congress has sent $3.3 million to help the UNO party defeat the Sandinistas.

On Wednesday, the Bush Administration accused Nicaragua’s leftist government of harassing and intimidating opposition politicians in the closing days of the campaign.

Genevieve Crawford, organizer of the demonstration, said: “I think it is the strategy of UNO to make statements to the international press that Sandinistas are threatening the voters. We just want to make it clear not everyone has the view of our State Department, which wants to discredit the elections.”

Kaluzny said the Pledge of Resistance is a nationwide umbrella group dedicated to peace and opposed to United States intervention in other countries.