carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (02/10/86)
The Reagan Administration has made frequent and serious charges against the Nicaraguan government of human rights abuse. In light of the Administration's attempts to stem the flow of public information, veil its own actions in secrecy, and exalt the power of the presidency (see Walter Karp's article in the November 1985 *Harper's*); of its assaults on civil liberties; of its attempts to deny passports and visas to persons purveying "dangerous" ideas; of its contempt for international law, manifest in the mining of Nicaraguan harbors and its refusal to accept the jurisdiction of the World Court; of its provision to the contras, through the CIA, of a manual encouraging them to violate international law and the Geneva Accords through assassinations and the like; and of its long-standing attempt to overthrow the Nicaraguan government by force; in light of all this, its denunciations of Nicaragua are akin to the pot calling the refrigerator black. The status of human rights in Nicaragua, and the contrast between the reality and the Reagan Administration's portrayal thereof, have been described by Americas Watch. The following is excerpted from *Human Rights in Nicaragua*, published in the summer of 1985. Bracketed comments are my own. _____________________ Allegations of human rights abuse have become a major focus of the Reagan Administration's campaign to overthrow the Nicaraguan government. Such a concerted campaign to use human rights in justifying military action is without precedent in U.S.-Latin American relations, and its effect has been an unprecedented debasement of the human rights cause. This debasement of human rights contradicts President Reagan's professed commitment to such rights. Instead of occuping the "moral center" of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua, the human rights issue has been placed in the service of a policy that seeks to advance other interests. The legitimacy of those interests is not the province of Americas Watch; what is of concern to us is the attempt to proclaim a false symmetry between the promotion of those interests and the promotion of human rights. The Administration disregards the norms of impartial reporting on human rights when it deals with Nicaragua. Its accusations against Nicaragua rest on a core of fact: the Sandinistas have committed serious abuses, including arbitrary arrests and the summary relocation of thousands of Miskito Indians. Around this core of fact, however, U.S. officials have built an edifice of innuendo and exaggeration. The misuse of human rights data -- including some gathered by Americas Watch -- has become pervasive in official statements to the press, in White House handouts on Nicaragua, in the State Department's annual *Country Report* on human rights in Nicaragua, and, most notably, in the President's own remarks. Inconvenient findings of the U.S. Embassy in Managua are ignored; the same is true of data gathered by independent sources. What *is* the human rights record of the Nicaraguan government? We have found that there are no systematic disappearances, extrajudicial killings, or torture -- as has been the case with the "friendly" armed forces of El Salvador. While prior censorship has been imposed by emergency legislation, debate on major social and political questions is robust, outspoken, often even strident. The November 1984 elections, though far from perfect, were a democratic advance over the past five decades of Nicaraguan history. They compare favorably with those held in El Salvador and Guatemala, and they do not suffer significantly by comparison with elections in Honduras, Mexico, or Panama. The Sandinista party won a popular mandate, while the opposition parties that chose to participate secured some 30 percent of the seats in the Constituent Assembly. Nor has the government practiced the elimination of cultural or ethnic groups, as the Administration frequently claims; indeed, in this respect, as in most others, Nicaragua's record is by no means as bad as that of Guatemala, whose government the Administration consistently defends. Moreover, since 1982 there have been some notable reductions in abuses, despite the pressure caused by escalating external attacks. The Nicaraguan government must be held accountable for the abuses that continue to take place, such as restrictions on press freedom and due process. But unless those abuses are fairly described, the debate on Nicaragua has no meaning. [The Administration, in Orwellian fashion, has frequently denounced the Nicaraguan government as "totalitarian". Such debasement of the language insults the many victims of this century's totalitarian regimes. In "totalitarian" Nicaragua] the Catholic Church and several Protestant denominations not only operate independently in Nicaragua but express their views freely on both religious matters and every conceivable secular issue; similarly, business and professional associations and labor unions are unhesitatingly critical of the government and its leaders. Political parties representing a wide spectrum of views have elected representatives who debate issues in the Constituent Assembly. The parties that chose to participate in the 1984 national elections -- from which no party was banned -- were free to be as strident as they wished in attacking the Sandinista party and its leaders, and this right was frequently exercised using television and radio time provided at no cost. An independent human rights commission maintains and distributes -- both nationally and internationally -- detailed monthly reports on human rights abuses by the government, and does not seem to circumscribe itself in denouncing those abuses. Any Nicaraguan and any visitor to Nicaragua can walk into dozens of offices in the capital and meet officers and employees of various independent institutions who will not only criticize the government and its leaders, and even challenge the legitimacy of the state, but do so for attribution. Some will hand out literature expressing those opinions. This is inconceivable in any state appropriately described as totalitarian. Moreover, it is inconceivable in many of the countries vigorously supported by the United States. A visitor to nearby El Salvador, Guatemala, or Haiti may hear criticism of the government, but if the criticism is as strong as that which is regularly voiced in Nicaragua, the speaker will generally request anonymity. ____________________ -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
ekrell@ucla-cs.UUCP (02/12/86)
In article <334@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >While prior censorship has been imposed >by emergency legislation, debate on major social and political >questions is robust, outspoken, often even strident. Press censorship in Nicaragua has no other target other than shut off any attempts by the opposition to speak out. There is no such thing as outspoken political debate in Nicaragua today. A first signal of such a thing would be to have some degree of freedom of the press, which is non-existant. >In "totalitarian" Nicaragua] the Catholic Church and >several Protestant denominations not only operate independently in >Nicaragua but express their views freely on both religious matters >and every conceivable secular issue; This is the biggest lie I have heard in a long time. Not only have the Sandinistas shut down the church owned radio station but they now censor the sunday sermons by the priests. It is also interesting that the latest report by Amnesty International on Nicaragua (just off the press) criticizes BOTH the contras AND the Sandinistas for human rights violations. -- Eduardo Krell UCLA Computer Science Department ekrell@ucla-locus.arpa ..!{sdcrdcf,ihnp4,trwspp,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!ekrell