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.47 •
Snaitmia
OPIN
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Ashes and Diamonds
by Alexander Cockburn
I suppose we should be pleased that
President Arias got the Nobel peace
prize. The White House would like
to extirpate his peace plan from
human memory, so there’s no doubt
that in the short term the fact that the
deviser of this same plan is a Nobel
Laureate will help in beating back the
administration’s attempts to renew
contra aid and to limit the scope of
any peace plan to the demand that the
Sandinistas relinquish power.
But in the longer perspective Arias
is no beacon of progress and his coun
try, Costa Rica, is signally dependent
on U.S. economic support. Arias can
as well use—already to a certain de
gree has use of—the “standing” af
forded him by the prize to demand
that the Sandinistas negotiate direct
ly with the contra leadership, hold
fresh elections, abrogate their con
stitution and so on.
The degree to which the U.S. media
have turned this Arias plan into a
document applying solely to Nica
ragua rather than to those of all five
signatories, is fairly amazing, even by
normal depraved standards. The U.S.
journalists and politicians now fann
ing out across Nicaragua to test San
dinista adherence to the plan’s pro
visions for internal democratization
and respect for human rights have
shown a marked disinclination to
make similar forays in El Salvador,
Honduras or Guatemala.
They would not have to press such
investigations with any great energy.
Inquiries into the future of a free
press in El Salvador would be greet
ed with the news that the two main
opposition papers in the country have
long been closed, with the editor of
one murdered and the other forced to
flee the country. There are no plans
to reopen them and no pressure from
any of the La Prensa groupies to do
so. Americas Witch recently reported
that human rights in El Salvador fell
far short of the provisions of the plan.
In El Salvador the reconciliation com
mittee (which in Nicaragua is head
ed by Cardinal Obando y Bravo) is a
joke, stocked with a right-wing
former president and also with a
member of ARENA, the party of
Roberto d’Aubuisson.
The situation in Guatemala and
Honduras is just as grotesque, with
peace plan provisions on refugees.
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human rights, and internal democra
tization all being flouted.
It would evidently be appropriate
for President Arias, weighted with his
new international distinction, to draw
attention to these failures and to the
double standard which centers scru
tiny on Nicaragua alone. Thus far he
has shown a marked disinclination to
put his mouth where his Nobel money
is.
Footnote: At least Arias proposed
a plan. His predecessor as recipient
of the Peace Prize, Elie Wiesel, seems
to have taken the honor as a signal to
remain entirely silent on any con
structive proposals for peace and jus
tice in the Middle East.
Stop Me Before
I Kill Again
At the moment when he should
have been in El Salvador, Guatemala
or Honduras attempting the kind of
reporting suggested above, Ed Rabel
was filing the following report back
“But in the longer
perspective Arias is no
beacon of progress,
and his country, Costa
Bica, is signally
dependent on U.S.
economic support.
99
to NBC Nightly News, during the sec
ond week in October:
“For the first time since the Con
tras began fighting six years ago, the
United States-backed guerillas have
established a foothold in Central
Nicaragua. The territory in which the
Contras have set up semi-permanent
bases is located in the hilly grasslands
roughly 130 miles east of Managua.
Contra fighters boast of their suc
cesses in maintaining superiority over
Sandinista troops in the area.
“The people of this region, inde
pendent farmers and ranchers, have
sympathy for the contras. They say
the Sandinistas tried to impose Marx
ist policies on them and confiscate
their land. Supplies clandestinely air
dropped over Nicaragua by the United
States also enable the Contras to keep
their foothold. The air drops have
been increased dramatically recently,
some regional military experts say,
because of fears the U.S. Congress
may cut off aid altogether.
“Bloody fighting to maintain super
iority by the Contras in Central
Nicaragua has left many rebel dead
and wounded, but the contras say it
was worth it. Their presence has
forced the Sandinistas to look for
peace, they say: and they don’t intend
to give up.”
The area in question is Chontales
province, largely given over to cattle
breeding and not heavily populated.
It is traditionally conservative and
under Somoza was a recruiting
ground for the national guard. The
contras have been in the area in small
numbers (150-220) for two years, so
to say now, as though something
sensational has occurred, that they
have “established a foothold” is
nonsense.
The contras in the region have
never been able to mount any effec
tive military operation and if they
were a serious threat they would be
speedily overrun. They have no fix
ed base and have been conspicuously
timid, outside risk-free slaughter of
defenseless civilians. They have never
managed to cut the “Rama Road”
which runs from Port Rama, where
some Soviet military supplies arrive,
to Managua. In two years, according
to one private consultant on Central
American military affairs, they have
never managed to ambush a single
convoy.
Civic Lessons
In one of ABC’s “Space Bridges”
between the United States and the
Soviet Union the following exchange
occurred on September 22:
Rep. Chie Hecht (Nevada): “We
have one set of laws in America—our
constitution, which we are now cele
brating our two hundredth year. We
have had an open society for 200
years. We try to study the Soviet
philosophy, Karl Marx, Frederick
Engles [sic, in ABC transcript] who
have embraced dialectical materialism
along with Lenin, which has resulted
in a closed society. Now, with Mr.
Gorbachev, we find glasnost, which
is an open society. Please explain to
us—are you abandoning Karl Marx,
Frederick Engles [sic]? What is your
philosophy at the present time?”
Deputy Lev Tolkunov [in trans
lation]: Marx and Engles [sic] and
Vladamir [sic] Illich Lenin, they
founded our state. They saw social
ism as a society of developed demo
cracy. Unfortunately in our history,
we have the prewar period, the war
period, the postwar period when we
were forced somewhat to pinch our
democratic rights to strike a blow
against German fascism which threat
ened all of mankind. But right now,
in developing democracy, in develop
ing glasnost, we are basing ourselves
fully, entirely on those indications left
to us by Vladimir Illich Lenin. He
stated during the last years of his life
that socialism is unthinkable without
the broadest possible democracy.”
Rep. Claude Pepper (Florida):
“Mr. Chairman, sensible men wonder
how did the arms race between the
Soviet Union and the United States
ever get under way. The United States
has not had a record of going around
the world attacking people and tak
ing their countries away from them.
. . . Except for a little intrusion on
our part during your revolution we’ve
never threatened your country. . . .
I think the time has come for both of
us to come under the scrutiny of com
mon sense and get down to business
about stopping this arms race and get
ting back to a sensible, friendly rela
tionship. . . .”
It’s fun to listen to this kind of thing,
though sometimes I have to rush back
to the works of Karl, Fred and Vladi
mir, to remind myself that there is a
difference, indeed a fundamental con
tradiction, between capitalism and
socialism and the cold war is not
about to be ended by a manly hand
shake between Gorbachev and Rea
gan.
Anyone wishing reassurance that
the spirit of glasnost has not meant
utter eradication of sound historical
materialist principles may care to
study the declaration of the Federa
tion of Socialist Clubs, promulgated
during a meeting of 50 groups in the
Soviet Union on September 12 of this
year, in a Moscow conference hall
loaned for the occasion by the Com
munist Party. The declaration began
with an expression of support for the
“socialist model of developments,”
called for legal status for independent
organizations and movements along
with democratization of the electoral
Continued on page 4
