Kirkpatrick on Nicaragua

Instead of Nicaragua, substitute El Salvador or Guatemala. Instead of the two murders Kirkpatrick attributes to the Sandinistas (former Contra leader Enrique Bermudez and Jean-Paul Genie, a 16-year-old), substitute the tens of thousands of Salvadoran or Guatemalan murder victims--prominent politicians to impoverished campesinos --of military or police death squads armed by the United States.

The Nicaraguan government is in the process of punishing Sandinista military officials responsible for illegal sales of anti-aircraft weapons to the FMLN in El Salvador. Salvadoran military officials nonchalantly order the execution of priests and others, and the bit players who have been accused are all out on bail, while government prosecutors quit the case in protest over military obfuscation and a complete breakdown of the “justice” system--a system which has never condemned or convicted anyone in the military despite tens of thousands of cases of torture and extra-judicial executions, amply documented by independent church and international human rights organizations. The situation is comparable in Guatemala.

I look forward with bated breath for future Kirkpatrick columns on El Salvador and Guatemala, in which I assume she will equally assert that “democracy requires the rule of law, and rule of law requires police and courts that are above politics, not part of it.”

JOHN ENRICO DOUGLAS

Los Angeles