rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (02/03/86)
<Dozo meshiagate kudasai!> Numbers in square brackets refer to my appended notes. The article below is quoted without permission. *************************************************************************** "SANDINISTAS CRITICS SEEN UNDER FIRE: Church, politicians targets of increased intimidation," by Julia Preston, Boston Globe, 1/30/86, page 71. MANAGUA, Nicaragua --- The leftist Sandinista government has increased pressure in recent days on its opponents in political parties and in the Roman Catholic Church. The State Security Police [1] last week presented at a press conference four prisoners who, they said, were conspirators in a plan to blow up electrical towers and government warehouses in several cities. [2] Among the four was Humberto Urbina, a senior official of the moderate Social Christian Party. Although the Sandinistas presented them as confessed terrorists, statements from two of the prisoners did not refer to having participated in acts of sabotage. [3] Journalists were not allowed to question the prisoners and relatives described their behavior as abnormal. They all spoke as if trying to recite memorized lines. [4] The press conference came after Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo criti- cized the government during visits to New York and Washington last week. In a letter to the United Nations, Nicaragua's top prelate said the Sandinistas harassed some clergymen to create a "church of silence" here. Lino Hernandez, director of the Permanent Human Rights Commission, said the government's recent accusations are "political blackmail to stop the cardinal." Last Oct. 15 the government imposed a "state of emergency," suspending some rights to due process and political expression. Sandinista security officials said the arrests are part of their effort to thwart the rebels, who are known as contras, from opening a secret terrorist network inside Nicaragua. [5] Since the army has forced the contras on the defensive in recent fighting in the rural mountains, officials said they expect more urban attacks. "The mercenaries [sic., 6] have to make up for their lack of military ability with terrorism in the cities," said the army chief of staff, Joaquin Cuadra. Reagan administration officials have said they will seek up to $100 miliion military and "nonlethal" aid for the contras this year. Despite new restrictions under the state of emergency, a spokesman for the independent human rights group, Americas Watch, said that it is rare for suspects to disappear after being detained by secret police [so AW believes that "disappearances" HAVE occurred under the Sandinistas, even if only rarely! This is the first I've heard of it.] But there are reports of brutal interrogation. Truck driver Pablo Rafael Jacamo, 28, died three days after he was jailed by State Security Police Dec. 4 on suspicion of planting a bomb near a religious procession in the southern town of Rivas. A relative said Jacamo's bruised body was returned to his family by police, who said he died of a heart attack in prison. With the state of emergency the Sandinistas are focusing on crushing the contras, even at the risk of alienating European and Latin American supporters, Western diplomats said, "If the dilemma is between their international image or their survival, the Sandinistas will choose to survive," said Rev. Cesar Jerez, Catholic University director. [7] Party and union officials said the emergency reduced the opposition's scope of operations. Social Christian leader Augustin Jarquin said the arrest of Urbina had discouraged the party from opening new headquarters in their home town of Masaya. Urbina's wife, Tomasa, was arrested with him in December. Since October the newsletters of the main opposition unions, as well as the monthly report of the independent human rights commission, have been halted by the censors. Censors have also blocked publishing of a new weekly newspaper planned by the Archdiocese of Managua. The Catholic Radio has been off the air since late December. A one-page daly bulletin criticizing the government put out by three reporters has been stopped and the writers jailed. Some opposition leaders say the current pressures are no different than the tensions of long-standing that they and the government have lived with. But Jarquin, the Social Christian leader, said: "I told my wife if I'm arrested to remember that I haven't collaborated in any conspiracy. I told her she should not believe anything she hears me say to the contrary at a government press conference." [8] ************************************************************************ NOTES 1 The State Security Police are headed by Nicaragua's top cop, comman- dante Tomas Borge, considered to be one of the three most powerful junta members (along with Humberto Ortega & Bayardo Arce). Borge has the vague but comprehensive & thus menacing title of Minister of the Interior. Some have alleged he's a kind of Nicaraguan Dzerzhinsky. Felix Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the notorious Soviet secret police; his ruthlessness and fanaticism shaped to a great extent its brutal character. I'll post some of the allegations about Borge soon. 2 The inclusion of a political moderate among the accused suggests the charges of sabotage are trumped up. If more such cases appear in the future, we may be witnessing a Nicaraguan parallel to the absurd Soviet pseudo-crime of "wrecking" (often conflated with conspiracy to "wreck"), under which tens of thousands were condemned in the 30s & 40s. "Wrecking" was "economic sabotage", ie, anything the bolsheviks perceived as hindering the economy in any way: pil- ferage of a nut & bolt or disagreement over a technical problem could land one in prison as a "wrecker." The campaign against wrecking began as a way of eliminating technicians and engineers who weren't Party members once they were no longer indispensable, but it broadened into a means of terrorizing the entire labor force. See Solzhenitsyn's GULAG ARCHIPELAGO for many details. Fighting a serious civil war, the FSLN may be harder-pressed than the Soviets were (though even that's debatable), but, if the sabotage charges are phoney, it means that at least in this instance, the war does not so much compel the junta to be more punitive in order to survive as it offers it a stronger pretext for repression, superior to any available to the bolsheviks. 3 Despite the labor the Soviets devoted to mounting show trials, the cases made were often very sloppy and the judicial performance inept. Again, see Solzhenitsyn. 4 This observed behavior and its assessment by people familiar with the accused recurs in many Communist "trials", in which physical and psy- chological torture, threats against family or friends, and various forms of deprivation (sleep, human contact, food & drink) were employed. See accounts for the USSR, east Europe, China, Cuba. 5 The phrase "secret terrorist network" provides another eerie echo of the Soviet "experience." Farfetched accusations of massive fifth- column activity despite tight population control abound in Communist lands. 6 "Mercenaries"? The contras may be very brutal, created & supplied by the CIA, and contain many ex-National Guards (many of whom are now in the FSLN, along with other fence-jumping Somocistas), but they're not foreign, or even primarily ex-soldiers. It seems most joined not mainly for thrills, money, spoils, but because they want to overthrow the FSLN. However nasty their political goals might be, their motives are political. Calling them mercenaries is not only overkill but misleading, a further smear meant to deflect attention from the shadow their existence casts on the Sandinistas. 7 Noam Chomsky said "I never claimed they [north Vietnamese Communists] weren't tough bastards; they had to be, to survive & win [the war]", somewhat lamely to excuse his lack of reference to their atrocities & authoritarian methods throughout his extensive writing on the Indochina War. The Rev. Jerez echoes this sentiment to my mind in rather hastily concluding that the FSLN's survival is literally at stake now. 8 Maybe a junta with a figurehead who sports designer sunglasses will regale us with "press conferences" instead of show trials. Or maybe it's just too lazy to bother with ponderous judicial forms. I guess we'll have to wait for the next installment to find out. BTW, I'm writing a lengthy review of messrs. Myers' & A. Berman's reading lists, and a brief article on the double standards of some human rights groups when Nicaragua is involved. My heavy workload permitting, I'll post them soon. Better well-read than Red, Regards, Ron Rizzo