bitmap@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (04/08/84)
<....> Someone expressed disbelief that arms were being, or even possibly could be, smuggled from Nicaragua to El Salvador. This person, noting that there is not even a common border, suggested that people should learn a little geography before believing things. Well, I knew that Nicaragua and El Salvador were separated, slightly, by Honduras, but it never hurts to learn a little geography. Upon consulting my atlas, it appears that the closest distance between the two countries is ~10 miles, which would involve crossing a bay of water, and about 40 miles by land. I don't understand how these distances are supposed to prevent arms smuggling from Nicaragua to El Salvador, assuming that the (alleged) smugglers are not so polite as to notify the govt. of Honduras with a request for permission to cross its territory. My understanding is that part of the reason for having military "exercises" in Honduras was to interrupt the smuggling through there. Does the person who felt that a common border was a requisite for smuggling not believe that cocaine is smuggled the ~1200 mile distance from Columbia to Florida? Sam Hall decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!bitmap
dire@dartvax.UUCP (John Macario) (04/08/84)
> Someone expressed disbelief that arms were being, or even possibly > could be, smuggled from Nicaragua to El Salvador. This person, > noting that there is not even a common border, suggested that > people should learn a little geography before believing things. > Well, I knew that Nicaragua and El Salvador were separated, > slightly, by Honduras, but it never hurts to learn a little > geography. Upon consulting my atlas, it appears that the closest > distance between the two countries is ~10 miles, which would > involve crossing a bay of water, and about 40 miles by land. > I don't understand how these distances are supposed to prevent arms > smuggling from Nicaragua to El Salvador, assuming that the > (alleged) smugglers are not so polite as to notify the govt. of > Honduras with a request for permission to cross its territory. My > understanding is that part of the reason for having military "exercises" > in Honduras was to interrupt the smuggling through there. My point was that the areas of contra attacks were not tens but hundreds of miles away from the Gulf of Fonseca. Reports from the border towns, both by workers for international relief agencies and personal contacts, indicate that the contra activity is limited to terrorizing the local population and disrupting their main source of income, the coffee and cotton harvest. This disruption is both direct (burning of fields) and subtle (forcing the most able bodied individuals to spend their time defending the border instead of harvesting). An interesting conversation took place recently between the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Anthony Quainton and Jim Wallis, a reporter for the Christian magazine "Sojourners". Quainton: We now know that massive amounts of arms are going from Nicaragua to El Salvador across the Gulf of Fonseca by dugout canoe. Wallis: Massive amounts? By canoe? Quainton: Well, substantial amounts. Wallis: Do you have any documentation? There must be evidence --- the US has a lot of sophisticated surveillance equipment there. Quainton: Well, no. We don't have photographs. The canoes are too small to be detected by our satellites. I can see it now, huge flotillas of dugout canoes transporting all of Samoza's old rocket launchers and M-16's across the gulf. Next thing you know the canoes will be traveling up the Gulf of California, then the arms can be transported across the US border near Mexicali to guerrillas in southern California. I can't understand why the US is so threatened by the Nicaraguans, a country whose main concern is feeding and defending its population. Personally I fell more threatened by the massive US military build up in Honduras...I for one have no intention of spending a couple of years in army fatigues in Tegucigalpa. -- John Macario UUCP: {decvax|linus|cornell}!dartvax!dire CSNET: dire@dartmouth ARPA: dire%dartmouth@csnet-relay US MAIL: 10 TERRACE VIEW Y7+Lebanon, NH 03766 PHONE:Y7+(603)-448-3095
notes@iuvax.UUCP (04/10/84)
#R:ucbtopaz:-45500:iuvax:2000022:000:1244 iuvax!scsg Apr 9 13:10:00 1984 It was no surprise to me to read in US News and World Report, a fervent Reagan backer, that there is a new concern expressed that many of the arms reaching the rebels were originally sent to help the government. The exact charge was repeated in Vietnam - North Vietnam is the main source of supply to the Viet Cong, thus we had to drop more bombs than we did in all of World War 2 on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But then, surprise, surprise!! it turns out that one-third of the S. Vietnamese gov't declared themselves to be Viet Cong. (of course no doubt many of those were trying to preserve their positions in the new government) The rulers in countries like S. Vietnam or El Salvador are not interested in ideology-they want money and power. If selling guns to rebels makes them money they will be glad to do so. The more guns we send to El Salvador, the more guns will slip into rebel hands by mysterious means. When a corrupt elite has no concern for the Death Squads killing their citizens, can you expect them to deny the money to be gained by selling to the other side? The question is: why do people want to take up arms against their government in the first place?? tim sevener Indiana University, Bloomington pur-ee!iuvax!scsg
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (04/17/84)
John Macario: > I can't understand why the US is so threatened by the > Nicaraguans, a country whose main concern is feeding and > defending its population. Personally I fell more threatened by > the massive US military build up in Honduras...I for one have no > intention of spending a couple of years in army fatigues in > Tegucigalpa. The answer lies again in the all powerful "domino theory". If Nicaragua, a relatively small and very poor country can have a "successful" revolution, meaning a revolution which restores a semblance of democracy to the country and more importantly manages to feed its population, it would be a wonderful role model for all those other bigger poor countries who have similar problems to Nicaragua's. This is a real threat to the US interests (no joke) and is why it is taken seriously. It is very hard to know whether the revolution will succeed, but before this covert war started it looked pretty successful. Polio has nearly been erradicated from the country, the litteracy rate has gone up an incredible amount (I don't know any figures) and human rights have greatly improved from what they were in the Somoza days. Does this sound familiar? yes, parallels can very easily be drawn between the Nicaraguan and cuban revolution. The parallel carries over in the US attitude towards these 2 revolutions: refusal to help the revolution out and outward denial of the reality that the people after having had a taste of liberty (the central american type) and after having lost so many people in the fight to get that liberty cannot go back to the way they were before. It is not obvious what the best US attitude toward this kind of revolution would be. If it fully supports the Nicaraguan revolution, this will be a very good example for other countries to have their own, and that might prove to be disastrous economically to the US. If they declare war on Nicaragua or continue refusing to support it somewhat, this might push it in the USSR camp like it pushed Cuba in. The Sandanista government has clearly stated many times that they didn't want to lose their hard won liberty to the communist block, but they might be forced to for economic reasons if they do not get more support from the West. It is not clear which is the best of the two evils for the US and that is why they have been conducting the wishy-washy type of war they have been. To me it seems that the best solution for the US would be to declare an all out war, and completely destroy the whole country, there would be nobody left to go with the Russians, and it would certainly serve as a good example for other countries to stay in their place. Unfortunately for the US, and fortunately for the Nicaraguans, it seems that the US is not sure of exactly how dangerous such an action would be. This is why it is conducting these little tests of public opinion: Grenada, the minings. Does this sound vaguely familiar again? although I'd hesitate to compare the US with Nazi Germany, the parallels are somewhat disturbing in the case of Nicaragua. History does repeat itself and it seems that the world opinion wrt US action in Nicaragua is nearly as indolent at the UK was when Hitler commited his first little breaches of the Treaty of Versailles. One bright line on the gloomy horizon. Judging from what is happening in other South American countries, it seems that the US is starting to recognise that prevention is the way to deal with such disturbing problems. One can note that South American countries as a whole seem to be moving slightly towards democracy, Argentina being the best example. There is no way this could have been done without the US "benediction". Whether the move is fast enough for the citizens of these countries remains to be seen, but it seems that the domino theory is working in that Cuba, Grenada, and Nicaragua have worked as examples to the US (ironically) of the type of mess they might not want to get involved in in the future. Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax,allegra}!watmath!saquigley
al@ames-lm.UUCP (Al Globus) (04/20/84)
I get deja vu everytime someone tells me about all the wonderful things that have happened in Nicaragua since the revolution. I think about all the wonderful things that Americans visiting Russia in the 30's told us about Communism, while Stalin murdered tens of millions of Soviet citizens. I think about all the folk in the 60's that assured me that hunger had been eliminated in China, which turned out not to be true at all. The similarity is straight forward, all those good things happen where we can't get a good look at what's going on. The information is controlled by the local government and they come out looking sweet. Maybe Nicaragua's different, but that picture of a soldier holding an automatic rifle at a baseball game didn't make much sense (Co-Evolution Quarterly). And what about that priest that Nicaragua said the Contra's killed, who came marching out of the jungle a few weeks later at the head of a few hundred Indians. He had some harsh words for the Sandinstas. And how about Commander Zero? Why's he fighting the government and, unlike the turkeys the CIA is backing, winning? The U.S. has run Latin America for decades, and we've done a lousy job. Whatever trouble Russia stirred up is tiny compared to the damage we've done with our manipulation and repeated invasions. We should get out, but don't give me a bunch of bunk about how wonderful Nicaragua is now that no one can get a good close look at what's happening. Incidentally, I suspect Russia wants us to do exactly what Reagan is trying to do, get heavily involved with troops on the ground. It will be a morass that will sap our strength and divert our attention. And we certainly won't be doing the locals any favors.