rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (05/01/85)
FIESTA TIME, CABALLEROS! [ Culled from NPR's "All Things Considered", 4/30/85 ] The Sandinists have said they wanted normalization of relations with the US to foster trade and even economic aid, but that administration support for the contras stood in the way of such normalization. Last Wednesday the US Congress voted down aid to the contras. Yet Sunday, a mere 4 days later, Ortega flew to Moscow to ask for aid. The very next day, Gorbachev agreed (pretty swift negotiations!), giving $200 million in cash, and setting up programs for cultural, scientific, & economic exchange. As is longstanding Communist diplomatic practice, nothing was said about military aid, though most observers are sure this is included; the Sandinists have been shopping for fighter jets for some time now. This strongly suggests that all that conciliatory talk by Managua about desires for rapprochement with the US & its conditions etc. was propaganda & little more, that the decision to enter the Soviet orbit had been made long ago, and that Nicaragua & the USSR had been negotiating "behind the scenes" over aid (& what else, one wonders?) for some time now. It's Cuba II time, folks! Break out those revo fatigues and pour yourselves a rum & lime! The Soviet navy will gain use of the Pacific port of Corinto, comple- menting the Atlantic coast port access that navy already enjoys in Cuba. This seriously complicates, even compromises, the strategic security of the US in its OWN hemisphere. Bye bye, Monroe doctrine! The Cubans already maintain a small military base & port in (I think) San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, which I believe is also on the Pacific Coast. Iran is shipping arms to Nicaragua via North Korea (shades of the 1930s: the nastiest regimes find common cause). Contrary to what Sandinist apologists may claim about the relative impotence of an official economic boycott, Reagan's planned embargo of Nicaragua can seriously hurt: the 17% of Nicaragua's trade that is with the US includes all or nearly all of the country's sources of machinery, spare parts, pesticides, and fertilizers, crucial items for an agrarian nation seeking to modernize & militarize. Eisenhower's embargo of Cuba may have failed to bring down that regime (a failure millions have lived to regret), but it partially and signi- cantly contributed to the economic misery in which Communist Cuba still wallows. Un pueblo unido jamas sera vencido! Ron Rizzo